Landrace/adaptive breeding discussion

[Florida Bullfrog]

I think they go into a deep, coma-like sleep, once they’re good and asleep. That’s why it seems they don’t see good at night. I suspect they do see pretty well at night, with there being variance between breeds as how well they see in low light. But they’re in an altered state of mind regardless. Unless they get woke up good, then they go into fight or flight mode. Wild turkeys seem to be the same. When turkeys are out, they’re out. But if they wake up, they’re aware of almost everything happening around them. If I peg a gobbler on the roost I want to kill the next morning at daylight, I get under his roost about 2 hours or more before daylight and wait for him to wake up and fly down next to me. If I try to get under him just before daylight, he’ll already be awake and aware of me.

 

[Perris]

I suspect they do see pretty well at night, with there being variance between breeds as how well they see in low light.

That's certainly true between birds as a whole. Owls have better night vision than us. Songbirds, ducks, falcons, gulls, and those that sleep on the wing, for example, rest half their brain and one eye at a time. And many bird species have a 4th type of sensory cell in their retinas so see UV that we can't. Birkenhead Bird Sense 2012 chapter 1. Most bird species haven't been tested for any aspect of their vision, so these are just some of the known subsets of variation.

 

[NatJ]

I've heard a lot about how they're essentially night-blind, that they go into a sort of coma in the dark and won't move no matter what happens around them.

From what I have seen, I would say night-blind (cannot see) but not coma.

I have seen chickens move around at night, but they generally act the way a person does when they cannot see well: they move slowly and carefully, or seem clumsy, or they jump & run if scared but don't seem too good at telling where they are going. If I move a broody hen off the nest and onto a perch in the dark, she will sometimes find her way back.

Some people have blind chickens, but they still manage to move around and find food and water. I think normal chickens in the dark are similar, except that they often do not bother to move around (because they can see in the daylight, so of course it is easier for them to do things then.)

But they seem awake and aware, any time I check on them. Even if I tiptoe out and peek carefully, I will hear them shifting around and making sounds. Chicks under a hen will be "talking" to her frequently during the night and she answers. Adult chickens will make little clucking sounds, or loud sounds if something disturbs them.

Aside from a tendency to go back to sleep once the threat is gone, they seemed just as alert and aware as during the day

That matches what I have seen, except that sometimes they are awake even with no threat. Maybe like a person who wakes up, rolls over, re-arranges their pillow, and then goes back to sleep.

 

[LaurenRitz]

They'll get too heavy for the roof shortly, but I can't reach them to get them off. I guess they'll have to take their chances.

(Biel x JG) x JG

These are cockerels and absolutely refuse to roost inside unless I get them down physically and herd them in.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

Overall my free range broods are doing well. Some chicks have been disappearing, which is of course to be expected. Here is one of the culprits:

Warning, the video is graphic. It will show dead chickens, a dead snake, some blood, and some slightly irreverent and dark humor at the snake’s expense.

 

[No Coop No Problem]

Overall my free range broods are doing well. Some chicks have been disappearing, which is of course to be expected. Here is one of the culprits:

Warning, the video is graphic. It will show dead chickens, a dead snake, some blood, and some slightly irreverent and dark humor at the snake’s expense.

Interesting. I've always been kind to the rat snakes here, I allow them free-run over my property and not once have I regretted their presence. If you have snakes eating tree roosting chicks then it's ultimately just natural selection (which applies to predators also)

During the summer rains last year I had a ton of rats invade my property. I got a barn cat, which barely seemed to do anything. However one day a huge black rat snake showed up and that very same night I heard rats screaming and dying in the walls of my barn

In the context of my own chickens and food production, rat snakes are beneficial. They steal eggs occasionally, but I have such an abundance of those that they're welcome to them. I'd much rather feed a snake I know kills rats over a lazy cat

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

Interesting. I've always been kind to the rat snakes here, I allow them free-run over my property and not once have I regretted their presence. If you have snakes eating tree roosting chicks then it's ultimately just natural selection (which applies to predators also)

During the summer rains last year I had a ton of rats invade my property. I got a barn cat, which barely seemed to do anything. However one day a huge black rat snake showed up and that very same night I heard rats screaming and dying in the walls of my barn

In the context of my own chickens and food production, rat snakes are beneficial. They steal eggs occasionally, but I have such an abundance of those that they're welcome to them. I'd much rather feed a snake I know kills rats over a lazy cat
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If you look around on my other videos, you’ll see I’m constantly catching grey rat snakes in the process of eating chicks wherever chicks are to be found. Free-range, coops, trees, wherever. Usually the months of June and July are the worst. I think its a combination of the hot nights that lets them digest big meals at night, but also because the wild turkey poults out in the woods are too large to be preyed on by the snakes during that time of year. So the grey rat snakes shift from seeking out turkey broods to my chickens.

In nature, wild turkeys suffer ridiculously high casualties from predators. It's a wonder any of them ever survive long enough to reproduce, as they never get to a stage where they outgrow predation. Even mature gobblers are prone to being taken off the roost by great horned owls at night. When one is removed from the gene pool from that kind of predation, I don't think it's often due to weakness. It's just the random act of a predator that has a total advantage over any turkey.

I can't allow that level of natural selection to happen within my farmyard flock. If a strong wild turkey gobbler can't fight off a predator at night on the roost, there will never be a chicken that can beat any predation attempt on the roost. If there were 1,000 chickens spread out through the woods in several square miles, random predation of that sort might not wipe them out. But concentrated on my small farm yard, every taking of an otherwise healthy bird hurts the flock.

My chickens will always be livestock, no matter how tough they get. I don't think predators can be allowed to run amok. Part of a balanced flock is to keep the predators persecuted so as to keep them fearful. Once the predators' numbers are low and their attitudes timid, then they have a tendency to be more useful for taking the weaker chickens. That's the state of the birds of prey on my farm at the current time. I no longer lose healthy birds to raptors. They only pick off slow ones. I can usually identify a chicken that's about to get got a day or two before it happens. In that regard, there's a balance between my flock and the birds of prey. But that's also the result of several raptors getting selected out by my livestock guardians.

Some summers I've killed as many as a dozen grey rat snakes in June/July. This year I've only killed 2 or 3 all year. I've got their numbers in check and between myself and the dogs learning to kill them (the dogs used to ignore grey rat snakes for unknown reasons while persecuting other snakes) I believe the snakes are getting wary. The more wary they are, the less bold they are about exposing themselves and that alone severely reduces their predations.

I do believe snakes to be much smarter than we know and that they're masters of patterning their local humans. Venomous snakes especially. I often find sign of rattlesnakes weeks or months before I ever see them. When I do see them, it will usually be because I broke a pattern of my comings and goings.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

Momma #11 appeared yesterday. She only had 6-7 biddies.

Of the 15 from #1 and #2's first broods, 10 are left that I know of. I culled 1 for being stumbly. It looked more like soreness from being mounted by an over eager stag than it did Marek's, but just to be safe I took it out. There may be more left of that group, but 10 are roosting in the coop still and that's what I can count. During the day they're so spread out that I only ever see 2-3 at a time. There may be more tree roosting.

As stated, there have been chicks disappearing from mommas #3 thru #10, but many or most are still around at various degrees of growth. In the fall I'll do a final tally as to how many chicks have made it. I'm guess it will be somewhere between 30 on the low end and 50 on the high end that will make it to adulthood.

I did find one raptor predation on one of the chicks this past week. First I've been aware of on this year's chicks. I'm sure there's been a few raptor predations I haven't documented simply by the odds.

 

[No Coop No Problem]

If a strong wild turkey gobbler can't fight off a predator at night on the roost, there will never be a chicken that can beat any predation attempt on the roost.

My first year with chickens I started with American Game and RIR. The first year half of my reds decided to sleep on the ground and the other half decided to copy the games and roost in trees

All of the ground roosting reds died from predation. However not a single chicken was ever taken in a tree. I caught many racoons and opossums trying to catch them while tree roosting but the chickens would simply fly off into the night

I don't believe fighting at night in the dark is necessary at all, only flight. However it sounds like our predator situation is quite different from one another

My chickens will always be livestock, no matter how tough they get. I don't think predators can be allowed to run amok. Part of a balanced flock is to keep the predators persecuted so as to keep them fearful.

This is my logic as well. Natural selection also applies to the predators here. Anything stupid enough for me to kill it, or harmful enough for me to thoroughly hunt it down gets eliminated from the gene-pool

Some summers I've killed as many as a dozen grey rat snakes in June/July.

We're dealing with dramatically different snake situations it sounds like. I only have a handful that I've always allowed to be around. Maybe the cats or dogs are keeping the snakes in balance here, or maybe it's something else entirely

It's good you're killing stupid and destructive snakes

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

Oh yeah, I forgot to add that in terms of snake predation being very species specific, the second most common species to target my chickens are cottonmouths (water moccasins). They do it far less frequently than the grey rat snakes, but far more than any other species. Something around half-a-dozen I've caught in the coops seeking, eating, or having ate, chicks. Makes me think they must prey on birds a lot on water's edge. No chicken on my farmyard is further than 50 yards from a large water habitat at any given time, having multiple large ponds, drains, and low areas all around my farm.

Corn snakes (red rat snakes) are common but never cause problems that I'm aware of. I've never even caught one eating eggs.

Non-venomous water snakes do get very young chicks on the ground on rare occasion, but mostly pursue frogs.

Indigos, racers, and the slew of obscure smaller snakes never cause problems.

Rattlers have rarely messed with the chickens. Last year I almost kicked a big timber rattler in the face barefoot while she was trailing a cockerel she killed. That was the first time I've caught a rattler having killed a chicken.