Inaction.
Mr Resolution, and I am not being a smart mouth, it's plain that you are more learned than I, specially when discussing chickens and proper diet.
I would not term it as inaction or uncaring. Year after year I ordered my chicks, by and large the postman delivered them right on time. Order 50 get 52, order 25 get 26, order 100 get 105, while in the brooder I sometimes lost 1 or 2, but never a mysterious illness that swept the brooder clean. Straight run was always close to 50/50. So year after year I continue to order. I get my chicks and they perform much as I expect.
I am not a rare breed keeper, I like the good old barred rock, rhode islands, white rocks, stuff like that.
What it boils down to, is I feel today that I got what I paid for. My opinion may differ from yours, and i realise now after reading some of your information, that their are illnesses that manifest themselves in ways an unknowing person would never notice.
This year, first time ever, I am hatching my own chicks. I purchased 30 RIR eggs, from a bloodline that in my opinion is superior. However the dilema I face is that the keeper of those RIRs will never win an award in animal husbandry. Believes and repeats all the old wives tales. If incubator temp is kept 101* to 101.5* you will hatch all male chicks, 99* to 100* female chicks. he couldn't answer the obvious question of why he has so many cockerals, but his barefooted self believed it. Hold a chick by the belly squeeze the poop out if it's yellow it's a hen, if it's black it's a cockeral. On and on, so what do you do, use the devil you know or the devil you don't know?
You know 29- I think that's about the most useful thing I've ever read on this forum- just straight up good common sense and a wry sense of humour. I think most people have had very good luck with the chicks they order and some of that has to do with what breed you are working with. Obviously the big production layers are bred to thrive. That's something I fail to register time and again because I don't often order chicks from hatcheries- just field questions from people who do. Just this last year was the first time I'd had any experience with hatchery stock in a few years. Every once in a while I'll buy something cool and unusual like Yokohama or Saipan. More often I'll purchase adult hens that have been used in breeding to stock our farms with for egg production. I'm not all that smart or even wise- just earnest about all things animal- some years its donkeys or zebroids, some years camels and yaks, some years swans and cranes- these last few years the animals that have proved most interesting - possibly because of the more dynamic and diverse community is backyard poultry.
My ulterior motive is to encourage the best poultiers to be come aviculturists and get into rearing quail, partridge, pheasants, peafowl and so on-rheas -Mandarin ducks...
That way, not only will there be fine heirloom lines like your devilish Rhode Island Reds healthy and well-represented around the community- but also rare pheasants like the Swinhoe's (Formosan Fiery Wing) Lophura, the Mountain Quail, the Red Breasted Brant- these are the three treasures I wish that ten percent of the best poultiers would end up becoming stewards of.
As for the hatchery issue- this is a new focus for me as I learn more about a new form of soy based protein just recently becoming a major staple in all poultry and gamebird feed.
If it's got to be used fine but the breeder stock must be supplemented with animal protein during these months before the first egg is hatched in order to not only boost their immune functions but also send along this vitality to their offspring who may very well be carriers of some fairly harmless malady- harmless until the hen is worn out and it surfaces.
These Wellsumer chicks that arrived were so healthy- not a single chick died- so active and vital- but they went to picking out feathers immediately the moment they came out of the box and they've never given up this practice -even when they are all much happier chowing on pumpkin guts or celery- they'll still pick up a feather and run around with it like its a grasshopper- chasing one another for the bloody feather. And then there were the Saipan and Yokohama and Barnesvelder chicks that just never thrived to begin with- had to manage the farmer into rearing them like pheasant chicks they were so delicate- so many mortalities. And other farms ordering chicks the last few years- straight run- 65% roosters at least-
every straight run breed- and then there's the issue of the slow growing broilers that showed up with avian leukosis- that was a poop on the fan moment for my long fused temper.
But for every problem there's a solution. If everyone that bought chicks this year called and or wrote their hatcheries and demanded that the breeding stock be fed animal protein -
or they will not buy chicks then those hatcheries will think twice about using the soy based feeds- soy that creates its own insecticide- no kidding- or at least cut down on it- because the profit margin is growing with chicks- pulling the soy or decreasing it actually saves them money- bone and meat meal are still commodities and they are often produced by local farmers in rural communities that have had their livestock processed at local USDA facilities. That biproduct isn't used in poultry feed that often anymore because of the mad cow scare- even though chickens can't catch or carry mad cow- and there's no mad cow epidemic in the USA. Pork is also used as is lamb. The hatcheries have their own feed mixed -they're not buying bags of pellets at the feed store - but they need to know now so that people don't end up with screwed up chicks
this year the first year we are being experimented on by a certain giant monopoly in GMO soy. This stuff has been around for a while but it's not been used so frequently and now it's the rule - all the major feed manufacturers and grain mills are using this new improved commodity if the profits of that company for this product are any indication. It's suddenly been accepted into the entire food chain and of course we just don't have any long-term data about plants that can either create their own pesticide/fungicide or thrive in soil that's been drenched in carcinogenic chemicals.
I'm not on a soap box against GMO crops - that's not my objective- my objective is to get every backyard chicken enthusiast that buys chicks from hatcheries to treat their breeding stock more ethically and produce superior stock from superior eggs that will not develop problems later in life that render them useless, immune deficient, or dead within just a very few years...