The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[Leahs Mom]

Sorry about my rant!

Why are you sorry?

 

[misbhaven]

That is very funny. At least you are realistic!

well it is either that or if i buy a grown bird strap it into a car seat(would make for a funny picture)...not taking the young ones with...I would Rather be prepared and not buy anything than go without carriers and buy 10 .

 

[Leahs Mom]

Well Sophie is in the dog crate in the old run with a towel on the floor a handful of grit, water & a few spinach leaves. She is not happy but I told her at least she will have visitors since the other hens were going in & out to see her. Her behavior is nowhere extreme as before so I am hoping a few days in here will rectify her. After the spinach leaves are gone she won't have anything but water till Thursday. I've decided she won't get Lucy for a sleeping buddy either. The crate in the old run will be warm enough for her and 2 hens in there would just mean a mess with the water lol

Her wattles and comb are a great bright red so I take that as a positive. Later I need to check her crop. Forgot to when I stuck her in there. I want to see how much it goes down so I can monitor it. She was out all morning so it's def has stuff in it now.

I'll have to take a photo of how I finally did my kiddos that are in the crate. I put a tarp down on the garage floor with a light sprinkling of shavings. I've been dumping the tarp at end of day because they end up going into a smaller crate and spending the night in the house as the garage has some spilled gas that would be too strong of fumes with the door shut at night.

For night, I have 2 lengths of wood that are about 1" x1" x 2" stuck into the crate slats side by side to make a wider perch. They both go up on it and sleep for the night.

I'll try to take a photo.

 

[Leahs Mom]

Oh....and my birds have never eaten any spinach when I tried to give it to them.

 

[heartsizedfarm]

I liked your rant. You forgot to mention the effect of pesticides on bees. If GMOs become pervasive we could lose them. I can't imagine life without them.

Monsanto has said it wants to feed the world, but what its practices demonstrate is that it really wants to control the world's food supply. Which is quite a different matter.

 

[Jewelwing]

I liked your rant. You forgot to mention the effect of pesticides on bees. If GMOs become pervasive we could lose them. I can't imagine life without them.

Monsanto has said it wants to feed the world, but what its practices demonstrate is that it really wants to control the world's food supply. Which is quite a different matter.

Thanks.

You're right about GMO's and bees - whole papers could be written (and have been) about the dangers of GMOs to our society. And life without bees just may not be possible...

 

[armorfirelady]

Oh....and my birds have never eaten any spinach when I tried to give it to them. 

I bet if she gets hungry enough she will

 

[LilyD]

So...what would you consider the dividing line between acceptable GMO's and unacceptable GMO's when trying to keep chickens naturally. Every single chicken any one of us has is a genetically modified organism.
I'm not trying to be controversial, just looking for some opinions/conversation regarding GMO and backyard flocks. I also am against the Monsanto monster that has come to be, but I feel that the term "genetically modified organism" has received a critically bad wrap.
For instance, would all beef and chicken meat have to be labeled GMO if that becomes a stipulation by the FDA or the USDA?
I have a feeling all this talk about GMO'S is going to come back to bite us in the butt...not all GMOs are created equally. I believe we need to find a way to separate selective breeding and other more natural ways of genetic modification such as splicing plants from the alien laboratory monstrosities.
Sorry if this doesn't come out right, it's hard to follow a thought when you can't see your whole text box

I think when you see the talk about FDA labeling chicken or beef as not GMO free they are talking more about the feed that the animal is receiving. There is a huge controversy between the feeds that are given to animals that are raised industrially like chicken, beef and pork and what is fed within the backyard. If you are feeding a feed that is labeled GMO free then your chicken will then be GMO free. The same with your cattle and beef. As Ki4got said the chicken itself is a hybrid of two breeds of chicken so is not GMO by itself. If we let it eat off the land and feed it a good quality grain mix it can be considered a GMO free product once it is done.

Hopefully this makes sense.

 

[subhanalah]

I think when you see the talk about FDA labeling chicken or beef as not GMO free they are talking more about the feed that the animal is receiving. There is a huge controversy between the feeds that are given to animals that are raised industrially like chicken, beef and pork and what is fed within the backyard. If you are feeding a feed that is labeled GMO free then your chicken will then be GMO free. The same with your cattle and beef. As Ki4got said the chicken itself is a hybrid of two breeds of chicken so is not GMO by itself. If we let it eat off the land and feed it a good quality grain mix it can be considered a GMO free product once it is done. 

Hopefully this makes sense.

I'm going based off of the technical definition of genetically modified organism. Just because the implied GMO meaning (in the media) is of "laboratory altered DNA" that doesn't mean the actual definition of GMO is that. Anything that has been altered by human intervention to select certain genes to propagate is technically a genetically modified organism since it is not a naturally occurring organism.
I'm not real sure how to explain it. I understand what people are referring to when they mention GMO's, but the actual definition is not the same, and I have a feeling that using the term GMO in this way can lead to confusion or labeling even organic fed, non-gmo fed animals as GMO. Is anyone working on better defining the term or changing the name of the laboratory altered organisms since GMO is clearly too broad a term?

The way apples have been made to taste sweet and delicious is by splicing a bud from a tree you know makes delicious apples onto a new seedling, transferring the DNA of the first tree into the second tree, thus propagating the delicious apples into the new tree, even if the seedling were originally coded with bitter/sour fruit.
By selectively breeding animals, we are taking DNA from two desired hosts and combining them (through sexual reproduction) for desired traits. Both of these examples are of genetically modifying organisms, but where do we draw the line between that and doing it in a petri dish where the genes have been chemically altered?

 

[misbhaven]

I have seen first hand where some GMO test plots are grown nothing will grow sometimes after for years do to the testing just how many chemicals the new strains can handle...I live in seed country central Pioneer bags it seed not 10 miles from my house as do many other seed companies a lot big farms here grow nothing but seed corn for the rest of the country....Native wildlife has dwindled you figure the deer,birds, other small animals eat that seed which is heavily sprayed with poisons and then carry that poison in their system or die from it....there is a lot more to it...It is more what the GMO grain withstands 2 or 3 times the levels of chemicals which then get eaten by animals then we eat the animals , or grain ourselves.....chicken laced with roundup sound yummy to you?