The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[tadpole98]

crazy apples I found the apples.

 

[maggiemo]

Does anyone have experience with Welsummers? Please comment - do you like them? Pros and Cons?

I have 5 Welsummers. All hatchery. One from Randell Burke and 4 from Murry McMurry. They are all almost a year old. I love them. They are friendly strong beautiful birds. They lay nice dark brown large splotchy eggs. They were all late to mature. One of them went broody a few weeks ago, and I just gave her some chicks on Friday and she is a great mom. She took them right away, growls a little bit at me and her flock mates if we get close. But if I want to see her babies she lets me move her. She is outside in the coop and everyone seems to be fine together.
This is my first year with chickens. I got my first birds last April. I am thinking of what I want to add and get rid of flock wise, and I keep coming back to Welsummers. Right now, I will say they will always make up 1/4 to 1/3 of my flock.
hth

 

[aoxa]

I have 5 Welsummers. All hatchery. One from Randell Burke and 4 from Murry McMurry. They are all almost a year old. I love them. They are friendly strong beautiful birds. They lay nice dark brown large splotchy eggs. They were all late to mature. One of them went broody a few weeks ago, and I just gave her some chicks on Friday and she is a great mom. She took them right away, growls a little bit at me and her flock mates if we get close. But if I want to see her babies she lets me move her. She is outside in the coop and everyone seems to be fine together.
This is my first year with chickens. I got my first birds last April. I am thinking of what I want to add and get rid of flock wise, and I keep coming back to Welsummers. Right now, I will say they will always make up 1/4 to 1/3 of my flock.
hth

This may just be the breed I go with for dark eggs then. Not many could say a whole lot about BCMs, so Welsummers are winning

 

[lalaland]

Does anyone have experience with Welsummers? Please comment - do you like them? Pros and Cons?

I have four wellies, (all from that rescued flock from the guy's bedroom), and have had them for about 10 months. They are almost 2 years old.
Pros: good consistent layers of very dark brown eggs. even temperment. docile. cautious.
cons: so docile they don't object to feather picking. won't stand up for themselves at the feed stations. last to come out of the coop in the morning. last to try new foods. not great at foraging. I wouldn't call them skittish because they are slow, and stand back from just about everything .

I don't think I choose to get more, although I am loving the dark dark eggs.

 

[lalaland]

There is something just plain wrong about the grapple..




You can see it starts with an 8

weird. I haven't seen those. thankfully.
most european countries and many others prohibit gmos - not proven safe. here, of course, in the good old usa, we switch it around - you can do whatever you want to food unless it is proven to be unsafe. people get to be the guinea pigs. wouldn't want to keep a company from making a profit, would we?

 

[zbraswell92]

Tadpole - Do you have Welsummers? Did you get them from the hatchery or from a breeder?

Zbra - you need to do a little research into what GMO is. It is not breeding or hybridization. Do a search and read-up on the subject. You'll be surprised at what you find.

Genetic Modification IS selective breeding. Any thing sexually that would not NATURALLY occur in nature or is altered by man is technically a GMO. A Liger and a Tion are GMO's, as is a Pekin Duck which is bred for it's size and rapid growth, and a Cocker Spaniel is bred for it's lush coat and long ears.
If you take a Pekin duck and put it in with a Muscovy that is fertile you'd get a GMO also. The offspring would no longer be able to reproduce. AKA- a muallard.
The GMO conversation is not that complex, if you look at the broad spectrum of it.
Not all GMO's are bad! They don't hurt anyone and are much better from the economical stand point.

I do not like the way scientists alter growth through hormones and steroids, though.
BTW- I do, most defiantly, support stem-cell research but not by the means of creating a GMO.

 

[kian]

I have Cuckoo Marans and their eggs are not very dark. Until they began laying I could never pick them up or even touch them easily. I think I'd go for Welsummers myself.

 

[hotrodflash]

I have a question about naked neck chicks. I have 3 that are one week old and it looks like the skin is peeling on the back of their necks, not bad, just concerning. Is this normal?

 

[aoxa]

I have a question about naked neck chicks. I have 3 that are one week old and it looks like the skin is peeling on the back of their necks, not bad, just concerning. Is this normal?

Skin peeling... Picture? Could they be getting too hot under the heat lamp? I don't remember any peeling..

 

[Ashdoes]

I have three Roos and 9 girls...only one girl has a bald spot, why won't they leave the poor thing alone? I will be getting rid of two of the boys, so I know that's the main answer, I'm just wondering why the other girls are fine.
I wonder how hard it is to find people that want a giant rooster? These Cochin boys are huge!