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

[Beekissed]

EEEEEKKK ! What type of feed are you feeding that would be "fermented" . YUCK ! I thought you were NEVER supposed to feed anything moldy or "fermented" ? Very curious.

And that's why you have arrived on the thread that can set you straight on "what you thought" or picked up from the uninformed populace. Congratulations for having found the 411 on chickens...starting now.

 

[stonykill]

And that's why you have arrived on the thread that can set you straight on "what you thought" or picked up from the uninformed populace. Congratulations for having found the 411 on chickens...starting now.

 

[HiddenChicken]

"Emma sounds adorable, and luckily has found a home with someone who is home during the day, because 5 weeks is WAY young for pups to leave Mom.  7 weeks is usually the minimum age."

That was exactly my thought...and I won't actually take a dog before 8 weeks. During weeks 6-8, play with the dog's litter mates is critical in teaching bite inhibition. Without that training, she is much more prone to being a biter. If you find biting/chewing on people is a problem, you'll need to do the training her litter mates should've done. Dogs learn a lot of group behavior from 6-8 weeks...so RIGHT NOW is when you should be teaching her. (And your larger dogs should help with this.) Any time she mouths you...and I mean ANY TIME she even puts a tooth on your skin--yip like her litter mates would and turn your back on her. If your sitting, stand up & turn away. Pull your hands up (under your armpits if necessary) and do not face her again until she calms down--keep turning away from her & ignore her. (Same treatment for jumping up on you.) When she learns biting (or jumping up) will cause you to not be fun anymore, she'll get the clue. If that doesn't work, a ONE- finger slap to the snout (2 when a couple months older) will do the trick. No full handed slaps...just a finger to the nose will work, especially when she's this young & open to learning.

My only other suggestion is to never use your hands as play toys...it only encourages biting of the hands.

Good luck with her! I'm keeping my fingers crossed for you with your wish list for her! Hope she provides all you need in her plus some!

Can't wait to see pix!

 

[Beekissed]

Is this pup going to be for chicken protection? Never too young to introduce her to the flock.... training starts the first day, no matter how young.

 

[Mskayladog]

We have a little bar in town, in the mornings it's full of all the old farmers and my hubby having coffee and chatting like hens. Chickens came up and hubby comes home and says a few of them were saying they have hens eating eggs. I told him they should up the protein and add some calcium. Am I correct?

 

[Beekissed]

Well...you can...but they are eating eggs because of the time of the year and relative tensile strength of the shells. Upping the protein and calcium will aid in these birds for feather regrowth and such, and consequently redirect those nutrients to hardening up the shells...but this would happen anyway if they just wait a bit.

They just need to be patient and wait until the season passes...it will come around again next spring when everyone is starting to get their lay on and the shells are sometimes thin at first.

I never really change the calcium or protein levels on feed if I am feeding a 100% layer feed ration. In the winter, I mix 50% whole grains and have been known to place some OS in the mix then to supplement the loss of the calcium of the layer ration due to this dilution. Not often, but at times.

As long as they are feeding the proper nutrition, these nutritional losses of calcium and protein are temporary and will pass shortly if folks are just patient enough.

 

[just me]

It's worth the effort, if wanting to free range, to cultivate that survival instinct in the flock. Sometimes nature helps you out with that natural selection. When having or adding chicks to an already seasoned and wary flock, you can train a new generation in survival skills as well. I've never lost a bird to a hawk and have free ranged pretty much all the time for many years. Lost one pullet to an owl because she was roosting out of the coop and up in the hay stacks. Nature took care of that lack of survival skills.

This spring I'm going to work on developing the flock to depend almost entirely on foraged feeds and will be culling the birds that do not thrive or lay well on that diet. I'm also going to encourage broodies to brood their chicks outside, in the brush piles that are on the edge of the meadow but still in protection of the dog. I want hens that can go off, make babies, bring back a good hatch full of equally wary chicks.

NEWBIE here. I totally agree, Bee. Just a reminder, my chook's hatch date is June 22. I let them start free ranging at 4 weeks (totally supervised at first). Once I was comfortable with it, I let them out anytime I was home (not necessarily in the yard "watching"). When they first started to free range, they would "run" from the brambles to the tree line, and later on to the open yard. I happened to be out in the yard the day the hawk came by....the chooks noticed him before I did. They had already taken what I call "deep cover" before I figured out what was going on. That was when I started to leave the pop door open (that and the fact that my pup doesn't bother them, she's been exposed to them since day one, and knows that they're 'my chickens"). I didn't write it down on the calendar (hadn't got that wise yet LOL), so I don't know exactly how long ago that's been, but it's been close to a month now. I truly believe that letting them free range at such a young age helped to "hone" their survival skills.

That being said....one day last week when I got home, things just weren't right. The pup seemed to be "guarding' the tree line, and the chooks were in "deep cover". It's really hard for me to find them when they are "in hiding", they are usually in the thick brush in the woods, or in the briars of the blackberry patch. Once the pup came to greet me, the chooks followed. One of the pulletts was limping. My thought was, "Well, I guess whatever happened, they can handle it" and I really didn't worry about it that much....

Until yesterday when I got home and one of the cockerels had been malled. I don't know what did it, DH thinks it was the pup. I don't think so, though since the other chooks were behaving normally around her yesterday. Am I wrong in thinking that if she were the culpret the other chooks would have been keeping their distance from her, at least for the evening yesterday?

Anyway, as much as I hated to, I shut the pop door last night when they went in, gave them a good feeding this morning, and shut the door behind me. I'm just hoping that whatever it was, if it comes back in the next couple of days, and doesn't get a quick meal, will move on.

 

[just me]

I know this is a little late, but due to computer problems, I have been able to lurk, but not to post. That seems to be fixed now.

Just want to say sorry for your loss, AL. You have a great wife, I know you cherish her.

Julie

 

[just me]

There are a couple of approaches. One approach is simply to find a breeder of good birds, in the breed(s) you desire. This save oodles of wasted and often frustrating time, perhaps years and years. You start right out with great DNA, birds to type you desire and then go from there. Without careful selection and breeding, even a quality flock deteriorates into mediocrity in just a few generations. I would highly recommend this path for those who want good birds.

Or, get a box of 50 chicks from the best selected hatchery you can. Lots of research required. Then, choose only those top 3 or 4 hens and that very top rooster and go from there. If, and this is a big if, if the DNA is there, if there is something there you can work with, in a few generations you may have a flock of birds that you are quite pleased with. Sometimes, the faults and shortcomings just keep appearing and it is frustrating to breed out the junk and sometimes, the program will end in failure to achieve what you want. What you wanted simply was never there in the first place.

Whichever path one chooses, lots of patient research is required. Start with a trio or two trios of great birds and achieve your goals. That would be my simple 2 cents worth.

"All I want are chickens like the ones we had when I was growing up." The only way to get that, honestly, is to get them from breeders/keepers who have faithfully maintained those birds all these years. You may be talking 20 or 30 years, which is 20 or 30 chicken generations.

Sorry so late to reply...

Thank you for this....this has given me LOTS to think about.

 

[maidenwolfx80]

ok guys I was thinking of switching to 22% gamebird feed for my flock for the winter. I have seen some people say it is not good because it is too much protein and others say it would benifit them in winter and then switch to a lower one in spring. What are everyones thoughts on this?