bad or half-baked chicken advice you've received?

[chickenn@@b]

That right there is the biggest problem with the half-baked advice on this forum....chickens are ridiculously easy to keep. There isn't much complexity in keeping chickens at all, merely in wading through all the nonsense and finally realizing that anybody can raise a chicken successfully with relative ease if they just use common sense and listen to a few old timers, try it on for size and make adjustments as you go along. Just like any other enterprise involving animals, it's a learn as you go prospect....but the learning curve is so incredibly easy that a child can master it

For someone like me, who has never owned chickens, it's a BIG curve. I am very new to chickens. I researched these forums for months before joining, and continue to read, almost every day, for advice, stories, etc. Some things are easy to work out, such as the "no eggs if you don't have a rooster" theory

, but others aren't. Like worming, should I worm? they don't appear to have worms, but should I do it as a preventative? SOme people do, some people don't, some try the more natural preventatives, etc....

But for my best half baked chicken advice I've received, the no rooster=no eggs theory, of course. My boss still doesn't believe me and mine aren't laying yet to prove it

 

[ozark_chickies]

The one that gets me is ,"Chickens don't lay eggs after 1 or 2pm." Someone forgot to inform my hens, or I picked the wrong breeds

.

 

[gale65]

Quote:
Mine either. I often get eggs after I've done my 1 pm check (which I haven't done yet today-oops).

As far as chickens being simple, it all depends. If you're worried about adding heat to henhouses, wrapping runs in plastic, washing out water dishes daily (or even several times daily from what I've read), cooking hot oatmeal with milk for them, scooping poop out of sand daily or several times a day, etc etc then it's probably not as simple as it is for someone (me) that doesn't do all that.

 

[Blue]

Quote:
Mine either. I often get eggs after I've done my 1 pm check (which I haven't done yet today-oops).

As far as chickens being simple, it all depends. If you're worried about adding heat to henhouses, wrapping runs in plastic, washing out water dishes daily (or even several times daily from what I've read), cooking hot oatmeal with milk for them, scooping poop out of sand daily or several times a day, etc etc then it's probably not as simple as it is for someone (me) that doesn't do all that.

Agreed! I don't do all that stuff either, but I can see how if someone wants to do all those types of things, that it could become exceedingly hard and time consuming to care for chickens. I honestly believe that caring for chickens can be as hard or as easy as we make it or want it to be. Someone who scoops a sandy run or coop every day is obviously going to be doing more work than someone like myself who doesn't have a scoopable run and who only shovels poopy bedding out of the coop every few weeks or so, and I, in turn, am doing more work than someone who only shovels the coop out once or twice a year. As for waterers, I rinse mine out when I refill them and scrub them with a brush when I think they're looking gunky and are starting to get algae growing in them. I disagree somewhat with my mom on this point as she used to tell me that the water needed to be dumped and refilled every day, even if the waterer was almost full. She hasn't said anything like that lately, probably because I didn't really follow her advice. If the waterer still has a good amount of water in it, I usually just check to see if the water in the tray is dirty, and then if it's looking icky, I'll dump the tray out. By my reasoning, there's nothing wrong with the water inside the waterer, so I see no reason to dump the whole thing every single day, especially 1 and 2 gallon waterers: all that wasted water!

 

[Manningjw]

Quote:
Same with my hens, some of ours have laid eggs as late as 3 or 4 in the afternoon. Once they got going they generally lay between 10-11 am now but their first eggs were often quite late in the day.

 

[rancher hicks]

When I first got chickens I was talking with a woman selling eggs and about predators. She said I had about two years before they found out I had them. So I wasn't worried about closing up the soffit of my coop for a while.

Well turned out is was more like two months. I went out to the coop one morning to find a coon in the coop. I freaked of course and lost four birds that night. I closed up the soffit before the sun went down. I've not lost a bird to a predator since. That was three years ago.

I did have one disappear but there was no sign of what or where it went.

Some other bad advice, is the hatching temp has to be 99.5. I've had it go up and down and still have chicks hatch. Though 99.5 - 101.5 is good.

It takes 21 days. Not so. I've had them hatch 4 days early and two days late. All started the same day.

 

[Manningjw]

Quote:
I wonder why she would ever say that? Predators can find food/scraps/pets that are outside for the first time ever. 2 years unnoticed by predators seems kind of silly to suggest.

When we built our coop we made it predator proof. The door cannot be opened from the outside by animals and the run has a roof, wire fencing on all sides and wire buried underneath. It was quite over kill but it's built that way just in case we have to leave the coop door open 24/7 if we go somewhere. We actually just let them free range outside of that predator proof run everyday instead now, much bigger area and they seem to enjoy it.

We also haven't lost a bird yet but I think we have gone over board with preventing that. We have had raccoons around out house a lot in the past so we wanted to make sure the hens were safe.

 

[LoreenH]

chickenn@@b :

But for my best half baked chicken advice I've received, the no rooster=no eggs theory, of course. My boss still doesn't believe me and mine aren't laying yet to prove it

That's best I've gotten too....all 6 of my girls are laying now and I still don't have a rooster (can't have one in the city anyway).​

 

[The Yakima Kid]

Quote:
Actually, temperament and breed have a high correlation, especially with the more common breeds. Exotics and rare breeds can be tricky to predict because a lot of out crosses are made to try and increase and improve rare stock. Most white Leghorns are not gentle, and most can still fly and panic - there are exceptions. Interestingly enough, the American Bantam White Leghorn is much acclaimed by foreign breeders for having an "improved" temperament over the full size breed.

On this thread, I've concluded that one's perception of the rights and wrongs of chicken husbandry and knowledge can be related to your general experience with chickens, how long you've been raising chickens, and your approach to animal husbandry and the accompanying philosophy therein.

This is true. I grew up with chickens in the backyard, had a lot of relatives who lived on ranches, and although I have affection for my chickens, they aren't completely in the pet category. Since my interest is practical, I am not inclined to deal with difficult, noisy, flighty, or non-productive chickens when there are so many great chickens out there.

 

[The Yakima Kid]

Quote:
Because most homemade diets are imbalanced, and tend to be too high in salt. The calcium from greens is not particularly well absorbed by poultry or people. You are puzzled because you haven't had access to a good book on livestock nutrition; once you have it all becomes clear, Grasshopper.

We raise our chickens because we know what feed we are giving them, the conditions they live under, and the condition of their health.