Quote: No, please, don't worry, it happens to everyone --- never rains but pours --- I'd be willing to bet you've got much more in the way of sunny stretches ahead of you. Just persevere, if you want to keep poultry. There will be losses but they can and do become immune to basically everything if given long enough, with the right support; sometimes it takes generations.
Disease is inevitable. Death from it is not, and that's what we can influence. Your 'pouring' periods so far have not been like some other people's --- total flock loss, for example.
One of the reasons I never liked hatchery stock is how downtrodden their health was to begin with. You can't put total health on top of a weakened or compromised immune system like a bandaid. No matter what you do later, you can't counter what was done to them as chicks; how they started will always cast a long shadow over their future health. You can get them into visibly better health but they won't ever manage to best a chook that's been reared naturally for generations. I initially had high hopes of restoring hatchery adults to full health --- I regarded it as an educational sort of battle to wage --- but was forced to abandon that notion for now. I don't have the resources for that one, yet.
What they built themselves from in the first place can't be replaced later. They'll replace most cells, but not all. Also, what their parents, and grandparents, and great-grandparents were like will impact them too. If you persist for about five generations you will see some great improvements though.
Quote: Some of his birds look like they have quite clean genetics. I haven't actually seen such distinct type in some of those breeds before. I'm no expert on breeds though. But for some particular genepools it looks like he'd be one good person to buy from.
I wouldn't really worry about the source though if you are so limited in breeder availability. No matter what you get you can breed it into something better, just about. Especially if you're crossing them to achieve hybrid vigor. I like mongrels but really you can easily start with whatever you want and work them into what you like over the course of the years, it's entirely up to you and your preferences. Every line of stock has its issues, no matter where you get them. It's what you make of them that counts.
Quote: No, the 'common' just indicates it's the most common of the family. Common comfrey growing wild though I would expect to have greater medicinal and nutritional value than any that's cultivated, in general. In Russia it's grown as fodder, but that's true of a few other countries too. A general rule is that plants growing in dryer areas have far more concentrated qualities of properties than those that are lusher and live in wetter areas. Living the hard life makes plants stronger.
The resins and oils will intensify. Which is why Broken Hill in Australia is the marijuana grower's mecca. You can't walk down the back streets without being enveloped in a continual cloud of the smell.
As you know, comfrey's cultivated for the extraction of Allantoin and Cholin for scar and wound healing, but I would only use the cultivated strain for external usage as there's every chance that like with the Aloe Vera that's bred for usage in facial tissues, creams etc, some properties will be present in exaggerated proportion. My lamb eats common aloe vera but doesn't touch the one we got from an Aloe farm, as an example, and they look and smell and feel and act different. The properties commercial strains are bred for are often not oriented towards immediate raw usage but rather towards being able to withstand processing, etc; if you choose to use cultivated Aloe over wild or common, then best to use it from a farm that produces aloes for drinking, not tissues.
There is a less common sort of comfrey which causes problems when eaten in excess but I can't offhand remember how to differentiate them; I think the troublesome one is much taller and pricklier and has different colored flowers. But common comfrey can have creamy, pinkish, or blueish flowers, so that's not much help, lol.
In general animals won't eat the extreme amounts necessary to aggravate their digestive tracts unless deprived.
I have a sneaking suspicion that perhaps comfrey's been hybridized and that's where issues come into it; or perhaps bred-up varieties are to blame for the 'toxic' label it's wearing; but it's likely the issue is, as you noted, biased studies. There's also a good chance chickens raised and bred for many generations in the most artificial surrounds are unable to cope with even normal levels of alkaloids such as those in potato and comfrey, which do not bother normal chickens. Some humans and some animals can't cope well with normal alkaloids which are beneficial to the majority of others.
On the topic of external healers, Allium Cepa oil is used in modern scar healers alongside Allantoin and Cholin; apparently during the Wars, nurses found Allium Cepa oil would heal terrible wounds that nothing else would heal. Strange. You'd think (I would anyway) that such an oil would burn and irritate beyond belief. But I guess not.
I must say, too, the comfrey on that Mother site does not look like what we had. The flowers are very dark blue compared to others I've seen. Even Borage doesn't have flowers that dark, or at least ours didn't. I would like to see the studies behind the claims it's toxic because I've never found that to be the case when we or our animals ate it. Shame the Mother site does not link to them.
Quote: Pretty dangerous, as I'm sure you know. I personally wouldn't touch it. But on that topic, it turns out it's legal to have opium poppies here. Just as long as you don't sell the sap or whatever. They're sold in an Asian food shop around here, as a culinary additive; the white ones are the right ones, whereas the blue is more or less ornamental but also has some weak powers of sedation. You might want to look into that, since it might also be legal around your area. I know two great hens I could have saved if I had natural opiates on hand for lifesaving operations. For years we didn't even think of trying to get poppies because we thought they were illegal.
Disease is inevitable. Death from it is not, and that's what we can influence. Your 'pouring' periods so far have not been like some other people's --- total flock loss, for example.
One of the reasons I never liked hatchery stock is how downtrodden their health was to begin with. You can't put total health on top of a weakened or compromised immune system like a bandaid. No matter what you do later, you can't counter what was done to them as chicks; how they started will always cast a long shadow over their future health. You can get them into visibly better health but they won't ever manage to best a chook that's been reared naturally for generations. I initially had high hopes of restoring hatchery adults to full health --- I regarded it as an educational sort of battle to wage --- but was forced to abandon that notion for now. I don't have the resources for that one, yet.
What they built themselves from in the first place can't be replaced later. They'll replace most cells, but not all. Also, what their parents, and grandparents, and great-grandparents were like will impact them too. If you persist for about five generations you will see some great improvements though.
Quote: Some of his birds look like they have quite clean genetics. I haven't actually seen such distinct type in some of those breeds before. I'm no expert on breeds though. But for some particular genepools it looks like he'd be one good person to buy from.
I wouldn't really worry about the source though if you are so limited in breeder availability. No matter what you get you can breed it into something better, just about. Especially if you're crossing them to achieve hybrid vigor. I like mongrels but really you can easily start with whatever you want and work them into what you like over the course of the years, it's entirely up to you and your preferences. Every line of stock has its issues, no matter where you get them. It's what you make of them that counts.
Quote: No, the 'common' just indicates it's the most common of the family. Common comfrey growing wild though I would expect to have greater medicinal and nutritional value than any that's cultivated, in general. In Russia it's grown as fodder, but that's true of a few other countries too. A general rule is that plants growing in dryer areas have far more concentrated qualities of properties than those that are lusher and live in wetter areas. Living the hard life makes plants stronger.
The resins and oils will intensify. Which is why Broken Hill in Australia is the marijuana grower's mecca. You can't walk down the back streets without being enveloped in a continual cloud of the smell.As you know, comfrey's cultivated for the extraction of Allantoin and Cholin for scar and wound healing, but I would only use the cultivated strain for external usage as there's every chance that like with the Aloe Vera that's bred for usage in facial tissues, creams etc, some properties will be present in exaggerated proportion. My lamb eats common aloe vera but doesn't touch the one we got from an Aloe farm, as an example, and they look and smell and feel and act different. The properties commercial strains are bred for are often not oriented towards immediate raw usage but rather towards being able to withstand processing, etc; if you choose to use cultivated Aloe over wild or common, then best to use it from a farm that produces aloes for drinking, not tissues.
There is a less common sort of comfrey which causes problems when eaten in excess but I can't offhand remember how to differentiate them; I think the troublesome one is much taller and pricklier and has different colored flowers. But common comfrey can have creamy, pinkish, or blueish flowers, so that's not much help, lol.
In general animals won't eat the extreme amounts necessary to aggravate their digestive tracts unless deprived.
I have a sneaking suspicion that perhaps comfrey's been hybridized and that's where issues come into it; or perhaps bred-up varieties are to blame for the 'toxic' label it's wearing; but it's likely the issue is, as you noted, biased studies. There's also a good chance chickens raised and bred for many generations in the most artificial surrounds are unable to cope with even normal levels of alkaloids such as those in potato and comfrey, which do not bother normal chickens. Some humans and some animals can't cope well with normal alkaloids which are beneficial to the majority of others.
On the topic of external healers, Allium Cepa oil is used in modern scar healers alongside Allantoin and Cholin; apparently during the Wars, nurses found Allium Cepa oil would heal terrible wounds that nothing else would heal. Strange. You'd think (I would anyway) that such an oil would burn and irritate beyond belief. But I guess not.
I must say, too, the comfrey on that Mother site does not look like what we had. The flowers are very dark blue compared to others I've seen. Even Borage doesn't have flowers that dark, or at least ours didn't. I would like to see the studies behind the claims it's toxic because I've never found that to be the case when we or our animals ate it. Shame the Mother site does not link to them.
Quote: Pretty dangerous, as I'm sure you know. I personally wouldn't touch it. But on that topic, it turns out it's legal to have opium poppies here. Just as long as you don't sell the sap or whatever. They're sold in an Asian food shop around here, as a culinary additive; the white ones are the right ones, whereas the blue is more or less ornamental but also has some weak powers of sedation. You might want to look into that, since it might also be legal around your area. I know two great hens I could have saved if I had natural opiates on hand for lifesaving operations. For years we didn't even think of trying to get poppies because we thought they were illegal.
I feel that way all the time, and it only grows with time and experience.
I am hoping that by ordering eggs next time, incubating and raising them myself, they will have a better start. 
