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

[Beekissed]

Me too. I feel sadness if they are injured or in pain, I feel that empty feeling in the pit of my stomach when I must end their lives, I feel incredible warmth and contentedness when they are living their natural lives out in the sun and spring grasses with a soft breeze lifting their feathers.

It is because of those feelings that I don't treat chickens like humans..it is an injustice to them to do so. They are chickens, first and foremost, and their care is best if approached in that manner. We all read about the problems on this board caused by the mismanagement of chickens due to trying to treat them like humans and imagine how they "feel".

 

[Clay Mudd]

Quote:
Exactly! It's not either/or -- it's more of a continuum. Or something. To me, treating animals kindly is a no-brainer. Pet or livestock doesn't come into it -- this is a living thing that's in my power, and some responsibility that goes with that. I still don't take them to the beauty parlor very often, though.

As far as name, I avoided naming my first flock, except for flippant things like "Gumbo" or "Drumstick", but they each ended up with nicknames. Gimpy, Retardo, The Sergeant-Major..

I've managed not to name any of the 18 week olds, unless "that mean SOB who's going in the pot tomorrow" counts.

 

[OldGuy43]

And yet another question for you OT's. Are some breeds more social than others. e.g. are some breeds more willing to accept a new member of the flock than others?

 

[Beekissed]

Individuals that stand out in my flocks get names...of course, the roo always gets a name. We've had names like Sue the roo(to toughen a small RIR Johnny Cash style), Moby Dick, Tobias, Penny, Nancy, Danielle, Raggedy Ann(Red Star, of course), etc.

I don't often name them food names...usually just people names. Oh, the irony of that!

 

[Beekissed]

Quote:
I can honestly say that I've not had any hens that are mean to new members or each other. I think that may happen more in flocks kept in runs? I've just never seen a hen chase another in my flocks, never see any excessive pecking going on during roosting time, etc.

I don't think it has so much to do with the different breeds so much as the individual chickens and the type of environment in which they live. I will say that I've never met a Wyandotte that I liked...cranky, crabby acting hens that don't lay as well as my other breeds. I've culled each one I had.

They do, however, come in useful when training an inquisitive young dog....

 

[oshun55555]

Quote:
Bee this is amazing, when I read this .. it was like looking into my own heart ... this is exactly how I feel, before I got my own flock at the age of 13, as I was the oldest it was my job to feed them and clean the coop, so they were in my mind "chores" then my grandmama got me some Buff Orpingtons (she really got them for her) and I did a total turn around with chickens, It was like I saw them for this first time and respected their lives.

 

[Tracydr]

So, after all these years of not using antibiotics, I did. Had a Cornish X pecked yesterday, nasty looking hole in his thigh, down into the muscle. Considered just processing him as he's plenty ready but he was acting droopy, the leg was warm and I was worried he had a systemic infection. I could not feed him to my family or dogs without worrying about staph, strep or clostridium. I gave him a shot of penicillin IM yesterday, it had a 7 day withdrawal time for meat animals. He won't be organic but at least he'll be safe meat, I hope. He was in with the layers, all small but feisty breeds.
I put him in the garden with some silky chicks and he looks so much better today. Tail is up, he ran to me begging for lunch and ate some overripe pears. He'll enjoy a week of grazing on winter rye grass before I process him. May have to work around the nasty looking thigh but it's better than culling a nice big meat bird right before he's ready to eat.
I guess I went against my usual advice because this became an issue not of flock health but of human or pet food health, he is part of our food chain. He won't make my flock sick or change my flock's genetics but a systemic infection could certainly make us ill.
If it had been a respiratory illness in one of my layers this would be a different story.

 

[Beekissed]

Those meaties are surprisingly tough! I had two chicks that got injured pretty deeply while at the feed trough...I believe it was from getting stepped on by my big and gentle roo, Toby. His spurs are almost 3 in. long but he's never used them on another bird that I know of.

One of the chicks had a deep puncture wound to his neck...so deep that blood and bubbles were coming out each time he breathed. He also was scalped...the scalp was clear down to the bone and flapped back. The other chick had a very deep and large wound to his flank...I could see meat fibers.

I placed some NuStock on these wounds and let them go free...they didn't seem to be a bit affected by the severity of the wounds except walking a little stiffly. The following day I saw my younger dog lying out in the yard with all 20 of the meaty chicks snuggled around him and he had one between his paws and was licking away. I can only assume it was one of the wounded chicks.

A couple of days later I couldn't even pinpoint the birds that had been injured...probably because Jake had licked all the blood away from the wounds.

When I butchered, I never did identify the one that had been scalped and stabbed in the throat but I found a bird with a scar in the muscle on his thigh...that was the only evidence he had been so severely injured.

Gotta give it to those meaties...they sure do heal quickly. Could be due to their increased metabolism.

 

[the1honeycomb]

Quote:
I can honestly say that I've not had any hens that are mean to new members or each other. I think that may happen more in flocks kept in runs? I've just never seen a hen chase another in my flocks, never see any excessive pecking going on during roosting time, etc.

I don't think it has so much to do with the different breeds so much as the individual chickens and the type of environment in which they live. I will say that I've never met a Wyandotte that I liked...cranky, crabby acting hens that don't lay as well as my other breeds. I've culled each one I had.

They do, however, come in useful when training an inquisitive young dog....

My hens are free range during the day and when the new kids on the block show up there is always a pecking order party!! sometimes I have to break it up!!

They get over it and form their own little flocks funny how they don't alwasy group up by breed either!

 

[Beekissed]

I notice AL is back from the big show and shows up on the member index....hey, Al!

Tells us about the show! Did you take pics? Talk chickens? Buy any? Sell any? Win prizes?

We want PICS!!!