How should Embden feathers look between the legs down to the knee?

[chooks4life]

Thank you so much for all of that wonderful information! I really appreciate everyone's comments, I'm so lucky to have found this website!

I have never given my birds people food or anything with salt. At least, not that I'm aware of. They get McGeary organic duck maintainer, Mazuri Waterfowl pellets, Ultra kibble crumbles, showbird crumbles, cracked corn, mealworms and several types of lettuce. Romaine, kale, a couple other fancy lettuces that I pick up at the grocery store and I also give them organic mixed green. The kind we buy for ourselves to eat. No spinach though, at least not much, just the few leaves that are in the Spring mix.

I also give them watermelon, cantaloupe and honeydew melons.

Ok, well, I don't know what's doing it, then. :/ I guess after worming at least several potential causes will be eliminated, though really fluid retention causing parasites shouldn't affect the fat deposits.

Haha, sorry. It´s Spring, so I imagine you have baby all sorts of things coming along there...

I´ve checked, the keel is the area of the breast-bone, particularly noticeable in the exhibition-type toulouse, and the lobes can also be referred to as the paunch.

Egads, that's even more confusing. I've heard the belly or abdomen itself is the paunch, not the 'dangly bits' lol. I've heard the breastbone itself is referred to as the keel in chickens and turkeys but in geese it was different, being the lobes that the 'keel' referred to... Makes less sense the more I think about it.

About the fluffy things, and springtime... I WISH. Somehow (long story, even longer than my explanation below) on 200 acres there is no room to free range the chooks or my other animals, so they remain caged and tethered, and I've only hatched a total of two little fluffballs solely for the benefit of a young child here that's never seen chicks, but they live in a chook tractor and don't free range either.

I'm actually in the process, yet again, of moving, hope to be out within two weeks, this situation is just not workable despite initial reassurances that it would be. Could not, for the life of me, figure out how it possibly couldn't be, with so much land. Lesson learned! The land is heavily overstocked and of course overgrazed --- but in their perception, there's 'plenty of green pick' (that phrase officially aggravates me now LOL) --- and so they just keep adding more and more animals, more cattle and horses, while they just continue to run down in condition over the drought, it's just frothing-at-the-mouth insane. I am considering whether or not to call the RSPCA on some sick and emaciated animals here that aren't receiving treatment, I've tried and failed to raise the issue with the landowners for months now, but they keep dismissing it out of hand. They're just not 'animal people' and couldn't spot a sick or starving animal if you bludgeoned them with it.

They sound really bad, the way I wrote about the situation, but they do try to be decent people, as always it is complicated.

But that's just par for the course when you caretake farms for others.

You always seem to find skeletons in the closet, in terms of livestock or land management. The place before this had literal skeletons due to mismanagement.

Aaaaaaanyway.... Hopefully better things on the horizon!

Best wishes.

 

[livininbrazil]

Ok, well, I don't know what's doing it, then. :/ I guess after worming at least several potential causes will be eliminated, though really fluid retention causing parasites shouldn't affect the fat deposits.



Egads, that's even more confusing. I've heard the belly or abdomen itself is the paunch, not the 'dangly bits' lol. I've heard the breastbone itself is referred to as the keel in chickens and turkeys but in geese it was different, being the lobes that the 'keel' referred to... Makes less sense the more I think about it.

About the fluffy things, and springtime... I WISH. Somehow (long story, even longer than my explanation below) on 200 acres there is no room to free range the chooks or my other animals, so they remain caged and tethered, and I've only hatched a total of two little fluffballs solely for the benefit of a young child here that's never seen chicks, but they live in a chook tractor and don't free range either.

I'm actually in the process, yet again, of moving, hope to be out within two weeks, this situation is just not workable despite initial reassurances that it would be. Could not, for the life of me, figure out how it possibly couldn't be, with so much land. Lesson learned! The land is heavily overstocked and of course overgrazed --- but in their perception, there's 'plenty of green pick' (that phrase officially aggravates me now LOL) --- and so they just keep adding more and more animals, more cattle and horses, while they just continue to run down in condition over the drought, it's just frothing-at-the-mouth insane. I am considering whether or not to call the RSPCA on some sick and emaciated animals here that aren't receiving treatment, I've tried and failed to raise the issue with the landowners for months now, but they keep dismissing it out of hand. They're just not 'animal people' and couldn't spot a sick or starving animal if you bludgeoned them with it.

They sound really bad, the way I wrote about the situation, but they do try to be decent people, as always it is complicated.

But that's just par for the course when you caretake farms for others.

You always seem to find skeletons in the closet, in terms of livestock or land management. The place before this had literal skeletons due to mismanagement.

Aaaaaaanyway.... Hopefully better things on the horizon!

Best wishes.

Oh, boy! Hope yoiu get it sorted soon then! Sounds complicated, like you say! Sad when non-animal-people have animals.

 

[chooks4life]

Oh, boy! Hope yoiu get it sorted soon then! Sounds complicated, like you say! Sad when non-animal-people have animals.

Yeah, and the more you learn about animals, the more discerning you get, and the harder it can get to just hold your tongue and let them continue some harmful pattern of management with their animals without saying something.

It's even worse when they recognize and semi-respect your animal knowledge, so then ask you for information, but are too set in their ways to actually listen, as well as having a certain pride about their ancestral or personal history on the land and thus taking your replies as some kind of bizarre insult, so you're ****** if you do and ****** if you don't. People can come to resent you for providing the exact information they asked for, no matter how nicely you presented or phrased it, which is crazy. I do my best to make them not feel judged, but it's not always avoidable, particularly when it's been an ongoing problem you've warned is going to follow a certain progression. You're in the wrong for being proven right, sometimes.

It's also aggravating when they ask you for thoughts on an animal's health problems only to then (apparently) decide it sounds too complicated, and 'they're just old' or some similar cop-out is what they'll go with. It's a deliberate decision to avoid dealing with the matter.

Eh, I just keep ending up with landowners/landlords like that. I don't offer advice or thoughts to them the way I do on this forum, which is obnoxious to many despite my intentions, so that's not the issue, lol.

Whatever. Hopefully soon I'll be a landowner of my own acreage. Best wishes.

 

[livininbrazil]

Yeah, and the more you learn about animals, the more discerning you get, and the harder it can get to just hold your tongue and let them continue some harmful pattern of management with their animals without saying something.

It's even worse when they recognize and semi-respect your animal knowledge, so then ask you for information, but are too set in their ways to actually listen, as well as having a certain pride about their ancestral or personal history on the land and thus taking your replies as some kind of bizarre insult, so you're ****** if you do and ****** if you don't. People can come to resent you for providing the exact information they asked for, no matter how nicely you presented or phrased it, which is crazy. I do my best to make them not feel judged, but it's not always avoidable, particularly when it's been an ongoing problem you've warned is going to follow a certain progression. You're in the wrong for being proven right, sometimes.

It's also aggravating when they ask you for thoughts on an animal's health problems only to then (apparently) decide it sounds too complicated, and 'they're just old' or some similar cop-out is what they'll go with. It's a deliberate decision to avoid dealing with the matter.

Eh, I just keep ending up with landowners/landlords like that. I don't offer advice or thoughts to them the way I do on this forum, which is obnoxious to many despite my intentions, so that's not the issue, lol.

Whatever. Hopefully soon I'll be a landowner of my own acreage. Best wishes.

We have a very similar experience here, but on a much smaller scale. People have done things a certain way for generations, and sometimes we can´t believe their ignorance, but if you say something they either get offended, or just ignore it anyway. We´ve learned to leave them to it. For one thing, we´re not trying to manage any farms. So we just get on with the way we do things, and the others watch. Those who like what they see copy it. maybe that´s what you´ll be able to do when you have your own place.
And you have this forum to get it off your chest!

 

[chooks4life]

We have a very similar experience here, but on a much smaller scale. People have done things a certain way for generations, and sometimes we can´t believe their ignorance, but if you say something they either get offended, or just ignore it anyway. We´ve learned to leave them to it. For one thing, we´re not trying to manage any farms. So we just get on with the way we do things, and the others watch. Those who like what they see copy it. maybe that´s what you´ll be able to do when you have your own place.
And you have this forum to get it off your chest!

Yeah, always pays to remember that those who pioneer anything do cop a lot of flack about it. So even if you're just 'pioneering' stuff others have been doing for centuries already, you can still cop flack just because some backwater hamlet somewhere has never seen the likes of it, lol.

Best wishes.

 

[livininbrazil]

Yeah, always pays to remember that those who pioneer anything do cop a lot of flack about it. So even if you're just 'pioneering' stuff others have been doing for centuries already, you can still cop flack just because some backwater hamlet somewhere has never seen the likes of it, lol.

Best wishes.

Around here, as grit doesnt exist, people don´t give their cage-birds grit, so I encouage them to feed sand as least to hep them to digest the feed. As most people have their chickens etc free-range, they don´t realise that they´re getting grit in their diet, so when they´re caged and get sick, it´s often because folks aren´t giving them the grit. Some people are listening to me. Others just say the birds are fragile.....

 

[chooks4life]

To me, anyone saying any species is fragile just means they either don't yet have some kink ironed out of their husbandry, or they've got weak genetics in their stock.

Personally I think that if the species couldn't live naturally where you are, you've got some obligation to provide the difference, so to speak. I notice many chickens seem adapted to this, behaviorally anyway, and have a whole array of things they consider 'grit' --- stones, bones, twigs, seedhusks, bits of wood, snailshells, they get inventive.

Just had a thought about this...
Quote:
Most animal feeds already contain some salt, but salt may not be the culprit here... Do you feed all these things at once? Or is there some kind of roster for them?

Malnutrition as a term covers both over and under nutrition so it's entirely possible to starve them of certain nutrients by oversupplying them. One of the common symptoms of starvation is actually obesity, further confusing the issue.

Nutrients are processed in conjunction with one another so a skewed ratio, particularly of denatured or synthetic nutrients, can rapidly become a problem. Sometimes supplementing a feed can be a big problem, especially if the feed was designed to be a complete feed.

Do your birds graze regularly? As in, have access to pasture?

Best wishes.