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

[Beekissed]

Hey, I have another question.

I have a nearly full jar of Avia Charge 2000 (a gift to me). Now that I have the girls on FF, they don't drink NEAR the water that they used to drink and I am constantly throwing out treated water to give them fresh - it is a waste! Do you think it would be ok to sprinkle a little on their feed each day or so when I scoop it up instead of putting it in the waterer?

Thanks!

I'd save something like that for winter feeding when they are in molt recovery or to give to chicks, etc. I must confess I had to look it up...never had heard of it or used such a thing. It shouldn't hurt to sprinkle it on feed instead of placing in the water, I imagine.

The thing with mineral replacement concoctions is that, in a healthy flock with a healthy diet, most of the minerals given will just be excreted in the urine as the body can only utilize so much of these minerals and vitamins...they are not stored for later use. They are either needed and used right then during the metabolic process or they are excreted. This is why so many mineral replacement mixes for livestock are offered free choice instead of placed in the feed....when the animal needs these minerals they partake, when they do not, they leave them alone.

This is one reason I just use mother vinegar in the water. It's cheap, it doesn't have concentrated minerals and vitamins but it does have enough to make it worthwhile, and it has enzymes that improve bowel flora health. It makes the eggs have a clean, nutty flavor while reducing the strong sulfur taste and smell. And did I mention that it is cheap?

 

[Beekissed]

Quote:
I have had this happen now and again down through the years. Go in the coop and find a hen lying under the roosts, dead as a doornail, when the day before no one was showing symptoms of ill health. A few times they had purple combs and, upon internal examination, I found signs of hemorrhaging in the muscles of the heart. A few times I could see nothing abnormal at all in the outward appearance..just a dead hen.

If I had this happen many times in a short time span, I might have gotten a little nervous and be looking for management problems on my part. As it happens so seldom over time and there is no evidence of what could have caused it, I don't give it a second's thought. When the rest of the flock have obvious health and vigor and are producing and living well, it seems to just be one of those things you cannot help or explain.

Funny thing is, I've never found a rooster dead. Not once. Maybe the constant production of layers causes more strain on organs or roosters just have less things that can go wrong...don't know.

The upshot of it is this....if there are no obvious symptoms or even if there is and it's something that is unavoidable, I don't sweat it. If it were happening quite a bit, I'd be looking at environmental or management problems and be doing a little more study on it.

I know that many people here only have 3-5 chickens and when they lose one it's more momentous, but it's still the same....chickens die sometimes and most often we never know the reason why. This is why they don't make such good pet material...not often you find a dog dead one morning, with no explanation, when he was healthy the day before.

 

[donrae]

I have had this happen now and again down through the years. Go in the coop and find a hen lying under the roosts, dead as a doornail, when the day before no one was showing symptoms of ill health. A few times they had purple combs and, upon internal examination, I found signs of hemorrhaging in the muscles of the heart. A few times I could see nothing abnormal at all in the outward appearance..just a dead hen.

If I had this happen many times in a short time span, I might have gotten a little nervous and be looking for management problems on my part. As it happens so seldom over time and there is no evidence of what could have caused it, I don't give it a second's thought. When the rest of the flock have obvious health and vigor and are producing and living well, it seems to just be one of those things you cannot help or explain.

Funny thing is, I've never found a rooster dead. Not once. Maybe the constant production of layers causes more strain on organs or roosters just have less things that can go wrong...don't know.

The upshot of it is this....if there are no obvious symptoms or even if there is and it's something that is unavoidable, I don't sweat it. If it were happening quite a bit, I'd be looking at environmental or management problems and be doing a little more study on it.

I know that many people here only have 3-5 chickens and when they lose one it's more momentous, but it's still the same....chickens die sometimes and most often we never know the reason why. This is why they don't make such good pet material...not often you find a dog dead one morning, with no explanation, when he was healthy the day before.

I had to think about that, I think I did lose one rooster to Sudden Chicken Death Syndrome, but you're right, overall it's hens. And for me it's usually birds over a year old, but not necessarily "old age" old. Huh.

 

[Maven]

I'd save something like that for winter feeding when they are in molt recovery or to give to chicks, etc. I must confess I had to look it up...never had heard of it or used such a thing. It shouldn't hurt to sprinkle it on feed instead of placing in the water, I imagine.

Oh, good idea! Thanks!

Yeah, I prefer using just the ACV as well, but someone was kind enough to gift me with this as a 'chicken coop warming' present and I figured I better use it a bit so I could tell them I had.

The chickens do seem to like it.

I'll tell them I've used it but now that the really hot part of summer is over I'm saving the rest for the heart of winter. Thanks!

 

[Beekissed]

I had to think about that, I think I did lose one rooster to Sudden Chicken Death Syndrome, but you're right, overall it's hens. And for me it's usually birds over a year old, but not necessarily "old age" old. Huh.

Same here..usually mine are chickens in the prime of life, only over a year old.

 

[mississippifarmboy]

Bee, I do find a chicken that has died every now and then. It happens. Even a rooster or cockerel or two over the years. With several hundred birds on the farm, if it's just an odd bird every now and then I don't worry much about it.
I do check the other birds, see if I see anything is wrong with the others that I can see. Maybe watch them a little closer for a few days, but so far I've never had anything I could see wrong.
If I had several die close together I'd be more worried and try and find out why.

As far seeing a bird sick in the flock?
I don't wait for it to die... I help it along.

 

[Beekissed]

I would too, if I found one that looked hunkered down and ill looking. I've never had that, but it's what I would do. No sense in letting an animal suffer, in the first place. In the second, a bird that is sick once may be prone to get sick again, which indicates a poor constitution, to me, and isn't worth milking along to see how it turns out. If she's sick, I don't want to eat her eggs, nor would I sell them....but finding out which egg is hers is a dilly in a larger flock. Who wants to eat that egg? Not me.

 

[Fred's Hens]

We had a dozen cockerels die a couple week's back. The boys found that they had passed. Of course, they found them, one by one, on the chopping block.

Sure. Have enough birds for long enough time? You'll find the occasional stiff bird, beak down in the straw. It happens. Grab a shovel and go find a small, planted tree that can use the nutrients. Say to yourself, "Dang, she was a good one, too." That's about the extent of the investigation. Knock on wood. Never really had anything "sweep" through the flock, so I'm not conditioned to expect anything that happens as anything more than just a random, unexplainable death.

 

[bobbi-j]

Get a cat, feed the bunnies to the cat. Takes care of the large amount of rabbits in the area and will cut down on dogs bringing them to you for nursing.

I tried that once. The dog brought me two baby bunnies and I had no idea what to do with them, so I put them in the shed with the mama cat who had a litter of 2-week old kittens. I figured she'd need the food. I went out there the next day, to find her nursing the bunnies right along with her kittens! That lasted a couple of weeks until the tomcat showed up again. The bunnies were gone shortly after that.

 

[Erin~TheChickenLover]

I got the wasp nest sprayed. Thanks for the advice on how to handle the wasps everyone. Do any of you old timers raise meal worms or such for your chickens? I just got an order of 1000 meal worms in today and have them situated in a tank. I'm hoping to raise the meal worms to feed to the chickens and to sale.