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

[JoshU]

@henichillin. it is funny the purposes people keep chickens. i too had an inner city job and i find that the chickens took the stress away. i moved from the city to the country and find it a much easier life here.. also i don't have to worry about the chickens putting a cap in my ***.

 

[Beekissed]

well today was a bad day. i went to check my new freedom rangers this morning. found 3 dead. i think they drowned . boy was i ******. we had a big rain storm come up. i got home late and could not put them in their coop. they all had full crops and were the biggest of the bunch. strong and healthy. just wanted to share. well i guess it happens.
thanks.
bruce

I feel your pain, Bruce....I had three of my CX drown at 2-3 wks all in one day in the dog's water bucket. I didn't know until I went to move his bucket and found the chicks and they were some big, healthy birds too. Really makes one mad. I was shooting for 0% mortality rate and along comes a crazy incident like that. I also had one killed at that same time by the young but adult roo that I had...found a big, healthy chick smashed flat as a pancake. Caught the roo trying to mate with the chicks a few days later, so did the math on that one. Roo was killed the same day and made a fine soup.

 

[JoshU]

beekissed is female? hmmm. I always assumed Bee was male. Always learning.......lol

Over 3000 posts. WOW!

 

[animallover505]

I want to watch this.

 

[JoshU]

I felt so awful today..... One of my silkie roosters was picking on my other silkie rooster while I was in the yard with them and I gave him a lil shove and then he went off limping and omg I just felt awful. I looked his leg over and he looked fine but god darnit I'm new to this rooster business and it's just killing me to be assertive to them. I think his leg is fine....it just sucks because out of the 4 buff silkies I got one hen. They are supposed to be more docile and I think they are but I can't have him thinkin he controls me. The funny thing is then all the buff silkies go sleep In a pile together. Ugggg. I'm so stressed about what to do and how I can get everyone to free range together all sizes and shapes there is plenty of land. Any advice for me I'm so frustrated.

I have only been raising chickens for 2 years but my stance on dominant chickens is to let them sort it out. If there is a serious injury then I intervene.

 

[ajlynco]

I have 11 Black Sex Links and California Whites that are 15 weeks old. Very strong, healthy birds that have eaten most anything from day one. I'll be needing to buy another bag of feed soon and was wondering if I should stick with Start n Grow or is it time to change to something else. I'm expecting the girls to start laying around the first of July and thought it might be time to put them on a layer feed.

 

[Robert Blosl]

Quote: http://www.javabreedersofamerica.com/2011/10/how-to-breed-black-java-large-fowl.html

Go to this site for the Java Club. I forgot I wrote a article on how to get started with Black Javas for Ruth the secetary of the club. I think there is a fellow in Arizona. Maybe Ruth can tell you who he is. One thing all the Black Javas came from Duane Urch of Minn. He kept this breed going for many years and today there is a good group trying to get them back to what they were twenty to forty years ago. You must understand that if you do not breed these rare breeds to a Standard for looks , shape or color they will revert back to what they looked like in the 1850s and these kind of birds are not what you want on your hobby farm. When you order from Mail order or go to feed stores your birds most of the time came from a flock of 15 females and three males and this is called flock matting. You get your best off spring from small mat tings where you have good birds and mate a male to compensate for the females weakness or vice versa.

Maybe next year we will promote the Java as a project bird. I kind of threw out Buff Leghorns this year. There is one fellow who has worked so hard to keep them going.

When it comes to old time breeds that grand ma use to have they are very very rare. Some are just about gone in my view. If you are a rookie you need to be care full what you start with because you could bite off more than you can handle. Many people get birds and dont understand their personality such as the rhode island reds you all have talked about on this thread. the males if you have them can be very dangerous around small children. They cant help it its because of the high egg production traits that has been breed into these birds. These birds are not pure Rhode island Reds they had some stuff crossed into them in the 1930s to increase their egg production to win at ROP egg laying contests. In other words it was cheating on the pure breed old fashion Rhode Island Red. It has hurt the breed ever since and Rhode Island Red roosters have got a bad rap for being mean when they can be very docile.

If you want a hardy breed the Java is a good one. Warning however, they are a DUAL purpose breed. Not egg machines. If you want eggs stay with the commerical breeds. bob

 

[Ridgerunner]

This has nothing to do with being an old-timer or anything like that. There are plenty of scientific studies that show if you feed chicks Layer feed from Day 1, they can and often will develop problems and they have a higher mortality rate. They cut these chickens open to see the deformities on their internal organs. They count the number that die. They have run enough tests to prove, if you feed Layer to chicks from Day 1 and all they eat is that Layer feed, they can and some will have problems.

I don’t know of any studies where they feed Starter or Starter/Grower for 4, 8, or 12 weeks and then switch to Layer. I don’t know at what time it is safe to start feeding them the extra calcium. There was a study someone had where they switched to Layer at something like 16 weeks to see if preloading the pullets with the calcium had any benefits as far as laying. The results were inconclusive. I did not see anything in that study about cutting them open to look for kidney or liver damage.

Another thing to consider. If the chicks forage or you give them a lot to eat that is not Layer, they will not be getting as much calcium as they would if you fed them nothing but Layer. The percent calcium is not what is important. It is the total amount of calcium they eat in a day. And it is not one day that counts. It is what they eat over a period of time.

In my opinion (and that is all it is, my opinion) I’d feed them another bag of the Starter/Grower. You can get some oyster shell and offer that in the side if you want. If they don’t need it for the shells, they won’t eat enough to hurt themselves.

You can switch to Layer now and it probably won’t hurt them. I don’t know that but I’d think they will be OK. I don’t know of any advantage to switching and there is what I consider a remote possibility it could cause harm. What does it hurt to wait?

 

[rebelcowboysnb]

I have 11 Black Sex Links and California Whites that are 15 weeks old. Very strong, healthy birds that have eaten most anything from day one. I'll be needing to buy another bag of feed soon and was wondering if I should stick with Start n Grow or is it time to change to something else. I'm expecting the girls to start laying around the first of July and thought it might be time to put them on a layer feed.

No real need to change till they are actually laying good. Probably best to buy starter grower till they start laying then when you use up what you have left buy layer feed.


You can also change them over early without any real issue. The thing to remember is to never take them off the medicated feed before they have been digging in real dirt for at least a month. (assuming you are using medicated feed)

 

[Beekissed]

beekissed is female? hmmm. I always assumed Bee was male. Always learning.......lol

Now I'm extremely curious, Stony.....why in the world did you think I am a male???? Just gotta know this.....