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

[Roxannemc]

In animals I always defer to ppl who raise that animal for many years as they know better than any vet or scientist ever finds out.

They are PROS daily in the field with their animals treating things and watching what works and what doesnt.
Chickens arent any different ,.so yes, please 5 pointers we all should know from each one and any other info you all can come up with will be appreciated..
It will take all of us 15-20-40 years to learn what you already know!.

 

[japman117201]

You might want to consider eating a Leghorn for dinner. They are egg layers not for meat. Particularily a hen won't have much meat on it and if she is very old she will be tough.
Japman

 

[fultzie]

the acv will eat the galvanizing. use stainless

Or the plastic ones

 

[chickletteSarge]

well she's about ummm 3 months now and is a big bully! Meaner than any game cock I've ever been around! She will come up and peck and kick at the puppies that are being trained to protect our flock, not to mention plucking my neked necks neck feathers out! We will see.... but we do have 6 other birds that are destined for the dumplin doodle....

 

[they'reHISchickens]

You can handle Belle one of two ways.
First, a marauding hawk or varmint can get her when darling daughter is not around. It happens. Animals die from predation. There are tears and you learn to move on. No, it isn't pretty but death seldom is.
Second, you can get serious with your DD and point out continually how badly her hen is behaving. I find Leghorns to be highly annoying creatures. Only thing worse than a leghorn hen is a leghorn roo. Then you need to go into casual talking about how some animals are destined for the cookpot ..for various reasons. the more you talk sensibly about it, the better off your DD is. She will echo your feelings on the subject eventually. 4 is a bit young but I know some very mature 4 yr olds.
Then get her another chick or two of a better choice (orps,perhaps?)
Try telling a 6 yr old that a year and a half-old heifer she bottlefed and raised from a calf and follows her everywhere, needs to go because you can't get her bred and you can't afford to keep her otherwise. You learn to offer realism and sympathy at the same time.

 

[fultzie]

well i was alive befor there was color tv ...that might make me ot lol ..we had chickens growing up as a boy ..it wasnt untill just this year me and dw bought a place out in the country and ive got about 150 birds ..sadly but i DO have to many roo's and will have to cull..now grandma would always grab the chicken by the neck and give it a swing or 2 and snap ..off comes the head ..me .well...i perfer the cone or hatchet...if you raise birds for meat .or pigs or what ever ..rabbits ..you just have to tell yourself .this is what you raised it for ..and just do it ..yes some folks just dont have the guts for such things ..and that is ok..nothing wrong with admitting you cant cull your pets if you will....its not for the faint of heart ..my wife will not watch me butcher anything ..but see will eat it if she doesnt have to watch ..and i do not make her ..so yeah ..it helps if you make up your mind what your gonna raise and stick with it ..well..breaks over ..back to work lol

 

[marty8587]

AMEN !

 

[chickletteSarge]

Thanks for the input THC! She has a pair of buff silkies comming in Thursday. So hopfully she DOES get over the fact that her "Belle" will become BBQ DINNER! Hey we will have plenty of birds so here's hopin that she dosent get attached to all of them....

 

[ChezPoulez]

30 or so years. Mostly Silkies as the core laying flock, with some random Barred Rocks, Sex Links, and Americaunas.
I've raised Cornish Crosses and Bronze Turkeys for the freezer too.
There were also Pekin, Muscovy, Rouen, Cayuga ducks for amusement and eggs.

Can't say I've got any wisdom to share that I think is profound or noteworthy, but here are a few things I've picked up over the years:
1. I ALWAYS raise my (non meat) chicks on medicated chick starter. Every time I tried non medicated I lost more chicks than I considered acceptable.
2. Duck eggs don't hatch under chickens. Apparently they need higher humidity from the mother coming in wet from swimming.
3. Peacock eggs hatch just fine under Silkies, although they look funny when they are as big as their mom and still trying to get under her!
4. I always let my Silkies hatch several batches of their own eggs. The extra hens were easy enough to sell. The roosters were traded to the poultry butcher for butchering of my meat birds 2:1. This way it cost me nothing to have my meat birds butchered and got rid of all the extra roos. The Asian community LOVES Silkie chickens, especially for special dishes when celebrating a new baby.
5. Turkeys get big FAST. Pay attention to the dates and make plans to butcher around 14-20 weeks depending on how large you want them. Toms get bigger faster than hens. If they do get too big for your oven, find a local butcher who smokes and have them smoked, then cut into halves. If you have the ability to smoke your own, so much the better. I put the hens in the freezer for roasting and all the toms were smoked, cut in half, then gifted to family and friends at Christmas. What's not to love about smoked turkey?
6. When I lived out in the country with a relatively isolated farm, I never vaccinated, nor did anyone else I knew. I had never heard of Mareks. Now that I have a small flock in a suburb of San Francisco I do vaccinate because I've lost birds to Mareks and know others who have too. Too many people here, too many germs.
7. If you want to breed and raise your own chicks, but your breed is flighty and nervous, consider having a nice calm breed to act as surrogate setting hen and mother.
8. Just because a breed is described as broody, not all hens are created equal within that breed. One of my favorite Silkie hens (the most tame/most calm), is also a lousy mother. She ignores her chicks when I go out to the yard, so now I just don't let her set eggs anymore.
9. I've learned how to vaccinate Silkie chicks. Scary, but I've been successfully doing it now for a few years. I found an avian Vet and asked her to vaccinate my chicks. She was wonderful for teaching me how as she did the first half, and then making me do the rest and coaching me through the process. She gave me lots of valuable information on handling of the vaccine, etc.
10. I've never become comfortable with downing a sick or injured animal. I take them to the on call vet and pay for euthanasia if they aren't going to recover.
11. I've never found raising my own birds for eggs or meat to be cost effective in small numbers, but the satisfaction with the end product is the reward for me. I think that as long as one has to rely on feed store bags then the cost is going to be high. For those of us living in suburban and urban environments without acreage, foraging and pasturing just isn't an option. My girls have a good size yard, with a small garden they can scratch up, and they've got access to the compost pile, but I can't release them into the rest of the yard or they would destroy my garden.

 

[<3 N.C Chicken Chick <3]

Thats some wonderful info!!! Thank you very much. What do you vaccinate your chicks with?