BREEDING FOR PRODUCTION...EGGS AND OR MEAT.

[ronott1]

Bird flu is deadly to humans?

The new one may be able to jump to people. There is a strain that does that in China.

It is very deadly to humans. That is the reason for killing off so many--to limit the mutation and exposure to humans so that it does not move out of birds to people.

 

[dfr1973]

Bird flu is deadly to humans?

The H5N1 jumped to humans in Asia and yes, had a high death rate of infected people. I haven't seen where an H7 strain has affected humans, but given just how mutable influenza is, it is a possibility, and if it happens to be the first few times and does not resemble other subtypes in outer protein capsule, then it could really wallop some people.

Birds, swine, and people all share the same type of influenza (type A) within the H1 and (IIRC) the H3 subtypes. The influenza virus does not discriminate against species any more than the rabies virus does.

 

[nanasacres]

Roosters are going to fight - it's just a way of life.  For better results, you should separate them from females while they are still young, before they have a chance to get their hormones flowing.  We separate as early as we can, with the age depending on space.  Usually we get ours separated when they are 1 to 3 months old, depending on how fast they are maturing.  Even when you separate them though, the boys will still have pecking order issues, like all chickens do.

That sounds like a good strategy. The goal is growing up together having less issues,but pecking order will be a naural part of chicken life. Is 5 to 6 cockerals in a pen ok? Do they need anything different like more space per bird? How will this affect their protective instinct.

 

[bnjrob]

Quote: The more space they have, the better. And most of the time less fighting because they can all go to their own different spots on the pen to get away from each other. Every group has its own dynamics and even the dynamics of the relationships in the pen can change so you just have to watch behaviors and see how it goes. For our full grown, large fowl chickens we try to keep a minimum of 10 square feet per adult bird that is penned most of the time. Our free-rangers get less coop space per bird only because they are inside only at night and as long as they have the ability to free range during the day, they are comfortable. For youngsters in the grow-out pens, we monitor for behaviors as they grow and if we think that a lack of space is causing undue fights, then we go ahead and rearrange (which can include culling and butchering) everyone to get more space. We have small pens that can house 1 or two full grown cocks comfortably (these are 4x8 ft and 4x10 ft pens that are approx. 3 feet tall, a-frame style) and then we have our mid to large size breeding pens, and our large size grow-out and larger flock pens. We move birds around when we need to if we find that a lack of space is causing a problem for a particular bird or group of birds.

Separating them by gender early on has not diminished any protective or mating instincts when ours are finally allowed to be with the females. We've put cocks into the free-range pen that grew up without girls, and they had not lost any instincts at all. They went from being civil to each other to having bloody fights with each other until they established which cock was going to be the alpha rooster. Then they each took half of the hens in the group as their own harem. One of them died defending the hens from coyotes while his brother led the hens away from the danger.

 

[nanasacres]

The more space they have, the better. And most of the time less fighting because they can all go to their own different spots on the pen to get away from each other.  Every group has its own dynamics and even the dynamics of the relationships in the pen can change so you just have to watch behaviors and see how it goes.   For our full grown, large fowl chickens we try to keep a minimum of 10 square feet per adult bird that is penned most of the time.   Our free-rangers get less coop space per bird only because they are inside only at night and as long as they have the ability to free range during the day, they are comfortable.  For youngsters in the grow-out pens, we monitor for behaviors as they grow and if we think that a lack of space is causing undue fights, then we go ahead and rearrange (which can include culling and butchering) everyone to get more space.  We have small pens that can house 1 or two full grown cocks comfortably (these are 4x8 ft and 4x10 ft pens that are approx. 3 feet tall, a-frame style) and then we have our mid to large size breeding pens, and our large size grow-out and larger flock pens.  We move birds around when we need to if we find that a lack of space is causing a problem for a particular bird or group of birds.

Separating them by gender early on has not diminished any protective or mating instincts when ours are finally allowed to be with the females.  We've put cocks into the free-range pen that grew up without girls, and they had not lost any instincts at all.  They went from being civil to each other to having bloody fights with each other until they established which cock was going to be the alpha rooster.  Then they each took half of the hens in the group as their own harem.  One of them died defending the hens from coyotes while his brother led the hens away from the danger.  

Thank you so much for your information. It was similar to what I had envisioned and also took away some of my misconceptions of flock and roo dynamics.

 

[jbkirk]

Thank you so much for your information. It was similar to what I had envisioned and also took away some of my misconceptions of flock and roo dynamics.

Some of our cocks will herd all the lower ones off the feeder so we try to have at least two feeders.

 

[nanasacres]

Some of our cocks will herd all the lower ones off the feeder so we try to have at least two feeders.

Thanks for that heads ups. ....the little boogers!

 

[Our Roost]

Congrats! I spent 4 years and finally modified a storage shed into a second coop for breeding. It can add to a place to keep the sheiks and emirs as a harem of sorts. Can now select the best harem for them to breed with. Good luck.

 

[angry rooster]

...

Regarding the flocks that have been destroyed, they are within a certain distance from a known infected flock. Is that not reasonable with a new outbreak that might infect people?

Bird flue is deadly to humans.
Not trying to heart anyone's feelings
So is the common cold but you don't see the government putting us in the ground
What about the wild bird population are they going to start killing them to
It gest ticks me off when someone that has never even seen a live chicken/fish makes all the discussions on how something is managed
Right now here in newfoundland we are jest coming out of a cod moratorium and they have now extended the fishing season into a time when all of us supid fisherman/boat workers know that the extension go's into the time that we know the females are full with eggs
Jest venting ronott1 sorry in advance

 

[ronott1]

Quote: It's fine!

It turns out that only one farm had the deadly type of the virus. The outbreak is pretty much contained now. Until the next outbreak we are fine! Flocks that are not close to commercial farms will be fine too.

Quarantining and destroying flocks in infected areas is public health and safety. It is not land management--Sorry about the Cod. We had a similar thing happen on the Coast here with Oysters--no more Oyster farming in Drakes Bay.