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

[CSisley]

I couldn't agree more! I still have a scar on my knee from a RIR rooster that nailed me when I was a teen. OFF WITH HIS HEAD!

This is just my own personal BIASED opinion. If you want chickens for laying eggs, get a layer. If you want to raise them for meat, get a meat chicken. The dual purpose birds are just not as efficient at either one. I don't know why more people don't keep a leghorn or two for eggs. They are awesome layers. Some folks say they are flighty, but I don't think mine are any worse than a lot of other breeds, and they can't be beat when it comes to cranking out eggs on a little bit of feed, even less if you free range them.

Of course I've got quite a few "useless" chickens, other than they are pretty and I like to watch them scratching and pecking around in the yard.

My hens are tri-purpose. Friendly entertaining Pets/Eggs/Eye Candy(just luv those big fluffy butts!). All the efficiency I need. But if you goal is just eggs or just meat by all means go with something uni-purpose. Leghorns, errr skinny butt mixed with over-sized frostbite susceptible comb mixed with flighty, just ain't my thing.

But I suppose there is a perfect chicken for everyone.

 

[deek]

Bob, you are so right, as usual. Dr. Woods pushed for new, fresh air designs. This is one of his half-monitor or semi-monitor hen houses.
As you can see, I borrowed heavily from his design idea when building our barn three years.




In 1920, a book was published, "Poultry" by Herbert Virgil Tormohlen. In one chapter, Professor H. A. Bittenbender, of Iowa State College of Agriculture offers drawings and construction layouts for the semi-monitor and speaks highly of it's many virtues. Here is that chapter, in readable Google Book form.

http://books.google.com/books?id=UD...=onepage&q=semi-monitor chicken house&f=false

Thank you for sharing. I have downloaded the .pdf

 

[ChickenCanoe]

My hens are tri-purpose. Friendly entertaining Pets/Eggs/Eye Candy(just luv those big fluffy butts!). All the efficiency I need. But if you goal is just eggs or just meat by all means go with something uni-purpose. Leghorns, errr skinny butt mixed with over-sized frostbite susceptible comb mixed with flighty, just ain't my thing.

But I suppose there is a perfect chicken for everyone.

A good small single purpose layer that's extremely cold hardy is the Jaerhon.
I like Minorcas and Anconas too but like the Leghorn, frostbite prone combs.

 

[Leahs Mom]

If anyone is interested, this thread is very interesting reading on the Woods style house. (Funny that people immediately start telling him how he can close it up....

)

Anyway, here's the thread. I just purchased the book out of interest to see what I could to w/ my existing hen house (or should I say coop .. ha ha)

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/445004/woods-style-house-in-the-winter

Here's a photo of JackE's house at this thread. https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/445004/woods-style-house-in-the-winter

 

[Ivywoods]

Get a hen house like these guys are showing, face it south, and you don't have to worry about frost bit combs. We had temps of minus 18 with wind chills (we are on a hill) of minus 50-60. I don't heat the coop. I had no frostbit combs.

Those pics of the hen houses you guys are showing are so much like the one I had that blew down. It was great. Warm in the winter and always cooler in the summer. It had clay block walls half way up. Mine had a doorway in the middle on the east and west ends with a hallway through the middle. Mine had originally been built as a hog house, but it worked great for chickens since I didn't have any hogs.

 

[WasabiChicki]

Actually, I got mine from a local breeder and they were $15-20 each I wanted hers because she fed all organically. The chickens really did seems great, until all of this happened.

HI Hannah.. I'm not an old timer but I eat organic
I like to try everything when my girls look bad so here are my natural remedies:
I "cured" most recently, a little red hen who had runny poop, comb turned blue & flopped over, was laying soft eggs & being pecked at profusely by my other layers w/ goldenseal & echinacea tincture in water & I soaked some of the organic layers feed in whey overnight then fed it to her away from the others. Then while the others were free ranging, she got a hearty bunch of freshly picked comfrey leaf. I had to keep that up for a couple days but her comb was no longer blue after day one, upright on day 3, hard eggs by day 5 & then I stopped w/ the tincture. (I only used the whey in the feed for two days.)
Wormwood & Black walnut are great natural dewormers & I am currently starting my herbal business to include a dewormer treat I can sell at the local feed store.

Hope everyone is better now, I will continue reading the thread to check for updates!

 

[WasabiChicki]

A good small single purpose layer that's extremely cold hardy is the Jaerhon.
I like Minorcas and Anconas too but like the Leghorn, frostbite prone combs.

The only leghorn I ever had didn't make it thru the first winter & I'm only in Northern Cali w / maybe a handle of snow days but quite a bit of below freezing mornings.
Just realized I have 3 leghorns in the order I received from Mc Murray this week!

 

[Robert Blosl]

Quote: I read with interest your story of the male thatnailed you in the knee. How would you like to have such a rooster nail a four or five year old child? It happens every year a mother will email me and ask WHY is MY Rhode Island Red rooster so mean. Do your Rhode Island Red Roosters jump you or your little children.

I write back and say I know why your rooster is so mean he is breed this way. I have never seen such a mean male in 25 years of breeding rhode island reds.

They write back and ask WHY not. Because you have production Reds and I have the old fashion Standard Rhode Island Reds that are not breed for high egg production but for average egg production of about 190 eggs per pullet year. My birds are breed to have lots of meat on their bones when they are six months old.

They always tell me they never heard of my Rhode Island Reds. The reason is they are very rare. There are thousands of Production Reds sold each year maybe 50,000 but in my type of Rhode Island Red only a few hundred eggs or chicks are sold . It has gotten so bad we only have about five good breeders left, but this is changing. There is a strain called Mohawks that are 100 years old started in Georgia in 1912 and they are a good all around dual purpose breed. There is also a great breed making a come back and that is the Old Fashion New Hampshire's. They even lay better than a standard Rhode Island Red. They are so pretty they look like a golden pheasant in color.

Some of you folks just have not found the right breed or more important strain to use on your back yard lots or hobby farms. Keep looking and trying but you wont find many at the feed stores or farm supply stores. These pictures of the Semi Monitor are fantastic. I took the big building measurements that Dr. Woods used and shrunk them down to a small ten foot long pen for bantams and to raise chicks in. This is the best floor plan I have ever seen.

If you have not seen the Rhode Island Reds that I am talking about we have one of the biggest treads on this site and they have pictures of New Hampshire's on their right now and pictures of R I Reds on another thread. if you can not Find it look at where I post every day. Also, here is a site that shows pictures for you to go on.

Don't give up there are some nice docile breeds out there to own. Just don't get hung up on high egg production if you do your males can attach you its not their fault they are doing just what comes natural for them. bob

http://picturetrail.com/sfx/album/view/24124613

These are pictures of the old strain which I use to breed. The darker they are the more kind and docile the males are.

 

[CSisley]

I read with interest your story of the male thatnailed you in the knee. How would you like to have such a rooster nail a four or five year old child? It happens every year a mother will email me and ask WHY is MY Rhode Island Red rooster so mean. Do your Rhode Island Red Roosters jump you or your little children.

I write back and say I know why your rooster is so mean he is breed this way. I have never seen such a mean male in 25 years of breeding rhode island reds.

They write back and ask WHY not. Because you have production Reds and I have the old fashion Standard Rhode Island Reds that are not breed for high egg production but for average egg production of about 190 eggs per pullet year. My birds are breed to have lots of meat on their bones when they are six months old.

They always tell me they never heard of my Rhode Island Reds. The reason is they are very rare. There are thousands of Production Reds sold each year maybe 50,000 but in my type of Rhode Island Red only a few hundred eggs or chicks are sold . It has gotten so bad we only have about five good breeders left, but this is changing. There is a strain called Mohawks that are 100 years old started in Georgia in 1912 and they are a good all around dual purpose breed. There is also a great breed making a come back and that is the Old Fashion New Hampshire's. They even lay better than a standard Rhode Island Red. They are so pretty they look like a golden pheasant in color.

Some of you folks just have not found the right breed or more important strain to use on your back yard lots or hobby farms. Keep looking and trying but you wont find many at the feed stores or farm supply stores. These pictures of the Semi Monitor are fantastic. I took the big building measurements that Dr. Woods used and shrunk them down to a small ten foot long pen for bantams and to raise chicks in. This is the best floor plan I have ever seen.

If you have not seen the Rhode Island Reds that I am talking about we have one of the biggest treads on this site and they have pictures of New Hampshire's on their right now and pictures of R I Reds on another thread. if you can not Find it look at where I post every day. Also, here is a site that shows pictures for you to go on.

Don't give up there are some nice docile breeds out there to own. Just don't get hung up on high egg production if you do your males can attach you its not their fault they are doing just what comes natural for them. bob

http://picturetrail.com/sfx/album/view/24124613

These are pictures of the old strain which I use to breed. The darker they are the more kind and docile the males are.

My, my, you have some beautiful RIRs; what a beautiful mahogany they are! I admit my experience has been with hatchery stock RIR which I no longer keep. I've often wondered how true RIR personalities compare with what you more commonly see. I like well rounded birds over the egg laying machine gun, mutant, velociraptors. More eggs does not always equal better birds. My sister has a scar on the back of her leg from a mutant RIR rooster; that was his last mistake.

 

[Ivywoods]

Yep. That mean old rooster of ours when I was a kid was a hatchery bird. That was what we had access to. I'm not going to say how MANY years ago, but suffice it to say that it was over 30.

That darn ole rooster biased my opinoin toward them, and I've never wanted them since. Yours are beautiful. I don't hesitate to tell someone with a mean rooster the best thing to do is send him to freezer camp, good grief... especially if there are kids around!