Bob Blosl's Heritage Large Fowl Thread

[galanie]

Yeah they got to have fresh air coming in and humid, stale air going out.

I'd hope that most folks rearing up a living, breathing animal would figure not to shut them up air tight,

Jeff

Don't count on that. I can't tell you how many people try to seal them up nice and tight and snug for the winter.

 

[Robert Blosl]

Here is a good one who started the thing New Hampshire Reds? I have no clue. Heck I only saw some when I was 14 years old that was the last time till a year or so ago when we found The German New Hampshires.

They got that name becasue they were imported from Germany to the USA a few years ago. Kine of like me being a German American.

I have been out in the heat to long some times working I type the wrong things on this key board. Or I have been looking at my chicken catalogs to place my orders for next spring. They sure have some pretty chickens in those catalogs.

 

[bnjrob]

Don't count on that. I can't tell you how many people try to seal them up nice and tight and snug for the winter.

Yep. Have you seen the people on the Texas thread who put AC units into their coops? Here's your sign!

And there's some that bring their chickens in the house when it storms or they think it's too hot outside......Then they wonder why their chicken died from what appeared to be heat stress when it was only 85 degrees outside. Duh.

It's gotten so there's only a few threads I can stand to read on here besides this one.

 

[catdaddyfro]

Here is a good one who started the thing New Hampshire Reds? I have no clue. Heck I only saw some when I was 14 years old that was the last time till a year or so ago when we found The German New Hampshires.

They got that name becasue they were imported from Germany to the USA a few years ago. Kine of like me being a German American.

I have been out in the heat to long some times working I type the wrong things on this key board. Or I have been looking at my chicken catalogs to place my orders for next spring. They sure have some pretty chickens in those catalogs.

Ha ha LOL you're too funny at times, Mr. Blosl.

I too understand heat related dementia or delusions sometimes as its hot here over about 350 miles to your west in these pine trees and sand hills too.

Those catalogs do have some very "beautimous" pics of nice looking stock in them don't they, but just so most folk know that to not expect to get too much of what you see, its just opposite of the ol' sayin' 'what you see is what you get'. I do have some of those cherry eggers here that they have pics of in the ads in those catalogs, mine are about 3 or 4 generations removed from their factory heritage but they still do look somewhat like carbon copies/clones of the pics posted in those ads. Now, I too have me some of the real RIRs, New Hampshire, and Barred Rocks that are not from those factories but from folks who raise them up to meet a certain standard and they sorta look somewhat close to those pictures in the catalogs (which are taken out of the book of standards) except just better in real-life and in full, true detail.
All ya'll folks with those hatchery reds and such ought to try some of these different, very pretty/rare type birds. I don't think most would be disappointed.

Jeff

 

[buffalogal]

I would never disparage the people who keep chickens as pets; they're a fine home for extras and culls. You never know, the pet chicken keeper today might prove to be the next decade's dedicated breeder. I have plenty of land and lots of deep shade for my birds to spread out and I still loose a few birds from heat stress every summer. In Texas, where last year the temperature exceeded 100 degrees every day for almost 2 and a 1/2 months, I could understand someone running a fan, a mister or even an AC or water cooler to keep their birds from baking in the heat. Not everyone subscribes to the "treat 'em rough" philosophy of animal husbandry.

 

[bnjrob]

Some of these people want to pamper their little chickens with an air conditioner but fail to realize that the artificial weather they are giving their chickens causes the chicken to be unable to acclimate to the climate they need to live in. Which means their chickens will fall out and die at much lower temps than if the chickens had been allowed to acclimate themselves to normal outdoor temps. AC units are much different than using fans, ice, and misters on really hot days.

Having endured many hot summers in TX, I know how bad the heat can get. But considering that we get blackouts from summer storms and during hot weather when the power grid in TX is unable to support the state's electricity needs, putting an AC unit in a chicken coop is asking for dead chickens. You never know when the electricity will go out and poor Fluffy the hen is going to croak because her owner was gone all day at work and the AC unit didn't keep that nice 78 degree, low humidity environment in the coop without electricity.

People that want chickens for pets are fine. But they need to use a bit of common sense and think things through before building the Chicken Palace with air conditioning, heating, and a bidet.

 

[vmdanielsen]

I never got to Zoology school but to use those genetic charts you would need a degree.

All the master breeders I interviewed 30 years ago did two things they did not use line breeding charts from the 1920s and did not know anything about genetic terms. Heck only one had a idea about the color scheme of a R I Red. There where two people that felt it was a color combination of Red, Yellow, Black and Red. From my research the yellow is the most important color as it will if over done will block the beetle green color to the wings and tail.

The secret that we learned from George Underwood was in the ticking of the female. If you had stripes in the neck of the female a major fault then they would block the black to the wings and tail. Also, it could become a fixed trait in the line and show up in the males neck and neck under color. The correct method of understanding R I Red Color was in the female and to make sure she had ticking or no ticking at all and if you did your chances of managing your color in your line could be successfully. This is a breeder secret 101. You lurkers cut this message out and staple it to your chicken house wall or save it and put it in your bill fold.

Would you say that the ticking advice would also go for buckeyes?

 

[buffalogal]

Is having air conditioning that much different than the water coolers and giant fans commercial poultry farms use to try to maintain a steady climate in their poultry houses? My guess would be that most of the people who keep chickens as pets and build chicken 'palaces' are doing so in a small, suburban yard. They have a less than ideal amount of space for the birds to start with, and probably restricted airflow thanks to all the other houses nearby. Speaking from experience, 115 is bearable if there's plenty of shade, a breeze, and a cool spot to lie in the dirt. But if all you have is a small building and a small yard with man made shade vs mature trees and no breeze thanks to nearby buildings, then I wouldn't look down on someone trying to make up for that. If once every few years the electricity goes out and a pet chicken dies because it can't handle the heat for one day, that is still preferable to loosing several every month, all summer long. That's the advantage (from the bird's POV anyway) of being a pet; it is not required to acclimate itself to any extremes of the local climate, hot or cold. If you wanted to be a purist about it, you could argue that anyone who provides any kind of man made `shelter for their birds is pampering them and preventing them from adjusting to the local weather and predators based on the theory that real birds sleep in trees 365 days a year. One extreme is no worse than the other.

(A bidet in a chicken house; how does that work? Nevermind, I really don't want to know.)

 

[galanie]

Having kept chickens through the horrific drought and heat we had in Texas last year, I understand what you're saying about providing enough cooling to keep them alive. Never used AC on them and never lost any either. But my situation is that I have large old oaks and enough open area that there's a breeze under them. Open coop and plenty of water both for drinking and wading in. I think the original poster about AC in the coop was referring to extremes. There are people that are afraid of their birds dying in 90 degree heat or if the temperature gets down enough to freeze water in the coop. And that's silly.

 

[aveca]

you are a very good poultry keeper galanie and always a freind to me in byc..we dont suffer the heat problem as much here, but instead terrible freezing winds.i guess .its a battle no matter where you live..i swear the whole dubbing thing was started during the mini ice age ..there are some famous paintings of big stout warmblood horses whos ears froze completly off..the horses were important breeding stock so they painted them as is,, the ears look melted right to the skull..for a couple of years in the 1500 s there was not a summer, showed peope ice fishing in june in germany , holand ect...i wonder if lot of roosters were left sterile from severely frostbitten combs..i cant imagine how bad it must have been if those big horses ears froze off..i thought they probably were trying in part to eliminate the horrible suffering that a badly frostbitten comb would cause. they could get so horribly infected , and back then there were no antibiotics.. i have been reading the book , the last ice age..wondered how poultry keepers survived all of that..maybe why the big heavy feathered orps made it through..thick ground sweeping feathers protected frost from bitting the feet.. as i read that book, i thought, somone took the time to care for those birds, otherwise they never would have survived that mini ice age..i also wondered if any breeds went extinct during that time..no one really knows because peope went very quiet during that time, they were busy just surviving..that is why they called it the dark ages, everyone went quiet..little if anything is known about what happened during that time let alone how poultry keepers coped...when i look at this english orp, i think he could handle it, he kind of reminds me of woolly mammoth. ....