Oh Craigslist, You Amuse Me So!

[Lacy Duckwing]

I've been seeing a lot of the casual poultry keepers really upset over the purina protein debacle. Unfortunately, I also have been seeing a lot of these casual keepers saying they are now feeding straight up corn rations to their birds! I can only scream into the void so long on that, but I gently remind people that corn is like candy for chickens.... Not a full food, very low protein and very low fat, hardly any micronutrients.. How does one approach this? the youtube homesteader feeds are full of these people, and soon they will have dead chickens with fatty livers. Should I say anything? lol

Scientific resources! You can't say a thing, but if you can show them articles, etc. that are RELIABLE and get much further. Those articles MUST include scientific studies by professionals stating the facts. Don't get mad at me for saying this, but... If you can find a professional in the feed business, which might include going to these egg factories and finding your man there, you'll get somewhere. If you can say something like this, "Professor so and so with this and this degree in college to do with this information," you can get a lot further. Kinda like saying Dr. Fauci said Covid shot is very good for you. (That's only an example, please don't get political. It's the only thing that came to my mind because I don't know main stream doctors and I needed an example.) After you go through your information with your professional's name shadowing your every word, and they still won't believe you, walk away. It's not worth it. It's their birds. Give them a BYC business card and tell them to post a thread on here if they have any problems. Be sure to tell them when they do have a problem, say what feed they're feeding...

 

[Lacy Duckwing]

 

[Bantambird]

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I suppose that silkies have black skin, but still, crossing ayam cemani with silkies is going to make a different shaped bird. Where do the blue eggs come from??? This is wild!

 

[Bantambird]

Scientific resources! You can't say a thing, but if you can show them articles, etc. that are RELIABLE and get much further. Those articles MUST include scientific studies by professionals stating the facts. Don't get mad at me for saying this, but... If you can find a professional in the feed business, which might include going to these egg factories and finding your man there, you'll get somewhere. If you can say something like this, "Professor so and so with this and this degree in college to do with this information," you can get a lot further. Kinda like saying Dr. Fauci said Covid shot is very good for you. (That's only an example, please don't get political. It's the only thing that came to my mind because I don't know main stream doctors and I needed an example.) After you go through your information with your professional's name shadowing your every word, and they still won't believe you, walk away. It's not worth it. It's their birds. Give them a BYC business card and tell them to post a thread on here if they have any problems. Be sure to tell them when they do have a problem, say what feed they're feeding...

I usually just tell them my mother is a veterinarian if people want to know my credentials, and I have raised and bred poultry for 15 years, including turkeys, which are notoriously fussy about their feed (and their young seem to always be looking to die for the stupidest reasons, worse than sheep!) There isn't much close to me, but my sister works raising broilers for tyson ( in a faraway state) so if I really cared to pursue strangers killing their birds through neglect on the internet, I would probably ask her vet guy who has to come look in on her barns every week to check the lists. Then again, people assume that commercial broilers grow on supermarket shelves, so.... yeah... everyone is right to think it is a lost cause. I will just leave posts saying, please do not feed your poultry only corn for rations! that reminds me, there was a guy last year posting a craigslist ad selling "free range eggs", where he did not feed his hens and the poor hens had to forage for everything. The guy was charging 20 dollars a dozen! There are enough bugs to sustain a few birds all summer, but spring, winter, and fall are NOT sustainable for poultry in Montana, especially egg laying chickens. They won't be particularly healthy without supplementation, due to domestication (and our extreme weather). These chickens maybe laid one egg a week, and the guy treated these eggs like golden orbs for sale. This was up near Bozeman. The guy was from SoCal, acting like he could do this with chickens in Montana.

 

[WallyG74]

I usually just tell them my mother is a veterinarian if people want to know my credentials, and I have raised and bred poultry for 15 years, including turkeys, which are notoriously fussy about their feed (and their young seem to always be looking to die for the stupidest reasons, worse than sheep!) There isn't much close to me, but my sister works raising broilers for tyson ( in a faraway state) so if I really cared to pursue strangers killing their birds through neglect on the internet, I would probably ask her vet guy who has to come look in on her barns every week to check the lists. Then again, people assume that commercial broilers grow on supermarket shelves, so.... yeah... everyone is right to think it is a lost cause. I will just leave posts saying, please do not feed your poultry only corn for rations! that reminds me, there was a guy last year posting a craigslist ad selling "free range eggs", where he did not feed his hens and the poor hens had to forage for everything. The guy was charging 20 dollars a dozen! There are enough bugs to sustain a few birds all summer, but spring, winter, and fall are NOT sustainable for poultry in Montana, especially egg laying chickens. They won't be particularly healthy without supplementation, due to domestication (and our extreme weather). These chickens maybe laid one egg a week, and the guy treated these eggs like golden orbs for sale. This was up near Bozeman. The guy was from SoCal, acting like he could do this with chickens in Montana.

I don’t see how humans can sustain life in MT. That cold is insane!

 

[Bantambird]

I don’t see how humans can sustain life in MT. That cold is insane!

As long as you stay out of the highline, it's not as cold, nor as damp, as Minnesota... it's a dry cold, and most times we only dip into -30s for a week or two out of the year.

 

[Bantambird]

There was that one year, 2011, where it snowed in October and didn't melt until April, but that was considered an outlier..... Yellowstone County is relatively warm compared to surrounding counties.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

I suppose that silkies have black skin, but still, crossing ayam cemani with silkies is going to make a different shaped bird. Where do the blue eggs come from??? This is wild!

They likely have 3 pens, not all running together. That's my first thought at least. If they got the MPC silkied eggers, it would explain the colored silkie eggs

 

[JacinLarkwell]

I don’t see how humans can sustain life in MT. That cold is insane!

It is.

 

[Lacy Duckwing]

I usually just tell them my mother is a veterinarian if people want to know my credentials, and I have raised and bred poultry for 15 years, including turkeys, which are notoriously fussy about their feed (and their young seem to always be looking to die for the stupidest reasons, worse than sheep!) There isn't much close to me, but my sister works raising broilers for tyson ( in a faraway state) so if I really cared to pursue strangers killing their birds through neglect on the internet, I would probably ask her vet guy who has to come look in on her barns every week to check the lists. Then again, people assume that commercial broilers grow on supermarket shelves, so.... yeah... everyone is right to think it is a lost cause. I will just leave posts saying, please do not feed your poultry only corn for rations! that reminds me, there was a guy last year posting a craigslist ad selling "free range eggs", where he did not feed his hens and the poor hens had to forage for everything. The guy was charging 20 dollars a dozen! There are enough bugs to sustain a few birds all summer, but spring, winter, and fall are NOT sustainable for poultry in Montana, especially egg laying chickens. They won't be particularly healthy without supplementation, due to domestication (and our extreme weather). These chickens maybe laid one egg a week, and the guy treated these eggs like golden orbs for sale. This was up near Bozeman. The guy was from SoCal, acting like he could do this with chickens in Montana.

So you're already doing what I'm saying. Just walk away and don't bother. It's really sad how some people treat their birds and even sadder when they don't want to listen to someone who knows more than them that can help direct them to taking better care of their poultry.