Whether old fashioned or not I'm unsure.
We do things like everyone here, to the best of our abilities.
We do bring in outside birds usually once a year from a hatchery and also from a breeder friend. Most of our young birds come from our own flock and eventually we plan on all of our birds coming from within except when new blood must be brought in.
We are experimenting with meat birds and may continue to raise them once or twice a year. However most of our meat comes from spare cockerals and hens that we retire.
Some of our chickens have achieved pet status and will live out their natural lives here unless they were to be suffering. Most of our flock will eventually be eaten.
They receive care and treatment although we try to avoid antibiotics.
We've only ever had respiratory issues in birds brought to quarantine and then culled. Lesson learned. We do have Marek's in the flock as of last spring and I will give a bird with possible symptoms a couple days to show improvement in quarantine before culling. We've never had a bird survive our strain of Marek's and they shed virus more with symptoms. That said very few of our birds on a whole have shown any symptoms ever. We keep a closed flock that no living birds leave once exposed as such all birds that will not be layers, pets, or breeders must be processed. I believe my flock has some natural immunity in it to the Marek's but yes I know the responsible thing is to assume each bird has it and I act as such.
I do keep some things on hand for the treatment of my flock namely probiotics and electrolytes. I also keep a virucidal cleaner around for shoes to protect my animals and those belonging to others. I will remove a bird from the main population if it seems to be off but if it doesn't improve with supportive care we generally cull. I will treat infected wounds with antibiotics and clean them out. We treat for cocci and bumble foot.
I'm grateful we've never had a respiratory illness.
I have kept a couple of special needs chickens' but they were removed from breeding unless I feel it was injury or human error that caused the problem. If I was unsure I did a test breeding and watched the offspring. Then decided.
I do own and run an incubator on occasion although I do love having broodies hatch instead. Both experiences can be very rewarding.
Our coops are not fancy any of them. Tractor coops for grow outs and quail, a metal coop with attached run moved from DH2B's uncle's, and an old two room milk house turned coop. Also an open air grow out/good weather coop inside an old grainery. They're functional although I find the simplicity of the tractor coops beautiful and the repurposed materials pleasant to look at as well as functional. After the repairs are completed on the two room milk house coop I know it will be stunning. It's beautiful now but it's function needs to finish getting changed over with a water proof interior etc. Plus permanent rodent proofing.
Our flock free ranges daily weather and predator permitting. Being from WI the weather must be truly bad indeed before I choose to keep the flock in blizzards with high winds and or sleet, dropping temperatures and high winds generally qualify. Predators generally just have us keep them in later so they might get let out at noon rather than 7-8 am. One of our secondary coops has an attached run and that group has been locked up for a while due to fox losses. They were just let back out today.
We are currently feeding a fermented whole grain feed to the adult birds and they're loving it. We were buying a mash from a local feed mill but they closed down. They may be opening back up in which case we would then have to decide what to do. For winter we may decide to feed both and have the mash more like a free choice but allow it to run out so as not to attract rodents.
We currently don't feed in our main coop at all unless the flock is locked up all day. Water is provided. Winter of course changes this.
Chicks and those birds locked up of course get fed plenty of feed although we still like it to be empty overnight so as to avoid attracting things that may eat chicken or that will attract things that do eat chicken. Birds in tractor coops are given a bit less to encourage foraging. This is especially important for birds that haven't been out before on grass.
Some of our flock tends to be lazy if fed right away(these birds are being weaned out of the flock). Generally we feed kitchen scraps at noon and then do the main feeding in the evening an hour or two before roosting. If the flock seems particularly hungry we may feed extra. We also treat for lice and mites as needed. This has only been once a year up to this point. This problem should be remedied and not happen any longer, as it's been caused by wild birds nesting in and around the coop. This year was the first year that we've ever actually seen a nest inside the coop. In the past we have had birds nest in the wall of the coop using a hole that was cut for an AC unit pipe to enter. We thought we had any entry point covered this year but it turns out we had missed one which went all the way into the coop but was only 1.5-2 inches in diameter.
Most of their feed comes from foraging. We have also just started a black soldier fly compost bin and so far we are loving it.
Our flock tends to range far and wide and is generally pretty self sufficient and very healthy.
Our flock currently consists of approximately 110 adult free ranging fowl (including 4 guineas), 10 red ranger experiment 4 week olds, 80 juveniles of various ages and breeds most of which are headed for freezer camp, 9 turkey poults-2 4 month olds and 7 6 week olds (calicos and he younger group are blue slate)
This morning tore up all the old fashioned common sense stuff....
I've had another goshawk strike. I saw the hawk fly off, but I can't get through the brush on the bank to check the area thoroughly. The bank is dangerous and I'm likely to break my neck if I slip. Tribe 1 is spread over two acres now and I've only found five. I'm most concerned for a hen called Mel who has a week old chick with her.
Free range eh...
I'm so sorry that you had an attack. It makes free ranging harder. I hope you found your whole flock.
We are a strictly free ranging,compost feed. Kitchen scraps, restaurant scraps when available. We also have separate compost bins strictly for raising black soldier flies. They loooooovvvvvveeeeee them and are a great replacement for feeds. I have not had any issues with my chickens. I sometimes (maybe 3x a year) buy oats and grow fodder with the oats. So in total maybe......30/40$ a year to feed our chickens. 27 chickens and a duck on our family's farm
I love what you're doing and I would love to talk to you more about it.
