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

[thedragonlady]

People don't know that there is something else out there. They go online and no one I know advertises there, so they buy what they see....which on occasion is a picture from my website that a hatchery has ripped off and is using as an example of their birds.. IMO someone should continue these heritage breeds. Some are in dire need of resurrection, but most folks want to make some crazy hybrid that has already ween done a million times. What I really enjoy is breeding, watching the birds develop and then enjoy the finished product. Becasue I am competitive, I also like to show the birds to take care of that part of me. I really enjoy the people I have met through the years and the knowledge I have gained from these people. When I show I can also see what direction I am going ..forward or backward. Since I am a judge you would think I should know by looking, but at least for me I have a harder time judging my birds. Sometimes I have what is called barn blindness. all my birds look great!! lol Well they do until about two days before a show and after I start picking them apart they look like hatchery birds to me....well not quite, but I can really tear a bird apart in my mind. Once they are cooped in they start to look good again, because then I am tearing all the other birds apart in my mind. ahaha

I think it would be great if more people raised and preserved the heritage gene pool . They do that with seeds as well.

Walt

You hit it here Walt. Is there a better feeling than getting to a show, and suddenly feeling really good about your birds? This is, as you said, AFTER you have picked your birds apart in the days preceeding the show. It's always an education to go and see birds of your breed.Sometimes you're up, and sometimes you come home down, but you learn.

 

[fowlman01]

You hit it here Walt. Is there a better feeling than getting to a show, and suddenly feeling really good about your birds? This is, as you said, AFTER you have picked your birds apart in the days preceeding the show. It's always an education to go and see birds of your breed.Sometimes you're up, and sometimes you come home down, but you learn.

After I put them in I'm partying. I don't watch the judging. It is a good place to make my own evaluation of how my birds look compared to the rest of the people in that breed. The judges marks mean a little, but I want to know where my birds rank amongst my peers and I'm supposed to be a judge....so I make my own evals

.. I'm sure this has happened to you too. I have won big things with birds I would not have placed that high.....and I have lost lesser birds as well. It pretty much evens out. I take the W. I have friends that I only see during the show season, so it is always a good time.

Walt

 

[thedragonlady]

After I put them in I'm partying. I don't watch the judging. It is a good place to make my own evaluation of how my birds look compared to the rest of the people in that breed. The judges marks mean a little, but I want to know where my birds rank amongst my peers and I'm supposed to be a judge....so I make my own evals

.. I'm sure this has happened to you too. I have won big things with birds I would not have placed that high.....and I have lost lesser birds as well. It pretty much evens out. I take the W. I have friends that I only see during the show season, so it is always a good time.

Walt

That is just what I was talking about. BEFORE the judging, you know. The rest is good times with good friends.The awards take second place.

 

[armorfirelady]

Just a quick couple questions for the OTC's......

I live in an rear that tends to get a lot of snow. The temps normally don't go below the 20's but they can. I read on another thread about people covering their coops for the rain & snow. I want my chickens to be able to survive the winter on their own with a solid coop but no special extras like a heat lamp,etc. I mean they didn't have that on Little house on the praire lol

Do you recommend putting a tarp on the roof of the run during rainy/snowy weather to keep the run somewhat protected? They are able to get in the small run under their house that has a roof over it already.

Here is a pic of my set up:

The lattice work you see is their run which is 4wx8L

My 2nd question is my largest hen the last few days when out of their run foraging tends to puff up her feathers & chase the 2nd largest hen around for a short distance. I have even seen her do it in the run on occasion. She pecks at her but doesn't actually touch her. Its not a constant ongoing thing. Just once in awhile every day. I am guessing they are figuring out their *pecking* order in the house? Since she hasn't hurt the other hen I just tend to watch them. She leaves the 2 smaller hens alone as does the other big hen. They are 15 weeks old.

 

[Mrs. K]

On roosters, spurs and barebacks!

First of all, it does not seem to bother my hens. They stick right next to him, and I have not lost a hen due to a day time predator since he turned a year old. Before that, when I free ranged which was often, I lost hens. But the yearling hens look tough. I have left the spurs and him alone, because while it looks rather rough, the hens do not seem to notice.

The spurs are about 1 3/4 inch to 2 inches.

My question is two fold, should I take them off, if I take them off will that allow the backs to heal up. And will it decrease his effectiveness with the predators. I would rather have barebacked LIVE hens, than fully feathered dead ones.

Interestingly enough, my older hens' backs were not bothered, just the yearling girls. He is coming on two years old, and does not seem to overmate them, but several look rough.

Mrs K

 

[Fred's Hens]

Just a quick couple questions for the OTC's......

I live in an rear that tends to get a lot of snow. The temps normally don't go below the 20's but they can. I read on another thread about people covering their coops for the rain & snow. I want my chickens to be able to survive the winter on their own with a solid coop but no special extras like a heat lamp,etc. I mean they didn't have that on Little house on the praire lol

Do you recommend putting a tarp on the roof of the run during rainy/snowy weather to keep the run somewhat protected? They are able to get in the small run under their house that has a roof over it already.

Here is a pic of my set up:

The lattice work you see is their run which is 4wx8L

My 2nd question is my largest hen the last few days when out of their run foraging tends to puff up her feathers & chase the 2nd largest hen around for a short distance. I have even seen her do it in the run on occasion. She pecks at her but doesn't actually touch her. Its not a constant ongoing thing. Just once in awhile every day. I am guessing they are figuring out their *pecking* order in the house? Since she hasn't hurt the other hen I just tend to watch them. She leaves the 2 smaller hens alone as does the other big hen. They are 15 weeks old.

Well, let me be tactful and at the same time forthright. How's that for a tight rope act? LOL

Are your hens large fowl? Are we to assume you've not kept birds through a NY winter yet? You are in the snowiest place on earth!!! Just south of Buffalo. LOL Well, I know that there are different "snow belts" in that region, but still. I live in an awful cold valley. We're colder than most of the Upper Peninsular, on statistical averages. We get 100" of snow, on average, but still, you get more, I'll bet. Here's a photo of just a normal, winter day on our barn. Don't know the temps that day, but I'd guess around ZeroF.




Now try to imagine a 4 foot drift virtually covering your little coop, with a nice 8 day streak of single digit weather rolling in behind it. How are the birds going to cope being stuck for days and days in the coop? I find myself asking these questions. I sincerely hope you hear my questions are genuine concern and not some kind of put down.

 

[al6517]

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LOL yeah Walt after I coop in on Friday I go looking for the watering holes the show guy's go to, that way we still get to talk birds and have a few belt's to boot.

 

[al6517]

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How true............ most of us know more or less where are birds will be placed but that's not the part we enjoy the most. We enjoy seeing our friends we haven't seen all year and talk birds and such, now that is the real fun. I bet I may walk 10 miles in that dang show barn looking at birds and walking from area to area with our friends looking and talking shop, then it's a good lunch where the conversation is none other than birds LOL. You can learn more at one show than you can reading the BYC for 5 years heheheheee.

 

[kcfuerst]

I am in south central fla surronded by citrus. gave my 5 old, mean rir's to friends mother. she is old time florida cracker farmer and first thing when i brought the hens over she picked a few oranges, sliced them and threw them in the coop with them........

I'm interested to know how to grow crackers. I haven't tried that one yet.

 

[al6517]

I told this guy one time that I grew chickens.......... he said how do you grow chickens.............. I said the key was to plant them in the ground head first.