I feed my gals an All Flock.. it has 20% protein.. it’s pellets... this is what I feed to them always.... I just found it easier to feed this when I was adding the new pullets.. it’s safe for everyone.. whereas the layer feed isn’t... plus, they are getting extra protein whenever they do happen to molt..
We are so glad you found us.I love this group too and make sure I read all the threads every day so I don’t get too far behind. And whilst we go off on a tangent every so often, be it books or TV shows or sewing, it always comes back to the chickens. I think that shows how much we love our girls and boys and how we support each other in that love. I adore being able to share my girls’ antics with people who are genuinely interested; I would never get this level of interest from work colleagues or family. Thank you Bob for starting this thread and I feel that it was my good fortune having stumbled across it! It was less than 100 pages long when I first found it, but I have read every post and enjoyed being part of this micro-community.
Poor misunderstood Tsuki. Those other hens would be lost without her trying to make them better. They just need to listen to her.Though I still have trouble tolerating Tsuki's "bullying" behaviour.
Sounds like a perfect solution. You can breed your own campines. Nothing but screaming chickens.I'm a sucker for both more land & more chickens.
I switch from layer to higher protein feed (I believe it's called feather fixer) when they molt.
Wait! I wonder if she has been communicating with Phyllis on beakbook?
If they are on schedule to molt in the summer that's great. I go crazy with worry every October and November as the cold weather sets in and they have no feathers. If the princesses choose to molt in the summer you will not have those worries at least.
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?
Very good point!If they are on schedule to molt in the summer that's great. I go crazy with worry every October and November as the cold weather sets in and they have no feathers. If the princesses choose to molt in the summer you will not have those worries at least.
