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

[Young Heritage]

Quote:
As a somewhat young guy"35", I would love to have someone like you I could learn from. Guess that is why I think this has been my favorite thread of all time on BYC. Its hard to beat real knowledge learned first hand. I was able to learn a little from my grandfather before he passed but it is just getting harder to find the old timers who have the knowledge and will mentor. The farm land is going away and so is the real knowledge around my neck of the woods

 

[Beekissed]

Same here. It's sad to see the farms die along with the old farmers. A true loss to the country all 'round....

 

[La Casa de Pollo]

OT---I cannot thank you enough. I have learned so much the last few weeks! About 10 days ago I started my chickens on layer mash, ACV in the water, I treated them one day with a pile of Cayenne pepper as preventative, and I have been throwing scratch daily, in small amounts. They were starting to look a little skinny , fighting, and not laying as well. All of these ideas I got from this thread. Out of 5 laying currently I got 34/35 eggs in the past 7 days. They look better, and are being more active and just seem more content. I bow to your wisdom

 

[Beekissed]

That's quick turn around and quick results! I'm so glad!

 

[warbirds]

Quote:
Hope nobody minds another "OF/OT" jumping in here.

So great to see a thread like this!!! Been reading since the beginning...........

Getting frustrated and quitting seems to happen an awful lot nowadays (and not just with poultry!)............it's that "instant gratification" thing so many seem to think life is all about.......and/or it's the "me Me ME" gene taking over.

Same applies to those jumping into working with rare/heritage breeds. They go buy a few chicks or a trio, think they are gonna get filthy rich from selling eggs and chicks, and become quite frustrated when the complaints roll in about the diminished quality of the offspring. Few have the "stick-to-it-iveness" required to do a poultry breed (or any other endeavor) justice nowadays. It takes WORK to build/improve a breed correctly, and that does not mean hatching two clutches and figuring that's good enough.

Maybe some will come away from this thread a little less light in the knowledge department thanks to the collective thoughts of those posting here.

Everything I know about farming/ranching I learned starting with listening to my great-grandparents as a wee sprite............and all of that many decades old information still applies today.

 

[Beekissed]

I think you nailed the one thing present in OT that is not found in this generation and time~the timelessness of their work. They worked for years to perfect a certain breed....not a few years....decades one upon another. It takes that kind of time to work out the kinks, to know what you are trying to accomplish and to finally get a grasp on it...sort of.

Those that are skeptical at the knowledge from someone who has dedicated a lifetime to it are short-sighted~which is the primary problem you mentioned. The NOW is all they see, want or know.

 

[Beekissed]

Here's a question for you OTs about eggs and hatching them via incubator. Do you wash eggs before incubating? What is a typical hatch rate for you and would it be less if you did things differently..as in, you have in the past, but no longer do it that way because __________

 

[jvls1942]

I know a lady who considered herself to be a breeder of fine chickens.. she would take say, a Yokahama and cross it with a silkie.. then she would get a very colorful chick and raise it and it would have a long tail, she would announce that she had a real nice yokahama.. I would tell her, no,,,,, you have a mutt .. she insisted that she was improving the yokahama breed.. Nooo, you are not.. Now if you an take that offspring and another offspring like it, and breed them and get the same kind of chicken,now you have improved the breed.. but if you take those same two offsprings, you are going to get a very colorful different kind of chicken.. you have mutts.. LOL and she is not alone in her kind of world...

let's face it.. the breeds are pretty much perfected.. all we can do is make sure the breeds continue to survive.. ..

 

[Beekissed]

Yep...one can only perfect the breed lines you currently have, not necessarily the breed as a whole. Creating a whole new breed is another prospect altogether....

 

[jvls1942]

Quote:
well, so much for me not posting ..
I have 3 GQF sportsmans that run about 7 to 8 months of the year.. I have developed a method where I can go from the normal 280 eggs per unit up to almost 500.. (chicken)

I actually have 46 goose eggs going right now,, first ones due on the 19th.. I do not have a good record with goose eggs.. usually not more than 50%.. despite my overactive ganders, I end up with a lot of clears..

with chickens I get easily 80% and seldom 100%.. I include the clears as part of the failures.. I have had people tell me that they constatly get 100% hatches.. to them I say, good for you, and don't try to Bull S--t me..

I don't go nutsy about humidity, or turning.. I hold 99F as I cannot read 99.5% on any of my thermometers..

I keep the humidity at 45% to 55% during incubation.. If I can raise it during hatching, I do, but usually I don't have sticky chicks..

If I have to stop the turners during hatching for some eggs, I don't feel that it hurts the incubating eggs to not turn for a day..

I constantly have staggered hatches.

No matter what people on the incubating thread say, if their eggs are hatching on day 19/20, despite what they claim their thermometer reads, the temperature is too high..

also if a chick gets glued inside it's shell, 99% of the time, you opened the hatcher when it was pipped.. I know you did, and you know you did.. fresh air will turn albumen instantly to glue..
even Superman is not fast enough to open and close an incubator to prevent this..

I am willing to bet that nobody on BYC has a thermometer delicate enough to measure the difference of temperature from the top of an egg to the bottom.. or even from the top of a styrofoam incubator to the bottom..

If your incubator is properly preset for temperature before you add eggs, you will not have 110F temperature spikes.. Unless the room you have the incubator in goes to 110F.. If you have a temp spike, it is bause you fiddled with the temp setting after the eggs are installed..

the main cause of styrofoam temperature settings and humidity settings fluctuating is not because of the settings.. It is because of air leakage mainly around the seam where the top sets on the bottom.. tape it with duct tape all around.. problem solved..

sorry this went into book form..

...jiminwisc............

yes I wash my eggs.. I am not in the business of incubation pooh..