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

[delisha]

Might want to read a little of this link about beagle training.

I would never get a beagle personally, however they are so cute. I have a few friends with Beagles. Very cute loving dogs. They have so much fun with my dog at the dog park. You need to understand Beagles, I know I do not. They are not like other dogs, and do not take to normal training. Both my friends have problems with housebreaking and chewed furniture. They train the usual way, and not the Beagle way.

The experts say the breed of the dog is the foundation of its purpose. A beagle is bred to hunt and kill, not to protect.


http://www.beaglesavvy.com/1/beagle-savvy.php?gclid=CL66kfubzLMCFcxAMgodNWYA0Q

 

[delisha]

Please post the pictures..I love to learn new things.

 

[smyers32]

Please correct me if I'm wrong on any of these...
Most of her ovary, some of it stayed attached inside. And that yolk sac at the top came out seperate and I think before I cut the ovary out, so it may have been on it's way down the chute to further development?


This was one of the first things to come out and I have no idea what it is. It was in a thin visceral sack and it is the consistency of over cooked scrambled egg, with a few little crunchy bits in it. It was near the vent...any ideas?



Liver over crop. I'm assuming a little layer of fat (yellow stuff) surrounding the crop.



And the crop flipped over, this was before I cut it open. I guess I don't have a picture of it opened. Is that the heart in the middle?

 

[just me]

Might want to read a little of this link about beagle training.

I would never get a beagle personally, however they are so cute. I have a few friends with Beagles. Very cute loving dogs. They have so much fun with my dog at the dog park. You need to understand Beagles, I know I do not. They are not like other dogs, and do not take to normal training. Both my friends have problems with housebreaking and chewed furniture. They train the usual way, and not the Beagle way.

The experts say the breed of the dog is the foundation of its purpose. A beagle is bred to hunt and kill, not to protect.


http://www.beaglesavvy.com/1/beagle-savvy.php?gclid=CL66kfubzLMCFcxAMgodNWYA0Q

Actually, the past couple are the only years we've gone without owning at least a pair of beagles. We don't keep them for house pets. They are for rabbit hunting. The rabbit population is booming here again, so DH and sons want to get back into it. I don't want the beagles to protect the chickens, I just don't want them to chase them when free ranging.

They are fairly easy to train for what we use them for....just stick a hide to their noses, "play" with them every day when they're young and devise ways for them to "chase" the hide without tearing it up....If they've got any kind of a nose, they'll be traking rabbits in no time!! I really love to hear them "sing" when they've got one on the run!!

 

[Beekissed]

Please correct me if I'm wrong on any of these...
Most of her ovary, some of it stayed attached inside. And that yolk sac at the top came out seperate and I think before I cut the ovary out, so it may have been on it's way down the chute to further development? It looks like she was not a steady layer...the ovary is underdeveloped and has very few developing ova.


This was one of the first things to come out and I have no idea what it is. It was in a thin visceral sack and it is the consistency of over cooked scrambled egg, with a few little crunchy bits in it. It was near the vent...any ideas? Yep...it was an abnormal egg production of some kind and could have caused egg peritonitis...this is from the Merck Vet site on the subject:

Quote:

Liver over crop. I'm assuming a little layer of fat (yellow stuff) surrounding the crop.



And the crop flipped over, this was before I cut it open. I guess I don't have a picture of it opened. Is that the heart in the middle? That is the spleen...the heart is a muscular organ that is V shaped with layers of fat at the top and surrounding the cardiac vessels. Here is a pic of internal organs.... with two hearts on the right hand side of the pic and a spleen in the middle below the livers in the pic.

I'm so glad and appreciative that you took the time to do this necropsy and I encourage other newbies to do this sort of exploratory investigation when you have unexplained and sudden deaths as well. You can learn so much by just looking. You may not know what you are looking at but there are many pics online that can help you compare what you are looking at with the other chicken anatomy and you can always ask here. Someone here has usually had experience with cutting up a chicken and can tell you what you are looking at.

Now you know why your bird died and you don't have to worry about the rest of your flock and the possibilities of contagion. Now, you need to think strongly about the breeds you keep, when to cull for egg laying efficacy and what to look for to prevent egg peritonitis in the future. That's the easy part!

It would be really cool to post this on the Road Less Traveled thread so that others could see one good reason to cull non or sporadic layers in the flock before troubles occur.

 

[just me]

I'm so glad and appreciative that you took the time to do this necropsy and I encourage other newbies to do this sort of exploratory investigation when you have unexplained and sudden deaths as well. You can learn so much by just looking. You may not know what you are looking at but there are many pics online that can help you compare what you are looking at with the other chicken anatomy and you can always ask here. Someone here has usually had experience with cutting up a chicken and can tell you what you are looking at.

Now you know why your bird died and you don't have to worry about the rest of your flock and the possibilities of contagion. Now, you need to think strongly about the breeds you keep, when to cull for egg laying efficacy and what to look for to prevent egg peritonitis in the future. That's the easy part!

It would be really cool to post this on the Road Less Traveled thread so that others could see one good reason to cull non or sporadic layers in the flock before troubles occur.

I really learned a lot from these pics and Bee's explaination....thanks to both you guys!!

 

[Beekissed]

I know they are graphic and many would prefer not to see chicken guts when they come to a thread to learn but here is a place where you can learn about chickens from the inside out. It's all pleasant to talk about feeds, housing, bedding and breeds...but the real nitty gritty of flock management comes down to culling to prevent problems in your flock. True management is just that...managing the flock instead of passively waiting for problems to arise and then trying to deal with them and correct them.

The best flock keepers are those that anticipate the problems before they arise and take steps to correct and prevent these problems.

 

[just me]

I like the graphic pics.

One question....when I culled this past fall (for space), I pretty much stuck my hand up near the vent and "pulled" thing out. I did it this way because I couldn't figure how else to do it. Is there an easier/better way to get the innards out?

When we had chicken killing day when I was younger, I was always busy plucking while mama and granny got the innards out....I never payed attention to that part of the process.

 

[Beekissed]

It's pretty much the only way...there is an open space of the abdomen wherein the gut contents are held and there is no bones to cut into to open this area, so slicing into the abdomen above the vent is pretty much the best way to eviscerate for processing for meat. When not processing for consumption and just wanting to view the guts, one can "field dress" a chicken, though it's harder to do if the bird is older, it can be done.

Here's a good video of quick processing~just a good ol' boy doing it like we do it out in the country...I'll see if I can find one on the field dressing:




And another good ol' boy showing us how it's done real quick and in a hurry with a prairie chicken:

 

[just me]

That's pretty much how I did it. Thanks for the vids....don't know why I didn't think to check out YouTube.

I had a "mishap" on one of them....I tore the intestine right near the vent. I cut around it good, but I guess I "pulled" too hard. I didn't sweat it, just pinched it off with one hand while raking the innards with the other. They culls were really young, will the intestine be "tougher" when they get older?