Grow Your Own Magazine

He's very hetero Fi. Married with 3 sons. Wife and kids get roped in to help with retraining, dogs, adults and kids

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If a thing's worth doing, it's worth doing to excess

and I bet unfortunately they wouldnt, having had issues with people not feeding/watering their birds on the allotment, apparently the RSPCA came up, not sure if it was random and said was told they were fine

Also told them that they should have food and water down the whole time, just twice a day is sufficient...what utter rubbish

Unfortunately I had posted here a few times about it and getting some advice, wouldnt be so bad but from the week before christmas to the end of the January they only had food for approx 6 days over that time, but RSPCA say they were fine!

fortunetly others on the allotment didnt think it was fine and fed them and they are still alive poor things.

they are very hard on animals here in france, don't get me started!! grrr

OMG I just get so angry when people mis - treat animals and birds. Please tell me why have a hen that is going to go broody when you are going to spend the whole of its poor life trying to stop IT!!! most of the methods boarder on being cruel. If you do have hens that go broody why not just boil a couple of eggs, and place them back under her, she will soon get off when she realises that they are not going to hatch, as she would if they were not fertile. Surely that's a much kinder thing to do, I run poultry courses and it amazes me how little people know!!
I don't know why I'm so shocked because I've been around horses since I was 11 years old and the stories that I could tell, there just isn't the space on here!! Also its not just the unknowing novice but the people that should know better, one of the things (and there are many) that really annoy me is the idiot that will spend loads of money on a youngster, without the ability or the knowledge of how to bring them on and the poor horse will get labelled, when its the person that is at fault, and the poor creatures have been distroyed because of cruel and wicked care!!! I have rescued more than one and they have taken me on incredable journeys, national competitions and all sorts, I feel they give more when they have been given another chance but even I have been beaten one poor horse was so starved and badly treated that we could not get through to him, I was prepared to stick with it even when he struck my poor daughter in the middle of her back with his front hoof when she was only hanging up his haynet and reared right over my head when I tried to clip him, even though the lady who had owned him assured me he had never been a problem

I don't somehow think that most techniques for discouraging ill-timed broodiness are comparable to the ham-fisted attempts some people make to train horses. I've also seen horses that were only manageable by an expert as a result of simply being left untrained by any means at all. The one I got nearest to was a 4yo colt, someone asked me if I was willing to try (no I'm not an expert, and never claimed to be). I went to see and it was obviously a job for someone more skilled, but most of the more skilled people around there were not going to be interested, because he was 'nothing special' breeding wise, and uncut. I don't know what happened, but no way could I chance that one.
Shutting ANY creature up without food OR WATER is cruel, but most of the other 'tricks' are reasonably humane, and you certainly DO NOT want a broody trying to sit on the eggs the rest of the flock are laying, or the others laying in the nest with her 'dummy' eggs, and unless she is isolated BOTH will happen, as well as a very aggressive hen attacking when you try to collect!

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Flowers come in too many colours to see the world in black-and-white.

I agree with you Hilary, and ideally you would have a seperate broody coop for the sitting hen whether on real eggs or 'dummy' that would keep her out of the way but sometimes the reintroducing of a seperated hen can give the inexperienced keeper more difficulties than they need.
I also agree unwanted broodiness is nowhere near the same as dealing with a difficult horse.

I've got two ponies as well as the hens,guineapigs, cats, dogs, hamsters, fish.... i get really mad about the treatment of horses here as well as dogs. The poor chevaux de viande, the meat horses make me sad too, i want to buy them all, specially the old broods that never got backed or trained and aren't much use any more, if I was a mare I'd be dog food by now too I spose
ps what sort of horses have you got or aren't we allowed to discuss other animals on here?