posted on Jan, 6 2011 @ 09:33 AM
Those of us who have chickens, turkeys and the like
could be helpful in this whole "bird" phenomenon
by watching our flocks and posting any abnormality
we may have or do observe with our birds at home.
This thought struck me today as I was patiently waiting (yet again)
in puzzlement for my chickens...
They have been acting oddly for about a week now and I stupidly never
connected the dots until today.
I have heritage breed chickens that I let free range completely.
They stay on my property and are over a year old. They are very "tame".
They are very early "risers" and I know their "peccadillos" very well, just
as well as my kids little ideosyncracies.
However, of late, they have been "sleeping in".
This was not their behavior last winter (before I get a deluge of responses
letting me know that chickens "do this" in the winter- nor have they done this up to now)
They love their scratch grains, and only a blizzard gale will keep them in the roost past the
earliest strains of dawn.
However, they have not come out of their little house until past ten thirty for over a week.
And they are spookily quiet. Not "gabbing and gossiping". And they have been "going to bed" earlier as well.
And for the past 6 months, their egg production has sucked. I have searched and searched
for the answer to that, and talked to many veterans to no avail (though, funnily some complained of the same). They were doing splendidly, then
suddenly, it was like a switch was pulled. Nothing changed in diet, or in environment.
Has anyone else with chickens/turkeys been watching their birds and noticing a change?
I also had an unexplained death last week. Just a dead hen in the yard. None of the others would go near it.
It was intact. Nothing had gotten to it.
Maybe it's just my birds and now I am getting weirded out because of this bird thing...
However, if there is a strange magnetic field problem, farm animals will be able to tell us a lot, I believe.