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mousjoos
Joined: 05 Jun 2006
Posts: 1986
Location: VERY Sunny SW France
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dpack
Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46233
Location: yes
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 Posted: Mon Jul 04, 16 9:08 am Post subject: |
 
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the dirty four dozen were allegedly non caged bird s(technically free range but i susspect they had a few pop holes and no reason to go outside) but when i got them they were a bit shabby to say the least.
1 there were 50 but two croaked within a few hours
2 iirc they were about 13 months old
3 they were very thin,somewhat bald and a few looked dreadful
4 they were agrophobic and clustered in a bunch rather than using the 50m2 barn pen to its full extent
5 they had no idea about perching
7 they had no idea about scratting or foraging
8 they were hungry
9 they seemed very confused by a new environment.
10 they were quite aggressive to each other
now the good points
plenty of good food,a mixture of pellets,corn,dried peas ,greens,(dont tell defra meaty bits) and so on along with adding chalk and grit ,worming them etc etc helped a lot
they were clever and fast learners so by putting a few on the perches they got that in a couple of days.
they learned that they could potter about rather than huddle in a corner
their feathers grew back over a couple of months
they learned to scratt by following me playing momma chook ,turning over stuff,raking at the floor etc etc to expose worms,beetles and other wildlife for them to eat(more of that later)
they learned to forage greens whilst out and about with me
this phase lasted about 6wks at the end of which they were pretty good at forage, they had established a social order,learned to sunbathe and dust bath etc etc .
most of the red mites had gone ( a squirt of budgie spray and diatomic earth powder)
they became independent at scratting for live prey (over time they became hunters of mice and rats,they ate a hedgehog and i spotted 3 of them using a gos pig as an earth mover by herding it and taking the critters it excavated including on one occasion using it to dig up a rat nest so they could eat the babies)
at the end of 2 months intensive training they were down to about 3 dozen as a few fell over dead,there were a couple of "accidents" such as eating an oily rag or getting eaten in a pig pen.
about that time i got them a big rooster that they took to well
shortly after they transferred from farmyard to chookmobile and thrived all summer/autumn although they did a velocoraptor thing to the local rare wildlife
re laying.they were slow at first maybe an egg every 4 days on average and plenty of soft shell/misshapen ones but by the time they went out they were on every other day mostly decent quality.
i spose they were down to about 25 by autumn when the foxes and a few natural causes wiped em out to last 2 or 3.
the twice i tried hatching the eggs were both dismal failures ,i got 2 live hatches one of which only lasted a couple of hours,the other i hand raised to adult ,she was charming but layed one egg and promptly died
as gbh hens in intensive units are very stressed they cull them when their laying tails off but if they get some tlc they will produce a decent amount of eggs ,at least for another year.
if you have the time to teach them what they need to know they are quite awesome as free range birds.
if i was basing a system around them i would plan on replacing at least half the number every year and training up new ones on a regular basis
utterly wonderful experience but hard work,you need to think like a sergent de le legion, expect casualties especially in the first couple of months
in terms of food in =eggs out i recon they are worth it but if you costed your time into the input side they would not be a commercial success on the scale we tried
a dozen or so for domestics would probably be a lot of fun and economically viable compared to buying pols ,my ones were great but although they did what we were trying to achieve with a chookmobile among the cows they were too rough on the wildlife and to do it really well i recon a big range with lots of moos,a keeper/chookmobile so as you actually live with the flock and perhaps a working flock/s of 500 birds to make it commercially attractive.
hope that helps,feel free to ask questions as im bound to have missed something important, obvious or obscure.  |
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mousjoos
Joined: 05 Jun 2006
Posts: 1986
Location: VERY Sunny SW France
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dpack
Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46233
Location: yes
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mousjoos
Joined: 05 Jun 2006
Posts: 1986
Location: VERY Sunny SW France
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dpack
Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46233
Location: yes
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AnnaD
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Location: Edinburgh
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Rob R
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AnnaD
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Posts: 2777
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Rob R
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Ty Gwyn
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dpack
Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46233
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Rob R
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