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

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Beekissed said:
Keep in mind there are a whole faction of folks on this forum who actually expect to lose birds to predators and old age, regardless of how brutal a death that really is. They think that is the natural conclusion to a natural life of a retired laying hen. I've talked to people who cannot bear to kill a chicken but will say, "Well, I'm just letting nature take care of them and eventually they will all be gone without me having to actually kill them myself."

Yeah...sounds like a great plan for humane retirement for old hens.
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One recent quote stated that they heard it was "expected" to lose 10 chickens a year to attrition caused by illness or predation. What in the world???? Who comes up with these things???? And like there isn't a thing that can be done about it because it's going to happen anyway and that we should all just "expect" it! Who is telling these newbies this hooey?
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Not me, since I started keeping chickens I have lost quite a few to preds, they just didn't come home after a day of foraging, mine go out in the woods up the mountain and down below to the river so they face danger everyday, I know it's something that can happen but still choose to let my flock have the freedom they love. We had to put down several hens because of illness. water belly for one, never pleasant but something we have to do, but I cannot stand to hear any animal in distress. If I lost 10 chickens in one year I'd be very tempted to give it all up.
 
bruceh said:
i figure it like this. chickens are a food source they have predators including humans. we eat them and the eggs they produce. believe it or not chickens are wild animals. humans have made chickens rely on us for food and shelter not so they have companionship. we as humans made chickens our companions. to believe that chickens need us is a big misconception. in nature chickens are smart animals. they learn how to avoid predators, find their own food , shelter and reproduce. those who don't are food. for other creatures. in nature there are no cages, which by the way is your coop , no incubators and no protection. chickens have been around forever with absolutely no intervention from mankind.

just my 2 cents
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well said Bruce. I agree completely
 
Beekissed said:
Side note: I don't advocate the shooting of migratory birds as a method of predator control. It's an illegal practice in most places and there are ways to protect the flocks from this threat that doesn't include blasting all the hawks and owls from the sky on sight. Even if I did, I would not discuss this on a public forum. As others have pointed out, it's just not a good idea....
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A chicken cost between $5-$10 and a federal fine is much more costly.
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If anyone wants to put a 70 year old grandma in jail for protecting a child, I say better to go to jail than to face my maker on judgment day and answer why I did not protect a child from danger! Living in a small town where common sense prevails has it's advantage. Also a couple years ago, a three county manhunt was necessary for some very large cats, a panther, a tiger and a lion that were let loose in the area, killing pets. No one believed it, thought it was a pack of dogs, until pictures started being sent into the police. They were taller than a 6 foot fence on their hind legs. In dangered or not, we were told shoot to kill as they were not afraid of people and no one wanted to wait until a child was killed. A child's safety is ALWAYS more important than ANY dang animal's. Some people would want to protect a dinosaur, if they still were alive. I have an understanding with all wild creatures, if they leave me alone, I leave them alone.
 
No one said not to kill an animal that attacks a child...that's a given. But to state you will kill any and all owls that you see is quite another matter. What you do on your place is certainly your business, but just not a good idea to put it all out on a public forum if it is illegal. That's just something that is pretty much frowned upon on BYC. I can see the sense in just keeping your business quiet and taking care of it at home.
 
Randomly throwing in my broody hatch update here:

3 chicks thriving, one will be 2 weeks old tomorrow, the other 2 will be a week old this weekend. Mama and chicks are still residing in a broody pen bc there were two more eggs, but she kicked those out yesterday. So outside they went yesterday evening for their first family forage. I watched as mom not only taught her chooks to dust bathe (the oldest one mimicked her, the younger ones watched), showed them how to scratch and peck in the dirt, and - the most exciting discovery of all for me - defended her new peeps from the curiosity of the rest of the flock!!! She growled at my roo when he came to check her out, allowed one curious hen to look at the peepers from a distance, but the second another got too close she immediately puffed herself up, and when the intruder didn't stop, she flapped and chest bumped with her a few times before the overly eager flock mate got the hint and ran off. I was SO happy to learn that, not only do I have a broody, I have a broody who will raise & protect her chicks :D Similar story during tonight's free ranging, except the rest of my flock left them completely alone. This weekend, I'll be moving them out to the big coop. I think I'll still use the dog cage method though... Unless y'all think they don't need it?

Started a batch of FF bc I was so curious and couldn't wait til spring, even if it is "wet in winter". My outer bucket is one of my 5gallon flat back heated buckets for the horses in the winter, and the inner bucket has holes. Yesterday was the first day (day 2) that it was bubbling :D. I think it smells good, and apparently, so do my chickens! They're loving it! I'm not heating it yet, but I'm planning to keep it plugged in over the winter to keep it fermenting and keep it a little warm for the chickens. We'll see -- I may be like Bee and stop for the winter if the chickens decide it's too cold on a cold winter's night.

Question for everyone: what kind of feeders do you use? I'm pretty sure this was covered earlier in the thread, and someone (Bee?) mentioned old rain gutters. We have some new voices now, so I thought I'd ask again to see what they're using. I'm currently using galvanized gravity fed feeders, but those clearly won't work with FF. I'd like something that the chicks can use too, although they're messy little twerps...

Thanks for "listening" to my chicken stories:)
-Nikki

ETA: playing catch up on the FF thread and just saw that Bee decided to continue w FF after all... Although that was 20 pages ago, so by now, you may have changed your mind again! Lol... So much to read, so little time.
 
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bruceh said:
believe it or not chickens are wild animals. humans have made chickens rely on us for food and shelter not so they have companionship. we as humans made chickens our companions. to believe that chickens need us is a big misconception. in nature chickens are smart animals. they learn how to avoid predators, find their own food , shelter and reproduce. those who don't are food.
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Originally that was the case. Hundreds of years of careful systematic breeding and "genetic engineering", probably preceded by a few thousand years of haphazard breeding and cultivation, has created a very different creature from it's wild animal ancestor. Very few contemporary breeds could survive very well, let alone thrive, without human protection. Perhaps they could relearn those skills in a few generations, but those first few generations would have a very rough time with a very high casualty rate.
 
It's worth the effort, if wanting to free range, to cultivate that survival instinct in the flock. Sometimes nature helps you out with that natural selection. When having or adding chicks to an already seasoned and wary flock, you can train a new generation in survival skills as well. I've never lost a bird to a hawk and have free ranged pretty much all the time for many years. Lost one pullet to an owl because she was roosting out of the coop and up in the hay stacks. Nature took care of that lack of survival skills.

This spring I'm going to work on developing the flock to depend almost entirely on foraged feeds and will be culling the birds that do not thrive or lay well on that diet. I'm also going to encourage broodies to brood their chicks outside, in the brush piles that are on the edge of the meadow but still in protection of the dog. I want hens that can go off, make babies, bring back a good hatch full of equally wary chicks.
 
Gargoyle said:
Originally that was the case. Hundreds of years of careful systematic breeding and "genetic engineering", probably preceded by a few thousand years of haphazard breeding and cultivation, has created a very different creature from it's wild animal ancestor. Very few contemporary breeds could survive very well, let alone thrive, without human protection. Perhaps they could relearn those skills in a few generations, but those first few generations would have a very rough time with a very high casualty rate.
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it takes less time than you would think. Yes you will lose birds. Natural selection, Darwinism...what ever you prefer. Some of my birds live in tree's. Not my choice, theirs. Sumatra's. Very ferrel Sumatra's. I still have some of the original flock I got 3 years ago. They were adults when I got them. They get pretty creative with where they roost, where they brood etc. At least the survivors do. They also know I feed them. BUT trust me, I don't need to. They know how to survive on their own. But like humans, they like a hand out
 
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