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Post by rdback on Jun 18, 2022 9:26:05 GMT -6
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Post by macmex on Jun 19, 2022 13:22:56 GMT -6
Rick, I appreciate you posting... always!
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Post by chrysanthemum on Jun 22, 2022 21:15:47 GMT -6
I don’t have lots to add to a thread about backyard chickens, but I thought I’d post something I found out this morning from a neighbor. A sixty-one year old man who lives near us (not an acquaintance of mine) just died, and it was determined that he died of blood poisoning from an infected sore on his hand where he had been pecked by a rooster. He’d had chickens all his life and been pecked and scratched plenty of times, but this one started going bad, and he didn’t seek medical attention in time. Such an infection can, of course, happen from any kind of injury, but his mother wanted to tell the story of what happened to fellow chicken owners, so I thought I’d post it here since I knew there was a thread.
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Post by macmex on Jun 23, 2022 4:00:17 GMT -6
So very sad. You never know when a wound can become seriously infected. I keep bees and get stung fairly regularly. Every couple years one of those stings becomes infected. I know it because there's a large red swollen area around it, which persists. In the past I thought I could wait it out and it would heal on its own. Nope! When left alone, the one time I tried that, it spread and was heading to blood poisoning. Now, any time that happens I go to the doctor right away.
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Post by hmoosek on Jun 23, 2022 11:01:11 GMT -6
Oh that is sad.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Jun 23, 2022 15:46:39 GMT -6
I used to work in the muddy ditches in the swamps around Tulsa, in the Mingo area, as well as the muddy places around Chouteau and Pryor. Our crew of 5 men laid 89,000' feet of 4" and 5" inch schedule 40 PVC in one year alone. We dug over 9 miles of ditches. In doing that work, we were required to twist a lot of wire on rebar to reinforce the concrete around our pipe risers. My hands would be cut up perpetually. Knicks and scrapes mostly, but that environment would cause almost immediate infections to occur. To stem those off, we'd dab PVC glue over the wound, to seal out dirt and what have you. Even if a wound was already red and swollen, the PVC glue would draw out the infection and make that spot pink and healthy again.
I wouldn't recommend doing that on a regular basis, as no telling what kind of skin cancer that might cause with long-term use, plus, not everyone's skin can take the chemicals without being damaged, but believe it's good to know you at least have that option. I've used PVC glue as a 'liquid bandaid' plenty of times.
Still, like George said, it's best to see a doctor at the first sign of infection. it's amazing what a round of antibiotics can do for a person.
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Post by macmex on Jun 26, 2022 5:38:53 GMT -6
Bon, with valuable breeding stock I think the key is to disperse the genes among multiple people, separated by a good distance. Then, stay in touch with one another. If a flock is destroyed by our beneficent government the owner can wait a while and then obtain a new start from one of the other flock owners. Don't count on the bureaucracy most in that system are pretty much mindlessly carrying out tasks without any thought to practical life or the actual stated purpose of their mission. I saw this same scenario as a kid with European foulbrood in bees. The State would inspect, if they found some in your hives, they'd burn the hives and sometime later, send you a check (measly in comparison to the actual loss). The ones who carried this out made a good living but I honestly don't think they understood their mission nor the nature of the disease they were dealing with. Foulbrood was endemic at the time. It has since become a non issue because the bees themselves developed immunity over time. The government extermination program achieved nothing, though they might have tried to claim "victory."
In Mexico, on the other hand, the beekeepers dealt with foulbrood on their own terms, using stop gap measures and developing resistant bees. They had success as early or earlier than their American counterparts, and that, living in a more difficult environment.
The beauty of chickens is that they can be inbred for decades with little to no ill effect. One can start a new flock quickly and easily. When we moved to Oklahoma I actually mailed my new flock to myself through the USPS (hatching eggs).
Here's a photo of my latest hatch. This batch would be enough to start a whole new flock.
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Post by macmex on Jun 27, 2022 8:53:28 GMT -6
You may end up with a rooster. Commercial chicken sexers vary in their ability to determine the sex of day old chicks and the ease of doing so varies from breed to breed. I bet they've got Rocks down pretty well, though.
You know, if I couldn't keep a pure breed, and I just wanted birds to be good mothers, industrious and hardy, I'd probably put a game cock rooster on my hens. I think the game breeds are at the bottom of the pile of almost every great egg or meat breed. The Buckeye started with a cross between a red game rooster and Barred Rock hens.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Jun 27, 2022 10:28:09 GMT -6
My chickens are so crossed up, who knows what they are anymore? I started with barred rocks about two decades ago, but our neighbor's dogs and a local black bear killed every one of them over time and I switched to game birds because they are more aggressive toward dogs, plus we had a really bad grasshopper plague that year and game birds are really good foragers and hustlers. George gave me a few of his hens a few years back, and my wife bought who knows what kind of chicks from the Co-op (they lay green eggs and blue eggs).
The bottom line is, that I have a good flock of hens that pretty much take care of themselves. They don't wander too far from home or menace the garden, plus I have way more eggs than I can eat. Right now, I have a White Leghorn rooster that someone wanted to get rid of. So far, I like him; he minds his own business. Some of the game cocks that I had in the past would jump me every chance they got, but the Leghorn kind of keeps his distance.
A cool thing about this guy is that he sleeps on the roof of the hen house. Every morning when he sees me in the yard, he comes running over to me and just follows me around while I'm doing chores. When he sees me head toward the hen house; he takes off running ahead of me and waits by the little chicken door at the bottom of the big walk-thru door until I open it to turn the hens loose. When he first started doing that, I thought to myself, "Surely a chicken doesn't have enough brains to come all the way up to the house to get me to walk across the creek to open the henhouse door."
After several mornings of this, I noticed that he would jump off the roof and run up to the back door and just mill around out there until I came outside. I'd feed the dogs and the cats first, just to see what he'd do. He'd follow me up the hill, away from the henhouse, and wait for me to feed the dogs and the cats. He's kind of scared of the dogs, so he'd stay about 10' feet away, just barely coming inside the feed shed.
As soon as he'd see me walking South, toward the henhouse, he'd take off running and beat me to the door. Turns out he does have brains enough to come all the way up here to get me every day.
Maybe, someday, he'll get brains enough to sleep inside the henhouse where he's out of some of the harsher weather.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Jun 27, 2022 15:04:12 GMT -6
I've often wondered if the hens call that way because they are lost and want to know where the rest of the flock wandered off to while they were busy inside the henhouse laying their egg?
The rooster doesn't come to me after his hens are turned loose; he only does that in the morning while the door is still closed. After that, he couldn't care less about what I'm up to outside.
On the subject of clipping wings: That would be a good topic for discussion here. It doesn't hurt chickens at all to clip their wing feathers.
All you need to do in clipping their wing is to trim away the leading flight feathers with a pair of shears or with heavy scissors. You need only to clip the flight feathers of one wing, which causes the birds to fly in a tight circle, no matter how hard they flap their wings.
(Don't clip the flight feathers from both wings).
All that will do is make it harder for them to reach their objective. If both wings are clipped, the chickens can still fly, it just takes more wing flapping, and believe me, they will compensate for that and still escape over the fence. However, they never seem to be able to figure out how to beat the half-moon, tight circle thing that clipping only one wing will result in.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Jun 27, 2022 18:25:46 GMT -6
I take turmeric capsules every day, for inflammation. I've never heard the pepper thing though. I'll have to try that.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Jun 28, 2022 16:07:49 GMT -6
For some reason, last night, the rooster went to roost inside the henhouse with the hens. I've never seen him do that before. I've had him for several months, wonder what got into his head?
I'm glad he finally came inside though. I really need to clip his spurs, when he was roosting on top of the henhouse, I couldn't reach him. I'll give him a few nights to get settled in his new location, then I'll sneak in there one night with a flashlight, a pair of nippers, and some cornstarch, and take care of those long, sharp, spurs.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Jun 29, 2022 19:15:01 GMT -6
No, I only have chicks when the hens decide to go broody. I have no idea what makes them do that? (George might know).
They lay eggs every day, but they don't decide to set a nest until their little brains tell them it's time. Sometimes, it's weird times of the year too. I've had them go broody in the Fall of the year several times. One year I had a hen setting a nest in a foot-deep snowstorm. Since her nest was under an open window, all I could see of her were her eyes blinking in the powder snow. Her eggs ended up freezing, so when the snow melted, I went to Atwoods and bought her a chick to take care of. I went in at night and stole her eggs and put the chick under her and she raised it just fine.
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Post by woodeye on Jun 30, 2022 13:11:08 GMT -6
I've raised several breeds at one time or another:
RIR, White Rocks, Barred Rocks, Americaunas, White Wyandottes, Silver Laced Wyandottes, Gold Laced Wyandottes, Blue Laced Red Wyandottes, Columbian Wyandottes, Silver Spangled Hamburgs, Houdans, New Hampshires, Isabrowns, Cornish Cross, Welsummers.
And some more breeds that I can't quickly think of right now. My favorites from the above list?
Foraging: Americaunas & Americauna Bantams (I'm sure game chickens are better at it, but Americaunas ain't too shabby)
Eggs: Welsummers, Americaunas, & Americauna Bantams (perfect for pickled eggs)
Meat: Cornish Cross
Litter: Any of the breeds above EXCEPT Cornish Cross, unless you already own a dump truck...
I've butchered several hundred Cornish Cross, but this was back before feed got so expensive, circa 1980's. Re-wired an old chicken picker, had a thermostat controlled scalding tub. Processing was fast, although I do not crave butchering any more chickens. But, I could tell the difference between Grocery store chicken and Cornish Cross that I raised. Cornish Cross is much better raised and butchered at home.
When I was raising Cornish Cross for butchering, it took 10 lbs. of feed per bird to grow them to butchering size. I would usually order 50 chicks at a time, which meant that I needed to buy 500 lbs. of feed for them. When they had eaten all of the 500 lbs. of feed, which usually was in about 6 to 7 weeks, their time had run out and I fired up the scalder, plugged in the chicken picker, and sharpened the axe and knives...
However, I do miss having chickens around for the garden fertilizer they produce...
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Jul 1, 2022 6:40:52 GMT -6
I lock my chickens up at night and turn them loose to free range every morning. When green grass and bugs are on, they'll walk right past their feed. Right now, I've got tens of thousands of half-grown grasshoppers of every color and size known to man. About a week ago, they were in molt and the chickens had a field day. Now that they are hardening off, the hens are not quite as interested in catching them any more.
Yesterday, I found a hatch of grasshoppers so thick they were nearly touching one another. I've not seen that many grasshoppers since the grasshopper plegue of 2012. They were gathered in a stack of old tomato cages. I used to grow 300 caged tomatoes for sale to restaurants, so I've got lots of decomissioned cages stacked up with tall grass growing up through them. There was an old apple tree nearby that had been nearly completely defoliated by the hoppers.
When I saw how many grasshoppers were in the stack of cages, I quickly set the mower down to 'close shave' and cut all the grass in that area until it was too close to be a fire hazard, then, I lit the three stacks of tomato cages on fire. Many thousands of the grasshoppers jumped to safety, where I quickly mowed as many as I could.
This morning, I went back out there and only saw a few grasshoppers still poking around.
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