Quote: As long as you keep yourself and your chooks in good health I don't know of any. If you kept a factory setup with the usual issues that has, or kept violent roosters, then I'd think you'd need to be careful. If the environment is enough to make your chooks sick then the mold spores etc could also possibly pose a threat. I do know that with old, feces-laden moldy hay or litter carrying certain spores people can get 'farmer's lung' which one would suspect a pregnant lady might be at greater risk of. Just in case it might be best to not clear out their coop while pregnant. Not very 'learned' in this area so take any advice I give with a large pinch of salt. 
Quote: I've always found the greatest issues came when the most dominant male dies and the next tries to step up. The dilution of the alpha male situation by having so many roosters has been the biggest stress reliever for my flock, as strange as that sounds. I would routinely have to cull roosters that had been fine for years because once made alpha by a loss of the previous alpha, they didn't cope well with the stress and got a bit harsh on either hens or cockerels which they'd always been fine with before. The best solution for me was to have many mature roosters and hens, because the less roosters I had the more aggressive they were.
Most roosters will make a fine second-in-charge but many, if accidentally elevated beyond their natural social standing (by death of the dominant male) will not cope. If they were able to be alpha naturally they would have been, and they don't seem to be able to easily adjust to finding themselves in the top spot overnight. You expect some fighting as the hierarchy shifts, but their attitudes changed severely and permanently and did not fix until I kept more roosters.
Quote: Agree with delisha. Some of mine get mentally stuck in the 'broody crouch' but will spring up and run if something interests them enough. I find these hens are usually those lacking the instinct or mental capacity to be good mothers, too. Those that overdo any aspect of mothering/female reproduction are often insufficient in other areas.
One thing I hear of a lot, also, when talking to farmers in europe, is this thing where females of all kinds 'go off their feet' when anything is draining their magnesium/calcium reserve; so, cows when just-birthed or milking, dogs when nursing, chickens when laying or having sat and brooded for a long time. The solution in those cases is usually some mix of cal-mag and potassium and usually vitB-12 as far as I saw. This is due to environmental or dietary insufficiency, but can also be due to individual lack of ability to synthesize/process the intake adequately.
Quote: Ok, that definitely sounds like nerve damage, or possibly tendon damage.
Quote: Yes, easily, I've dealt with chooks of mine and other people's who have damaged something in their pelvis area that renders both legs almost useless. Not uncommon, probably has a genetic component. It usually takes quite a long time to fix. Many months. If the chook can walk at all though, I'd expect it to take less time unless aggravated further. I knew of one production red who walked with her vent touching the ground, broken pelvis, died after a few months.
Quote: Possibly, but could still be just that leg. Often if one leg is badly out of action the other follows suit. Sam with pelvis injuries which can be so hard to tell apart from leg ones.
Quote: Cute! But I don't see much sun in that pic. Maybe it's just this crappy monitor. The turkey as well as the chook chicks are quite hunched with their eyes closed, I hope it's just from cold not illness.
Quote: Lovely horses. Question though: do you know of why anyone would cull an apparently healthy yearling filly and chop off her neck at the shoulders, her legs below the knees, and gut her? They just left her in a gully like this on their farm next door, seemingly trying to bait pigs and wild dogs, since they shine a floodlight on her corpse at night. But it's strange they cut off those potentially identifying parts. (No brand on rump). I wonder if she was a theft. A lot of farmers round here can be malicious or vengeful like that, but maybe I'm just being suspicious.
Quote: Often due to dietary insufficiency or imbalance, which can be simply caused by them eating something wrong at the wrong time, may not be your fault at all. But if it is genetic I'd cull it out completely, I'm actually in the later stages of removing inwards/outwards leg spraddling genetic issues from some family lines in my flock. If you post a photo of the legs from front on, clearly showing the scaling, I can tell you if it is genetic. Highly heritable if it is.
Quote: If your breeding program is moving in the right direction, they say, your current breeder's offspring should always be an improvement on the generation before. I don't keep any purebred lines right now but aren't averse to the idea in future, but I'd use the close-to-perfect-but-not-quite culls to improve my mix genetic flock. Maybe... Not a fan of the purebreds I've encountered, too faulty. I'm into mongrels all the way.
Quote: I didn't find your post boring, I like hearing from others in detail about what they do and why. I'm a serial poster of brick walls of text, but while they bore or irritate some, others tell me they find something useful in it... So until I learn to be more concise, it's ok. People can skip if they're so averse to huge amounts of opinion all in one go. People do. It's fine.
Quote: Depends on what they can access. Overly long grass, insects that may be toxic that they aren't familiar with, inedible objects, basically anything a free ranged chook would know not to eat, they might eat.
Quote: Wing in my experience, that holds true basically all the time despite how many different crosses and mixes I breed. Tail seems to mean nothing much, except in case of posture; my tiny males spread out the stubs and perk the tails before they even have feathers, a lot of the time. But that too is unreliable, girls will do it too.
Quote: Good luck. Personally I'd just use raw garlic in quantity over time, seems to work the same, it's high in sulfur. But I do know some people just use the other sort.
Quote: I've always found the greatest issues came when the most dominant male dies and the next tries to step up. The dilution of the alpha male situation by having so many roosters has been the biggest stress reliever for my flock, as strange as that sounds. I would routinely have to cull roosters that had been fine for years because once made alpha by a loss of the previous alpha, they didn't cope well with the stress and got a bit harsh on either hens or cockerels which they'd always been fine with before. The best solution for me was to have many mature roosters and hens, because the less roosters I had the more aggressive they were.
Most roosters will make a fine second-in-charge but many, if accidentally elevated beyond their natural social standing (by death of the dominant male) will not cope. If they were able to be alpha naturally they would have been, and they don't seem to be able to easily adjust to finding themselves in the top spot overnight. You expect some fighting as the hierarchy shifts, but their attitudes changed severely and permanently and did not fix until I kept more roosters.
Quote: Agree with delisha. Some of mine get mentally stuck in the 'broody crouch' but will spring up and run if something interests them enough. I find these hens are usually those lacking the instinct or mental capacity to be good mothers, too. Those that overdo any aspect of mothering/female reproduction are often insufficient in other areas.
One thing I hear of a lot, also, when talking to farmers in europe, is this thing where females of all kinds 'go off their feet' when anything is draining their magnesium/calcium reserve; so, cows when just-birthed or milking, dogs when nursing, chickens when laying or having sat and brooded for a long time. The solution in those cases is usually some mix of cal-mag and potassium and usually vitB-12 as far as I saw. This is due to environmental or dietary insufficiency, but can also be due to individual lack of ability to synthesize/process the intake adequately.
Quote: Ok, that definitely sounds like nerve damage, or possibly tendon damage.
Quote: Yes, easily, I've dealt with chooks of mine and other people's who have damaged something in their pelvis area that renders both legs almost useless. Not uncommon, probably has a genetic component. It usually takes quite a long time to fix. Many months. If the chook can walk at all though, I'd expect it to take less time unless aggravated further. I knew of one production red who walked with her vent touching the ground, broken pelvis, died after a few months.
Quote: Possibly, but could still be just that leg. Often if one leg is badly out of action the other follows suit. Sam with pelvis injuries which can be so hard to tell apart from leg ones.
Quote: Cute! But I don't see much sun in that pic. Maybe it's just this crappy monitor. The turkey as well as the chook chicks are quite hunched with their eyes closed, I hope it's just from cold not illness.
Quote: Lovely horses. Question though: do you know of why anyone would cull an apparently healthy yearling filly and chop off her neck at the shoulders, her legs below the knees, and gut her? They just left her in a gully like this on their farm next door, seemingly trying to bait pigs and wild dogs, since they shine a floodlight on her corpse at night. But it's strange they cut off those potentially identifying parts. (No brand on rump). I wonder if she was a theft. A lot of farmers round here can be malicious or vengeful like that, but maybe I'm just being suspicious.
Quote: Often due to dietary insufficiency or imbalance, which can be simply caused by them eating something wrong at the wrong time, may not be your fault at all. But if it is genetic I'd cull it out completely, I'm actually in the later stages of removing inwards/outwards leg spraddling genetic issues from some family lines in my flock. If you post a photo of the legs from front on, clearly showing the scaling, I can tell you if it is genetic. Highly heritable if it is.
Quote: If your breeding program is moving in the right direction, they say, your current breeder's offspring should always be an improvement on the generation before. I don't keep any purebred lines right now but aren't averse to the idea in future, but I'd use the close-to-perfect-but-not-quite culls to improve my mix genetic flock. Maybe... Not a fan of the purebreds I've encountered, too faulty. I'm into mongrels all the way.
Quote: I didn't find your post boring, I like hearing from others in detail about what they do and why. I'm a serial poster of brick walls of text, but while they bore or irritate some, others tell me they find something useful in it... So until I learn to be more concise, it's ok. People can skip if they're so averse to huge amounts of opinion all in one go. People do. It's fine.
Quote: Depends on what they can access. Overly long grass, insects that may be toxic that they aren't familiar with, inedible objects, basically anything a free ranged chook would know not to eat, they might eat.
Quote: Wing in my experience, that holds true basically all the time despite how many different crosses and mixes I breed. Tail seems to mean nothing much, except in case of posture; my tiny males spread out the stubs and perk the tails before they even have feathers, a lot of the time. But that too is unreliable, girls will do it too.
Quote: Good luck. Personally I'd just use raw garlic in quantity over time, seems to work the same, it's high in sulfur. But I do know some people just use the other sort.
Your neighbors did this to a horse?
Of course we did. She only had them 3 days, feeding them tamales. 
She got them from a friend that said her hens laid large brown eggs, thats all I know about what they may be. Any guesses as to what breed or crossbreds?
