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I still get asked if I miss Catalonia. I miss the tribes but the thing external to the smallholding i miss most is the other chicken keepers I was slowly getting to know. I got told all sorts of stuff which even then after over a decade of chicken minding just didn't make a lot of sense to me.
Don't feed the birds wheat was one very strongly made point by the game fowl keepers.
Pick a call, mine is close to buk buk. Make the call every time you get within a couple of metres of the birds. The chickens do this. The game fowl keepers said it wasn't about letting them know you were there, they often know long before you can see them that it's you. It's to let them know you know who you are and your position in the tribe.
One I tried a few times with some success I might add is if you've got chicks gone to cover at roost time; sometimes the going to roost for chicks is like running the gaunlet of beaks, wait until the adults have settled and then take the senior rooster off his perch and place him on the ground between the chicks and the coop. The chicks will run to the rooster and hide under him much as they would their mother. At a certain stage the mothers don't want the chicks under her and she'll peck at them along with the others. The tribe senior rooster doesn't peck the chicks and he won't peck you while you remove the chicks from under him and put them in the coop.
Lots and lots of information about what and when to feed but even after all my asking I didn't manage to get the keepers to part with an exact recipe of what they fed. Family secret apparently.
Don't feed the birds wheat was one very strongly made point by the game fowl keepers.
Pick a call, mine is close to buk buk. Make the call every time you get within a couple of metres of the birds. The chickens do this. The game fowl keepers said it wasn't about letting them know you were there, they often know long before you can see them that it's you. It's to let them know you know who you are and your position in the tribe.
One I tried a few times with some success I might add is if you've got chicks gone to cover at roost time; sometimes the going to roost for chicks is like running the gaunlet of beaks, wait until the adults have settled and then take the senior rooster off his perch and place him on the ground between the chicks and the coop. The chicks will run to the rooster and hide under him much as they would their mother. At a certain stage the mothers don't want the chicks under her and she'll peck at them along with the others. The tribe senior rooster doesn't peck the chicks and he won't peck you while you remove the chicks from under him and put them in the coop.
Lots and lots of information about what and when to feed but even after all my asking I didn't manage to get the keepers to part with an exact recipe of what they fed. Family secret apparently.