Chickens for bug control and food recycling.

[Beekissed]

It's a good foraging month, especially with the warm temps we are having this year. The chickens are especially loving the grass seeds and really spend a lot of time filling up on them.

I just got an infusion of chickens~my sister was getting rid of her entire flock of 17 birds, so offered them to me for free. They are mostly ancient hens she was keeping for pets and I had a need for extra meat for the winter, so I didn't mind taking them on. She had 5 BA that are coming on POL soon, so that was a bonus and a blessing, as was the extra meat for winter.

The new birds will get to experience many new things, one of which is the forage here and getting to free range every day, all day. They will also get to meet a rooster for the first time, as well as roosts...she didn't really have any roosts for her chickens.

So...before those who are about to die actually do so, they will get to forage in the best month of the season and experience a freedom and other advantages they've never known. I'll like seeing them out there getting to be chickens for a little while before most of them are culled into soup.

 

[Smart Red]

That is a blessing for sure, both for you and the birds.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I'm heading down in a few minutes to put some old hens and some cockerels in the freezer. I've cleaned the freezer out enough so they will fit. As you said, they've had a good life being chickens. Now it's time for a critical part of chicken math to kick in. Chicken math is not just addition, it includes multiplication and division but also importantly subtraction.

@Smart Red I know you have had some challenges this year with this through no fault of your own. I just wanted you to know you are in my thoughts and prayers.

 

[baymule]

What a blessing for you Bee. And what a blessing for the chickens too. They get to do what chickens do, they are happy hens.

 

[Beekissed]

I'm heading down in a few minutes to put some old hens and some cockerels in the freezer. I've cleaned the freezer out enough so they will fit. As you said, they've had a good life being chickens. Now it's time for a critical part of chicken math to kick in. Chicken math is not just addition, it includes multiplication and division but also importantly subtraction.

.

Amen! It's not just a big part of it, it's critical for the health of the flock, for the good life of each bird, and I wish more people understood that. It all seems nice to keep all these good old hens into their golden years and long past their regular laying...such a romantic and sentimental notion.

But..it's often lethal for the bird and involves some measure of suffering before they die and usually those kind of folks will not give them the hand of mercy when it starts to happen...usually they'll try to stuff antibiotics down their throats, as it seems to be the only thing they know how to do and everyone tells them to do that instead of killing them.

My niece had to come over and kill one ancient hen for my sister the day before I picked the others up...that bird had been suffering for some time now but my sister left her to it because "she was still eating and drinking and walking around, so I figured she couldn't be all that bad". But, she'd been wheezing and moving slowly for a long while, had started to waste away...they finally found she had a huge tumor in her throat and wasn't actually eating, just pecking at things and trying to eat them. That hen was 12 yrs old and her favorite, her baby, her pet. What a way to end 12 yrs together.

Most of the hens she gave me were suffering from one thing or another and seemed to have done so for a long time~long standing scale mites that left their scales deformed and feet swollen and inflamed, massive ascites causing respiratory distress(that one died today...I knew she was in bad shape when she arrived yesterday but was too tuckered to put her down), etc. Old hens, far past their laying, just ticking time bombs for egg tumors, egg peritonitis, etc.

She just kept adding to her flock each year as birds got old, suffered and died lingering deaths...she didn't even know how many birds she actually had. She had thought she had 26 but actually had 17...so many had died of illness or predators recently that she lost count of what she had.

That, my friends, is what people on BYC lovingly and jokingly call "Chicken math"...I shudder every time I hear it and all that it stands for.

It's critical to kill old hens past their regular laying cycles and any other bird that isn't laying regularly in peak season. Kill them while they are still hale and hearty and the meat can be used, while they are still active, feeling good and having a good quality of life. That's love, that's true sentiment and it involves sacrificing your own feelings for the love of another creature.

Subtraction...it can also weed out potential disease and parasite vectors, keeping the rest of the flock healthier and laying better and longer for their lifetime.

 

[Beekissed]

Here's what I found upon doing a post mortem on that Buff Orpington of my sister's....her aging gracefully into the golden years hen that she loved so much...

Her ovary, gizzard and interior walls of her abdomen all looked the same as these intestines. She was filled with dark brown liquid. Her liver was a pale yellow and she had larger, black tumors hanging here and there in her body.

So much for retired hens dying of "natural causes", huh? This is a picture of much suffering. Next time someone tells you they are just going to let their hens "retire" and live out their lives until they die of "natural causes", please tell them about what's happening inside of the old gals, will you?

 

[ninnymary]

Bee, how do you know if these old chickens are still good to eat? Aren't you taking a chance on them?

Mary

 

[Beekissed]

Bee, how do you know if these old chickens are still good to eat? Aren't you taking a chance on them?

Mary

Obviously diseased birds will not be consumed. This one in the pic died on its own. I won't know about the others until I kill them and open them up if I choose to consume them or not.

If folks only knew in what state the birds were that they consumed from the store they'd be puking each time they saw chicken from then onward. Retired battery hens are used to make the meat one eats in their chicken noodle soup, chicken pot pies, etc, regardless of what their viscera may look like.

 

[bobm]

Amen! It's not just a big part of it, it's critical for the health of the flock, for the good life of each bird, and I wish more people understood that. It all seems nice to keep all these good old hens into their golden years and long past their regular laying...such a romantic and sentimental notion.

But..it's often lethal for the bird and involves some measure of suffering before they die and usually those kind of folks will not give them the hand of mercy when it starts to happen...usually they'll try to stuff antibiotics down their throats, as it seems to be the only thing they know how to do and everyone tells them to do that instead of killing them.

My niece had to come over and kill one ancient hen for my sister the day before I picked the others up...that bird had been suffering for some time now but my sister left her to it because "she was still eating and drinking and walking around, so I figured she couldn't be all that bad". But, she'd been wheezing and moving slowly for a long while, had started to waste away...they finally found she had a huge tumor in her throat and wasn't actually eating, just pecking at things and trying to eat them. That hen was 12 yrs old and her favorite, her baby, her pet. What a way to end 12 yrs together.

Most of the hens she gave me were suffering from one thing or another and seemed to have done so for a long time~long standing scale mites that left their scales deformed and feet swollen and inflamed, massive ascites causing respiratory distress(that one died today...I knew she was in bad shape when she arrived yesterday but was too tuckered to put her down), etc. Old hens, far past their laying, just ticking time bombs for egg tumors, egg peritonitis, etc.

She just kept adding to her flock each year as birds got old, suffered and died lingering deaths...she didn't even know how many birds she actually had. She had thought she had 26 but actually had 17...so many had died of illness or predators recently that she lost count of what she had.

That, my friends, is what people on BYC lovingly and jokingly call "Chicken math"...I shudder every time I hear it and all that it stands for.

It's critical to kill old hens past their regular laying cycles and any other bird that isn't laying regularly in peak season. Kill them while they are still hale and hearty and the meat can be used, while they are still active, feeling good and having a good quality of life. That's love, that's true sentiment and it involves sacrificing your own feelings for the love of another creature.

Subtraction...it can also weed out potential disease and parasite vectors, keeping the rest of the flock healthier and laying better and longer for their lifetime.

AMEN ! I have been practicing subtraction and preaching it for ever.

 

[canesisters]

Got all of this spring's roos and a few old hens set to take a math quiz next month.