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

[bruceh]

i smell my food too dragonlady. i also smell the food for the chicken and the dogs, i even gone as far as tasting the birds food.

so the problem i have is i got an egg eater. caught her red beaked.

bee the issue i had with the birds passed they are now laying great. must have been the food change. out of 17 layers got 14 today. thats including the 2 the red hen ate.

i have no idea how to stop the egg eater.

i only know 1 way stew pot.

 

[Celie]

My sister and I were confirmed, dyed in the wool bean haters from the get go. Well, in a poor family of nine children, beans are what's fer supper more often than not. You know what we were told? "Take it or leave it!"...but we were never really given the option to actually "leave it".

We were forced to sit at that table, in front of beans that had long ago turned cold and mealy, and were to sit there until we finished them. If I gagged when trying to choke them down, I was told, "If you puke, you will eat that too."

I ate the beans. Still hate them to this day but I sure 'nuff ate them then.

So True and I never did find out why, should eat something I hated, because kids in China were starving? How did it help them? Mama Fed the 10 of us on 1#of dried beans, 2#of rice and 60 cents of pickled pork and that was 4 to 5 days out of 7. It was a real treat to get chicken or an occasional piece of beef ! Those are called the "good old days" but not for the food !

LOL

 

[Beekissed]

i smell my food too dragonlady. i also smell the food for the chicken and the dogs, i even gone as far as tasting the birds food.

so the problem i have is i got an egg eater. caught her red beaked.

bee the issue i had with the birds passed they are now laying great. must have been the food change. out of 17 layers got 14 today. thats including the 2 the red hen ate.

i have no idea how to stop the egg eater.

Oh, Brucey......

You stepped on my pet peeve! Have you met my pet peeve? His name is Egg-eater.

I'll say it again but only because I like you....

You don't have one egg eater, you have 17 egg eaters. Each and every hen you have will eat an egg if given the opportunity...your hen just had an opportunity but she didn't make the opportunity.

Either eggs were thin and got cracked, or too many in one nest and a clumsy hen(likely your red beaked gal) cracked them, etc. This is the time of year that we get many posts about how to cure an egg eater. The truth of the matter is that there is no cure for an egg-eater because it is their natural instinct to clean up an egg that is cracked, broken open, laid without a shell or with a soft shell.

Everyone who says they cured an egg-eater is a victim of coincidence....this time of year they are sputtering in their egg laying because of molt, cold temps and shorter daylight, hormonal fluctuations, etc. This doesn't last long....about as long as it takes for someone to notice the sputtery, thin shelled or abnormal eggs are being cleaned up by a chicken, lace an egg with hot sauce or put ceramic eggs in the nest or whatever the current "cure" may be and miraculously find that their chicken was cured of her egg eating.....long about the same time the egg shells firm up as is naturally happening....which means there are no more opportunities for the "egg-eater".

See how this all goes? Thirty six years in chickens and haven't had an "egg-eater" yet...because I understand how the mechanics behind chicken instinct, laying ebbs and flows, and opportunity all collide to make a normal hen look guilty of a crime. She's not...she's just doing her job.

Long about Feb or March you will also see the same kind of posts....when in the world are folks going to start putting two and two together? No offense, Bruce....

You just made my pet peeve squeal!

 

[Celie]

There is an Italian saying, "chi che guasta e aggiusta non perde mai tempo". Roughly translated, it says "he who screws up and has to do something over again is never idle".

And, how do you say"and he never gets ton the end of his "to do" list, in Italian?

 

[Loghousemom]

There is an Italian saying, "chi che guasta e aggiusta non perde mai tempo". Roughly translated, it says "he who screws up and has to do something over again is never idle".

:yiipchick

I could not agree more. He is one very busy fella.

 

[Gargoyle]

And, how do you say"and he never gets ton the end of his "to do" list, in Italian?

non si finisce mai

 

[mississippifarmboy]

So True and I never did find out why, should eat something I hated, because kids in China were starving?

Funny story, but my middle girl was a smart mouthed kid. One time when she was about 6 or 7 years old we had something for supper she didn't like and I used the same line all parents use.... "You ARE going to eat that young lady! There are kids starving in China that would love to have something to eat"


She slowly pushed her plate towards the center of the table, put her little hands on her hips and said "They can have mine. I'm NOT eating that! It's nasty".


the brat.

I shoulda got her but it was just too funny.

 

[Celie]

Oh, Brucey......

You stepped on my pet peeve! Have you met my pet peeve? His name is Egg-eater.

I'll say it again but only because I like you....

You don't have one egg eater, you have 17 egg eaters. Each and every hen you have will eat an egg if given the opportunity...your hen just had an opportunity but she didn't make the opportunity. Either eggs were thin and got cracked, or too many in one nest and a clumsy hen(likely your red beaked gal) cracked them, etc. This is the time of year that we get many posts about how to cure an egg eater. The truth of the matter is that there is no cure for an egg-eater because it is their natural instinct to clean up an egg that is cracked, broken open, laid without a shell or with a soft shell.

Everyone who says they cured an egg-eater is a victim of coincidence....this time of year they are sputtering in their egg laying because of molt, cold temps and shorter daylight, hormonal fluctuations, etc. This doesn't last long....about as long as it takes for someone to notice the sputtery, thin shelled or abnormal eggs are being cleaned up by a chicken, lace an egg with hot sauce or put ceramic eggs in the nest or whatever the current "cure" may be and miraculously find that their chicken was cured of her egg eating. Long about the same time the egg shells firm up as is naturally happening....which means there are no more opportunities for the "egg-eater".

See how this all goes? Thirty six years in chickens and haven't had an "egg-eater" yet...because I understand how the mechanics behind chicken instinct, laying ebbs and flows, and opportunity all collide to make a normal hen look guilty of a crime. She's not...she's just doing her job.

Long about Feb or March you will also see the same kind of posts....when in the world are folks going to start putting two and two together? No offense, Bruce....

You just made my pet peeve squeal!

Like a well trained dog will be caught eating or burying a dead chick ! Poor thing will at least get a balling out for doing something instinctively to keep predators away from the flock!

 

[Celie]

Funny story, but my middle girl was a smart mouthed kid. One time when she was about 6 or 7 years old we had something for supper she didn't like and I used the same line all parents use.... "You ARE going to eat that young lady! There are kids starving in China that would love to have something to eat"


She slowly pushed her plate towards the center of the table, put her little hands on her hips and said "They can have mine. I'm NOT eating that! It's nasty".


the brat.

I shoulda got her but it was just too funny.

That was sort of the same thing I said, but I still had to eat it! But once we were having some very bland meat that did not even have salt on it (mama didn't use much seasoning, or maybe didn't have much of any), anyway, when I asked for salt, she put very little, so as a kid, knowing better than to ask for more, without a good reason, turned over the meat and asked to have salt on that side, too. when she asked 'Why, I just salted the other side". I replied "I have to eat both sides, Don't I? She could hardly hold the salt shaker, she was laughing so hard! I got more salt that time.

But I was only 4 or 5 then.

 

[mississippifarmboy]

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