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

[Daisy8s]

Quote:
Oh, my gosh - how beautifully said.

I think there's something incredibly resonant and satisfying about animal husbandry, no matter the size and scale of the project. "Farming" - even if it's a few pet hens in a suburban coop - requires a kind of attention and ingenuity that's gotten awfully rare in modern life, where "quick" and "convenient" seem to outweigh every other consideration.

I don't think commercial feeds, for any kind of livestock, are evil or anything silly like that, but I do feel that a complete reliance on them, and on the corporations that produce them, are a wasted opportunity to experience something much richer and more complete.

(Just my 2 cents.

)

 

[Beekissed]

The main reason I setup safe free range for my chickens is exactly that....who wants to eat eggs produced in the same manner as the store bought? That variety provided by an acre of free ranging in an orchard can mean the difference to the chicken's health and to mine. A healthier bird puts out a healthier product, be it eggs or meat.

Are formulated feeds nutritionally superior for maintaining a chicken's true health? I'm a firm believer that they are not. They may keep them alive and they may help egg production, but true health isn't always in increased productivity. That is also one of the reasons I do not provide supplemental light in the winter time. If they were meant to have a slow down, by golly, they deserve a slow down.

If they were meant to forage for their own supplement to the diet I provide, then they obviously were meant to do so to maintain optimal health.

The health record of my various flocks over the years are a testament to proper nutrition provided by simple laying mash, whole grains, and foraging. To using preventative measures for parasite and immune system problems. To culling for hardy and productive birds....productive on my feed regimen. I don't know that too many people on here can have the egg production I've had from the flock of 5,6, and 7 year old hens in my latest flock~so the methods work.

The key to most animal health is finding animals that thrive on your own, particular methods. One normally has to develop that flock or herd for that reason. That is why I approach chicken husbandry with the thought of years instead of seasons and with the intent to produced a flock that has superior health and productivity on my methods, in my area, on my feed regimen. One just cannot buy a bunch of chicks and feed them whatever and hope they survive well on it....it takes planning, observation and active adjustment to either bird or regimen to produce the desired results.

If feeding formulated feeds and giving the recommended meds are all the work one wishes to do regarding their animal husbandry, then that is certainly their right. Everyone has different levels of commitment to their own projects in life. If experimenting with different methods until you find the one that suits your life and your bird's health is worth it to you, then that is your right also.

In the end, we all have preconceived notions as to what constitutes proper nutrition of OUR OWN flocks and this doesn't mean that will work for the neighbor's.

 

[chickened]

Another misconception out there is that a hen will lay 150 to 200 eggs a year for 4 or 5 years, not true. All the eggs a hen will produce are predetermined when the hen is hatched. They usually have about 400 to 600 eggs available. How many laid a year is more determined by the breed and forced laying tactics, but when the old girl is empty she is empty. I am not convinced that feed plays that large of a role in the laying unless they are getting malnourished which free ranging will do if not supplemented. The modern chicken was not designed to be nourished by all natural means they demand more than that of their jungle ancestors. You are doing them injustice by forcing them to free range without supplements.

 

[loanwizard]

I have learned quite a bit on this thread. Thank you to all of you. The one thing that I have taken away from here.... this time.... is, if the chicks are uncomfortable, they will cry, or make noise. I have a few batches of hatches. I put them under a heat lamp for the first week (1/2 the brooder). After that it is just the dining room light.... maybe 1 1/2 weeks. At 3 weeks when the next batch hatches they went outside. As winter approaches, my 6 week olds are fine. No heat, no nothing. My 3 week olds are complaining. I will add a work lamp out there tonight. I have lost 2 in the last 3 days. 1 was drowned in the water bowl, the other was found dead in the back corner of the cage. I am thinking that the drowned one was trampled and the other one was crushed by the others as they were huddled together. They weren't wasted, as barbaric as it seems, the hogs ate them.

 

[Chinchilla2]

Quote:
How rude, how barbaric, how.... oh who am I kidding. I got a neighbor with a python who seems to appreciate something besides rodent.

 

[off-grid hen]

I've read all 24 pages of this thread, and I find it very interesting! As a chicken newb, I want to ask a question.
Somewhere at BYC on several occasions, I have seen the following idea in regards to eating fertilized eggs vs. throwing them away, or their customers not wanting to eat the eggs of they're fertilized, etc: "A lot of the eggs you get in the store are fertilized..." It may not be said exactly that way, and I don't remember if it was the same person, but I don't think it was.

Isn't this wrong? I mean... I'm sure that the large-scale egg producers are fully aware that you don't need a rooster to get eggs. Why would they have them? It wouldn't make sense to me if I were doing it. They'd be too costly to feed, thus messing up the profit margins. I don't care if I'm proved wrong or not, I've eaten both and it doesn't bother me either way. I just think there are already too many misconceptions about the "store eggs" anyway. Another one being, "The color of the eggs depends on that they feed the chickens. The brown eggs come from hens who have a more natural diet". I believed this one for a while.

Another one- Reading in the learning center about heat... I explained what it said somewhere about offering heat to the birds above 33 or 34 degrees. The people who I spoke with who raise chickens locally looked at me like I was nuts. After a bit of research and a perfectly timed thread by JackE, I ended up building a woods open-front coop.

As one who is new to this whole chicken endeavor, I have to say that some of the half-baked (and likewise fully cooked) advice I've seen here come from experience levels all over the map. And I will figure that my opinion of which advice is half baked and which is fully cooked will change as I have more experience.

My mother-in-law told me I have to have a rooster to get eggs, and she raised rescued battery hens. When I explained that chickens ovulate anyway (just like human women do when there's no man around), she became very defensive. She said, "I know they'll lay anyway, but if there's a rooster, they will lay more eggs. The very presence of a rooster will encourage them to lay. I guess the way we old-timers did everything is wrong."

 

[Manningjw]

I doubt that battery hens would even have room to mate if there was a rooster around anyway. I wouldn't think any eggs coming from battery hens would be fertilized.

 

[Fred's Hens]

At an Organic, Whole Foods, ethnic or speciality market you'd have a better chance at buying fertilized eggs. At a big box chain store selling mostly white eggs, the chances would be slim to none.

 

[off-grid hen]

Fred's Hens :

At an Organic, Whole Foods, ethnic or speciality market you'd have a better chance at buying fertilized eggs. At a big box chain store selling mostly white eggs, the chances would be slim to none.

I've seen them before, at health food stores and farmstands. But to go into the local grocery chain and buy eggs that are not labeled "fertilized" it's not likely that they are fertilized without being labeled as such?​

 

[Fred's Hens]

99.9999 % of the eggs from a chain grocery store, the plain eggs, usually white? Not a chance, really, of those hen houses, often of monstrous size, ever, ever having a rooster mixed in. They'd not feed a roo for more than a day if they suspected one snuck in amongst the 50,000 pullets they have.