Smart Feeder - Light sensor values

[Egluntyne]

Click

 

I know, I know, it's in the Daily Mail. Interesting read though and a good reminder about defra guidelines etc.

[The Dogmother]

I read that too Eggers.

 

Someone's not done their homework!

 

While I will happily agree that a lot of domestic chicken owners aren't aware of the regulations regarding feeding and disease control, most backyard hens are hybrids, and so, likely to have been vaccinated at source. Most diseases such as marek's or cocci are 'in the background' of many flocks and only surface when the hen's immunity is compromised. If fact, unless vaccinated hybrids are kept in bio-secure environments (let's face it, who does have a massive shed in their back garden?) then they are likely to be more of a risk to unvaccinated pure breed flocks if the two are mixed.

 

I'll get off my soap box now!

[Hayleybug]

'few properly vaccinated their birds' jumped out at me, but the whole article is just written in the typical Mail scaremongering style. im sure theres bugs in cat and dog poop too but they seem to imply that youre endangering children by having chickens in the back garden. also i cant imagine theres many chicken owners who would openly allow rodents around their pets.

Some of the comments at the bottom are quite entertaining though

[The Dogmother]

They've also got their facts wrong in the 'fact box' they quote a chicken as needing 'one square foot' minimum penned space, whereas DEFRA's regulations are for a minimum of one square metre. In fact I checked this recently as I wanted to be sure that it wasn't just an urban myth, and I have an email somewhere confirming that. It's less than one metre fro barn hens, so perhaps they are using that guideline...

[sjp]

this is the second 'dig' at the grow your own community in the last few weeks reguarding the spread of disease there's a article about back yard gardeners causing an increase in blight due to them not spraying at the first sign of the disease when in fact there is hardly any effective srays out there for us to use . personnaly I think the food industry is starting run scared

[The Dogmother]

I reckon it's just a slow news day

[Hayleybug]

tbh i'm surprised they have bothered to write the article considering we all know theyre just dying to point and shout 'hippies' at anyone doing anything considered even slightly self sufficient.

[Jenthelibrarian]

Had to grit my teeth and wear my internet rubber gloves to click on an article from the Daily Fail

 

I'm fairly sure the powers that be are concerned about feeding hens 'kitchen waste' on an industrial scale, like canteen slop-buckets with all sorts of ghastly grim stuff in them.

My hens really don't eat anything from the kitchen that we're not eating ourselves, like s"Ooops, word censored!"s of salads and veg or mashed spuds, served in a clean bowl. Shame it's hard to define a difference here

 

I must say I wouldn't bury a dead hen in the garden, Omlet advise against doing this. I would live in fear of mistakenly digging it up again, or the foxes doing so.

[Olly]

An interesting article, but it is scaremongering journalism as usual. I think they are missing a fundamental point - farmers are not allowed to feed food waste to hens because of the risk of it entering the food chain. Backyard hens (except for the relatively small number of people who raise meat birds) are not going to be eaten. Also, it's hard to see how disease is likely to spread from backyard flocks to farms, given that the traffic is usually one-way - most of us buy hens, we don't sell them on or raise them.

 

I did laugh though at the statistic 'nearly half of owners would not seek veterinary help if their birds became ill'. In my experience 100% of farmers would not seek veterinary help (unless it was an outbreak affecting the whole flock)- they would just cull any sick birds.

[The Dogmother]

I did laugh though at the statistic 'nearly half of owners would not seek veterinary help if their birds became ill'. In my experience 100% of farmers would not seek veterinary help (unless it was an outbreak affecting the whole flock)- they would just cull any sick birds.

 

Yes, I laughed at that one too.

[Alis girls]

they should come on here and see how many of us take our girls to the vet and do they not know many vets are doing chicken courses so that they can keep up with demand.

I get so wound up as they regularly take a pop at the NHS - yes its a mess but not all of us are mass murderers - i once emailed them about an article and had a most unpleasant reply - disagree with them at your peril.

[sandyhas3chucks]

read the thread,

not going to raise my blood pressure by reading it. thanks for the info folks... got the gist of it.