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

[Justahannah]

Quote: My cats are indoor/outdoor so the majority of the poopin' happens outside, but if they're inside by the time I'm locking up the chickens, I make them stay in all night. Dark cats on dark roads turn into dead cats pretty quick around here (my cats are pretty street savvy (at least, not dead yet), but I don't trust people not to aim for them either), so I figure a nighttime box is a small concession to make so they don't yowl at the door all night if they have to go.

 

[bruceha2000]

LOL I remember the first time I heard peafowl sounding off - and being shocked that that sound came out of that beautiful bird!

We had 2 pair at college. They went wherever and whenever. The boys would fly up to the top of the dorms (3 stories) and scream their heads off during mating season. I would not be surprised if you could hear them 3 miles away. I bet they make good aerial predator guards. Beautiful as the peacocks are, if I were to get peafowl, they would be hens. Now what is the conversion factor for a peafowl egg vs a large chicken egg? I suspect a one egg omelette would feed a couple of people

Bruce

 

[bruceha2000]

...which got my noodle to twitching and I realized that bottle rockets will do the trick. It would be a miracle if they hit your flying predator but that's not the purpose. It's keeps them moving on to a safer place to hunt. .... I guess roman candles would do the same thing but they are pretty dangerous. Bottle rockets are fairly harmless when used in a bottle and from a proper distance. Obviously use your common sense and make sure your chickens and or turkey's ducks or what have you are far away encase of a side shooter (which tends to happen if the stick is cracked or broken FYI...

Hopefully they don't misfire and land in dry brush.

 

[Gargoyle]

Time, money and effort that could have been used on something entirely relevant to easing the suffering of humans...spent on dressing up and hugging chickens. Yay. Shoot me now.

The thing is, something needs to be used to develop and test the technology, and he chose chickens. That's unusual. Much of the development of things on the internet was first done, not with hugging chickens, but with what has euphemistically been called "choking the chicken"... i.e. porn. Seriously. Much of the early development of video streaming, interactive technologies, graphics bandwidth and micro payment money transfer wash pushed forward by developers working in the porn industry, because thats where the early money and volume traffic could be found. Those developments then went mainstream and are used for lots of good and beneficial things, (easing the suffering of humans) along with lots of commercial, entertainment, marketing, and nonsense usages. I for one am glad that this time around a researcher is doing this haptic sensory internet research with chickens instead of, well...

 

[Justahannah]

just for fun

Too funny!

 

[Beekissed]

Point taken..it could have been a study that humiliated women instead of chickens. As for the porn "studies"? I'm sure it was all done out of pure altruism.

 

[Gargoyle]

I saw that would love to see a pic of Naugas most be an ancient breed of something.

I cull the Naugas

I found this out to when I had a leak and kept finding mice floating in the mop bucket full of water. I thought my cats were trying to wash the mice after they caught them

I love the tomcat traps; I've caught 8 or 9 mice in the run the past week. Keep the traps under an upside down metal milk crate, so the chooks can't stick their beak in it.

Quote:
Slow day? I was out all day and I'm 12 pages behind.

 

[Beekissed]

That IS a slow day on this thread....

 

[Mountain Momma]

I'm not sure these numbers apply to UPC codes, anyone know? PLU codes are the numbers on the stickers on fruits and vegetables.

There was better information on the web three months ago. When the California bill 37 started to catch fire nationwide there was a compaign of de information that flooded the search engines. Now everything about GMO has been dumbed down and muddied and the facts are much harder to decipher and funnel through. Three months ago the main sites I was cruising around said the 8 was at the end. Then some sights started saying the beginning and then bam most internet sources disappeared. So I consider both the fronty8 or the end 8 or if the UPC is broken up and there is an 8 at any of the beginnings or ends of the sections I wont buy it. We initially went to the websites of the brands we use the most. DH would call me from the store for weeks and I would hurridly look up something and we weeded a lot out of our diet. For me and to my thinking 8 means GMO to so many different levels of the food process that they havent been able to change that yet, however they can reinvent UPC codes fairly easily and move the 8 around. As for fruit the 5 digit with an 8(beginning or end for me) or the regular 4 digit number is how you can tell. Veggies are tougher because they are usually marked on the shelf and not the product and those shelf tags may not be current to the stock. I agree buy local as much as you can. Meet your farmers. Grow your own. But for those of us with gravel for dirt....There is a war going on with the food we eat and not enough people even know about it. There are billions being spent to keep us in the dark. Other Countries like India and Germany have had public upheavals over it. Americans just dont think a company could take over so completely with all the government agencies we have. My uncles fought in Korea and VietNam. Monsanto is the company that developed Roundup, back then it was used to kill the jungles. Neither of my uncles was ever able to have children. Roundup is that same chemical which was made illegal in the us. They changed the name and they ship it everywhere in the world. Once a field has been sprayed with Roundup nothing that is not GMO or "Round up ready" can grow there successfully for 30 to 100 years. See starvation in the window? Not only that but neighboring farms get the seeds and round up on their fields from wind and water and then Monsanto sues them for using patented organics illegally. ( And if the neighbor is an organic grower he cannot legally label his produce organic). Puts them farmers out of business and then buys their farm for pennies on the dollar. There is a case that the supreme court just took on against the advice of the Obama admin. Soy bean farmer suing monsanto. The farmers is an old guy with an oldfashioned name i cant remember but he is using everything he has to fight this. Anyway, I still wonder about third generation chickens and GMO feed. A big plug for free ranging if you can do it.
I actually have an old box of oats and a new box of oats from the same company and the new box is GMO.
This website is liked on my FB and I get updates and emails fairly consistently about what is going on. Everyone is waiting on the election to see what happens in CA. With the 5th (at one point) largest economy in the world whatever happens in CA will spread accross the Country.
Millions Against Monsanto by OrganicConsumers.org shared California Right To Know's photo. Good luck feeding your family and your chickens.
Whew, got the chicken thread back on chickens.
L

 

[Mountain Momma]

On the subject of fodder (or sprouting grains, as that seems to be a more accurate description) - I was reading up on it yesterday in this thread:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/713334/growing-fodder-for-chickens
I'm considering it, after learning that a major benefit seems to be turning 1# of seed into 6-1/2# of "fodder," in a matter of 6-8 days. These "systems" seem to be set up so that you start new seed daily, and therefore harvest your whatever-you-wanna-call-it daily as well. The chickens will eat the sprout, root, and seed, so nothing goes to waste. Seems people are using a lot of barley and wheat, throwing in some BOSS, and some people have luck with oats, although I read complaints of mold as well. It seems easy enough, just a new swish of water every day... And, my horses could also eat it.
I think my husband thinks I'm losing it... Between the Feed I have fermenting away in the tack room and now sprouting grains to feed my livestock, I spend more time "cooking" for my animals than I do for him

Well yeah. The appreciative pets get the goods!