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

[Chinchilla2]

Quote:
I do not even bother baking them or washing them. They sit and dry a bit then get smashed up into small pieces, mixed into the daily scratch ration, and out they go. Back during the Great Depression my grandmother's family raised chickens as a way to put meat on the table and make a few pennies selling the eggs. In the late 40s and into the 50s my grandfather went into business with both his father and father-in-law to raise chickens for both eggs and meat for those silly city folks in the North Houston area. They not only fed back eggshell from those eggs they ate but when their broodies would hatch out the next generation of chicks, they would take those eggshells and feed those back as well.

When I was told this story by my mom, who was in charge of the afternoon feeding, watering, and egg gathering for this "wonderful family enterprise" (her words, BTW she now refuses to raise a bird of any kind), I asked flat out if feeding back shell made egg eaters out of the hens. Took her about 5 minutes to catch her breath after all the

. She wanted to know what "idiot city-slicker" (again her words) came up with that hare-brained idea. Her grandmother was insistent that broody hens NEEDED the eggshell to rebuild bone during the laying break when tending chicks.

 

[Chinchilla2]

Fred's Hens :

Part of the problem of recommending 95F heat is this.

Where are folks taking that temperature? On the floor of the brooder? At 6" above the brooder floor, in other words, 6" closer to the lamp?
Those two locations can account for as much as 5-10 degrees of differentiation.

I honestly don't use a thermometer. Been brooding for over 50 years. Just share with new folks the guidance of watching the chicks for feedback. The chicks will tell you. Cooking chicks is not only to be blamed on the imprecise measuring of temperature, but often the suffocating, nature of the ever popular plastic tote, with no meaningful space to self regulate and extremely poor fresh air exchange.

Plastic totes, in and of themselves, are not necessarily a bad way to go for brooder boxes. The important thing with using these is to not look at them as a future storage bin "when my babies turn into broodies" (that's contrary to chicken math anyway) but as a purchase for the pure intent of making a brooder box.

Vent holes must be placed into them, preferably in staggered rows, a row about 2 inches from the bottom, another row 3-4 inches above that, continue until you reach the top with the holes about 4 to 6 inches apart and roughly 1/2 inch in size. Slap a bunch of chicks in a plastic box without ventilation and all you get is suffocated baked chicks OR chicks that will wind up with a respiratory problem in no time. By using strips of material or even tape, you can cover the lower rows if needed while still providing air circulation through the top rows.

No matter what, if you use one, either cut a BIG hole in the lid (basically remove all the plastic except for the snap on lid rim) or use the lid as a flat surface to put UNDER the dang box. If you cut the top down to the bare minimums, you can glue a piece of 1/4 hardware cloth across it to keep the family cat, the family dog, or the family out of the box. Plus now you have a place to sit the brooder light. I've used the plastic tote method myself on baby bobwhites and with a little forethought and planning, they work well. Being a "no square corners" person, I purchased some flexible but rigid plastic, curved it into the tote so it made two joined circles so that one circle had the brooder light over it and the other didn't. Since the "dividing" wall did not meet all the way to the long side (so that a 8 was formed) I had a passage between the two circles that was just big enough for the water and food. This way if someone wanted to live on the cooler side they could stay in the one circle and if they wanted the warmer side, they could stay over there while still having to socialize at the buffet. Once again, the vent hole rows were utilized. As they began congregating on the cooler side, I changed out bulbs. After about 3 weeks they were plenty feathered out and too big to slip through the wire on their flight pen. This is the one advantage a plastic tote has over some other brooders and that is the built in handles. Take out the water and food, pick the whole darn thing up and out the door you go.

If one ever really looks at a commercial brooder, you see several distinct features (rather hard to pay attention to if you are a fuzzy butt aficionado but do give it a shot). First, the front is pretty much nothing but a screen. The light is in a back CORNER. There are vents along each side and many have a FAN (kinda puts a kink in the "NO DRAFTS" advice right there). Chicks certainly seem to enjoy and thrive in these things. Even more fun, most are made of metal and that has all the same non-breathing properties of a plastic tote. Once again, it points to being able to take a material or structure that is not conductive to air flow and making one that is conductive.

For those that insist on the 95deg F with a 5deg F drop every week. Last time I watched a broody, the chick did not stay under her constantly for the first week. The darn things were running around within 24 hours. She's a heat source alright but not a constant one. I have also checked all over my pullets for signs of a thermostat but have yet to see the temperature control switch. Having one's brooder setup so that some areas are 95 while others may be as low as 85 is probably a more realistic setup. Another really fun fact that needs to be mentioned is that broodies really do not watch the weather man and will hatch out whenever the mood strikes them, be it 110 in the shade or 20 below. The chicks also do not watch the nightly weather since once a few feathers appear, they are right out there in the mud, rain, snow, heat, cold just like mommy. We get all worried about temperature but I think maintaining this strict regiment of 95 with a 5 drop per week is like not letting a kid go play in the yard barefoot, we break the immunity buildup cycle and wind up with birds (and kids) that are not as healthy as they should be and succumb to what used to be minor 24-48 hour bugs.​

 

[whitehousechix]

I was told by a non chicken know it all that you need to feed the chickens rotten table scraps. OKKKAAYY>>>> I'll get right on that..

 

[Anika Bren]

Alright I have seen the "you have to have a rooster to get eggs" myth come up several time in this thread. Now I have the opposite story.
A friend of mine has chickens to sell eggs. She has about thirty hens. She used to keep one rooster until someone told her that if you have a rooster that the hens will not lay as many eggs. So she killed the rooster.

She must also believe the on about two year old hens laying because this year she bought a bunch of day old pullets and once they feathered killed all her laying hens. Then she was stressed because no one was laying.

Now about brooder temperatures. When I got my first batch of day olds, I decided to be over cautious. I had a 2' x 2' x 4' cardboard moving box, I drilled two layers of holes around the bottom and cut out the top and used wire for the lid. I set the heat lamp so the temperature on the floor under the lamp(facing one corner) was 95 degrees and the far opposite corner was 80 degrees. I figured this was a good tempurature range.

One half hour after I put them in the brooder the chicks were all huddled under the light making a dreadfull racket trying to climb on each other to reach the light. I lowered the lamp a bit, no good, so I lowered it again. Finally they settled under the light and slept. A couple of hours later they were wondering all around the box, so I figured that they had been chilled during shipping and they had needed the extra warmth. The next morning I tried raising the lamp again, they pitched a fit, so down it went. I really did not like having the lamp that low as it put the temperature on the floor under the lamp at 103 degrees and the far corner at 90 degrees. I thought that they were going to suddenly over heat. They were two weeks old before they were comfortable with the light being raised.

 

[triplepurpose]

I was once told that old hens were no good for the soup pot after more than two years (a chicken farmer said this). Obviously, I and homesteaders around the world have been proving him wrong by making delicious meals out of hens far older than that. I just cooked up one girl who I figured to be at least 4 or 5 and of course, the flavor was superb.

I've also seen it in print in the local paper (!) that roosters are no good for eating! Um, that one is patently disproved too... Where do they think "coq au vin" comes from? (Hint: what do you do when your rooster gets too old to breed anymore?)

I also had a gentleman from the feed store caution me somberly about the "hazards" of any trace of mold in the layer feed. Where was he when I started feeding them moldy bread from the grocery store years ago? If only I'd known of the danger before! I've already lost, um, zero chickens to mold-related illness over the years of feeding them old food and scraps! (And the birds sure do go crazy over them!) Sorry, sir, but I'm not about to throw away a thirty dollar bag of organic feed on the occasional instance when there might be a few mold spores (but nice try for increasing feed sales in a warm, humid climate).

 

[Cammy]

How bout you can't eat roosters at all, and the person was sure Kentucky Fried Chicken only served Hens.

Cammy

 

[GaleFamily]

fun post! The silliest advice came from a lady who "sells eggs professionally", she warned me that feeding kitchen scraps to my chickens will make them tear their feathers out because that happened to her. Sadly I fear her chickens are overcrowded and stressed in her "professional" set-up

while my fully feathered friends act like each morning is Christmas when they meet me at the compost bin!

 

[Manningjw]

Fred's Hens :

Part of the problem of recommending 95F heat is this.

Where are folks taking that temperature? On the floor of the brooder? At 6" above the brooder floor, in other words, 6" closer to the lamp?
Those two locations can account for as much as 5-10 degrees of differentiation.

I honestly don't use a thermometer. Been brooding for over 50 years. Just share with new folks the guidance of watching the chicks for feedback. The chicks will tell you. Cooking chicks is not only to be blamed on the imprecise measuring of temperature, but often the suffocating, nature of the ever popular plastic tote, with no meaningful space to self regulate and extremely poor fresh air exchange.

I agree that part is huge. I also would agree that using a thermometer really isn't necessary when you have years of experience like yourself. I liked using it because I was new and it gave me an idea of how warm it was - but I responded more to their behavior than the number. Seeing them huddled together, fighting to get as close to or under other chicks directly in the main beam of red light from the heat lamp was a fairly obvious sign they were much too cold.

I also put my hand in different parts of the brooder box to make sure there was a variation of air temperature. We used one of those plastic bins at first, which really isn't much different from the metal bins the feed store was using. I would tend to agree with you, vent holes on the side probably would have been a great addition but the top was completely open(wire) and the bin was quite large, no risk of suffocation there. I imagine it had better fresh are exchange than being stuffed under a broody hen in a nest

. After that box we built a larger one out of metal (we have a break used for metal working)

The problem I could see, someone without much going on up stairs putting a plastic lid over the box to increase the temperature (against blantant direction not to).​

 

[Manningjw]

Quote:
I hear the mean roos taste the best

.

 

[chickenman2k3]

i see people telling people apples,tomatoes and lots of other stuff are bad for chickens. it is true that crass clippings can cause them to get crop bound. but grass and greens are great for chickens. another myth is that you have to keep feed in front of a chicken all the time. this is all myth. if your trying to get eggs you might want to feed them a little more but a rooster or hen that isnt laying only needs about as much feed as they can consume in 20 minutes a day. any more goes into fat on there body. this is bad for roosters,especially if your breeding from them and actually lowers egg production in hens. if your in a situation where birds are being kept from the feed by the other birds then you have an overcrowding problem.or it simply goes in one end and out the other. if you can feel the sides of there breast bone at all they need to be fed more or wormed. birds with worms will usually show symptoms. fresh water at all times is essential. vitamins are good for them but not as neccessary for birds that free range.