Sub-tropical chooks - picture heavy

[chooks4life]

@chooks4life you make it sound so civilised.

I'm pretty sure the escourting of the son to the boundary of the parental property involves violent encouragement. It's a nice picture though.
I totally agree with how livestock are viewed and my long term plan is to move somewhere I have a bit more elbow room. I don't plan on having any livestock other than chooks, I just need space even if it's not quieter because of noisy animals. : ) I look forward to being able to plant very large growing trees.

It can be civilized though. But you're right, it often does involve violent encouragement.

In my flock, I always found that young males would just choose to shy away from mature males, and always automatically moved to the peripheral of the flock; given time and sufficiently unrestricted space, and not being dependent on humans for food nor trained to return to the coops every night, they would automatically drift off to make new territories outside the border of the mature male's. Of course not all flocks have this option, many have fences and a lack of wild food sources to use, so they're unnaturally concentrated population-wise which causes more conflict in the average flock. You have to do some intensive selection for non-aggression to make that work, or get birds that have had that selection already done for a few generations, generally.

I expect it would be the same in the wild, since they begin to show their gender long before they're physically able to have anything vaguely like a fair fight with their fathers, and the fathers tend to show juvenile males a fair bit of tolerance until they are about a year old... Generally they're good at knowing whether or not they're physically up for challenging a mature male and at that age the answer is unequivocally 'no'.

They have many non-confrontational and submissive behaviors to avoid and defuse social conflict like any other social species. I did have a few cockerels take off on me and establish 'satellite' territories where they could be dominant without coming into conflict with mature males. In the wild there's 'dispersal' instincts strongly ingrained in almost all social species which enable young to safely leave their parent's territories before coming to serious blows over it.

Chickens can indeed be very civilized in every aspect of their lives, but it can take some selection against negative social traits to get that one to be the dominant social paradigm.

Best wishes.

 

[appps]

@cwrite you must have some pretty sensitive neighbours! I would much rather have chooks next door making their noises than a dog. If they ever complain I would make it clear if you have to get rid of your chooks you plan to get a (insert yappy breed here) dog lol

My next door neighbour made the neighbour two doors below hims life hell complaining about her dog yapping when people would walk past and writing rude letters about it. Even he has never said a word about mine!

 

[ChickyChickens]

@cwrite you must have some pretty sensitive neighbours! I would much rather have chooks next door making their noises than a dog. If they ever complain I would make it clear if you have to get rid of your chooks you plan to get a (insert yappy breed here) dog lol

My next door neighbour made the neighbour two doors below hims life hell complaining about her dog yapping when people would walk past and writing rude letters about it. Even he has never said a word about mine!

I hate those kind of "unanimal lover" kind of people!

 

[cwrite]

I don't know appps, my chooks are pretty noisy. Snowy came up with a new noise yesterday that went on for a couple of hours. It's a constant low whine. All the chooks that laid sang two & sometimes three egg songs. I figured out that with her and Hedwig laying again in the corner nest box there is a bottle neck for nest space. Previously when all five used to lay in the small dog box that Snowy brooded in, two could fit in so it was never a problem. This was never intended to be how they laid, but I was writing exams when they came up on 20 weeks so the dog box in the run was supposed to be a stop gap until I had more time but stayed as it worked well as a nest until Snowy went broody in it.

Stampy hasn't laid in days which is a worry because I don't think she is getting a chance to have a turn & that can lead to egg yolk peritonitus. Later in the day doesn't seem to work for anyone. I was so tired yesterday morning that I felt like overcoming my squeamishness of wringing necks - except it was Snowy & not Dotty in the firing line.

I bought straw yesterday, cleaned and filled all the nest boxes. The chickens were terrified of the stuff because it's completely different to hay.

I thought no problem, all nest boxes are equally terrifying so they can use both & I left one of snowy's eggs in the small dog box. This morning was worse. We tried everything to get them to quieten down with the complaining that started at 5am. I even sent my daughter out to give the noisy ones a hug. My son had already been out twice on his own inniative with the hose pipe and yelled - hug them ALL!

I'm not changing anything else so that they can get used to the scary changes, but clearly something has to give while they learn to use both nest boxes again. Time will tell if the noisy ones get sold instead of the chicks if they don't get over it & soon.

Snowy started whining again before I even finished typing. She has laid her egg. There doesn't appear to be anything wrong with her so she is having a time out in the hay filled cat box in the garage. The chicks peeped for her for about 5 minutes and then moved on. Bliss.

Snowy roosted last night. Some of the chicks happily roosted, some settled down quietly in the dog box and a couple absolutely refused to roost or stop peeping until I presume they fell asleep. Progress on that front at least.

 

[cwrite]

Chickens can indeed be very civilized in every aspect of their lives, but it can take some selection against negative social traits to get that one to be the dominant social paradigm.

Best wishes.

I also read that the social order breaks down in flocks larger than 30 birds and they become more tolerant of each other. I can't imagine that flocks would be this large in the wild so perhaps this somehow relates to youngsters moving to the peripheral boundaries.

I haven't had any bloody fights in my flock so they seem to use social cues far more than outright fights which I'm very happy with. One thing I have learnt though is that it's best to start as you plan to go on when looking after animals that don't handle change well. Experimenting with things like feed and bedding (or using seasonal bedding) may seem like small things to us, but it's a big deal to a chicken.

 

[ChickyChickens]

@cwrite I love ure thread sooooo much!!

 

[cwrite]

@cwrite I love ure thread sooooo much!!

Thanks ChickyChickens. I appreciate your enthusiasm while I rabbit on about my chooks.

 

[ChickyChickens]

Thanks ChickyChickens. I appreciate your enthusiasm while I rabbit on about my chooks.

My pleasure....lol

 

[cwrite]

Snowy cut the cord yesterday. I saw her going for a few of her chicks. Last night all the chicks roosted after a bit of peeping. We also had our first day of five eggs in one day since the broodiness started. That means I don't need to worry about Stampy not laying. It was much quieter this morning although we are still working on Snowy's whine. She is on her second time out already.

Stampy visited our windowsill for a preen and rest this morning.



I'm having second thoughts about taking some chicks to the market. I was watching them for a while this morning and no one screams roo anymore. I still think the most likely one is Rumpless but I'll see. I saw the beginnings of muffs & beards which I'm quite excited about.

 

[chooks4life]

I also read that the social order breaks down in flocks larger than 30 birds and they become more tolerant of each other. I can't imagine that flocks would be this large in the wild so perhaps this somehow relates to youngsters moving to the peripheral boundaries.

The layer breeds and hybrids like Isabrowns around here tend to come from large flocks which beat the crap out of one another, extremely violent social structure, whereas there are also peaceful big flocks (often kept by hobbyists not commercial breeders), and the more peaceful flocks have a good strong social order, they're just not violent in maintaining it. If you take a whole generation of babies and raise them with one another and no adults around, any peacefulness or violence is still for the most part due to generational selection for or against those traits, not the size of the flock itself.

No, flocks wouldn't be this large in the wild, but the very same social instincts that enable peaceful cohesion in the wild are necessarily present in large but peaceful domestic flocks too. Less instinct equals greater violence, in my experience.

Still, plenty of contrary experiences no matter what subject is being discussed, but in this case greater instinct equaling more violence seems restricted to unsocialized or purpose-bred fighter breeds, and not necessarily supporting the statement that greater instinct equals more violence.

I've read things like that old nugget stating that chooks can't recognize more than 12 flockmates (not true) and other overgeneralized statements. Different strokes for different flocks, there is always the exception to the 'rule'.

I haven't had any bloody fights in my flock so they seem to use social cues far more than outright fights which I'm very happy with. One thing I have learnt though is that it's best to start as you plan to go on when looking after animals that don't handle change well. Experimenting with things like feed and bedding (or using seasonal bedding) may seem like small things to us, but it's a big deal to a chicken.

It hasn't been a big deal with mine, I'm surprised every time you mention something about your chooks taking badly to change. I think it's just your lot, lol! There's always those that don't take well to change, doesn't matter what domestic species we're talking about.

Best wishes.