Originally Posted by
Beekissed 
As for this thread...I sympathize, I really do. I understand what it's like to need to know the information but having that sneaking feeling that no one out there actually really knows the information but are just quoting something they read somewhere. In this world it's very difficult to find someone who actually has tried the information, applied it for years, tweaked it down to a science but are still tweaking daily and are willing to impart that level of tweakage to a wet behind the ears youngster. It's frustrating and feels like you will never get what you need.
But, this thread has become too unwieldy to use, as the OTs first predicted, and the information is getting repetitive and hard to monitor, then newbies come in to try to answer the questions for newbies and it all dissolves into the ridiculous. Blind leading the blind and how do you get all that back on the right path? I'll tell you how, because I've had to do it numerous times on this thread and it always turns out the same way...someone gets their nose out of joint or their toes stepped on and we have to have the same discussion~go back and read the first page, blah, blah, blah.
We are a little bored and a little jaded and I hope you all can sympathize with us a little on that one. It's like trying to teach a 21 year old about life...they know better than you, don't ya know, and you might THINK you know enough to advise us but we really know more than you because that old hen you told us to cull actually survived the extensive soaking and prodding to dislodge that egg and is hale and hardy in my yard as we speak so what about THAT, you ignorant old fart? That's the tone I detect now and, at that point, as with my own children, I throw up my hands and say, "You think you know it all? Have at it, son...learn the hard way." And you know? They DO. They need their own experience and hard knocks to get through their thick heads and grow up with their own knowledge. My sons now call me and ask for my advice...and now they actually TAKE the advice now and again. Big difference when they get out there and get knocked around and wake up one day realizing that Mom just might have a thing or two stored upstairs of use. 
Sometimes the very best way to teach someone is to sit back and watch them fall because they refused the helping hand you had offered. The next time you offer, bet you they just might use it...who knows? Maybe not. It is a learning process but some of that learning, quite obviously, cannot be transferred and must actually be acquired knowledge from their own attempts to succeed. Maybe losing a few chickens, a butt load of money, or a loss of pride will soften the thick heads enough that some knowledge will creep in and make a home, who knows?
If the administrator is in agreement, and if enough people request it he just may be, this thread could become a "sticky" so that it won't get lost in the shuffle and newbies will still be able to find it and access it. Indexing such a huge amount of information is nigh impossible and would take so very long that one would need to get a paycheck at it to stay motivated.
That person just ain't me. I'm motivated by an eagerness to learn and accept a free gift and I see a serious lack of that on BYC as a whole, though a few are receptive and eager, the majority are "21 yr. old" newbies who know it all and must learn the hard way...and that's the best learned lessons in life anyway. Good for 'em and will sink in and last them longer than hand me down wisdom~that's how I got mine! 
I learned from the OTs and made my own mistakes...but one thing I didn't ever do was look at Grandma and tell her that she doesn't know squat and that the lady down the street with 3 chickens knows more.
Al is working on figuring out a way to still help folks and I encourage any other OTs to pitch in and help but something needs to be done....I just don't know what. I'm fresh out of ideas of how to make this thread useful anymore. Maybe we could start an OT the Second Chapter for the more advanced chicken keepers that aren't newbies any longer but still need guidance along the way...I just don't know. 
