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 Brown and white eggs have the same nutritional value.

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Yes, but the brown ones look so much healthier LOL  🙂

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@***super_nova*** wrote:

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@just_me_karen wrote:
I want some chooks too. I wonder if I got them when they're babies if I can train them to be friendly?

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Be careful what you wish for 🙂  My last 2 were Rhode Island Red and so friendly they refused to live in their pen and every morning I would find them sitting on my back step.  Had to be careful not to step on them.  The problem was they also pooed on the patio and especially the door step.  They followed me everywhere, really wanted to come in the house, and would sit on my lap given half chance LOL.  If they did not have me they followed the dogs. 

They kept flying out of their pen even when I had a litter of pups, and I spent the day putting them back, but once I was not fast enough and .... well, 8 pups enthusiastically greeting hen was just too much for her. 

Having poultry also attracts rats. 

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not taking a shot here, just curious, and also a pretty general question, not specifically aimed at you, it's just you mentioned the rats.

What do you do with rats and mice etc? I mean do you kill them, poison them or just let nature take it's course.

Rats are animals too, and I reckon they'd have feelings.

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@the_great_she_elephant wrote:

This is where my eggs come from.

 

http://www.farmweekly.com.au/news/agriculture/agribusiness/general-news/cracking-the-egg-market/2633...

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so how does that farmer get her chickens she ele? does she breed them there? and what is done with them once they no longer lay?

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@crikey*mate wrote:

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Ooooooooh, I will never eat an egg again  😞

and in the egg factories to produce chickens, do they artificially inseminate the eggs to make sure that they all have chicks, (looks like all the ones in the drawers up there are fertile) or do some grow chickens and others just get cooked?

I'm thinking in the cases up there that the producers would be wanting to make sure as many eggs were fertile s possible. It would waste their resources and reduce their profit margins if they were just taking pot luck on the eggs they were incubating.

Yes, super, I think brown eggs look much nicer also. I don't know why anyone would be bothered because they can't get eggs with white shells.

Having poultry also attracts rats. 

Sure does, they are after the chook food/grain. Lots of rat holes around, under the hen house, on the farm.

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@crikey*mate wrote:

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What do you do with rats and mice etc? I mean do you kill them, poison them or just let nature take it's course.

 

Rats are animals too, and I reckon they'd have feelings.

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They chewed up through the bins that my chook an dog  food was stored in the shed, so i moved it into my pantry, and they started coming inside our house.  First i tried to trap them, but they are pretty clever not to get caught in those deadly traps.  Then i got trap that catches them alive and got some, but that leaves the problem of disposing of them, so I just got a cat and she sorted them out. 

I like the idea of the cat - that's good - it's kind of the natural order thing.

(since we're discussing animal welfare)

I've got mini fox terriers. Apparently they are supposed to hunt mice etc.

Mine are scared of them.

I've never had a cat. Well one of my brothers did when I was a kid, but it wasn't mine.

My family used to pour petrol down the rat holes (under the hen house, one was movable), light it, wait for them to come out and knock them on the head..

I don't really care if rats are trapped/drowned/poisoned... they are vermin.