Chicken boarders

[Millie-Annie]

I have been wondering about this for a while. When you look on here and on Chicken Clinic at how many posts we do, worrying about everything from what they eat to what they don"t, I can't help but compare us to my neighbour and my cousin.

 

My neighbour has 7 chickens. Out of his original 4 he still has 2 left, who are over 3 years old. They live in what I consider pretty substandard housing, a nice coop, but muddy damp ground, covered in some straw. They have never been wormed, and he just wipes red mite away when he sees it. They are not pets, they are just laying machines for him to sell the eggs, of which he still has plenty. He has never been to the vet, never buys things like poultry spice or mealworms and yet he has what appear to be healthy, long lived chickens who still lay.

 

My cousin had 4 ex-batts a month after me, so that would be 2 years ago in September. Again they live in a small run, but they do freerange around the garden. She never worms them, never buys anything apart from food. They eat ALL the household s"Ooops, word censored!"s she never worries about what she gives them. They get cleaned out about once a month, she has never had red mite. Again they still lay, she has never been to the vets and they have never been ill.

 

Now me. I had 3 ex-batts nearly 2 years ago. I am down to one. I lost one from what appeared to be a respiratory infection and another to peritonitis last month. They have a lovely home, totally fox proof. We worm them, we spent a fortune getting rid of our red mite, including burning all the ashphalt roofing and re roofing, despite cleaning them out really well every week and I poop scoop every day. They have poultry drink, mealworms, corn, I am careful what I give them s"Ooops, word censored!" wise. I have spent a fortune at the vets, including my new girl who I have only had a month. I worry myself to pieces if they seem off colour. I unlike the two above, buy my eggs from Tesco, haven't seen an egg for months.

 

Both of the above said to me, when you get your new ex-batts, stick them in the garden and forget them. They are farm animals, you never see a farmer at the vets nor worrying himself to death with a chicken. Do what we do, but I am not sure I can, but are they right are we killing ours with kindness?

[CatieB]

Sorry I don't know the answer but can I just tell you that it made me chuckle The irony. Its a bit like contrasting the attitude of me and DH!

 

I'm sure somene wiser with more experience will be along in a minute ... in the mean time consol yourself with the fact that you have to do what you feel comfortable with.

 

Best wishes

[Jools]

Do we spoil our chickens? Probably lol!

 

I suspect it's more about whatever works for you - if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

[Millie-Annie]

Do we spoil our chickens? Probably lol!

 

I suspect it's more about whatever works for you - if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

 

But that's my whole point, it doesn't work for me, nor it would appear for many others on here. We are spending a fortune at the vets and to be honest an ill chicken normally dies anyway. I just wish I could care less than I do

[Gelbel]

Same as me and my brother - OK so he's not up there as seeing his as money producing egg laying machines but they certainly are not cared for pets. My mum feels so sorry for his girls - not helped as one is named after her.

[Millie-Annie]

and do they seem to suffer more than yours for it?

[The Dogmother]

My rabble are all fit and healthy and lay like mad (when they're not broody ), they get a weekly clean, lice and worm stuff every quarter, minimal treats and they are as healthy as anything.

 

It's what suits my lot... and me

[Gelbel]

and do they seem to suffer more than yours for it?

Not one iota.

[Millie-Annie]

and do they seem to suffer more than yours for it?

Not one iota.

 

I rest my case

[Gelbel]

and do they seem to suffer more than yours for it?

Not one iota.

 

I rest my case

Mmmm - but Murphy's law states that if I drop the time and care I spend on them, then it will all go horribley wrong.

 

Just has a great example - Madge has just this minute laid her first proper egg. I have been keeping an eye on her for a few weeks and making the oyster shell a bit smaller as she will not eat the normal sized stuff. If her eggs were still (semi) soft at the weekend then I was going to get calcium stuff added to their water. My bro would just let her get on with it and not be bothered about her well being.

[C&T]

I do sometimes wonder what my grandparents would make of our Chicken Keeping! They are all sadly no longer with us (my grandparents that is, rather than the chooks!), but I can imagin my Grandad's face showing complete disbelievement at how ours are treated

 

I have another approach though. We, as human beings, have affected our environments a lot in the last few years, making our homes as sterile as possible, believing every s"Ooops, word censored!" of dirt to be dangerous to our health. As such, our immune systems have altered and our tollerance to bugs etc has declined (see increase in asthma rates).

So, I guess if we treat hens in the same way, then their bodies are going to adapt as well, and be less tolerant to certain illnesses/deseases? It is just a theory - not an argument to stop worming etc etc!

 

Personally - I pamper my chooks with the best of them! But is this making Chooks as a whole a weaker animal? I'll leave that for others to decide!

[Gelbel]

I know what you mean C&T - I must admit when I read the OTT lengths some of the Omleteers go to I have to bite my lip.

[Jools]

Do we spoil our chickens? Probably lol!

 

I suspect it's more about whatever works for you - if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

 

But that's my whole point, it doesn't work for me, nor it would appear for many others on here. We are spending a fortune at the vets and to be honest an ill chicken normally dies anyway. I just wish I could care less than I do

 

Sorry, I was a bit flippant but what I really meant was that if the others you refer to are keeping healthy, productive hens then they're obviously doing something right.

 

I'm at the tougher end of the love scale, I feed only layers or breeders pellets with a small amount of mixed corn late afternoon - no other treats or grit at all (other than free ranging on grass most of the year). I don't add any other supplements as a matter of routine (such as tonic, ACV), only ever at times of stress, as a healthy diet should give them all they need. I am fanatical about hygiene and preventing problems though. I poo pick the runs and houses most days and I use red mite powder and Verm-x regularly.

 

I ignore the latest fads and marketing hype about new products/feed and stick with what works for me.

[Olly]

Another 'tough love' here - I would never see any animal suffer unnecessarily, but I made a policy decision when I got my first hens that I would not be spending a lot of money on vet's bills. If it's something that can be cured by antibiotics then I'm willing to do that, but I wouldn't pay for stressful long-term treatment or operations that they may not survive anyway. That may sound callous, but as I say, I wouldn't allow them to suffer. Mine have all survived for 2 years or more, saving the young hen I lost this week who just keeled over with no warning, I found her dead in the run on Monday.

 

I give mine kitchen s"Ooops, word censored!"s, but I don't buy special treats for them, nor do I add anything except garlic powder to their food. My cleaning is fairly minimal, and I worm about every six months. They lay, they seem fit and healthy, and I don't worry too much about them! (I clean enough to make sure they don't smell.)

 

In answer to the original question - I doubt if anyone is actually 'killing with kindness', but I don't think all the supplements I read about on here are necessary in most cases, of course there will always be exceptions. If I had a hen who regularly needed special feed or treatment, then I'd be considering whether her quality of life was good, and whether I was prepared to spend both time and money on her.

 

For some people their hens are an all-involving hobby, and so they want to buy extra stuff and treat them. For me, they are 'garden pets' - I love having them, I want them to be happy and healty, but they are not as big a part of my life as the cats are, and I don't get emotionally attached to them.

 

It's a personal choice for every chook-keeper, I guess!

[Lavenders_Blue]

What an interesting discussion. Before I got my chooks I read about all the different types of feeds, supplements etc etc. I made a conscious decision to give them the basics they need to keep them well and healthy and only supplement if the need arose.

 

My one concession is that I do feed ex batts crumb which is obviously pricier than regular mash, but the alternative at my local feed place is Farmgate which I'm not happy to buy after reading what others have said about it on here! Other than that they get leftover greens from the kitchen or yellow sticker greens from the supermarket and that's about it apart from grit which of course is a necessary. One girl has recently started laying softies so I've bought a calcium supplement, but I give it to her only, I don't dose them all. They get cleaned out once a week in winter and at the moment about once a fortnight as they are making so little mess overnight. I have a spray about with poultry shield from time to time and do check for red mite but touch wood all has been okay so far.

 

I guess I am somewhere in the middle of the scale?!

[ajayb]

Isn't the bottom line the creature's health & wellbeing? We have a lot of different animals on a smallholding here but they are all companion animals - we don't benefit financially from any of them (we give all our surplus eggs away and don't keep the larger animals for slaughter). If animals are truly 'wild' (deer, foxes, hedgehogs etc) they are intended to fend for themselves and many will have foreshortened lifespans as a result (nothing wrong with that - it's natural). True farm animals either do a job or provide revenue for the farmer and his decisions are often more business-driven than compassionate (though not exclusively so, I'd like to believe) but there's a whole can of worms there about the levels of discomfort, neglect and unpleasant living conditions that are considered commercially acceptable. However, when you decide to take on an animal and put it in your artificially created home environment for the pleasure of observing it and sharing its life, then I think you have a responsibility to make sure you do the best you can for it. 'Treats' are an optional extra but I don't think it's wrong to ensure the animal is as comfortable and healthy as possible ...

(Hope that doesn't sound too 'soap-boxy' - I just wish more people put a higher value on the lives of animals and were more aware of their capacity for pain and distress.)

[C&T]

However, when you decide to take on an animal and put it in your artificially created home environment for the pleasure of observing it and sharing its life, then I think you have a responsibility to make sure you do the best you can for it.

 

Thats a good point. A bird in the wild or even a chook free ranging over a wide area, is not going to face the same issues as a chook kept in a small back garden, or 90% of it's time in a run. I am thinking the build up of toxins etc as just one consideration. So therefore, if we restrict them in this way, then we have to deal with the consequences - i.e. keep them cleaned out and use things like Stalosan, and worm regularly. That doesn't mean spending thousands of pounds on Vets bills, just basically looking after their general welfare, and ensuring they don't suffer as a result of us wanting them as pets.

 

So back to the original post,is there more to comparing the two different set ups then "just" the amount of extra's given? Are the healthier ones ranging over more ground for example? Have there been fewer chooks living in those gardens over the years, so therefore fewer toxins/bugs building up? And I guess there must be many other factors.

 

Or maybe you were just plain unlucky!

[Millie-Annie]

This has been really interesting, thank you.

 

Interestingly I am not a fanatically clean person, I used to love nothing more than putting dirty kids in the bath, as that looked they had been having fun. I never worried about bare feet in the garden nor (awful to say) hand washing, unless they had been somewhere really dirty, like the toilet.

 

I do believe there is something in the tough love regime, I think we reduce the hens ability to produce their own antibodies when we rush them to the vets and pump them full of antibiotics.

 

Out of the three of us I mentioned in my original post, my hens have the most free ranging. None of the gardens have had chickens before, but as I said my neighbour has 7 hens in a smaller coop than my 3 had, and the ground is bare mud, no grass, nothing. Never wormed, no red mite prevention, just food and water in the filthiest feeders you can imagine.

 

Happy as pigs in muck

[Tony]

Happy as pigs in muck

 

And that probably just about sums it up, another farmyard animal. An animal that probably gets far superior treatment by the farmer than any of his chickens.

 

Personally I don't think t has anything to do with spoiling them. The vast majority of us on here have our chickens as a hobby. And if your anything like me, when I have a hobby I throw vast amounts of money at it... Well, what money I can afford anyway.

 

Take fishing. I've spent a fortune on fancy rods, reels and all the latest tackle. I spend obscene amounts on fancy bait and additives yet my brother-in-law has an old rod, a reel with 20 year old line thick enough to tow my Land Rover, brings half a pint of maggots and a stale loaf of bread and he still manages to catch more and bigger fish than me. Does that sound analogous to your story?

 

And yes, I do spend a fortune on my girls however, all four of my originals, now coming up to four years old are still alive and well and averaging 3 eggs per day and my brother-in-law wouldn't know what a chicken was unless it had roast spuds and Yorkshire pud next to it.

[Woodcat]

i think to be honest it's down to luck. The other thing that i'd note is that you stated he still had two out of 7 alive aged 3. Tbh that isn't a really good statistic. Of my four hybrids who were the same age all but one managed to live to 3 and two managed to live till they were 4 and nearly 5.

 

My chickens are spoilt they free range in my garden all day. They get treats of whatever we happen to have been cooking or corn. They don't have supplements all the time except one girl who gets calcium because she keeps bursting softies as they come out. They do go to the vet when they are ill and it's something i can't sort out with home remedies. I don't spend a fortune i don't have one to spend however i will pay for them to have antibiotics if they get a chest infection or foot infection. For the most part they are healthy and what is more important for me is that they are incredibly happy. The system i work with seems to work really well for my girls. Of the two that i lost most recently aged 4 she was an exbat who went to another home was involved in a fox attack was tormented by this fox every day sitting on her run watching her (all her friends had been killed) and yet she came here bonded with my terrible lot and lived to a ripe old age.

 

I don't think that giving them supplements and cleaning them out we are shortening their lives. I think that each chick has a different life expectancy and different level of health and that what we do is make those lives as happy as is possible. I think you've been unlucky to have these problems. Of the 12 chicks i've owned 8 have never been to the vet and one of those who did only went to be put down. However i had one girl who had to go fairly regularly because she just continuously got ill. I ended up forking out alot for her over the years because her problems stemmed from a night time fox attack which I'll be honest was my fault I rescued her from him and she pulled through and lived for another two years but she was always rather sickly . However in the same way that some people go through their lives almost never going to the docs and some go continuously there isn't necessarily logic on the outside but thats just the way it happens. For me personally the most important thing is that my girls are happy and comfortable for others there may be different priorities and how you keep them depends on these priorities.

 

Not sure how that turned into a somewhat rambling essay i do hope it makes some level of sense. Thats just my view and i still view myself as something of a novice. I'm sure others would disagree with it

[Millie-Annie]

you stated he still had two out of 7 alive aged 3.

 

No he has 2 out of the original 4 that he has had for 3 years, the others he has bought over the last couple of years.

[Woodcat]

you stated he still had two out of 7 alive aged 3.

 

No he has 2 out of the original 4 that he has had for 3 years, the others he has bought over the last couple of years.

 

Right sorry must have got muddle tbh my premise still holds that not that brilliant a live expectancy

[Millie-Annie]

but its better than mine I have 1 out of three and and that is in less than 2 years

[Woodcat]

but its better than mine I have 1 out of three and and that is in less than 2 years

 

 

You got very unlucky there. Ex bats do have a tendancy to come out and either thrive and become strong or keel over quite quickly there isn't a one size fits all solution to this. In the same way there isn't one with humans. Some people thrive in jobs and work that push them physically others can't cope and their body can't cope. I know looking at my girls that atleast two if not more wouldn't have lived very long without specialist vet help and then careful nurture however two others are strong as horses and probably won't need to go to the vet at all.We all have a tendancy to look at chickens overall forgetting that every breed every variation and every individual chicken is completely different. So where one chook would thrive another would keel over and vise versa. As i said personally the most important thing for me is their happiness btu I'd do what feels right for your situation and ignore everyone else myself included.

[jennydavies]

This has been one of the most interesting posts I've read. Over here chicken keeping is a different kettle of fish. I have found it impossible to get worming products (I can't even get Flubenvet sent over from any supplyers in England) After searching for over a month for a "just in case" treatment for red mite, I found a powder in my local B & Q type builders supply shop. You very rarly see suppliments on the shelves for chickens and I don't think anybody takes a chicken to the vet. All of the chickens over here free range and the coops are usually old disused pig stys (if they are lucky enough to have a coop). Chickens roost in trees and bushes in peoples gardens and it's quite comical watching them lining up waiting for a space each evening as they climb the branches (I wish we had a video camera, you have to see it to believe it !) they verbally argue with each other to make room They all look extremely healthy and happy, there is always a coq that keeps everybody in line and you never see squabbles within the flocks. I have never seen a sick chicken or one laying dead in a run. They drink rain water and never have anything added to it, you never see a container of grit and we have had several boxes of beautiful healthy eggs from friends and neighbours. People look at you funny when you say to want to worm and treat your chickens for parasites.

Since living here maybe luck has been on our side, the dogs have never had any illness, not even an upset stomach. They only visit the vet for their rabies booster once a year and they are healthy and happy. We grow veg in our garden and the only thing we have ever used is pet-friendly slug pellets so that we get to eat the salads before they do. I like to believe in our own immunity and I am very reluctant to administer medication to us or our animals. I prefer to use the "old wives" remedies like cider vinegar and garlic (which I find do seem to work) I agree with the people who say maybe things are "too clean" now.