Up all hours, bitching about broody Sydney. I caught Ivy red-handed giving Phyllis tips on how to surprise attack others by jumping from behind. What she failed to mention is that she's never the one doing the jumping...she's the one being jumped on!
Yes, that's always a worry.
It’s been accepted for many years now that the observer influences the outcome of any experiment.
With behavioural studies not only does the observer influence the outcome but they tend to apply value judgements to what they’ve observed and this can be catastrophic to our understanding of behaviour.
One of the things I’ve found fascinating about BYC and also extremely irritating at times is the misinformation spread through applying value judgments and subjective bias to events.
I read with horror that we are all different and chickens are all different and therefore there is no possibility of understanding their behaviour. It usually ends up with “you do what’s best for you in your particular keeping circumstances.” or something along those lines and any notion that behaviour can be predicted and later modified gets overridden by this mantra.
Worse still is despite some compelling evidence these beliefs about behaviour get reinforced and spread until they become like facts, when in fact, many are complete nonsense.
I’ve answered a few questions when a poster has stated that their hens are attacking their rooster. In the case of hens a cockerels this is a likely interpretation but with adults, on the threads I’ve dealt with, something completely different is going on. The observer has misinterpreted what they have seen.
Here is a picture similar to some that have been offered in support of the statement that their hens are bullying, or attacking a rooster.
View attachment 2169664
From here on the threads usually degenerate into various suggests from culling the aggressive hen/s to isolating the rooster for his own protection. Looking at the picture above one could easily be misled into believing this is what is happening if one doesn’t take into account the evidence and rely on on knee jerk emotions.
In the picture is Cillin with his head bowed, unrestrained and Ruffles and Fat Bird are indeed pecking at him but they are grooming him, removing feather quills, scabs and if they are present, parasites.
You can see this behaviour in most stable mixed sex flocks, but the vicious hen myth just rolls on.
Another one that comes up over and over is the myth about the roosters mating dance. Roosters do not dance for their hens. This partly seems to come from a poor understanding of butterfly behaviour where people have seen two or more butterflies spiralling in the air and though, how sweet they’re dancing. They’re not. What they are doing is fighting and the participants are males.
With regard to the ‘rooster dance’ what is being observed is what I call the herding shuffle. It has absolutely nothing to do with mating, or dancing come to that. But, the myth rolls on.
One of the hardest to explain and get accepted is the “my rooster has become aggressive. I used to cuddle him and he was such a sweet boy and now he bites me when I go to pick him up” or something along those lines. Getting bitten by a rooster, open beak grab, is the rooster doing his best to do a mating neck grab on a human. He can’t reach the neck usually and the mating grab is almost unmistakeable. I’ve had a fair few and yes, it can hurt. It’s not aggressive and it’s not his fault. No rooster I haven’t encouraged by my behaviour to believe I am one of the tribe has ever done the mating grab to me. I’ve been pecked, but that is different. A few posts on and the kill the rooster brigade arrive with their badges and the poor rooster is destined for the crock pot by the end of the page. All he was trying to do was get a bit of love.
The egg song is an absolute classic. Somehow the poor hen got seconded to the gender politics war and the egg song became the cry of female fertility. It’s hardly surprising that the evidence suggests that in fact it’s a hen calling for a bit of sex and protection doesn't go down well. There is no doubt about the egg song being an escort call, none.
There are numerous other examples of misinformation being distributed because of ideologies and ignorance being applied to poor observation and lack of critical reasoning. The poor chickens has enough problems without this which could be remedied by a bit of concerted effort on the part of large sites like BYC. Why isn’t this happening?
Same here. Once I've caught up on these 4 threads and everyone's flocks I've had an elegant sufficiency of chicken time. ☺
I understand for sure... and I forgot the other downfall to letting them work it out.. no eggsI use my old coop, which is small but allows for some exercise & dustbathing but I close of the roosts & nest boxes so my broody must roost outside @ night, quite safe. She is locked in away from any potential threat. Plus they are on their own. I lost one girl while the man was in charge because she wandered off, nested outside the coop & tranced herself to death & another one lost so much condition during her broody period she never really recovered. My last broody was a young Araucana [the worst I've had]. It took me over a month to convince her she didn't want to nest & she was refusing to eat & drink properly but expended large amounts of energy pacing. So while in a perfect world I would do things differently I have to work with what I've got & what I've got is a council veto on roosters, neighbours who don't want them & a lack of access to fertile eggs.
I am following this with close attention because the man is angling for a parcel of land to extend his bush houses & nursery business & thinks I should go in full on for chooks ~ roosters & all~ when he's got it.
My BRs are constantly going broody in summer ~ & as they are my best layers by far the lack of eggs from them is a pain. I'm sure there is a better way of managing broodies but I don't know what it is.
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I'm a sucker for both more land & more chickens.I understand for sure... and I forgot the other downfall to letting them work it out.. no eggs
That would be great... more land and more chickens
You and me both!I'm a sucker for both more land & more chickens.
Yes, that's always a worry.
She seemed to prefer foraging while losing feathers (maybe that's a looking for more protein thing? I don't know) but once the quills had all broken through she showed more interest in the commercial feed I think.
When I offered her the porridge with tinned fish early on she really only took a couple of exploratory pecks. The rest of the girls ended up eating the rest.
I figure it's good enough just to give them the choice and let them decide what they want. The food won't go to waste either way!
