Tennessee Great Granny
Chirping
- Mar 24, 2022
- 55
- 58
- 81
I don't let my chickens free range as there are way too many predators here plus I am concerned about bird flu. We can live trap some predator almost every night. Coop and run integrity is essential. I keeps species segregated from one another although I do have some baby chicks with my baby turkeys to teach them to eat and drink. On several of my hens I have noticed their ear lobes turning full pure white in color. I was wondering if it was possibly a microscopic mite causing it, and was about to put some mite medicine on them as I figured it couldn't hurt. If it is mites the medication will work and the ear lobes will turn red again. I add vitamins to the water I mix their mash with each morning. I don't want to worry about nutritional deficiencies, and besides I know having a good diet is essential to the immune function of every living thing. I feed them some BSF larva and lots of fresh fruits and veggies every single day to substitute for their not being free ranged aside from a good layer feed and crushed calcium. They can eat parts of plants we normally do not consume, so I give them kitchen scraps including pepper, pumpkin, and squash seeds and the edible leaves from broccoli, cabbage, brussel sprouts, cilantro, pepper plants, and fresh tomatoes (but not the cores). They love eggplant too and I had a bunch come ripe that never got to much size and we weren't going to eat them. They love any left over oatmeal and I cook them up rice from time to time I bought on clearance. Rice actually has a shelf life of 5 years if people can keep bugs out of it. I also supply crushed granite grit, although some prefer the sand I use in their dust bath for some reason, and pecked holes in the bags to get to it. I feed the roo a different diet. He's a juvenile but if I want healthy chicks in the spring his nutrition is very important especially now that he's just starting puberty. His saddle feathers are coming in so beautifully glossy and brilliently colored, so unlike his father's feather which were rather dull. I wasn't sure if this white ear lobe thing was going to spread through the entire flock or not, I just know more than one has it. I am about to scrub out their coop for the winter and set down a nice layer of clean sand at the bottom covered by wheat straw for insulation. We live in a mild winter zone, but our nights can easily drop below freezing, even if it hits 60 by 10 am. Thought I should be spraying for bugs after the coop is cleaned out. I plan to give everyone a worming medication when the winter solstice hits and laying is at a minimum. All medication should be out of their system by chick hatching time. Parasites steal the nutrition out of their bodies, It's really important to do this to maintain a healthy flock. We are about to do our monthly check for mites because they'll get sprayed down as well as the coop and to check their leg bands for over tightness. I have also been working at getting the rodent population down to stop the spread of diseases. I found by taking a corn bread/muffin mix packet and mixing it with 40% baking soda ( in ratio to the mix) that this will kill off mice and rats. Rodents can't burp. The baking soda mixes with their stomach acid and they die as it bubbles up in a big way. They die fairly quickly too. Since our birds burp and pass gas it really does nothing to them except make them gassy. It is also extremely child and pet friendly unless you have sea gulls which also don't burp.
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