Does anyone else Free Range?

[3chickchicks]

Exactly. We do the same things and ours are easy to pick up and tote around and they don't get sick either. I am actually going to build a retirement coop this summer for our old girls!

Retirement coop? Will they have a senior center and a bingo hall?

 

[aslbow]

Sears mom, we have fox, raccoon, fisher cat, great horned owl, hawk, eagle, coyote, and the usual suspects in the rodent family. I live in Vermont.

 

[aslbow]

Ha Ha, no, but they will have good food and table scraps, fruit, and a run to themselves without roosters beating up on them. Oh, and tons of love.

 

[Sydney Acres]

Ha Ha, no, but they will have good food and table scraps, fruit, and a run to themselves without roosters beating up on them. Oh, and tons of love.

Don't forget padded perches. Foam pipe insulation covering the perches, wrapped tightly with vetrap, works great and keeps their feet comfortable. I have no bumblefoot in my birds, even the older roosters.

 

[heartsizedfarm]

Sounds good. And I bet they would like that. I use tree branches and replace them every month.

 

[coop410silkies]

Exactly. We do the same things and ours are easy to pick up and tote around and they don't get sick either. I am actually going to build a retirement coop this summer for our old girls!

Ha Ha, no, but they will have good food and table scraps, fruit, and a run to themselves without roosters beating up on them. Oh, and tons of love.

Don't forget padded perches.  Foam pipe insulation covering the perches, wrapped tightly with vetrap, works great and keeps their feet comfortable.  I have no bumblefoot in my birds, even the older roosters.

What great ideas, all. Chickens truly grace us with their bounty, and they ask for so little in return; it is a privilege to honor them so.

 

[centrarchid]

Bumblefoot is more a function of what they walk around on during day.

 

[Sydney Acres]

Bumblefoot is more a function of what they walk around on during day.

Certainly that contributes to the problem, and can be the sole cause in some cases, but bumblefoot is a multifactorial, very complicated issue. If it were only due to walking around on hard or rough surfaces, then it wouldn't be such a problem in captive raptors, which spend very little time walking on the ground. There have been several studies in chickens that have shown that narrow perches are a major cause of bumblefoot, not just because most perches are hard, but because a narrow perch distributes weight (and thus pressure) over a smaller area, and because birds tend to grip harder on smaller perches than on larger perches, which increases the focal pressure even more. Yes, bumblefoot can also be caused by hard or rough walking surfaces, injuries to the sole of the feet and toes, obesity, poor nutrition, lack of exercise (standing in one place too long puts unrelenting pressure on focal areas of the foot), poor circulation, genetic predisposition, etc, etc, and aging or poor coop hygiene will make any of those factors worse, but perch size, hardness, and texture are also major contributors.

But beyond the bumblefoot issue, if you keep your birds into retirement and let them die of old age, then they will get all the aches and pains and debilities that we get as we age, just much quicker with their compressed lifespan. As I age I notice that it's becoming less comfortable for me to stand on a hard floor barefoot for any length of time, and that I like the cushioning on my chair, and the eggcrate foam on my mattress. Cushioning is almost unimportant to comfort when we're young, but it's a huge factor as we age. Birds spend all night, 6-12 hours depending on the season, perched on their roosts. Logic tells me that padded perches improves their quality of life as they age, and puts less pressure on the sole of their feet. It's easy to do, and has a minimal cost in time and money. In my oldest flock, a dual purpose breed that statistically have a productive lifespan of 5-8 years for hens and 3-6 years for roosters, my largest roosters are still doing well at 8 years old. Some of them limp a little when they run, but the point is that they still run, have a comfortable life, and are still fertile. That level of care isn't something everyone wants to do, but sometimes the little things can make a big difference, both for them and for us.

 

[centrarchid]

Raptor foot stresses very different from those of poultry. I very seldom see bumblefoot in game broodfowl that can reach a decade or more in age. Perches we use are round and sized so toenails of opposing toes barely overlap thus mechanical stress on foot likely low with roosting.

 

[heartsizedfarm]

Good for me to know this. I just use an old ladder leaning against the wall for perches. I'll pad it up with foam tube and vet wrap as recommended.