A Letter to Beginners Regarding Emergencies and Illnesses

[PouleChick]

I would seriously recommend the second book for you @PouleChick

Just had a look, it does look really good and the reviews are all so positive. I may just treat myself with MILs Christmas money she gives me!

 

[Shadrach]

Just had a look, it does look really good and the reviews are all so positive. I may just treat myself with MILs Christmas money she gives me!

It's not a 'how to' kind of book. It has lots of general information about chickens.
I think its a great book just to have and browse through. It's well presented and packaged and the information is easy to digest while covering a number of things in a manner I've not found in many of the other books on chickens I've read.
I hope you get a copy. I'm sure you wont be disappointed.

 

[PouleChick]

I like to order from Book Depository as they have free shipping but the paperback version (this years) is almost twice that of Amazon

 

[micstrachan]

@Shadrach great book suggestions! I may get them, too!

As far as pets... yes, I see that on the forums, that it would not make sense for many people to keep them as pets... the majority, probably. I spend a lot of time with mine and they actually like to flock around me, but I made a conscious effort from the very beginning, since I wanted them to grow up as pets.

Mistakes? Oh, where do I start? What a pain it was (not to mention expensive) to have built the whole run with chicken wire only to come to learn I really needed to swap the chicken wire out with hardware cloth? It got to the point that I was up on top of the chicken run in the dark with a headlamp to make sure I got the top done before I was going to be out of town for a couple days. And it was NOT fun discovering this past weekend that I missed a spot when cleaning up spilled feed around the run before the rain and found a strip of white fuzz (mold). Don't worry; we all make mistakes and that's how we learn. Like I said at the beginning, some mistakes will cause heartache, but not all of them! (I won't go into my heartache mistake story here... have already mentioned it several times throughout the forums).

Here is one area where I am still conflicted: feed. Everyone says your flock should only be on a high quality commercial feed. My flock is on the best feed I can buy at my local feed store, and I am annoyingly neurotic about looking at the mill date before I will accept the bag. However, it seems most research on feed is geared toward livestock birds... for either eggs or meat (or both). I'm not totally convinced it is necessarily best for longevity... for birds that you want to live a long time as pets. Having said that, my flock is almost exclusively on a commercial crumble along with free range time on weekends (and weeknights when there is enough daylight). Treats are rare and consist of chopped kale, scrambled egg, tunafish, or sprouted wheat berries (before they become grass). I will admit they ate a TON of millet over Thanksgiving. because I was attempting to seed a section of the yard with it before rain. The chickens (and wild birds) were having no part of that; I'm pretty sure they ate every last seed, so I'll try for something else (buckwheat perhaps?) The clover, flax, and alfalfa all seemed to take. Yay!

Ok, got a little off topic there.

 

[Shadrach]

Ok, got a little off topic there.

I do it a lot. One second I've got it all in my head and the next I'm banging on about something different.
I completely agree with you about feed. Chickens are omnivorous. It seems there are an awful lot of Vegan chickens around these days
I do agree with the advice about feeding scratch as it's called. It seems to be high carbohydrate and low on protein and vitamins. There are lots of other foods that can and imo should be fed as well as the commercially produced feed. If you free range then the chickens will sort themselves out in this respect, weather and season permitting.
Security is another issue and I think many people have clad their runs in chicken wire only to find that predators still got in. I keep reading the solution for free range deaths is to put chickens in a run. The problem with that is if a predator does get into the run you tend to lose a lot more chickens than if they were free range and able to escape.
I do lose chickens. You can't keep them absolutely safe in any but the most extreme circumstances. Creatures die, I think you have to accept this no matter how you keep them.
See, I'm wandering off now...

 

[micstrachan]

http://www.bris.ac.uk/news/2011/7525.html

Chicken Empathy. I have seen Margo demonstrate empathy on more than one occasion.

 

[Shadrach]

http://www.bris.ac.uk/news/2011/7525.html

Chicken Empathy. I have seen Margo demonstrate empathy on more than one occasion.

Bristol University have done a few studies on chickens now. That's quite an old article but well worth reading.

 

[micstrachan]

Bristol University have done a few studies on chickens now. That's quite an old article but well worth reading.

Thanks. I’ll look for them! I forgot to add: yes, I’ve seen it before, but it showed up in my inbox, so thought I’d share. I have another cool (probably old) article on chicken intelligence somewhere.

 

[micstrachan]

Ok, it’s not a scientific paper, more like a report, but fun to read, regardless. I think it’s from 2017, but some of the references go waaay back. It’s written by sanctuary people, so of course it’s biased, but we all bring our bias with us. I enjoyed it!
https://www.farmsanctuary.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/TSP_CHICKENS_WhitePaper.pdf?=FBEmpathy

 

[micstrachan]

I don’t plan to buy the article at this time, and it’s super old, but it references Tasmanian native hens differentiating between different species of aerial predators.
http://www.publish.csiro.au/wr/CWR9720001