Old Fashioned, Common Sense Chicken Keeping.

[lcwmt]

In my mind, "cull" does not always mean "kill".
am I off base?

 

[BantyChooks]

In my mind, "cull" does not always mean "kill".
am I off base?

No, it can mean sell or otherwise remove from the breeding or main population. It more often means 'kill' and is just substituted as a pretty euphemism.

 

[GC-Raptor]

In my mind, "cull" does not always mean "kill".
am I off base?

To pick out from a group; to separate from the rest, could be in a separate pen, like a Bachelor pad for Roos. Sell or Give away, Slaughter, or Kill and bury. GC

 

[Brahma Chicken5000]

Not all of us chicken owners live in a rural area (unfortunately) and so we must adjust how we keep our chickens. For those like myself who live in a suburban town free ranging is out, as well as cockerels and cocks so no expanding the flock by hatching our own eggs, processing birds at home is out of the question as I don’t need to give the health department an excuse to show up at my door, methods of culling sick birds is also limited. My coop is not painted to match my house or anything fancy like that, but it also doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb. Yes my birds are pets and yes I do medicate my birds when they have a flare up of mild ILT. I have no intention of culling any of my birds unless their quality of life deteriorates. All 3 of my bantams are rescues from a farm where they were kept in a dark dusty horse stall and fed stale bread, rotten fruits and vegetables, and stale pastries. They will live out their lives in my flock. I keep a closed flock and my birds are pets with the benefit of eggs. I keep my birds contained in a spacious covered run with perches and deep litter to keep them happy. They get the occasional kitchen scraps but they are happiest when they get mealworms.
I do plan to live in a rural area in the future and raise my birds for eggs and meat for my family, but at the current time I’m doing my best with what I have.

 

[centrarchid]

Not all of us chicken owners live in a rural area (unfortunately) and so we must adjust how we keep our chickens. For those like myself who live in a suburban town free ranging is out, as well as cockerels and cocks so no expanding the flock by hatching our own eggs, processing birds at home is out of the question as I don’t need to give the health department an excuse to show up at my door, methods of culling sick birds is also limited. My coop is not painted to match my house or anything fancy like that, but it also doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb. Yes my birds are pets and yes I do medicate my birds when they have a flare up of mild ILT. I have no intention of culling any of my birds unless their quality of life deteriorates. All 3 of my bantams are rescues from a farm where they were kept in a dark dusty horse stall and fed stale bread, rotten fruits and vegetables, and stale pastries. They will live out their lives in my flock. I keep a closed flock and my birds are pets with the benefit of eggs. I keep my birds contained in a spacious covered run with perches and deep litter to keep them happy. They get the occasional kitchen scraps but they are happiest when they get mealworms.
I do plan to live in a rural area in the future and raise my birds for eggs and meat for my family, but at the current time I’m doing my best with what I have.

People used to raise chickens in tight confines. They had fewer birds and had to invest more in feeding, especially before advent of complete feeds.

 

[Brahma Chicken5000]

People used to raise chickens in tight confines. They had fewer birds and had to invest more in feeding, especially before advent of complete feeds.

That shouldn’t be an excuse for keeping 100 chickens in an 8’x8’ horse stall and feeding them rotten fruits and vegetables. The owner has chicken feed available and she gave the birds some chicken feed, but the bulk of their diet was rotten fruits and vegetables, stale bread, and whatever garbage she had on hand.

 

[lcwmt]

To pick out from a group; to separate from the rest, could be in a separate pen, like a Bachelor pad for Roos. Sell or Give away, Slaughter, or Kill and bury. GC

Thanks, that's how I have been thinking of/reading/using the word.

 

[Morrigan]

at the current time I’m doing my best with what I have.

I think that's what most people are trying to do. When we first moved to the country, I had a notion of chicken keeping that was not so different from the Catalan farmer described in an earlier post.

I felt that was not going to work on my property. We have a huge predator load, plus a couple of neighbors let their dogs run loose. So we enclosed a big yard in electric fencing, big enough so that there was bushes, greenery and forage for them, but not true free ranging. It was the best I felt I could do and was an acceptable outcome for me. I perhaps could have gotten a guardian dog, steeled myself that there were going to be some losses, and hoped that, in a few generations, I would have some wily and hardy chickens able to survive free-ranging. I'm not sure if I would have liked the process as much.

Ditto for me meat birds. Raising meat chickens and butchering them ourselves was a huge leap forward for us city slickers. It feels "old-fashioned" to me, but really is not. Taking the time to breed true dual purpose chickens would be more natural. Again, it was the best we reasonably felt we could -- or perhaps more honestly -- wanted to do.

I think most people get chickens to feel more connected to their food sources and to nature in general. By and large, I think that is great, even if we all do it differently, depending on where we live, our goals, our temperaments.

There is a tendency to sometimes, get defensive or to question if you are doing it "right" when you read such different accounts of how people keep their chickens. Sometimes questioning and re-thinking is good and necessary, but sometimes you have to shut out the noise and trust what you are doing.

 

[Shadrach]

I think that's what most people are trying to do. When we first moved to the country, I had a notion of chicken keeping that was not so different from the Catalan farmer described in an earlier post.

I felt that was not going to work on my property. We have a huge predator load, plus a couple of neighbors let their dogs run loose. So we enclosed big yard in electric fencing, big enough so that bushes, greenery and forage for them, but not true free ranging. It was the best I felt I could do and was an acceptable outcome for me. I perhaps could have gotten a guardian dog, steeled myself that there were going to be some losses, and hoped that, in a few generations, I would have some wily and hardy chickens able to survive free-ranging. I'm not sure if I would have liked the process as much.

Ditto for me meat birds. Raising meat chickens and butchering them ourselves was a huge leap forward for us city slickers. It feels "old-fashioned" to me, but really is not. Taking the time to breed true dual purpose chickens would be more natural. Again, it was the best we reasonably felt we could -- or perhaps more honestly -- wanted to do.

I think most people get chickens to feel more connected to their food sources and to nature in general. By and large, I think that is great, even if we all do it differently, depending on where we live, our goals, our temperaments.

There is a tendency to sometimes, get defensive or to question if you are doing it "right" when you read such different accounts of how people keep their chickens. Sometimes questioning and re-thinking is good and necessary, but sometimes you have to shut out the noise and trust what you are doing.

I think there will come a time here when free ranging as I describe I my OP will come to an end. I love the freedom the chickens have here and I've learn't so much from them because they can free range.
Even though I live in a National Park, each year urbanisation increases and more and more people will come to the park. The main problem is they bring their dogs and their children and seem oblivious to the fact that there are free range animals here and on many other farms in the park. The human pressure disturbs the wildlife and destroys their habitat and they must eat as well. Free range chickens are easy prey.
I have plans for a huge run but it will still break my heart if I have to put those plans to use.

 

[Blooie]

I live in town, on a corner lot. It's probably an average size yard, maybe a little bigger, but certainly not qualified to be considered anything but an in-town yard. It's broken up by trees, some apple trees and a pear tree, and grapes, and divided at the back by a long hedge of lilacs. It does what we want it to do - gives us space for a small garden and to let our chickens out every day, plus a place to relax. We also have a large run attached to the coop, which comes in very handy when we have to leave town and our little granddaughter is in charge of the chickens for a week or when the weather is just plain harsh. It would be too much for Katie to deal with if we lost a chicken on her watch while they were free ranging, so having both free ranging and a confinement alternative seems to be the perfect compromise for us, and the chickens don't seem to mind one way or the other. When we are home, the doors are open all day long and they can come and go as they please. So it doesn't take a huge, rural property, but it does take having an alternate plan to make a town lot work.