I qualify as an old timer, as defined for this thread. I'll take a shot at describing my background with chickens and a couple of other things that are related.
I've been around chickens since the 50s and quite a few of my family members have had chickens. Some were farmers and some weren't. I didn't get my first flock as an adult until the 70s. I got into a bunch of different heritage breeds in the early 90s. I had several years where I lived in an area where I couldn't have chicken's, but that time, working 60 hours a week, made the down payment on a house and some property out in the country. When I was younger, I rented farmhouses and property.
I've sold eggs, raised chickens for meat, butchered chickens and raised batches of 50 chicks at a time. Sometimes I've had smaller flocks, sometimes larger. It just depended on what else was going on in my life at the time. I mainly have them just for my own use at the moment.
During my life, I've lived in different parts of the country, including the heat of Texas and the cold of the Upper Midwest.
I also have many decades of experience with a variety of parrots and other caged birds, as well as time spent working for a vet. I have a lot of experience with dogs and earned money early on training them. I had a small kennel and raised dogs at one point. This has effected my views on nutrition, behavior and training for chickens, also.
Honestly, I don't see how there can be one right piece of advice on a lot of chicken topics, for all people. People live in different climates, with different zoning and have chickens for different reasons. I do think this is a good thread. Bits of it were a little hostile, but it made me realize just how alienated a lot of the people raising chickens as livestock have felt during their time here.
I'd like to see all the people on the forum able to enjoy posting more. It's not really just about old timers vs the people that are new to chickens. I really see it as more about the people that are or want to raise chickens as livestock or in more of a homesteading way, needing a better way to interact on the forum. That's a very important set of people that have or want to have chickens. They can have a different perspective and way of doing things than a person that's raising just for show, as pets or in a more urban area with more restrictions on what they can do.
Maybe in the future, people could start more threads where they let people know that their interest is in chickens as livestock or for homesteading. I know some have, already.
