Recent content by Tilhana

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    Can chickens safely eat soaked/fermented beans?

    I have a giant cooking pot that can fit maybe 10 gallons in it, and I have a camp stove, but I don't have space in my freezer to hold that many beans. And the smaller the batches I boil, the more batches I have to do. And then I have to set up the cook stove and put it away each time, clean the...
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    Can chickens safely eat soaked/fermented beans?

    They may well be viable, as they are organic and have been stored in airtight buckets with oxygen absorbers and are at most about 10 years old, but I don't keep them for planting. I keep them as an emergency food source in case of natural disasters or other long-term emergencies. I also don't...
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    Can chickens safely eat soaked/fermented beans?

    Thank you! This is very encouraging. Sadly they didn't specifically test for lectins, but based on the reduction in similar anti-nutrients that they did measure, they found an improvement of digestibility of up to 90%, especially after 2-4 days of fermentation. I suspect that the amount of...
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    Can chickens safely eat soaked/fermented beans?

    I'm not sure they are still viable...also its a LOT of beans. Way more than I can plant in a season and reasonably hope to harvest.
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    Can chickens safely eat soaked/fermented beans?

    Hey y'all, I have a question about beans. I have always heard that chickens shouldn't eat raw beans because of the lectins, and every source I've looked at says to cook beans before adding them to your chickens' feed. I normally feed my birds a homemade mix of raw grains which I soak in water...
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    Heat needs of ducklings, chicks and keets brooding together

    Thanks! I did check on them a couple times and they seemed to be fine, and they were great this morning. But I'm glad to know others have taken them off heat that early. Their coop is pretty big so they won't be able to soak it.
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    Heat needs of ducklings, chicks and keets brooding together

    I'm raising 13 ducklings for the first time, and I've just today moved them into an outdoor coop but I'm wondering if it's too soon? They are a mix of ages and I'm not sure exactly but I know the youngest are about 2 weeks old, maybe a little more, and the oldest maybe 5 weeks. I don't have...
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    Stepped on a chick - can it survive?

    Hi all, We have some 1-day-old chicks in a brooder and my 3-year-old accidentally stepped on one. It was a near miss - I think she only pinched its tail. No obvious signs of injury other than some bleeding around the cloaca, which seems to have stopped now. Can't tell for sure if it was coming...
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    HELP!!! MAMA HEN EATING HER CHICKS?!?!

    Sorry for your losses. I know how sad it is to have new chicks suddenly die and not know why... I know it's a little late, but since you mentioned you have multiple broody hens, I would separate them from the rest of the flock if you want to give the chicks the best chance for survival. I just...
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    Help. I thought hatching under a broody would be easy.

    Just wanted to wish you luck with your chicks! I'm going through similar difficulties with a broody hen that's either clumsy or just really unlucky, and a bunch of fertile/mostly developed eggs got crushed or chicks died shortly after hatching. I'm amazed you were able to save that one given the...
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    Chicks hatched by broody hens keep dying

    They do teach them to drink...even if they don't deliberately, the chicks will copy what the mamas do. The key is that they learn by example. Even if you're raising chicks without a hen, even just showing a few of the chicks where the water is will probably suffice, because the others will see...
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    Chicks hatched by broody hens keep dying

    That did occur to me last year, that maybe that hen just wasn't a very good mother. But these are the only two hens of mine who have ever gone broody, and they've both had pretty abysmal mortality rates, so I'm suspicious that either there's something else going on (like a disease maybe?), or...
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    Chicks hatched by broody hens keep dying

    Hi everyone, I'm trying to figure out why the chicks that hatch under my broody hens have such a high mortality rate, especially compared to those I've hatched in an incubator. When I've hatched eggs in an incubator, I've had a pretty good success rate. Last year I had 19 chicks hatch from a...
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    Chicken run floor...??

    I also like woodchips. Even fresh ones are ok in my experience - I keep my coop door open during the day and even when I put in wet woodchips they seem to dry out within a couple of days. Anyway I've never had an issue with mold, I just pile more chips on top of the poop piles and a few times a...
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    Oregon bill seeks to criminalize breeding/raising livestock for meat

    Lol my husband quotes that one to me every time I'm up late responding to threads on this forum.
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