Re: What's wrong with Scruffy Moe?

pammyT wrote:
<<Much Spippage>>

are they? I'm amazed you know what fowl are to me.

Well seeing as you are here handing out advice, it might be a good thing if you told me/us. If they are neither a business or a hobby, what are they?


 >and everyone knows something that they want to tell you.
Not sure what you mean by this bit.


Most
of the information that comes from these experts is rubbish,


what experts? What *is* an expert? Why would you bother reading the posts if
you think that all the advice given is rubbish?

When I came to this list, I came looking to find the sage advice of those that knew more than me. On the whole I found that I was one of the ones with more experience than most and instead stayed to answer questions. BTW Pammy, I have been posting on this group for a number of years now although real life gets in the way at times so I don't come in sometimes for a couple of months




 >but

everyone has an opinion. 

fact is not an opinion.There are some posters here that I do not always
agree with or get on with, but when they offer advice, it is sound advice
based on experience. It is not opinion.

I can assure you that experience is often NOT sound advice. IF you want to look at that, just consider the opinions based upon experience that are offered by people about 'nest' eggs. They can't both be right.



My wife hates fowl in all forms, that does not
stop us being happy and yes she has her say in what happens in the fowl
yard.  We compromise!


 Oh goody. wedded bliss works for some people. It won't work for me because
I prefer living on my own and 'doing my thing'.


Good for you,   but do you need to tell everyone to do the same thing?



Personally I read this group and at times wonder if the some of the
people posting really are using any common sense at all, or are just
another brand of PETA.  On the whole I ignore the lunatic posts
recommending veterinary care for something which is worth all of a few
dollars, but then my opinion is probably considered lunatic by those who
appear to think that money is not an option.


Your attitude that if something not worth much money , you have no duty of
care towards it and would rather let it suffer or die than have it treated
professionally is something I find odd.

I did not say I had no duty of care! Nor that I would let it suffer and die through choice. Legislators have made access to the medications difficult if not impossible without a Vet. I used to buy the necessary at the produce store, but the powers that be decided that these products had to be regulated. So I am back to using home cures. I am not happy about it, but when well meaning but VERY ignorant people are put in charge of the hen house I just have to live with it. Well meaning but ignorant is a VERY good description of the vast majority of vets! They understands cat and dog, some who claim to be avian vets understand birds. Very very few actually know as much as I do about Fowl, because it is a very very very small part of their practice.


I suppose it would depend on my emotional attatchment. 

It certainly does to a lot of people, I am not one of them.

A surplus cockerel 
for example would probably be culled if I couldn't cure it easily. One of my
small cockatiels in the aviary which are worth all of ten quid, would get
several hundreds of pounds worth of veterinary care if required because I am
emotionally attached to them and paying the money is less painful for me
than suffering the feelings of guilt and grief if I allowed it to die. My
cats are simply worthless moggies yet I had no hesitation in paying £300
recently when one was hit a glancing blow by a school run mum who preferred
to drive the 1/4 mile to school with her precious darling , than walk and
burn off some calories to reduce the size of her horselike backside. She
left the cat in the road, still alive but shocked and injured, just ready
for the next car to hit him again. Luckily my next door neighbours teeneaged
son alerted me to his plight and pulled him off the road.

Good thing it was only a cat, if it had been larger you could have found yourself with a large bill for fixing her car!

Whilst I deplore what happened here, you have to remember that it is you as the owner that has a duty of care to keep the animal from causing damage to other peoples property and wildlife. 


Reality and circumstance have to be considered in all things, and the
treatment of fowl is something that will vary dependent on a persons
location and culture.  I would NOT take a sick bird to the vet, unless I
was trying to diagnose an epidemic in the flock.  I would treat it where
I could and lop it's head and replace it with a healthy one if I could
not cure it.  Given that I can not get access to antibiotics without
spending 50 odd dollars on a vets consultation, they are automatically
excluded from my kill or cure regime. Does this attitude make me a poor
bird keeper? or a realist?   I think it makes me a realist, you may
think it makes me a monster,  but I have raised thousands of birds in
the past 30 years.


Ah there is the difference. My fowl are a hobby. I have never raised any
animal in such numbers and where money was the prime concern ansd where I
didn't know the breeding and parentage of all my stock.

Oh, I knew the parentage and breeding of all my birds, except those that I had bought in. And they were a hobby. I have never been involved in poultry for profit, but have at times had as many as 400 birds running around the place. I was heavily involved in showing the birds, and breeding sometimes 300 chickens a year, of which only a few were not culled.

Then there were the guineas, about 80 of them. They just shared the space with me. I did very little for them as they were basically feral. Living 80 feet up a tree and occasionally coming into the fowl yard for a bite to eat. The peafowl to were very graceful and quite as feral as the guineas. They wandered the garden and nipped the tops of the beans as fast as they shot, but they were a grand sight. The neighbour shot one, because it had decided that his entertainment area was a good place to live but on the whole they were enjoyable.

I was involved in breeding what are in this country rare breeds and colors, and due to import restrictions, (no new genetics) and the price of feed many of the older breeds are dying out or becoming inbred due to low population numbers. This combined with my passion for wyandottes, leghorns, hamburgs and Japanese bantams meant that lots of chickens and lots of pens were the order of the day. It was not uncommon for me to have 50 roosters of 10 or more breeds.

But that did not remove the basic value that I had to place on birds. Sure, they may have been worth $50 on show day, but the rest of the time they were feed burners. They were pretty and I was attached to them, but I was not overly sentimental.

Mind you, the local kids and newcomers to poultry liked the fact that I gave away most of my culls. I really liked it when they appeared at the poultry show with their birds. I even liked it when they beat me for a card, because it encouraged them in the fancy



Finally Pammy, could you cease treating people as fools, sadists,
negligent etc.

Why? If I see them as such, I am perfectly in order to call them such. 

Does being rude really achieve anything?


  > They are asking questions here because they are at

least interested enough in their birds to want to do something right for
them.  Being Rude and dominating as an obvious animal lover is not
constructive and may even drive off people who have done nothing >more
wrong than ask a question.


<shrug> Some folks are to afraid to live. Such people are temperamentally
not suited to the robust posting styles such as are found all over usenet.


You really make me laugh when you criticise people for having an animal
and knowing nothing about it.


Oh I *am* pleased to raise a smnile in your humdrum life. There, you see, I
am not *all* bad eh :0)

Yes it is fairly humdrum at the moment. I sold/Gave away all my fowl 18 months ago to move 2000Km away and have not really had an opportunity to re establish as rental properties in town are not the place to keep fowl. But I have recently bought a new place and can start again soon.



I clearly remember my first born son, 

 yeah, I remember mine too. I was there at his birth you know. Amazing
experience. I remember it well.


we
knew nothing at all about babies and fumbled along, asked questions >and
sought advice all over.  Eventually we raised him to an adult and in the
process learned enough to not have half the 'problems' with the
following four.   The point here is that parents usually know nothing or
very little and are charged with raising the next generation.  What is
so wrong with people buying a few fowl with a similar level of >ignorance
and like new parent asking lots of questions.


 generally people who have babies have parents and friends to offer good adv
ice. There are also health care professionals who give you plenty of advice
during the pregnancy.Add to that the amount of books and magazines the
average pregnant mum will read during her pregnancy and it adds up to an
awful lot of knowledge gained.

And much of is useless and frightening to the new mother. Each and every cough and wheeze is some dreadful disease they have read about. Sometimes ignorance is bliss, and after watching me sister raise her daughter OMG I wish she suffered more from ignorance.

If you make a mistake, it generally doesn't end up causing terrible
sufferring over a long period, or death.


Hmm,   have you heard the quote "never never shake your baby"?


Also, I believe a lot of child rearing to be instinct.

Most animal husbandry is also plain common sense. When things go wrong you seek advice. But who do you ask? So come here!
.