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

[al6517]

IDK gimme a few day's if possible and I should be able to wrangle a few fresh ideas and thoughts, some really out of the box as usual but worth a visit.

 

[Beekissed]

I trust you implicitly.

Throw down your best and we'll see if that dog will hunt.

 

[bruceh]

They sell the ends in the same place they sell the gutters...very cheap, all of it.

I just don't know, Al...any suggestions? I'm open to anything that isn't patently ridiculous, like how to make the diapers more form fitting and slimming.

How does one freshen up an old thread of old timers without just reflecting on old times and things?

i don't know but i am in .. breeding strategies could be a topic. new people always want to breed and need advisement but put into simple terms so they can breed properly.
most people have no knowledge of breeding other than here's a rooster and here;s a hen. not many people no of traits to be considered. i don;t think most people want s.o.p. however some want a good producing flock within their own flock. understanding most people have hatchery/ mutt chickens. if this was gone over my bad. my memory is shot.

the topic could be frame structure, egg laying ability. meat production., hardiness, feathering, behavior etc.

 

[Beekissed]

Yeah, that's been covered. Any other, more in depth breeding info goes in that section of the forum. The problem on this forum with trying to tell the average, hatchery sourced newbie chicken owner is that our go to advice to cull for the traits you want is soundly ignored and spiced with reasons of sentiment, blah, blah, blah.

When you have 95% of the new chicken flock owners calling their chickens "babies" and calling themselves "chicken mommy" there really is no point to even broaching the subject. That's where we just stop and listen to the wind whistling between their ears and walk away.

 

[bruceh]

i actually went back and started over reading the thread again. you are right a lot of people would not know or want to kill a bird. you know i killed a chick just because it did not look healthy. a lot of chicken owners may feel i should be sent to hell for it. after all i murdered one of g-ds creatures. i could not imagine someone becoming so close to a chicken they could not kill it. if times get any shorter on money i will be picking them things off 1 by 1.

 

[Mountain Momma]

omg could you imagine. i think you need to post this on the dairy of a cross beak thread. see how them people would respond.

al i just called an ambulance i laughing so hard i can't breath.

double funny. There is already a fund of plastic surgeons that will do the surgery for free so she wont have to be bullied in HS. Additionally they will correct other features at the same time. They might suggest a strong square chin for example.

 

[Mountain Momma]

Heck, no, Brucey...it's not a thing to do with all the joking...I love that! But we haven't had a good problem to address or real advice to dish for some time. Just repeating the old things over and over. Unless someone can come up with something new to figure out or needs an answer to something we haven't already addressed a thousand times, it means we've finished the job.

That's a good thing!

Means we can go to bed now. Nothing more to jaw about except how to help with constipation and vericose veins like all the other old timers.

I cry fowl!
Just this week I learned what Fermented food is and how to make a bucket!
And no one has even mentioned why 1 egg a day looks like sandpaper. You guys just blew through that comment and me, a poor inexperienced chickener, have a dozen of them in the fridge cause I'm embarassed to give them away and the kids think they are alien eggs and wont eat them.
No one has given any good advice about how to tell if a chicken is laying or not...you just quick eeny meeny miney mo CULL! So I figure you just go out to the coop with the stump right there and if a chicken isnt in the nest then wack! And that makes the whole 1 nester for 6 chicken ratio seem like an original recipe game of musical chairs!
Not one of you has mentioned, at least in the first 140 posts and the last 40 anything about removing feathers. and somebody said something about spray painting chicken butts when they lay but you need to use organic food color so the eggs dont get contaminated and I just thought it was a little early to start coloring the eggs.
Plus I think BeeKissis gonna write a book and she needs more funny quotes pluswinter isnt even here yet. All kinds of stuff might happen.
So just because there is a little comedic interlude doesnt mean you have tought everything we need to kn ow and I am certainly not ready to pick up a boiling bowl with my fore arms and get the imprint of a cockerel scarred onto my forearms. Have a heart. WE arent ready to fly yet!

 

[Beekissed]

I cry fowl!
Just this week I learned what Fermented food is and how to make a bucket!
And no one has even mentioned why 1 egg a day looks like sandpaper. You guys just blew through that comment and me, a poor inexperienced chickener, have a dozen of them in the fridge cause I'm embarassed to give them away and the kids think they are alien eggs and wont eat them.
No one has given any good advice about how to tell if a chicken is laying or not...you just quick eeny meeny miney mo CULL! So I figure you just go out to the coop with the stump right there and if a chicken isnt in the nest then wack! And that makes the whole 1 nester for 6 chicken ratio seem like an original recipe game of musical chairs!
Not one of you has mentioned, at least in the first 140 posts and the last 40 anything about removing feathers. and somebody said something about spray painting chicken butts when they lay but you need to use organic food color so the eggs dont get contaminated and I just thought it was a little early to start coloring the eggs.
Plus I think BeeKissis gonna write a book and she needs more funny quotes pluswinter isnt even here yet. All kinds of stuff might happen.
So just because there is a little comedic interlude doesnt mean you have tought everything we need to kn ow and I am certainly not ready to pick up a boiling bowl with my fore arms and get the imprint of a cockerel scarred onto my forearms. Have a heart. WE arent ready to fly yet!

Sorry...all that has been covered over and over. The alien eggs are fine for eating and you get those every now and again when laying is slowing down, ramping up, etc.

We have many comedic interludes on this thread...ya just gotta read it to find them is all. All that fat has already been chewed...twice...

 

[Mountain Momma]

Yeah, that's been covered. Any other, more in depth breeding info goes in that section of the forum. The problem on this forum with trying to tell the average, hatchery sourced newbie chicken owner is that our go to advice to cull for the traits you want is soundly ignored and spiced with reasons of sentiment, blah, blah, blah.

When you have 95% of the new chicken flock owners calling their chickens "babies" and calling themselves "chicken mommy" there really is no point to even broaching the subject. That's where we just stop and listen to the wind whistling between their ears and walk away.

Not soundly ignored. I led my whole family in the decision to eat our Goose months earlier than originally planned. My 6 year old helped and stuck with the project all evening. feathers, knives, hatchet. Port and white wine sauce. I asked my DH to do the deed under the porch so the neighbors would not see. (Its a different world out here). No tears, no sadness. Nina had seconds and a goose sandwich the next day. We didnt think it was as tasty as we thought it would be which is a whole other topic. What are the tastiest chickens? This bird used to fall asleep with its head on my daughters' shoulder. She didnt hesitate to eat him, of course the kids didnt like the sauce, but they ate that goose and Henry got the last bite. You may not be reaching a certain percentage of new chickeners but you are reaching their kids. And you are reaching some of the new chickeners and their friends who you might like better than them but arent gonna meet on this this site. . We do not command the respect in our communities that you do. Either because of your community or yuor knowledge or your years with a lifestyl you get a different attitude than we do.
I met a woman last night at the PTA. We were cleaning the popcorn maker after it was over -and talking. Her face went florid red when she told me she had chickens and she has 46 of them. She was embarrassed to talk about it.
A bear has eaten 4 and killed 3 others (of hers). Her husband has been sleeping on an air matttress by the door to catch the bear in the act and he gets from me to you (close conversational proximity) and the bear is like "what?" And he shot him point blank with rubber bullets which is what animal control told him to use and the bear ran hollering into the run and tore up the fence and the coop door etc. This guy tracked him for three hours "until he wasnt bleeding anymore" Now there was a roomful of kids and I couldnt hear but arent you interested in what is happening in the chickener communities. The friends who are like "chickens?"
We have no other solid resource. I just told two people this week about this particualar board. How great and how not PETA correct it is. It takes a little bit for people to admit to a person personally that they are going to eat their chickens. Heck I had to ask my neighbor, a vegitarian, if it was okay for her kid to have fertilized eggs.
What if some of the namby pambies are PETA plants ( conspiracy theory stuff) sent to frustrate you and keep the misdefined 'animals are more important than people code' alive? Arent you doing this for something bigger than yourself? Or am I over reacting and you are just bored tonight and you will be over it in the morning??? Incidently my DH did the goose in on the driveway. I have two retired neighbors who politely waited a week to talk to me about it. One said "I think it was strange that you killed that goose" and the other was like "really, you guys ate him?" What the heck. Where am I gonna turn when I do cull? Or just want a chicken to eat, as my husband says "in another 2 years you would have been happy to eat that chicken"
As for hybrid chickens...can they even have babies and do you know some studies are starting to show that animals, chickens, are sterile after the third generation eating GMO. There are topics. I didnt want to just land on your roost and fire off a bunch of questions. I was pacing myself. You want topics I'll give you topics. I'll even find topics you havent thought about but among those questions is an evolution of thinking. Society has been conditioning humans for a long time not to question their food and to dissociate it with where it comes from. You are one of the last strongholds for a part of the American culture that may be becoming increasingly important. Are you gonna say stop this post and let it die when you repeating yourself one more time might get the info to one person who will use it and really need to use it in a crisis? Well i guess if you have better things to do. Do you know how many people just read and never take the leap to engage?
Well anyway. At least you all are asleep and wont have to be subjected to my wordiness for another few hours. You guys have all been great and really helped me feel normalized when 95% of the people I know cannot believe I am doing the chicken thing and think it is strange and frindge and end of the world prepper ish. If I have questioned your reasons, your methods it is so I know what the reasons and methods are that got you there. I cannot tell my neighbor, who grew up on a farm by the way that we are going to eat all of the chickens eventually. The other neighbor takes pictures of them because he thinks they are beautiful. These two are in their 60's. I have helped them manually and all day dig their trucks out of the snow-each because the one helped the other and they were both stuck. Ive cut down dead trees in their yard and I have paid to have rock delivered and then hand stacked in the ditch so the road on their side of the street doesnt wash away. I am their good neighbor and they shake their heads because I killed and ate a goose. You want to send me and my fellows back into that world to find our way? Im trying to get through the old posts but honestly you are more fun live.

 

[MagicChicken]

Quote:
The main reason for keeping this thread alive is that new people are more likely to find it if it's active. They won't necessarily find it if it goes dormant. They will find plenty of unhelpful stuff in the "HELP!" threads, though. For the sake of their poor chickens, you might want to keep the thread going.