Chickens for 10-20 years or more? Pull up a rockin' chair and lay some wisdom on us!

[galanie]

I find the rooster earns his feed in two ways...and if he didn't I would never keep one.  He provides me with replacement stock for my layer flock and he polices the flock as they free range.  He couldn't withstand any predator attacks, for sure, but he does take his job as flock master pretty seriously and watches the skies and intruders to the area more closely than the hens, sounding an alarm when danger is near. 

He has saved young chicks on quite a few occasions by alerting them to danger and I'm always amazed at how quickly the chicks/youngsters pick up on proper bugout procedures in a flock environment.  The hawks in my area are probably too lightweight to pick up one of my big gals but, for the half pints, growing up can be a hazardous thing.  I've even had one old and smaller RIR roo stand out in the open and challenge a hawk while the rest of the flock were safely under cover.  I think that ol' boy must have had a little banty in him...he was that brave.

If I lived in the burbs and could only have a few hens, there would be no way I'd try to keep a rooster.  

Happy hens?  I don't believe I've had any of them participate in my standard, yearly happiness polls.  They all waddle away grumbling about opposable thumbs and pencils, or some such drivel..I don't know what they want, but they have never really commented on the level of their happiness in regards to roo ownership or not and they've had ample opportunity via these polls.  Guess the jury's still out on that debate.     

Mine have. I can tell you, when I cleared out the last one, they were standing up and clapping! He was rough on the older girls. The young ones, fine, whatever. The old ones he had to chase down and pin and they objected loudly. Their combs and such are still healing.

 

[Beekissed]

Here's a hot topic that always gets my eyeballs rolling: EGG EATERS....any OTs wanna comment?

 

[gussie398]

Ok, I am gonna be a stupid newb
and ask when I can feed my chicks kitchen scraps, like lettuce. They went outside today to! They are 6 days old.

 

[bobbi-j]

When I've had issues with egg eating, I've given oyster shell. It worked for my chickens.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I've only had one egg eater. She tasted great. Made pretty good broth too.

 

[PtldChick]

 

[gootziecat]

Oooops.

 

[ChickChickChicky]

I'm a newbie who finally made it through every post in this thread

I want to thank all you OT's from the bottom of my heart for contributing here, for it has truly educated me and even changed my opinions on certain subjects. I try to research everything before jumping into it, and I had made up my mind that I would NEVER be buying any baby chicks, because I didn't think I could put up with the stink in my house and they just seemed to require FAR more care than I wanted to give. All the "stuff" I was reading elsewhere on here talked about how fragile they were and the temperature had to be just so, and blah, blah, blah.... but after reading what you folks had to say about brooding chicks, I think that I will take a stab at it (out in the backyard). Like MANY things these days, it seems that folks take something that's fairly easy and turn it into a complicated, difficult religion (which as a gardener I can identify with roses.... roses are no more than a (what started as wild) shrub that will grow pretty much care-free, but too many people treat them like fragile little hothouse flowers of some type that have to be fussed over constantly). Please keep the good, solid, time-tested advice coming for all us newbies who seek the TRUTH, not some sugar-coated, make-work version of raising chickens.

 

[m.r.heavenlyhens]

Thank you all, from another newbie. I have learned a lot and haved enjoy it. There seems to be no better place to learn than from experience. I agree with the previous reply, we tend to make things more complicated than they need to be.

 

[Beekissed]

I'm a newbie who finally made it through every post in this thread

I want to thank all you OT's from the bottom of my heart for contributing here, for it has truly educated me and even changed my opinions on certain subjects. I try to research everything before jumping into it, and I had made up my mind that I would NEVER be buying any baby chicks, because I didn't think I could put up with the stink in my house and they just seemed to require FAR more care than I wanted to give. All the "stuff" I was reading elsewhere on here talked about how fragile they were and the temperature had to be just so, and blah, blah, blah.... but after reading what you folks had to say about brooding chicks, I think that I will take a stab at it (out in the backyard). Like MANY things these days, it seems that folks take something that's fairly easy and turn it into a complicated, difficult religion (which as a gardener I can identify with roses.... roses are no more than a (what started as wild) shrub that will grow pretty much care-free, but too many people treat them like fragile little hothouse flowers of some type that have to be fussed over constantly). Please keep the good, solid, time-tested advice coming for all us newbies who seek the TRUTH, not some sugar-coated, make-work version of raising chickens.

That was the exact reason I started this thread, CCC. After three years of reading posts from folks who took everything easy and then complicated it, it reminded me of when I worked for the government.

Taking on the myths, the complicated unto death methods, the bleeding heart solutions, and the costly solutions to simple problems was too difficult doing it post by post in individual threads. I figured I could post some of the more frequently discussed issues in one place and let the OTs give us some short cuts, common sense and cheap solutions so that newbies aren't so frazzled over trying to raise a simple animal like a chicken.

Case in point...the topic posted above about egg eaters. Every winter this issue is a frequent flyer and no one seems to notice that the timing or prevalence of finding egg residue in nests seems to coincide with birds that are recovering from summer molt and the subsequent feather regrowth/hormonal changes that take place in the winter. They instantly want to think they have some predatory, cannibalistic chickens on their hands~it's almost like they WANT the drama and stress that this would bring. And then someone comes along and feeds that stress beast by saying the only way you can "cure" egg eating is install roll away nests(costly) or cull the animal(complicated...which one is doing it?).

It's just such confusion that I hope to diffuse in this thread and I'm so glad that people are benefiting from it as I had hoped. Thanks to you newbies for the good review!!!