brooder experiment with new chicks

[MaggieJ]

I've been thinking about how the book didn't really address the piling up issue and wondered if over time as chicks have been bred and raised under different conditions they are less able to cope--sort of what I've heard about commercial turkey breeds not knowing enough to come in out of the rain or some of the meat chicks that get too heavy too fast for their legs to hold them up. Just wondering as I try to make it work less like a factory.

I think you may be right about commercial breeds losing their survival instincts. I've only raised heritage breeds of chickens: Speckled Sussex, Dominiques, Cuckoo Marans and Welsummers. The Sussex were my favourites--even the rooster was a good boy--and they certainly seemed to have all their free-ranging skills intact. We are fortunate in living just down the road from a breeder of heritage birds. Every bird I have bought has come from there.

 

[Rainey]

I think you may be right about commercial breeds losing their survival instincts. I've only raised heritage breeds of chickens: Speckled Sussex, Dominiques, Cuckoo Marans and Welsummers. The Sussex were my favourites--even the rooster was a good boy--and they certainly seemed to have all their free-ranging skills intact. We are fortunate in living just down the road from a breeder of heritage birds. Every bird I have bought has come from there.

I'm just realizing since we started with the rabbits last year that given that raising our livestock in a different way is harder when we haven't been able to find animals nearby that were raised as we intend to raise them. So I've been hoping that at least with the rabbits and chickens we can start with what we can get and then keep the ones that do best as reared. Over time the animals we have should be better adapted to our place and methods. But we're new to breeding anything--always just got piglets every year, new doe when one of our goats needed to be replaced and just sold the kids, got new hens when the old ones weren't laying or died off. Have had a hard time the past few years getting good piglets but don't really want to keep breeding stock. Rabbits and chickens seem like a good way to learn.
Lucky you to have what you want so nearby.