Chickens for 10-20 years or more? Pull up a rockin' chair and lay some wisdom on us!

[gardendufus]

Total newbie here, still in the first stages of planning my coop. I DEFINITELY (sic?) want the OT's to tell it to me straight. One thing that would help is if we knew when we were reading the posts how much (how many years?) experiance someone had. Was following one guy for awhile who was answering other peeps questions about how to do something, sounding like an expert when I later found a post asking for help in building his first coop.

How do you guys get that little sidebar thingy to show where you are from. It also helps me a lot if I know someone is from a similar climate as mine.

Sorry don't want to kidnap the thread.

 

[Beekissed]

You know what? I've never in my life looked at any percentages on the side of a feed bag! How's that for scientific!

KSane wrote: You've had chickens since the year before I was born?? That's a long long time, wow.

I'll do it for you, Al...

 

[donna8424]

We use nothing special. The feeder is made of 4” PVC and the water is in 5- 1gal buckets, easy to keep clean. The girls seem to be happy with the setup.

 

[Beekissed]

Quote:
AWWWW....you've done it now!

You didn't read the first page or two, did you? There are no hissy fits thrown if you hi-jack or kidnap the thread...my thread, my rules. Only hissies if you apologize for doing so!

That would be a great idea, BTW, for us all to place our years of chickening next to our location. What do all you old-timers feel about that?

 

[al6517]

Quote:
I think the rule is you have to have X number of post before they let you post pic's and other stuff. Supposed to be a spam preventer I think.

 

[Tres Amigas]

Quote:
Welcome, Doof! Just go to your profile where you log in. I'm in Eastern Washington. The more time you spend here, you'll get better at discerning who really knows what they're talking about. It will also help with your coop planning. You'll see just what kind of problems people have that could have been avoided with better coop planning/building. Let me warn you about one thing, although I'm a noob too. Stay away from chicken wire. It'll keep chickens penned up real nice for the predators to corner. Use welded wire or hardware wire. A plus with hardware wire is it also keeps the mice out if your coop is otherwise well-built. This site has lots of coop ideas.

 

[Ksane]

Quote:
Donna, you know that'd work great in the winter to use 1 gal buckets. Carry fresh water out in them and pick up the frozen water buckets. I've got a lot of separate chicken yards & pens and buyng 20 heated dog water bowls and running electricity to each pen, coop and yard is NOT an option. But carrying 1 gal buckets out and picking up the frozen ones a few times a day? That's an option. It doesn't freeze for long down here so that's a really good solution for me. Thank you!

 

[Tres Amigas]

Here's a posit for our venerable OTs:
Under what circumstances, if any, would you artificially provide heat for your chickens? Light? I know both are objects of intense debate. I neither heat nor light my coop, but going into our second year, our chickens have drastically reduced their laying (although 2 are molting.) I think it's better for them to be as natural as possible, we don't do either heat or light, and they do alright.
ETA: Although in the interest of Full Disclosure (!) I have fancied the idea of putting up some twinkle lights for the holidays

(go ahead, Bee - ah, never mind, I'll do it myself...

)

 

[Kassaundra]

We use layer pellets for food. Gary made a cool food dispenser it has a bucket w/ a locking lid that is mounted and caulked to the roof of the coop, w/ a large pvc pipe that goes straight down and just before the floor of the coop he has mounted (screwed I think) a pvc cap upside down to form a "bowl" just bigger then the pipe. The bucket holds one bag of pellets at a time and self dispenses as they eat, they can't get in to poop on the food or scratch it out as waste b/c of the size of pipe and bowl.

I have to say I do treats, they get all the fruit / veggie scraps from the garden, I do sprout oat in the winter (when they don't have greens) and ferment oats in the summer, and I raise insects for them (dubias, and mealy worms) I want to get a black soldier fly larva bucket up and going next year and keep it in their run area so they can self harvest.

 

[Beekissed]

I've tried continuous feeders, PVC feeders and just trough feeders.....I settled with the trough wrapped in welded wire and up on cement blocks. I found it to be the most versatile, easiest to fill, wasted less feed and it didn't cost me a dime~found it in the old coop when I moved there. Snap!

Tried the galvanized waterers but couldn't use it with my ACV...and found them difficult to fill, clean, etc. Settled on a big, black rubber feed pan....swish, empty, refill. This is also up on cement blocks in the coop and the birds never try to perch on the edge or tip it over. I like. In the winter it empties out easily when frozen...but I finally just moved to a heated dog bowl for winter water in the interest of ease....a lazy farmer is an ingenious farmer.

The heated one is also a swish, empty and refill type waterer.

Feed? Free range all year. Laying mash in the spring and summer...mix in some whole grains in the winter along with some added OS if the eggs get a little wonky. BOSS in the deep litter every once in a while during the winter to keep the chickens doing the work of keeping it turned and fluffy....lazy farmer finds a way once again...

Basic and utilitarian....a farmer usually winds up there in the end, after trying all the other also-rans.