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

[Terri O]

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Oh my....my list exactly! Terri O

 

[Clay Mudd]

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[Oregon Blues]

[[[[[[[.....That wasn't around 40 years ago that you feel is a vast improvement over the way 'grandma' did it? Such as better feed, DE, automatic doors, electric fencing, etc......]]]]]]

Sorry to be the one to disillusion you, but 40 years ago, we had better feed, electric fencing, DE, stock tank heaters, electric incubators with thermostats, and you could have gotten automatic doors, if you wanted them, but nobody thought to use them with chickens.

In my opinion, feed was better. It contained animal protein and less byproduct junk. Chicken wire was immensely better quality. It was made in America of American metal, and was cheap and strong and it would keep out dogs and coyotes as long as you stapled it down to the framework well.

People had organic gardens. You could buy organic food for people, but I don't remember any organic commercial chicken feed. However, people who believed in organic did raise organic chickens and eggs, and they were really organic. Mother Earth News organic, not Uncle Sam's lackadaisical definition of organic.

Not many people kept chickens as pets. Occasionally, a special bird would get elevated to pet status, but not the whole flock. So there were no chicken diapers. The thought of an indoor chicken simply never crossed anyone's mind.

I don't remember any Cornish Cross chickens 40 years ago. The bargain priced chickens in the market were small birds with slim breasts. So Cornish Cross chickens are an improvement. Computers are a huge improvement. No computers back then. No wait. About 1971 or 1972, friends were talking about getting a computer. $5,000, and it could balance your check book for you and not much else.

I can tell you what was way better back then: price of gasoline. I was paying 25 cents a gallon for gas. But 40 years ago was not Little House on the Prairie.

 

[Gypsi]

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That's certainly cheaper than feeding a dog all year every year, to be sure!

$75 to 80 is cheaper than vetting a dog one time, once a year. If I didn't have my dogs I would have a whole different arrangement. And in the coop/run or tractor I want to put on my lot, I will probably need an automated pop door, because dogs are not allowed on the lot around gardens and honey bees. They are hard on both, I can't seem to train the dogs not to eat the bees. (I will have to fence the chickens away for my hives or I will get a lot of eggs and NO honey.

But for a summer coop, the lot is SO much cooler because I have a giant elm tree at the back, and I can't put a beehive under it for bee-reasons. Their present run and coop are ok - but we had 60 or 70 - 100+ degree days, and I did lose one hen to heat stroke. And if I go on vacation, I can leave dogs that bite in the back yard, and have a neighbor able to collect eggs without going near my dogs.

btw, what is BOSS again?

Gypsi

 

[babymakes6]

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Black Oil Sunflower Seeds

 

[Beekissed]

$75 to 80 is cheaper than vetting a dog one time, once a year.

That is...if you vet your dogs. I do not. No more than I took my kids to the doctor when they weren't sick. My dogs enjoy crazy good health and I don't fix what ain't broke...

The dogs I had anyway, so I would have been feeding them anyway...so it tickles my frugal side to use what I have to make my chicken system better. No preds means I don't have to lock up anything. Not even my gates...who in the world would walk through them? I leave my key in the front door of my house at all times, just in case someone needs to come in for emergencies. I've got nothing worth stealing and that gives me a certain freedom of living.​

 

[Gypsi]

I'm at the edge of the city, technically in city limits. Heartworm prevention on the cheap I may learn - actually I used to bring the stuff in from Australia so I could get it without having to have the test. If you just use ivermectin it is safe on heartworm positive dogs. And I know I can get ivermectin for cattle, but I don't know how to dose it safely.
Anyway, ivermectin, I have to have. Rabies shots, I have to have, what with coyotes, coons and rabid skunks. The rest of the boosters - moot point. But every now and then I have a sick animal that needs an actual vet, and so I pay the idiot (and I do mean idiot - there's a story there) and try to dodge most of his BAD advice.

 

[galanie]

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LOL It's so true! 40 years ago was NOT the Dark Ages some people imagine it to be! That was when our generation was really getting going in home computers, which had already been introduced. But they sucked, so it was much later before they were dumbed down enough for most people to be able to use one. In DOS mode. Like the VIC 20. Amazes me that today, kids think folks under 40 can't work one yet we are the generation that invented them. OH sure you could argue just to jack your jaws that it was older folks, but just like the Ford, it's who makes it practical that really counts.

Before the 70's and especially before the 60's then you're in the Dark Ages sort of. The nice part of the world back then was that we had most of the advantages you have today except for the internet, yet good quality things and safe streets still. Relatively so, anyway. Ah yes, disco was all the rage but the 70's were still very good.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Yeah, I prefer the twist over that disco stuff. The Bee Gees had a few good songs but Chubby Checker!!!! I just found the discos themselves so pretentious.

The world has changed in many ways. Change does not automatically mean vast improvement. And you have to define "improvement". I like a switch or button that is on or off. I mean, should you have to read the users manual before you can turn the overhead light on or off in your car? And a car that decides when it should lock the doors, not when you decide? Is that improvement?

Since I started on cars, I'll stick with them, but I could use other examples. Are today's cars better or worse than cars 40 years ago? They could be, but cars are not like cars were in the early 70's. Cars back then did not all automatically come with a radio or air conditioning. You had to order those special. Automatic windows? Certainly not standard. A pollution package? I don't think so. Some people might think all that is a vast improvement. Some if it is, like some of the safety systems. But mileage is more important now since that the car has to move all that extra weight from the extra wiring and the extra gadgets so they are made from lighter materials. Were older cars more reliable? They were easier to work on, but they were not required to do as much. Today's cars have so many things that can go wrong. There is no real way to compare.

I really can't think of anything that is a vast improvement in chicken keeping over the last 40 to 50 years, just a lot of things that have changed. Things are more confused now because the reasons to keep them have changed, more people with no chicken keeping experience are keeping them as pets, and you have so much more options and misinformation available over the internet. People that really don't know can get so worked up over insignificant things.

 

[featherz]

I am over 40 and I hear ya on the computer thing.. I started using email in 1979! Sure, it was on a dumb terminal with an acoustic coupler but it was email!