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

[navasima]

Ridgerunner: To clarify_ by sustainable, I mean hatching additional chickens to butcher and/or to replace the breeding adults instead of purchasing new chicks annually. By quality, I mean home raised instead of purchased at the grocery store.
At this time, most of their meals will come from feed and not foraging. Sounds like this would make annual purchase the better course. Curious though, which breed to you go with for dual purpose?

 

[centrarchid]

Quote:
Doesn't mean it's accurate either. It's just too unreliable to trust without further research. Which sort of defeats the purpose of using it as a source. Old Timer's wisdom. Using your experience for advice, not that of others. What part of that is unclear?

If someone were to run statistics on this thread I suspect it have more intense readership and actual information exchanged relative to any other on this forum. Never the less it connects with relatively few that benefit from its contents. It is becoming too cumbersome to navigate. It could still form a basis for a more structered article like the better wiki articles.

 

[perchie.girl]

So I am curious... How many chickens would create a sustainable flock. Enough for biodiversity .... and enough to consume. Say for a household of two people?

Also I have eighteen acres with no fences between all my neighbors and a straight shot to BLM land. It is possible once my chickens start free ranging they would cover quite a few acres in order to find tasty bits to eat.

Anything green for most of the year here is in the form of Chamise and Ribbonwood. Both are shrubby plants that the Goats just love. There is also Filagree (dont know the actual name) which is a plant that grows only about an inch high out here they make a seed that has a corkscrew on it and will drill itself back into the soil All parts of the plant is edible. But everything eats it. So the chickens would be competing with rabbits rodents and wild birds. What I was going to ask is how do I know they are getting enough to eat.... outside of weighing them. And keeping the feeders full for when they return.

 

[Dead Rabbit]

i can speak only from my own experience on this.................a true game bred hen, thats bred to produce sporting cocks will generally become mean to their broods once they decide to wean them. but so will most all types of hens. only difference is, a game bred hen has the temperment, the power, the athleticism to actually kill something when she wants to. my lil OEGB will start to peck her brood when she wants to start laying again, and wean them. and these are free ranged. ive had free ranged game hens become brutal on their own young but this is not common place mainly b/c my hens that were worth breeding were all penned up. they were far to valuable to risk running lose where predators or each other would kill or wound themselves. these type hens are priceless when cocking was legal in certain venues.

now all this is also based on "individual basis" not all game hens are as bad as i speak of. some were more tolerant of their young, than others. i have two hens, full sisters. one will keep her young much longer, actually start laying, b4 weaning them, and i trust her, b/c she has proven herself. her full sister is rough, weans early and there is little to no warning. but most all game hens are as i described. that i have own, and from ones others have own.

but with all this said. there is no better brood hen, or mother hen than a game hen. they are extremely broody, waiting till they have 8-12 eggs per nest, usually wont give up a nest, will take their death from a predator protecting their clutch, and after hatching, protect thier brood, against any and all. ive seen them go after hawks before. others have said to see them fly after hawks,

 

[navasima]

perchie.girl :

So I am curious... How many chickens would create a sustainable flock. Enough for biodiversity .... and enough to consume. Say for a household of two people?

Also I have eighteen acres with no fences between all my neighbors and a straight shot to BLM land. It is possible once my chickens start free ranging they would cover quite a few acres in order to find tasty bits to eat.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/uploads/72852_boulevardbackdoor1.jpg

Anything green for most of the year here is in the form of Chamise and Ribbonwood. Both are shrubby plants that the Goats just love. There is also Filagree (dont know the actual name) which is a plant that grows only about an inch high out here they make a seed that has a corkscrew on it and will drill itself back into the soil All parts of the plant is edible. But everything eats it. So the chickens would be competing with rabbits rodents and wild birds. What I was going to ask is how do I know they are getting enough to eat.... outside of weighing them. And keeping the feeders full for when they return.

What's that? BLM land?​

 

[Dead Rabbit]

Quote:
ive never belived in the term DUAL PURPOSE. to me its a sells gimmick. if one wants meat birds, then they should have true meat birds. if one wants layers, then they should have a proven egg producing family or strain.

if it was I..................I would buy and raise cornish Xs. true they arent sustainable, but nothing i know of comes close, and with the price of feed. you want the most bang for your ever shrinking buck.

last yr i battery raised cornish X's. it worked out great. still more expensive than store bought, but it was experiemental, and i have no complaints.

if i didnt want cornish X i would go for a meaty lil ol bird like a OEGB. solid little bodies, alot of meat for their small size, tame, easy to raise, pleasing to the eye, and easy to butcher. yet very sustainable. you just have to raise alot of them to feed a whole family.

 

[Dead Rabbit]

perchie.girl :

So I am curious... How many chickens would create a sustainable flock. Enough for biodiversity .... and enough to consume. Say for a household of two people?

Also I have eighteen acres with no fences between all my neighbors and a straight shot to BLM land. It is possible once my chickens start free ranging they would cover quite a few acres in order to find tasty bits to eat.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/uploads/72852_boulevardbackdoor1.jpg

Anything green for most of the year here is in the form of Chamise and Ribbonwood. Both are shrubby plants that the Goats just love. There is also Filagree (dont know the actual name) which is a plant that grows only about an inch high out here they make a seed that has a corkscrew on it and will drill itself back into the soil All parts of the plant is edible. But everything eats it. So the chickens would be competing with rabbits rodents and wild birds. What I was going to ask is how do I know they are getting enough to eat.... outside of weighing them. And keeping the feeders full for when they return.

chickens generally dont roam more than a couple acres away from their home. if that much. generally.

but with that much space with no neighbors to complain, id say you are in high cotton. chickens dont need alot of biodiversity. they can be tightly bred.​

 

[Kassaundra]

perchie.girl :

So I am curious... How many chickens would create a sustainable flock. Enough for biodiversity .... and enough to consume. Say for a household of two people?

Also I have eighteen acres with no fences between all my neighbors and a straight shot to BLM land. It is possible once my chickens start free ranging they would cover quite a few acres in order to find tasty bits to eat.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/uploads/72852_boulevardbackdoor1.jpg

Anything green for most of the year here is in the form of Chamise and Ribbonwood. Both are shrubby plants that the Goats just love. There is also Filagree (dont know the actual name) which is a plant that grows only about an inch high out here they make a seed that has a corkscrew on it and will drill itself back into the soil All parts of the plant is edible. But everything eats it. So the chickens would be competing with rabbits rodents and wild birds. What I was going to ask is how do I know they are getting enough to eat.... outside of weighing them. And keeping the feeders full for when they return.

Wow that's a lot of brown, not how I picture California at all.

I am not an OT at all, but as to the disscusion about DP vs CX meat birds, I would think there are other factors not mentioned like can you have crowing? (urban environment), How set up are you for mass scale processing and storage? Does your area lose electricity often? (large amount of meat loss in freezer) How good a preditor proof area do you have for long term housing vs short term?​

 

[Dead Rabbit]

Quote:
Good post Rabbit. I agree completely.......Pop

thankya for that POP.......i see your an oriental enthusiast. i never was much on the orientals. ive had a few different types of asils. ghans, kahns, cobras, etc. i did like the lil japs. suitcase japs they were originally called. lil ol 4-5 lbers. but my understanding is these are a cross of english/irish games over types of orientals

 

[navasima]

Sorry Dead Rabbit: I find it illogical that one couldn't collect eggs from a chicken and later process it. It can't be so that meat birds don't lay or that good layers taste bad. I just want to get as much information as I can to be able to decide what fits my needs/situation. Thanks.