polish chickens

does anyone have polish chickens? I have 2, a rooster named nugget and a hen named Wendy. they are buff laced and nugget is skittish around me while Wendy, loves to be around me and held. during winter, there crest gets muddy and waterlogged. is there a way to prevent this? do any of you have polish chickens? if so, what's your opinion?

flighty, among the less intelligent birds.  Had one that actually manage to set long enough for eggs to hatch.  Messed up her world as mom put a bunch of eggs in the incubator at the same time so we had a little bird trying to cover 20 chicks.  The one rooster we had was a wimp.  Lots of attitude but easily run off.  Made nice fly tying feathers.  Okay layers(slow to start laying) but poor choice for meat chickens because of lower feed conversion ratio and small carcass size.  Some friendly, some antisocial.

libby earhart wrote:during winter, there crest gets muddy and waterlogged. is there a way to prevent this? do any of you have polish chickens? if so, what's your opinion?

I can't say im an expert on Polish chickens, but we did have a half dozen of them while living in a much more tropical climate of Taiwan. We purchased fertile eggs and had one of our other broody Japanese chickens care for them until they grew up.

Totally free range.  They slept out in the open in the tree tops as soon as they were old enough to learn how.  

There were a lot of predators in this area. Loose dogs were semi frequent visitors, and large birds of prey hovered around all the time.  Large snakes were also abundant in the area. Once i stopped a 3m long Taiwan Beauty Snake from eating the eggs of one of our muscovy duck mommas. I was able to capture a video of it as proof, too.   There were other times when the Japanese hens layed outside of their nest boxes. Everything was fine until the babies hatched, and then one after another they started getting attacked by something in the middle of the night. We would loose one here and there over the span of a week to what was likely a snake.  Most of them did end up surviving into adult size, though.

While we did wake up and run out of bed to help the birdies when we were able, and we did eventually put up a very basic electrical barrier to offer a safer zone for the chickens to retreat to from dogs, they were also not overly protected.  

Surprisingly our Polish Chickens all made it into full grown size, and got up into the safer tree tops for roosting at night.  What might have helped is that they were raised by momma birds that had exposure to predators and were not overly fed with packaged store bought chicken feed.  They worked for their food, and they taught their babies how to do so also.  We did provide lots of leaf litter and set up composting systems for them to scratch around in.  They also had plenty of space to find what they needed, including a forested area nearby, but overall they usually stayed near our home.  

Eventually another predator that we were not quite familiar with showed up.  It was a Taiwan civet, which hunts at night, and climbs trees very well.  For a few nights in a row we heard the attacks on the birds, and again tried to step in to help.  By the third night we had lost two of our Polish Chickens (PCs), which was a little disheartening because we became more attached to them.  On the third night I was able to catch the Civet in the act of almost killing a third PC, and made sure to give it a good taste of a bamboo pole right in the face, to the point that it even fell out of the tree.  After that the Civet didn't come back.  For some reason this Civet only attacked the PCs.  

Of all the other birds the PCs were the most enjoyable to have around. Always bringing smiles and laughter, and they loved to be around us.  They may not be the most productive layers, or the best as meat birds because of some "feed to conversion ratio," but they did bring joy and made the permie-stead a happier place overall.  

My opinion on them is the typical permaculture answer.  

It depends.  

On the environment, the system, the goals and intentions, the well being of the animals, what services are being provided, etc.  

Personally im a fan of Mark Shepards "STUN" approach (Strategic Total Utter Neglect), although with maybe a little bit more care.  I do think that by being over protective we are training and raising weak organisms in our human centric eco-systems.  While most people say that Polish Chickens tend to be weaker and more vulnerable, and this was mostly proven to be true in our place, i do also think we can help them not be this way over time by raising them a certain way.  

Of all the birds that we have had the least trouble with it was the smaller and more agile Japanese birds, and in Hawaii, the wild fighting breeds from the forest.  While these breeds didn't provide the largest eggs, or the most meat as a "feed-to-meat-conversion-ratio", they could still live on and regenerate without us being present. To me this is more in line with permaculture.  They make great mommas, and can raise the other prettier, or better laying, or meat birds to better be able to care for themselves in difficult situations.  

Since we had to move we ended up donating our Polish birds to the "Earth Passengers Permaculture" training center. Now we live in Poland, and I have yet to see any "Polish" chickens.  It seems that they are not so popular here.  Ive read that they may not actually be from Poland originally..  

EDIT: After all that, I see I didn't directly answer your question about the muddy crest.  Im wondering what their environment is like? Do they have space to get dry?  A dust bath area?  

We have 3 hens and a polish/silkie roo in their own coop.  Polish roo was very flighty, and not very bright so he got knocked off by a silkie roo of all things! Our PCs wouldn't do well free range, as they're very high strung and not smart. We get a lot of wet weather here and have to keep some kind of 'bedding" , usually wood chips or leaves, down in the coops of the PCs and the silkies. Honestly the only reason we still have the polish is because my husband thinks they're funny. Oh and their coops has lots of roosting areas so they can be up off the ground, they will move between the roots without getting down if it really muddy.

libby earhart wrote:during winter, there crest gets muddy and waterlogged.

Every polish I know is an idiot. Something about their malformed head combined with being blinded by their crests probably.

People I know who don't show usually trim their crests so they can see and they don't get as messed up. Show chickens you can use small hairties to tie them up. If they don't fall down like bangs while they are pecking they should stay more dry.

My polish has actually learned to tilt her head to one side to see so I haven't had to do either of these things, but I also am not having your issue with her crest getting muddy. She is going to be shown, so I would probably tie it up vs cut if it came down to it.

L Amborn wrote:

libby earhart wrote:during winter, there crest gets muddy and waterlogged.

Every polish I know is an idiot. Something about their malformed head combined with being blinded by their crests probably.

People I know who don't show usually trim their crests so they can see and they don't get as messed up. Show chickens you can use small hairties to tie them up. If they don't fall down like bangs while they are pecking they should stay more dry.

My polish has actually learned to tilt her head to one side to see so I haven't had to do either of these things, but I also am not having your issue with her crest getting muddy. She is going to be shown, so I would probably tie it up vs cut if it came down to it.

the hair tie is such a smart idea I might have to try it! it got better since we have started free ranging them 12am to 4-5pm. Wendy is going to be shown but nugget will not due to previous injuries. Wendy sole purpose is to produce babies with nugget and be shown while nugget is supposed to guard the 19+ ladies(with the help of a flighty banty cockerel and a 3+ year old red island Rhode rooster).

Hi Amy,

Welcome to Permies.