What’s the deal with you chicken people??

[z3lda3]

Or chickens in general. Our motion light goes on and I act as though I am watching a police stand-off through my front windows.

Omg thank you! I just put my girls in the coop full time about a week ago. We’ve got a baby cam in there. In the morning my chickens wake up, and we hear them shuffling around in there. My husband (being one of my girls) “what’s that? A slight sliver of daylight over the horizon? Welp time to party”
Any time we hear them moving or making noise we’re all running to windows and doors. So glad to know it’s not just us!

 

[z3lda3]

I want to ask what breed cockerel you have, but I am kind of terrified that you will say it is a Limp Bizkit or something and I will be totally lost.

Hey! It’s funny you should ask, it’s an Australian Fuzzy Breeches Cutielorp.

 

[KayisforKale]

Omg thank you! I just put my girls in the coop full time about a week ago. We’ve got a baby cam in there. In the morning my chickens wake up, and we hear them shuffling around in there. My husband (being one of my girls) “what’s that? A slight sliver of daylight over the horizon? Welp time to party”
Any time we hear them moving or making noise we’re all running to windows and doors. So glad to know it’s not just us!

When I first moved mine out, I was out there every hour on the hour to make sure they were alright. Now I know that they no likey-like light until the sun comes up.

 

[KayisforKale]

Hey! It’s funny you should ask, it’s an Australian Fuzzy Breeches Cutielorp.

I knew it! I just knew it!

 

[KinTiN]

Hi, first time chicken owner, I’ve got 4 red sex link pullets, and 4 chicks.
Is there a chicken breed underground that I’m unaware of? Like the Free Masons of chickens??
Before I decided to get chickens, I read EVERYTHING I could about them. And yall chicken ppl blow my mind with ALL the breeds and knowledge about them. Not just in this community. I went to the feed store just to buy another feeder. Ol man comes over “oh you got some me chickens huh. Well you need some bebop’s and floofloos, and maybe cross you some yummytums and plickados”. At one point I don’t think he was speaking English anymore. “What kind of chickens you got”? I was dumbfounded I said “mine are red”. I felt so.. ignorant. Seriously where/how do y'all learn about all these breeds? And why is it important? I feel like I’m missing something here. I want to be in the chicken know!

Yeah, there's a lot to learn. I'm new to it myself. Some people want show birds, some want meat birds, great egg layers, colorful eggs, etc. My fiance and I raise dual-purpose breeds, meaning they're good for lots of eggs and meat.

 

[NatJ]

My bantam frizzles were labeled assorted mix. That’s fine, but mixed with what? I mean what COULD they be? Just narrow it down a bit. Of course I now know Cochin. Look at me learning breeds!

When they are in a store, or come directly from a hatchery, "assorted mix" usually means the hatchery put the last few of each breed into one box and called them assorted. One chick may be a Cochin and another may be a Brahma, but there will probably not be any Cochin/Brahma mixes. Sometimes there will be specific assortments: just bantams, or just chickens with feathered feet, or just chickens that lay brown eggs, or something like that.

If you relied only on this image that I found on google (for instance), that would be bad news because this is wrong.
View attachment 3819080

Notice that is has avocados in the fruits and veggies section. It's probably the most lethal thing for chickens besides swallowing foreign material. This image is absolutely awful because if a chicken-keeper relied on this source and this source solely, then that means certain death.

You say avocado means certain death to a chicken eats it? What is your source for that? It is certainly stated on many websites, but as far as I can tell, they are just plain WRONG.

My main source for doubting it: many chickens that have eaten avocado and been perfectly healthy. They did not eat the pit, and they ate little or none of the peel, but they ate the same part of the avocado that people would eat. If the avocado had ugly brown streaks inside, sometimes the entire avocado went to the chickens and they ate it right up (number of chickens ranged from about 6 to 20 at various times.)

Here is a post on this website, from someone with more extensive experience than I have:

As a family, we eat a lot of avocado. The skin and pit and over ripe fruit all go in the chicken bucket. They eat the flesh and leave the rest. Same as citrus and bananas. They eat the good stuff and leave what isn't good for them. They know where the compost pile is. They just go over there and pick out what they want. I save them the trip.

And if you want a source that isn't just personal experience, here is Purina's view:
https://www.purinamills.com/chicken...eed-chickens-chicken-treats-to-feed-and-avoid
"Avocado pits and skins are toxic to chickens as they contain a toxin called persin. The flesh of the avocado is fine for chickens."

(Purina is in the business of selling animal feed, which means they want your chickens alive so you buy more feed. They do not sell avocados. So if there is any conflict of interest, they should be telling you to avoid anything even remotely dangerous.)


https://www.cabidigitallibrary.org/doi/pdf/10.5555/20133426489
And here is a scientific study that included avocado meal as an ingredient in chicken feed, with that feed used for broiler chicks during a 4 week period (age 14 days to 42 days). Since it was mixed into the feed, they had no choice about eating it. The experiment included several different levels of avocado meal, with the highest being 29.3% of the total feed. (Yes, almost 1/3 of the feed was avocado meal, for 28 days.)

The results include the statement that none of the chicks died during the experiment. I repeat, NONE of them died. The researchers did find that the fastest-growing chicks were the ones with no avocado meal in their food. The toxin Persin was mentioned as one possible reason for this. But despite that, all of the chicks did live and did grow, some of them with very large amounts of avocado meal in their food for 4 weeks.

As for what the "avocado meal" is, the paper says: "After the oil has been extracted from avocado fruits that were unsuitable for the fresh fruit market, a product, avocado meal (AM), remains as a waste product"

If the link doesn't work, here is the header of the paper, so you can try to find it by googling:
Applied Animal Husbandry & Rural Development 2013, Volume 6 22
Can avocado meal replace maize meal in broiler diets?
J.B.J. van Ryssen, A. Skenjana & W.A. van Niekerk
Animal & Wildlife Sciences, University of Pretoria, Pretoria 0002, South Africa

So I contend that your statement "It's probably the most lethal thing for chickens besides swallowing foreign material. This image is absolutely awful because if a chicken-keeper relied on this source and this source solely, then that means certain death" is NOT true of avocados. Plenty of chickens have eaten avocado, in various quantities, without dying from it.

 

[shawluvsbirds]

Hi, first time chicken owner, I’ve got 4 red sex link pullets, and 4 chicks.
Is there a chicken breed underground that I’m unaware of? Like the Free Masons of chickens??
Before I decided to get chickens, I read EVERYTHING I could about them. And yall chicken ppl blow my mind with ALL the breeds and knowledge about them. Not just in this community. I went to the feed store just to buy another feeder. Ol man comes over “oh you got some me chickens huh. Well you need some bebop’s and floofloos, and maybe cross you some yummytums and plickados”. At one point I don’t think he was speaking English anymore. “What kind of chickens you got”? I was dumbfounded I said “mine are red”. I felt so.. ignorant. Seriously where/how do y'all learn about all these breeds? And why is it important? I feel like I’m missing something here. I want to be in the chicken know!

It does help! I’m just going to start making breeds up. Like oh what kind of chickens you got? “ I've got Xandidiidles” See how they like being stumped.

Thank you! I know (from reading) WAY more about health and disease than chicken breeds. But nobody ever wants to talk that at random. Maybe next time someone goes off on their breeds I’ll just say, I don’t what you’re talking about, but let me show you some pictures of my chickens vents, now these vents are showroom new clean!

This is great. Posting where i left off so I can come back and read the rest. ...
But i do have a solution for ya.

Forgot the chickens and get ducks!

 

[z3lda3]

Yeah, there's a lot to learn. I'm new to it myself. Some people want show birds, some want meat birds, great egg layers, colorful eggs, etc. My fiance and I raise dual-purpose breeds, meaning they're good for lots of eggs and meat.

I’d love to have chickens for meat. But there’s NO way I could do what you have to do in order to get said meat. Dont get me wrong, if my kids were hungry I’d cull my husband- but I’m way too tender hearted

 

[KayisforKale]

When they are in a store, or come directly from a hatchery, "assorted mix" usually means the hatchery put the last few of each breed into one box and called them assorted. One chick may be a Cochin and another may be a Brahma, but there will probably not be an Cochin/Brahma mixes. Sometimes there will be specific assortments: just bantams, or just chickens with feathered feet, or just chickens that lay brown eggs, or something like that.


You say avocado means certain death to a chicken eats it? What is your source for that? It is certainly stated on many websites, but as far as I can tell, they are just plain WRONG.

My main source for doubting it: many chickens that have eaten avocado and been perfectly healthy. They did not eat the pit, and they ate little or none of the peel, but they ate the same part of the avocado that people would eat. If the avocado had ugly brown streaks inside, sometimes the entire avocado went to the chickens and they ate it right up (number of chickens ranged from about 6 to 20 at various times.)

Here is a post on this website, from someone with more extensive experience than I have:


And if you want a source that isn't just personal experience, here is Purina's view:
https://www.purinamills.com/chicken...eed-chickens-chicken-treats-to-feed-and-avoid
"Avocado pits and skins are toxic to chickens as they contain a toxin called persin. The flesh of the avocado is fine for chickens."

(Purina is in the business of selling animal feed, which means they want your chickens alive so you buy more feed. They do not sell avocados. So if there is any conflict of interest, they should be telling you to avoid anything even remotely dangerous.)


https://www.cabidigitallibrary.org/doi/pdf/10.5555/20133426489
And here is a scientific study that included avocado meal as an ingredient in chicken feed, with that feed used for broiler chicks during a 4 week period (age 14 days to 42 days). Since it was mixed into the feed, they had no choice about eating it. The experiment included several different levels of avocado meal, with the highest being 29.3% of the total feed. (Yes, almost 1/3 of the feed was avocado meal, for 28 days.)

The results include the statement that none of the chicks died during the experiment. I repeat, NONE of them died. The researchers did find that the fastest-growing chicks were the ones with no avocado meal in their food. The toxin Persin was mentioned as one possible reason for this. But despite that, all of the chicks did live and did grow, some of them with very large amounts of avocado meal in their food for 4 weeks.

As for what the "avocado meal" is, the paper says: "After the oil has been extracted from avocado fruits that were unsuitable for the fresh fruit market, a product, avocado meal (AM), remains as a waste product"

If the link doesn't work, here is the header of the paper, so you can try to find it by googling:
Applied Animal Husbandry & Rural Development 2013, Volume 6 22
Can avocado meal replace maize meal in broiler diets?
J.B.J. van Ryssen, A. Skenjana & W.A. van Niekerk
Animal & Wildlife Sciences, University of Pretoria, Pretoria 0002, South Africa

So I contend that your statement "It's probably the most lethal thing for chickens besides swallowing foreign material. This image is absolutely awful because if a chicken-keeper relied on this source and this source solely, then that means certain death" is NOT true of avocados. Plenty of chickens have eaten avocado, in various quantities, without dying from it.

So it is like with tomato plants? Mine had eaten about half of our tomato plants, and walked away perfectly happy and healthy. That was a year ago. I only learned later that it was dangerous. But mine were all fine. And they love getting tomato treats.

 

[NatJ]

Ok I thought there were either red sex links or black, this golden is new to me!

Golden Sexlinks and Red Sexlinks are two different names for chickens that are pretty much the same thing. They are still color-sexable from the time they hatch ("sexlink"), and are somewhere in the gold/red/brown part of the chicken color spectrum.