Farming and Homesteading Heritage Poultry

[spartacus_63]

Predators: Hawks can spot a field mouse from several hundred feet, I doubt they'd miss a big fuzzy butted chicken no matter what color the fuzz was. Most predators are also attracted to movement, not color. Wild birds like quail or grouse will go to ground and stay as long as there is a perceived danger. The cocks will often try to lead the predators away from the hens.

I have owls and hawks in the same stand of trees but neither have made a move on the girlz yet. Although I do have two bird dogs that stand watch over the flock.

 

[Robert Blosl]

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Have you heard of the fit of the fittest principle?? The smart and stoang survive and the weak and stupid die. Over a period of time you will find birds that are smarter than others and will also scram out a yell to others to alert them. I have gray call ducks that stat yelling and screaming in their pens when owls or hawks get near them. They are protected by by the wire from these wild birds.

I just had a hawk get thruogh a 2x4 inch wire mesh pen and kill two Dark Consume hen females. Now I have to build all my pens with one inch mess wire to keep these bad guys out.

Of all the laws of breeding I have always followed the Fit of the Fittest Principle to to the letter to develop a good old heritage strain. bob

 

[cybercat]

Bob, you nailed it. For years I have had a saying "Stupid animals die". Of course I use this on people too when someone get truely stupid.

I am not going to get into a long story about how this phase came into being with me. Lets just say it is real right.

 

[Ahab]

There is also, with flocks under predation, another well-known biological rule that says The Exceptional Die.

You see this across most species, but it's particularly noticeable with, say, large schools of baitfish, where their very similarity reduces the likelihood a predator will target them. But the exceptional--a wounded fish, say, that's making erratic movements, or a bleeding fish with a trail of blood, or a particularly light or dark or shiny or otherwise notable fish that stands out from the school in some small way--are targeted and gleaned from the flock/herd/school rather quickly.

The flock/herd/school-member that stands out from its fellows--the one white chicken in a flock of earth-colored chickens, the dark bay anchovy in a school of silver anchovies, the pale gnu in a herd of dark gray gnus, the kid in seventh grade who gets all the right answers on the tests and likes opera--is far more likely to be preyed upon, simply because the predator must pick one target to be successful, and eyes are automatically drawn to contrast.

Of course this has a side effect for the contrasting target lucky enough survives. He gets smarter, as do most lifeforms that realize they were born with a target on their back.

 

[Mervin]

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Actually, we legislate to keep stupid people alive. We make all sorts of silly laws aimed at protecting them from themselves.

 

[HaikuHeritageFarm]

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Yet another reason to keep just one breed!

 

[Yellow House Farm]

Only the stupid die:

Every once in a while I get a hen or cockerel that seems to be a lover. They just suddenly start to develop a taste for being alone. They range further into the pasture than the g roup. Tey're at the periphery while everyone else is in the orchard. As a rule, I take that as a sign thet they're a cull. Moreover, in alignment with what Bob said, I don't really do anything to change the fates. The last thing I would want is a flock of loners that wander their way through the woods to the lion's den.


The Exceptional Rule: So I had this random thought of a hawk reading the SOP and staring down the flock....it would make a funny Far Side comic.

 

[Jared77]

 

[HaikuHeritageFarm]

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Maybe they're look-outs? I had an open pen/coop with one portion that was covered, but still open. We lived at the edge of the woods and predators should have been common, but I never had ANYTHING hit my flock. I attribute this in part to having too many roosters! One was always "posted" as look out, he'd sound an alarm if there was anything out of the ordinary and the whole flock would scurry for cover. These were Delawares, mostly. Exceptional birds, IMO!

Of course, they were "dead weight" if you looked at it from a strictly economical point of view, but I do firmly believe that they prevented losses, and thus more than paid their keep.

 

[Robert Blosl]

You ever open a gate to let out some of the birds you are raising and see a bird that keeps going back and forth looking to get out with his brothers and sisters? This is a cull. They are stupid. You dont want to breed from birds like this regardless how good they look.

I use to go out in the moarning and open the gates in my pens befor day light. I would have a flash light and a pair of binoculars so I could see the leg bands. Then someone would jump off the roost and head for the gate. I would look at thier leg band and write down thier number. Then the others ect ect. Then there would be somebuddy still roosting and they would jump off and join the others. I then would watch the bird as the sun was going down. The ones that where the last off the roost where the first to go back to the roost at sun down. Then here would come the old girls last. They were the ones who got of the roost first befor sun up. The old saying the early bird gets the worm helped me in my selection of my breeders. I also found the birds with the shorter toe nails where the ones who where always looking for something to eat. Always scratching and searching for a bug or what ever.

These little things along with high egg production in a Heritage Breed is what will get you back to what these birds use to be like in the 1940s.

The genes are there you just got to go look for them. bob