4 year old comet chicken eggs breaking to easily help please

[Kat C]

wierd question do hens try to eat screws i was trying to fix a latch of a 5 year old coop and the screw fell into the nesting box i spent over an hour trying to find it but couldnt i even used a screw magnet and found nothing it terrifies me hopefully they wont but i post an image of Comet my comet hen to this thread and yes its a very orginal name

When we slaughter free range chickens I never found any screws, nails, glass etc in their gizzards. I found small quartz stones all about the same size. They are choosy what they pick up for grit and our won’t pick up any other type of stone. The only reason I can think of why they would try to eat a screw, glass etc is if the didn’t have grit. Commercial grit I think is granite and I assume our chickens would eat that if they didn’t have the natural quartz

 

[Kat C]

i will have to try and make a big garden then! i must make a bigger garden then so. my mother keeps saying by adding more greens that it will become gassy for the hens and kill them im not sure if she right she was a vet tech over 10 years ago but she couldnt do her job anymore because of medcial problems with her back so yah im with a single mother as a parent whos disabled so good thing i have a job so i can pay for this but i dont know if her infomartion is even correct

I have never had a hen get gassy and die from too much greens. Now that the grass is growing again down here I put a hopper of grass clippings in the yard each day on top of the greens that we feed from the garden. They scratch through it, get what they want and leave the rest. As far as I have experienced chickens with a wide range of feed make appropriate choices about what to eat and what not to eat. Chickens who don't get greens might eat say tomato leaves because they are starved for greens, but mine would pass them up. I often test out new weeds by just offering them to the chickens. Some they gobble, some they ignore. Even some that I know are safe for them get ignored. I presume if they had no other greens they would eat them. I don't know how they know what is safe, but they do. I used to think that I had to research each weed to find out if it is OK, but now I mostly let them tell me.

My husband and I used to dumpster dive for the chickens. If we got a big haul of greens we would just chop it in chunks and put it out at once rather than have it rot. With ice berg lettuce they usually picked through a bit and left a lot. Greener lettuces and other greens they pretty much ate it all or all of the best parts. Never caused a problem. But I am glad to now produce my own greens for them as they are healthier.

Our chickens live long lives and that becomes a problem for us as we love to breed chickens and don't want to cull laying hens. So we always have a bit bigger flock than we really intend to have. My point is that in the 20+ years we have been doing this we have gotten better and have little problem with disease or other health problems. I may not have everything right or know everything but we must be doing things pretty well to have more birds that we even intended to have that are vigorous and live long and healthy lives.

I am just now excited to learn about fermenting feed. Always something new to learn. I knew about sprouting and just never ran across fermenting. First experiment seemed positive and I am glad to find useful information on the web and on the BYC thread about the topic. If it makes my hens even healthier I guess we will have to start selling hens again, because raising baby chicks with mothers is one of the most wonderful experiences in the world

 

[Yuki]

I have never had a hen get gassy and die from too much greens. Now that the grass is growing again down here I put a hopper of grass clippings in the yard each day on top of the greens that we feed from the garden. They scratch through it, get what they want and leave the rest. As far as I have experienced chickens with a wide range of feed make appropriate choices about what to eat and what not to eat. Chickens who don't get greens might eat say tomato leaves because they are starved for greens, but mine would pass them up. I often test out new weeds by just offering them to the chickens. Some they gobble, some they ignore. Even some that I know are safe for them get ignored. I presume if they had no other greens they would eat them. I don't know how they know what is safe, but they do. I used to think that I had to research each weed to find out if it is OK, but now I mostly let them tell me.

My husband and I used to dumpster dive for the chickens. If we got a big haul of greens we would just chop it in chunks and put it out at once rather than have it rot. With ice berg lettuce they usually picked through a bit and left a lot. Greener lettuces and other greens they pretty much ate it all or all of the best parts. Never caused a problem. But I am glad to now produce my own greens for them as they are healthier.

Our chickens live long lives and that becomes a problem for us as we love to breed chickens and don't want to cull laying hens. So we always have a bit bigger flock than we really intend to have. My point is that in the 20+ years we have been doing this we have gotten better and have little problem with disease or other health problems. I may not have everything right or know everything but we must be doing things pretty well to have more birds that we even intended to have that are vigorous and live long and healthy lives.

I am just now excited to learn about fermenting feed. Always something new to learn. I knew about sprouting and just never ran across fermenting. First experiment seemed positive and I am glad to find useful information on the web and on the BYC thread about the topic. If it makes my hens even healthier I guess we will have to start selling hens again, because raising baby chicks with mothers is one of the most wonderful experiences in the world

That's good to know that they won't eat the screw in the kenneling we have sand and dirt for they're grit i can't wait to raise my own chicks just have to wait two more years then I can get a rooster but my neighbors won't be so happy nor my mother so I found out that brahma roosters core quietly do I got my breed I want to have as a roo wow you must love them so much but do you regret killing the chickens but at least they are killed quickly but for me I won't eat any type of bird nor eggs from the meat and egg industry but I just don't eat bird I feel so bad for the birds wat they go through I only eat my hens eggs but feel bad because it's painful to some extent I would never raise hens for meat they are my babies I can't wait to see more grow up in my lifetime I actually want to start a chicken and poultry santuary to rescue abuse neglected cock fighting chickens etc thanks for awnsering my dumb question BTW the screw was about 1 1/2 cm long and 1/2 cm wide I just worry for there safety to were I'd die for them ik I'm a crazy chicken lady but u wear this title with pride it's amazing that you don't dived for your hens glade to grow your own greens now for both yup your husband and hens sake well let me know if you need any information on deasises because I have a chicken medical book with tons of deasises description to help identify I'll do post and image of the hen who I needed the advice for BTW I have 7 hens and one female guinea hen all of witch are in two roofed 10*10 dog kennel with removble tarps two chickens cops and the nesting boxes are cleaned everyday since they sleep inside the things I do for them

 

[Kat C]

Yuki, if you ever start breeding chickens you will have to cull roosters. To not do so would be a terrible unkindness to your hens as the roosters will mate so often their backs will get denuded of feathers and even get clawed open by rooster spurs. There is a limit to how many extra roosters you can sell or give away because anyone who is hatching chicks has the same problem. We have more than once had people who wanted us to take their roosters but not kill them. In other words they wanted to pass their problem off to someone else. So you need to be aware of that if you ever start hatching your own eggs.

Sand is not grit except possibly for baby chicks although it might be too small for them. Dirt only provides grit if it has small stones in it. My chickens pick up stones about 3/8 inch in diameter, not smaller or larger. I trust they know what they are doing. If you are only feeding pellets or crumbles you don't need grit as the food is preground (you do need of course egg shells for the calcium). But if you feed any grain you need grit. Here is a good article with a picture of grit sizes http://blog.chickenwaterer.com/2013...r.com/2013/06/do-your-chickens-need-grit.html

I have Gail Daemerow's "The Chicken Health Handbook". It is well organized for use by the backyard chicken owner and my copy is well worn. I would recommend it to anyone with a backyard flock as the first go to book on chicken health.
I understand the sentiments of wanting to save birds and never take a bird life. But nature is all about one creature eating another creature and I don't find my eating young roosters to be some crime but rather just the way nature works. If we think nature is beautiful we have to recognize that it is based on a food chain where some eat plants and others eat animals that eat plants. Our own chickens will tear about a baby mouse or small lizard or snake and be happy for the good protein. Once one of our chickens was attacked by a hawk. When we found her the hawk was eating her. When we ran the hawk off I found out she was still alive. The hawk didn't care whether or not she was alive, it was just getting food for its chicks.

If you rescue game cocks and restore them to health they will fight each other and many game cocks will fight to the death. So you will have to keep them penned separately. They will not become quiet, gentle roos because you saved them. All chickens are descended from wild fowl (mostly the red junglefowl). Fighting cocks are bred to have the most aggressive traits of the junglefowl, while domestic chickens are bred to reduce those traits. Since they are flock birds, excess roosters are driven off by the head rooster or killed in a fight (just like with lions). This is the natural behavior and unfortunately nature doesn't care what happens to the excess roos, those that are not killed by the head roo probably are picked off by other predators. Since we do our killing as quickly as possible a roo that dies for our soup pot has an easier death than a wild rooster. Likely much easier than in any chicken factory too. I understand that many people could never kill a chicken. That's fine as long as you don't breed them and expect someone else to take your extra roos but not kill them. Please try to understand the natural order of things in this world and not look down on those who use their excess roosters for dinner.

 

[Yuki]

Sorry if it seemed like I was looking down at you for doing that I don't think you are doing it wrong I know what you mean of means of nature I hear you loud and clear and I would never want my hens to suffer at all I'm sorry about your hen being eaten alive hopefully she made it or you put her out of her pain as long as they had a good life and felt no pain then I am not against you I don't expect a cock fighting roster to be sweet just from being rescued I'd try to help the roo if I did start to breed my hens I would not expect anybody to die the rooster that I breed is would be my reasponblity for helping them into this world I'd be an adoptive mother I'd separate the roo from the hens

 

[Kat C]

Yuki, sounds like you have good sense about it all. We did have to put the hen being eaten alive out of her misery. And we knew that by running off the hawk we were probably making life more difficult for little hawks depending on that food. Life is complicated.......

 

[Yuki]

Thanks same to you I kinda got into the chicken lover early so I had an experience early on with Hawks but I still don't forgive those Hawks for taking them away from me when they were very young I tried vingear for the first time in sunday's yay how are your hens and roos doing

 

[Kat C]

Thanks same to you I kinda got into the chicken lover early so I had an experience early on with Hawks but I still don't forgive those Hawks for taking them away from me when they were very young I tried vingear for the first time in sunday's yay how are your hens and roos doing

My husband also doesn't forgive the hawks, but I figure they are just another bird trying to feed their young. If our chickens find a mouse nest full of pinkies (mice babies that don't have fur yet) they will greedily eat them, in fact fight over the morsels. If the mouse had a brain big enough to do so she would probably not forgive them.
I don't understand what you mean about vinegar in sunday's yay..... Do you mean in their water. How are your egg shells now?
Our hens and roos are just fine. I have started fermenting some of the grain we feed after reading about fermenting here. I can't tell that they like it any better but it is supposed to be easier to digest and more nutritious so I will probably scale it up.