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

[al6517]

Roxan........................ I think you really missed the whole point of thread utterly & completely, it's not that folks here do any bashing or intend to somehow hurt the very sensitive feelers of the newby's. The thread was inspired for real advice directed to folks who want a no nonesense approach and a real world idea of how to raise fowl PROPERLY !!!!!. There are no less than 40,000,000 other threads where you can go to get hug's and pat's on the back when mildred the house hen passes away.................. this however is not that place. If someone wants to ask the sex of 45 second old hatchery bird there are other places for that as well as all the other mirad of other simple questions that can be found on mulitple repeating threads. This thread however was thoughtout with the premise of those who don't want to raise their birds in that manner, those who don't mind actually eating one of their own flock, or perhaps a less touchy feely real world none PC attitude towards raising birds. Sure we can be rough around the edges and it is meant to be that way, this is the only thread where we don't coddle and contrary to popular belief some people prefer this approach. we are also here to dispell false information diseminated throughout the rest of this forum and we like to set the record straight, and people like that, the numbers and testimonials will reflect that. If you feel offended OH well we can't please everybody and don't plan to, if your looking for that touchy feely huggy pie kissey poo type agenda for raising birds where everything is rainbows & unicorns so be it, there are many places on the BYC that will welcome you & Mildred with open arms. If you have a good question we will do our best to help, but if our brand of advice isn't to your liking well we can't help that. I will also say that many of the main contributors to this thread are fine upstanding folks, well respected in the poultry community. I am not a subcriber to the answer that there are no dumb questions................. sure there are and if it is we just might say so, what's the problem with that???. The world would be much better off these day's with a little dose of reality and everybody can't win all the time. There are threads that I will never go to because they are very *&*&^% so I don't go there it's realy pretty simple, you too can try this method and find threads more suited to your style of animal husbandry, instead of bashing us here !!!!

 

[FuzzyButtsFarm]

well said.

 

[Parrmom]

Roxan........................ I think you really missed the whole point of thread utterly & completely, it's not that folks here do any bashing or intend to somehow hurt the very sensitive feelers of the newby's. The thread was inspired for real advice directed to folks who want a no nonesense approach and a real world idea of how to raise fowl PROPERLY !!!!!. There are no less than 40,000,000 other threads where you can go to get hug's and pat's on the back when mildred the house hen passes away.................. this however is not that place. If someone wants to ask the sex of 45 second old hatchery bird there are other places for that as well as all the other mirad of other simple questions that can be found on mulitple repeating threads. This thread however was thoughtout with the premise of those who don't want to raise their birds in that manner, those who don't mind actually eating one of their own flock, or perhaps a less touchy feely real world none PC attitude towards raising birds. Sure we can be rough around the edges and it is meant to be that way, this is the only thread where we don't coddle and contrary to popular belief some people prefer this approach. we are also here to dispell false information diseminated throughout the rest of this forum and we like to set the record straight, and people like that, the numbers and testimonials will reflect that. If you feel offended OH well we can't please everybody and don't plan to, if your looking for that touchy feely huggy pie kissey poo type agenda for raising birds where everything is rainbows & unicorns so be it, there are many places on the BYC that will welcome you & Mildred with open arms. If you have a good question we will do our best to help, but if our brand of advice isn't to your liking well we can't help that. I will also say that many of the main contributors to this thread are fine upstanding folks, well respected in the poultry community. I am not a subcriber to the answer that there are no dumb questions................. sure there are and if it is we just might say so, what's the problem with that???. The world would be much better off these day's with a little dose of reality and everybody can't win all the time. There are threads that I will never go to because they are very *&*&^% so I don't go there it's realy pretty simple, you too can try this method and find threads more suited to your style of animal husbandry, instead of bashing us here !!!!

Well put and to the point. Thank you for the advice

 

[Kansas Prairie]

Al, well said!

THANK YOU!!

 

[flagirl]

Excellent Al, and contrary to walt's beliefs, I think Al has lots of friends

 

[Beekissed]

I'm Al's friend!

Of all the thing I love about Al, I think I love Al's sensitive prose the most....

 

[Parrmom]

What do the OT's think about housing chickens and rabbits together? I am not talking letting the rabbits run loose with the chickens, but having indoor hutches raised up off the floor a ways with connecting raised hutches to the outside. The chickens and rabbits would not be able to get to each other. I currently have one building and are looking into meat rabbits to raise and sell.

 

[Beekissed]

I've done it and with great success....loved the combination. It's an excellent way to stack livestock without overusing the environment. They provide mutual benefits in a couple of ways and the rabbit manure is a "cool" manure that can help tone down the chicken litter for composting purposes. The chickens keep it worked into the bedding and keeps the urine from stinking and just soaking a manure pile. The chickens eat dropped feed, the dropped hay from the rabbits adds to the carbonaceous materials in the bedding, they create more warmth in the coop in the winter....it's a win/win.

Some folks funnel the rabbit dung and manure into buckets to keep it from complicating the deep litter situation but I never did that.

One thing to consider....due to the increased urine and the need for rabbits to have cool living conditions, your coop really, really needs excellent air flow throughout to keep the rabbits comfy and to keep the bedding/litter at a good, healthy level.

I had always wanted to add a worm bin directly under the cages and grow my own worms...there are folks out there doing that and it works out great. I just never got around to doing it.

 

[Erin~TheChickenLover]

I've done it and with great success....loved the combination. It's an excellent way to stack livestock without overusing the environment. They provide mutual benefits in a couple of ways and the rabbit manure is a "cool" manure that can help tone down the chicken litter for composting purposes. The chickens keep it worked into the bedding and keeps the urine from stinking and just soaking a manure pile. The chickens eat dropped feed, the dropped hay from the rabbits adds to the carbonaceous materials in the bedding, they create more warmth in the coop in the winter....it's a win/win.

Some folks funnel the rabbit dung and manure into buckets to keep it from complicating the deep litter situation but I never did that.

One thing to consider....due to the increased urine and the need for rabbits to have cool living conditions, your coop really, really needs excellent air flow throughout to keep the rabbits comfy and to keep the bedding/litter at a good, healthy level.

I had always wanted to add a worm bin directly under the cages and grow my own worms...there are folks out there doing that and it works out great. I just never got around to doing it.

I've been wondering about rabbits myself. Do you think it would be alright to just let a rabbit free to live in the run and coop? My layers have a super huge run that they don't hardly use and I would like to use the extra space. My grandma had a worm bed. It was an old rusty refrigerator filled with soil.

 

[Beekissed]

There are some that do that with their rabbits. I don't know that I would do it, though. The rabbits would be existing/living on top of chicken feces at all times(furry feet and soft foot pads do not do well in sticky manure and their noses would be so close to the ammonia of the combined urine of two species) and the two species aren't really similar in their living/eating/moving habits so I don't know for sure if it would be sustainable.