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I more than suspect you're right. Keeping chickens is not nearly as complex an undertaking as many here would have you believe.
I have fed uncooked egg shells back to my birds for the last 49 years w/o a problem.
I don't ever have problems with disease & my poultry first aid kit contains only louse powder, a Coccidiostat & an ax to be used in the event I did have a sick bird. Haven't used the ax in years.
I've raised litwerally thousands of chickens over the years & have never seen a case of bumblefoot.
Somehow I've managed this w/o going to the extreme measures many here would have you believe are necessary. I don't disinfect the coops. I do cooasionally wash waterers but don't steralize them. I rarely buy new birds anymore but have never quarantined new birds & have never had a disease outbreak as a result. When I return from shows the birds that went to the show go right back in the coop they came from, they're not isolated from the rest of the flock.
I clean my big pens annually & smaller pens more frequently but I don't sweep them out & disinfect them. I certainly don't vacume or mop them as some here report.
As I said I've kept birds for 49 years now largely w/o any problems. Either I'm inordinately lucky or many of these measures just aren't necessary.
I don't think you ARE inordinately lucky NYREDS. I think that's the reality for most "home flock" chicken raisers, I really do. My opinion is that a lot of these "measures" and the literature about poultry diseases have their origin more in the world of the commercial sector than as a daily reality for small flocks. I'm always at a loss to help people who ask about chicken diseases, because while I can list names of illnesses, and parrot information I've picked up, I have almost no experience dealing with any of them.
A friend with chickens asked me about fowl pox a while back--I knew almost nothing about it, because I'd never seen it before or known anyone who had it. But I also think there's something to be said about not dwelling on the possibility of disease, but rather focusing on promoting health. I try apply the same philosophy to pest and disease control in growing vegetables--I don't focus on how to destroy aphids and kill fungus, instead I focus on creating a healthy environment and healthy soil, of which healthy plants are the natural result. Occasionally, bad stuff just happens, because nothing's perfect--but so far it's worked pretty well...
I wanted to say a HUGE Thank You to all! I've been trying to think back on how my grandfather raised his chickens when I was a little girl & just can't remember him taking extraordinary measures for their care.
Food, Water, Attention & Shelter, that was as complex as the system got
& yes I too remember them getting scraps of "whatever" being tossed to them
There's so much conflicting info out there, it's enough to send you into a panic!
Although I have to admit, my ladies are extremely spoiled, I'm going to follow what my grandfather would have done...
Enjoy them, let them be chickens & not dwell on the million "what could be's"
I more than suspect you're right. Keeping chickens is not nearly as complex an undertaking as many here would have you believe.
I have fed uncooked egg shells back to my birds for the last 49 years w/o a problem.
I don't ever have problems with disease & my poultry first aid kit contains only louse powder, a Coccidiostat & an ax to be used in the event I did have a sick bird. Haven't used the ax in years.
I've raised litwerally thousands of chickens over the years & have never seen a case of bumblefoot.
Somehow I've managed this w/o going to the extreme measures many here would have you believe are necessary. I don't disinfect the coops. I do cooasionally wash waterers but don't steralize them. I rarely buy new birds anymore but have never quarantined new birds & have never had a disease outbreak as a result. When I return from shows the birds that went to the show go right back in the coop they came from, they're not isolated from the rest of the flock.
I clean my big pens annually & smaller pens more frequently but I don't sweep them out & disinfect them. I certainly don't vacume or mop them as some here report.
As I said I've kept birds for 49 years now largely w/o any problems. Either I'm inordinately lucky or many of these measures just aren't necessary.
I don't think you ARE inordinately lucky NYREDS. I think that's the reality for most "home flock" chicken raisers, I really do. My opinion is that a lot of these "measures" and the literature about poultry diseases have their origin more in the world of the commercial sector than as a daily reality for small flocks. I'm always at a loss to help people who ask about chicken diseases, because while I can list names of illnesses, and parrot information I've picked up, I have almost no experience dealing with any of them.
I wanted to say a HUGE Thank You to all! I've been trying to think back on how my grandfather raised his chickens when I was a little girl & just can't remember him taking extraordinary measures for their care.
Food, Water, Attention & Shelter, that was as complex as the system got
& yes I too remember them getting scraps of "whatever" being tossed to them
There's so much conflicting info out there, it's enough to send you into a panic!
Although I have to admit, my ladies are extremely spoiled, I'm going to follow what my grandfather would have done...
Enjoy them, let them be chickens & not dwell on the million "what could be's"
