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

[KirstenJL]

Hi all, I'm a newbie--just got through my first chicken year and it was great! I was reading many pages back of people who had bad experiences with BOs. I have three that I got from Privett and I love them. They lay fine--right now I only have 3 hens laying (of 6 that are old enough to do so) and two of them are BOs. These same two hatched chicks this year and were wonderful moms--all their chicks survived. I'm happy to have them

 

[SC-ChickMom]

Newbie here. When I was a child my father thought it would be a great idea to get 50 RIR for us kids to raise. Amazingly, I don't remember a lot about it; my brother and sisters don't either. My father has passed so not any help there. You OT have been a great resource. I don't remember anything about DE. I know it is used by people here for every ailment know to chicken raising. Interesting that last week my son was studying Kingdom Protista in Biology and we ran across DE. DE is made of dead diatoms. The diatoms are a type of algae that kills parasites because they are very rough. The diatom has jagged edges so when a parasite or mite crawls over it, they cut up their bodies and bleed to death. I think people need to think about the product and what it is actually made of when deciding if it will help with their issues. As it has been said earlier on this topic: DE is not an immediate cure; it takes time.

Thanks OT for giving out your knowledge for free.

BeeKissed: Maybe I missed it, but have you got your book published?

 

[southerndesert]

Quote:
Do not know much about the motor other than it is 12 volt and high RPM and has a transformer to work with AC. There is no info on the motor itself, but it is (The Plucker) made by a company called Marine Tech. I got it on eBay a few years back and it works well for the medium number of birds we process each year...

Not sure if they are still made or not....

 

[al6517]

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I could not have said it better............. and these folks will vehemently rebuke advice from anybody who is older than 20 something. And that's what I find difficult to understand, our flocks are well cared for not pampered, they have adequate housing and PROPER common sense approach to feeding, Not to mention are flocks are healthier and stay that way for long periods of time without incident and drama. I Have to constantly correct my DW & DD when they look in the viewing window on the incubator and proudly announce that we have babies hatching, and I say NO!!!!! we have chickens hatching............... and quit making that AAAWWWWWWWWWWWW sound LOL. I feel this allows them to enjoy my birds better both in the coops and on the table JMHO.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Quote:
x2

Dirt+manure=growth

Oh yes, bring back the good old days. Back when 25% of children did not live to make it out of childhood. The ones that survived were tough. Each if my grandmothers buried three of their children while they were still babies, but the thirteen total that survived childhood usually lived into their 80's and 90's. Modern medicine helped make their long lives possible. Most had heart problems that would have finished them in their 60's if it were not for modern medicine and its availability. But then, you need to be able to afford the medicine. By the time my baby brother almost died while an infant and I almost died as a teenager, Dad had a job and baby brother or I could go into the hospital. We survived.

Back when you took one bath a week, on Saturday night so you would be clean for church on Sunday. Back when our evening meal was pinto beans, cornbread, onions, and milk at least six days a week. On Sundays we usually had meat, usually pork or chicken. We did have days off and we did go to school, but during planting or harvest season and many days in between, it was sunrise (sometimes when the dew dried off) until dark for all members of the family, practically regardless of age. Where a stomach ache meant a teaspoon of Castor Oil and an ear ache earned you a few drops of warmed mineral oil in the ear.

No air conditioning. No sitting in an air conditioned office 8 hours a day with regularly schedules breaks and many unscheduled trips to the water cooler or coffee pot, and stealing time from your employer playing games on the computer or participating in forums like BYC. Vacations or overnight trips were unheard of. You had animals to tend. Besides, those trips take money, and if you raise your own food and make a lot of your own clothing and other stuff, you don't have much money floating around. And what little you do have, you need for things you can't grow or make.

Where you carry water up a hill from a well for wash day, two 2-gallon buckets at a time. Where running water is in a creek if you have one, but for most people is only after a rain. Where you are glad the new Sears and Roebuck catalogue came so you can use the old catalogue in the outhouse instead of those rough corn cobs.

Oh, yes, I could wax nostalgic about the good old days for quite a while. And I really did enjoy my childhood. It wasn't what I would call easy, but it had plenty of fun times in it. I prefer the way I was raised to how I raised my kids, but times change.

I do agree with raising chickens in dirt. It is their natural environment. Even my brooder raised chicks get a healthy helping of dirt from the run on their third day to help them get the right probiotics in their system and the wrong stuff too so they can start working on their immunities. And I have no problems with kids being kids and them getting dirty. I do not equate children and animals though. My kids got baths. My chickens never have.

 

[kefiren]

My grandparents lived in mill towns like Lawrence MA. My GM is still living at 96. Her father was a steeple jack. Both parents were German Immigrants. She was one of the last of twelve and only one child died--of mastoid ear. There on a postage-stamp lot they kept chickens, the hedge was grape vine for jelly, the trees were damson plum which were dried, my GGM canned green beans and peas pickles and kraut. Raw milk and fish on Friday was distributed door-to-door. They ate meat and potatoes every night. (They bought potatoes for the year.) There were no fresh vegetables out of season, but there was stewed dry fruit and applesauce to accompany dinner. Pickles and kraut. Tea. Canned veg were served only at Sunday dinner. Oatmeal for breakfast. Home made bread and butter. Senna and prunes if you were stopped up. GGF made wine and beer. Several of her sisters lived to 100, but the brothers died a bit younger. So much for: "you need fresh green vegetables". My GM thinks even rice is a foreign food.

 

[Mommy 2 Wee Ones]

Yea, we are getting more rain,it is a slow & steady, so no large puddles in the driveway. Chicken are out in their run & enjoying a mist bath, will run out today & get them some alfalfa scraps from the feed store. They have been giving me the eye lately, have missed their alfalfa.


Anyone have any experience with Freedom Rangers (Meat Chickens).

 

[galanie]

Quote:
This is what everyone used to think, but Food Grade DE, which is the only kind one should use around chickens, doesn't do this at all. What it does is act as a desiccant. It dries up the insect. This is also why it's good to sprinkle around the coop: it helps kill odor by drying it up. The pool grade does cut things, the food grade does not.

 

[bobbi-j]

I'd never heard of DE before I joined BYC. I've never used it, and most likely never will. But then, I've never noticed mites or lice on my chickens or worms in their poop, either.

 

[Tracydr]

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DE is wonderful to have around the garden if you garden organically and also around the chicken yard. Kills those wicked little desert fire ants that I get all summer so that I don't have to resort to poison bait. It's also good for aphids, squash bugs ( need to get them before they are an epidemic), other soft bodied bugs, cucumber and Colorado potato beetles.
It won't kill pollinators and other beneficial bugs, which to me, is very important. Other than the lacewing and ladybug larva. I won't apply it when I see them crawling around. But most of the beneficials fly over the top of the plants, unaffected by the DE. Unlike sevin dust, which kills everything and which bees and other good guys are particularly susceptible to.
Have you ever had an aquarium? You know how you have to wait for all the good bugs to establish? How your fish will die if you put them in a brand new tank before the good bacteria have a chance to establish? This is sort of how organic gardening and organic chicken farming works. When you start wiping out the good bugs with sevin dust, dewormer and antibiotics, you're back to that sterile aquarium. All the bad bugs have a chance to restablish fast. This is why the chicken often gets a respiratory infection right after being dewormed or gets sick with something else right after a round of antibiotics. You must restablish that system of good bugs which time and probiotics. During that time, the chickens are at risk and vulnerable.