What some chickens will eat - GROSS

[Warthog]

Quote:
Is that wishful thinking?

 

[gsim]

Quote:
Is that wishful thinking?

I wonder if free-ranging chooks get intestinal parasites

and mites and such more often than those kept in a pen?

 

[mstricer]

My Orps are the ones in my flock that eat snakes and voles.

 

[gsim]

Quote:
Mine eat anything not nailed down except their poop!

I should be grateful.

One day I was doing something around the coop with the usual feathered audience. I set a certain number of machine screws down on a flat rock and moments later, had one missing. Any ideas? No, I never saw it reappear during coop cleaning

either.

 

[Ms~Silkie~Girl]

hahahaa

 

[IggiMom]

Quote:
Is that wishful thinking?

I wonder if free-ranging chooks get intestinal parasites

and mites and such more often than those kept in a pen?

Supposedly not. I wondered about this also, and I was told that the crowded conditions that pertain in most chicken factories account for the spread of these things, and that free range get them less.

I would be will to bet that the size of the area they range on might be a factor, also.

I am just guessing, though.

Catherine

 

[PhilErvin]

A friend of mine who has chickens won't eat there eggs because they eat earwigs. I asured him that the chickens have a built-in filter that screens the earwigs out but he still won't eat them

Go figure.

 

[gsim]

Quote:
I wonder if free-ranging chooks get intestinal parasites

and mites and such more often than those kept in a pen?

Supposedly not. I wondered about this also, and I was told that the crowded conditions that pertain in most chicken factories account for the spread of these things, and that free range get them less.

I would be will to bet that the size of the area they range on might be a factor, also.

I am just guessing, though.

Catherine

I was wondering about whether other livestock being present in the free range area with the dung and it's possible parasites would play into it as opposed to a condition where only the flock itself lived in, say, a large open air run not contaminated by other animals or birds. Also there could be conditions of free-ranging that the chooks would be by and large, the only livestock around and that way would be less exposed. Visits by starlings would be hazardous no matter if in a pen or free range environment. Lots of hatcheries practice bio-security not even allowing visitors to any breeding or hatching areas. I guess they have learned the hard way about possible flock losses by what could be the most innocent looking incident?

 

[IggiMom]

Well, I don't know. Does anyone else?

Catherine

 

[hen-thusiast]

Quote: