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

[Kansas Prairie]

Bee, Your picture is AWESOME, thank you for sharing! Please tell your Momma Thank you!!

 

[HiddenChicken]

OT 102...prerequiset:  read all of  OT101  It would be nice to have the thread to continue to lurk on and actually learn something. Starting a chapter 2 would start out fresh again, but someone for sure is going to start asking the same stuff that's in 101.

Bee... I like the sticky idea. Would be great to have it somewhere where it's highly visible & easy to find, like a sticky is, for people who like to just research their answers w/out posting (lots of lurkers out there). And then, you could also do the OT 102 for people who have current problems they'd rather ask about... All, of course w/ the same "take it or leave it, but NO back talk" type of format.

What say you? :/

 

[fowlman01]

This is a reason to keep this going. This was posted in a poultry thread on facebook.

My 3 yrs old hen has laid no shells or totally deformed soft shelled eggs for months now. She's been to the vet many, many times to the point that I give her calcium injections at home when she's feeling depleted. I've tried all the tricks for increasing her calcium too - but ultimately she just has bad parts. So...the next step is to implant a hormone to try to stop her from laying period. Anyone have any experience with this?

Walt

 

[Kansas Prairie]

YIKES!!

Hormone implants? YIKES!!

I think we need an OT thread because we have to many clueless city folks keeping chickens. I still think when city folks or mini farm newbies get involved they'll pass some sort of crazy laws that sticks it's nose in our coop's business, some sort of regulations that are not necessary! We need a thread backed up with experience and that can talk some common sense to the newbies.

 

[fowlman01]

YIKES!!!

That's what is out there on the net.

w.

 

[Pullet Surprise]

This is a reason to keep this going. This was posted in a poultry thread on facebook.

My 3 yrs old hen has laid no shells or totally deformed soft shelled eggs for months now. She's been to the vet many, many times to the point that I give her calcium injections at home when she's feeling depleted. I've tried all the tricks for increasing her calcium too - but ultimately she just has bad parts. So...the next step is to implant a hormone to try to stop her from laying period. Anyone have any experience with this?

Walt

No, just no....it's wrong, just wrong with all that is going on in the world and this is even considered???

 

[Mskayladog]

If this thread is closed, please make it a sticky. I use this thread to convince/change hubbys ideas about the chickens. I have finally convinced him we can kill the chickens and eat them instead of spending money on non layers. That next year we need to buy from a breeder instead of a hatchery to get a healthier stock. I search this thread when I have questions....though I find the search engine at BYC very confusing and not user friendly. Yesterday I searched trough feeder and some of the results were so far off.

 

[Mountain Momma]

As for this thread...I sympathize, I really do. I understand what it's like to need to know the information but having that sneaking feeling that no one out there actually really knows the information but are just quoting something they read somewhere. In this world it's very difficult to find someone who actually has tried the information, applied it for years, tweaked it down to a science but are still tweaking daily and are willing to impart that level of tweakage to a wet behind the ears youngster. It's frustrating and feels like you will never get what you need.

But, this thread has become too unwieldy to use, as the OTs first predicted, and the information is getting repetitive and hard to monitor, then newbies come in to try to answer the questions for newbies and it all dissolves into the ridiculous. Blind leading the blind and how do you get all that back on the right path? I'll tell you how, because I've had to do it numerous times on this thread and it always turns out the same way...someone gets their nose out of joint or their toes stepped on and we have to have the same discussion~go back and read the first page, blah, blah, blah.

We are a little bored and a little jaded and I hope you all can sympathize with us a little on that one. It's like trying to teach a 21 year old about life...they know better than you, don't ya know, and you might THINK you know enough to advise us but we really know more than you because that old hen you told us to cull actually survived the extensive soaking and prodding to dislodge that egg and is hale and hardy in my yard as we speak so what about THAT, you ignorant old fart? That's the tone I detect now and, at that point, as with my own children, I throw up my hands and say, "You think you know it all? Have at it, son...learn the hard way." And you know? They DO. They need their own experience and hard knocks to get through their thick heads and grow up with their own knowledge. My sons now call me and ask for my advice...and now they actually TAKE the advice now and again. Big difference when they get out there and get knocked around and wake up one day realizing that Mom just might have a thing or two stored upstairs of use.

Sometimes the very best way to teach someone is to sit back and watch them fall because they refused the helping hand you had offered. The next time you offer, bet you they just might use it...who knows? Maybe not. It is a learning process but some of that learning, quite obviously, cannot be transferred and must actually be acquired knowledge from their own attempts to succeed. Maybe losing a few chickens, a butt load of money, or a loss of pride will soften the thick heads enough that some knowledge will creep in and make a home, who knows?

If the administrator is in agreement, and if enough people request it he just may be, this thread could become a "sticky" so that it won't get lost in the shuffle and newbies will still be able to find it and access it. Indexing such a huge amount of information is nigh impossible and would take so very long that one would need to get a paycheck at it to stay motivated.

That person just ain't me. I'm motivated by an eagerness to learn and accept a free gift and I see a serious lack of that on BYC as a whole, though a few are receptive and eager, the majority are "21 yr. old" newbies who know it all and must learn the hard way...and that's the best learned lessons in life anyway. Good for 'em and will sink in and last them longer than hand me down wisdom~that's how I got mine!

I learned from the OTs and made my own mistakes...but one thing I didn't ever do was look at Grandma and tell her that she doesn't know squat and that the lady down the street with 3 chickens knows more.

Al is working on figuring out a way to still help folks and I encourage any other OTs to pitch in and help but something needs to be done....I just don't know what. I'm fresh out of ideas of how to make this thread useful anymore. Maybe we could start an OT the Second Chapter for the more advanced chicken keepers that aren't newbies any longer but still need guidance along the way...I just don't know.

Okay, well its not that easy to step on my toes. I never intended to seem like I was arguing with anyone and I sincerely mean that. I am learning from you guys and from my chickens and from other sites. Whether you like it or not the chickener world is different now than it was 50 years ago. The culture is different. Read some of the great threads from today closely. There were 35 great super great perspectives. Many of them comments on how unpopular culling is within our communities. Read between the lines here Bee. It is not about being right or wrong or smart or dumb or God help us wasteful. Its about the modern mentality and the culture that has seperated the last few generations. Maybe my communication skills are weak and my point gets missed. I certainly feel like I am not the most logical person but I took these chickens on and when I did something that made them get egg bound I felt responsible. There was nothing about over feeding anywhere on the web. We spent too much time and energy on my friends chicken but we felt responsible because we know so little and we still took them on. It didnt cost money, only time and we were inclined and that is what you are going to get with people raised with grocery stores and PETA. I may or may not ever do it again, but at least I know what it feels like to bathe a crusty hen and have her still die and still live and I have a little grip on the odds as well and whether I do it again or not lots of other people will do it and for some of the same reasons. You are offering a sound alternative to the inner thinking of modern chickeners that is mildly discomfitting because of society. That is tremendous. You are making a path down a peice of history at a time when it is most relevant. How can you think its not going to be frustrating at times and boring and at odds with the things you know in your core? As for my posts last night I apologize. I went out with my gorlfriends and I should have just gone to bed. If you want to give me the boot then tell me. Otherwise I won't get the message. I am thick headed just like every other Gentry in my family.

 

[Loghousemom]

Kansas prairie... Thank you for your kind words. I think being a mom is pretty special. Living out here in nowhere land is another gift for them. Teaching these girls that as women we can manage on our own, use tools, play in the dirt and grow things, take care and train animals, raise our own food is important lessons. I hope they remember them when they run off to city life when they are old enough. .

BK, Al, Fred, Walt. Your advice here has been stellar. I went to the beginning and read the whole thread. Took a few notes and wrote page numbers for the things I thought I might need one day. I am pretty sure I read every single post, but I do not remember one on how to de-feather a chicken after butchering.... Maybe I missed it. I will be sad to see this thread go by the wayside, however, I understand that most everything worth anything has a beginning and an end, so thank you for your honestly in all these posts.

All I can say is that I am thankful this thread was here. I spent lots of time attempting to get ahead before I brought the chicks home and some of the threads that are out there had me thinking it was not going to be worth the effort. I read so many threads about chick care and sick chicks and dying chickens and diapers, curtains and other frills that I thought for certain chicken keeping was not for me. I tried hard not to over think things because I figured if my grandparents were able to keep chickens here 70 years ago I should be able to do it too, but with no one to teach me, and my hubs only rememberance of chickens was from his summers in Mexico, I was certain my chicks were doomed.

Because of all of you, (Bruce, flock watcher and the rest of you included). I feel more confident with the choices I am making to keep my chickens. I cannot tell you how scared I was. I am still nervous of my lack of understanding and knowledge of things, but I am trying to let my chickens be chickens. (Kinda hard when the girls want to carry them around all day) And i understand that i do not have to feel bad for thinking that these beautiful birds will one day be dinner. pretty much everyone who knows i have chickens cannot believe I will eat them someday..... After all, I did want chickens to be a source of healthy food for our family. The eggs and poo for the gardens were just a bonus.

 

[chickachee]

My chicken set up is like a factory.....it is geared to keep a large amount of birds in the best physical condition they can be. Not all of my birds are on free range because I show some of them and they are white. White chickens don't stay white during the rain here. No curtains, murals or decorator artifacts. The pens are all painted a grape/wine color though cuz I wanted to get in touch with my feminine side like Al does. My wife gives me a hard time about the color, but it makes me feel pretty. I keep a small piano out with the birds so that they can expand their artistic abilities that will hopefully help in the show hall. Any chicken worth it's salt should be able to play a piano.

Walt

Stop it, you're killin' me.....