The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[TeaChick]

Of course not!!

Oh, good!
I'm quoting you on that. lol
I'm going to be free ranging him, so he's a natural chicken and I'm keeping him. =D

I haven't bothered to sex this one.
I had intended to eat or sell all the cockerels, and keep the pullets for laying (giving some to DS for the beginning of his flock).
But I won't be able to eat this one, even if it's a cockerel. This one, being my first hatchling and the only chick from my first hatch, has scratched and pecked and peeped his way into my heart. I have two pet chickens now. At least I can put them together b/c they're unrelated and this one's not a frizzle, so if it's a cockerel, it will be okay for them to mate.
Sorry to be so long-winded; I'm excited, I actually got a chick out of my first hatch.

BTW, the others were all malpositioned to hatch. I did egg-topsies this morning and I could see their legs and the sides of their heads in almost all of them. The perspective I was looking at was through the inner membrane from cutting off the shell of the air sac. I incubated them vertically and then laid them down horizontally to hatch.

 

[misbhaven]

My 14 yr old step son took my chickens their oatmeal he came back in telling me they were crazy and come running and started to eat it before he even sat it all the way down....I told him oatmeal with a little shredded cheese ( which i forgot to put away last night) must be really good. BTW Teachick you little fuzzy is cute just like kids we always think the ones we have are the best..

 

[delisha]

New chicks..the first few will be of the chicks hatched on the 3rd..they are the imports..males



at hatch
today




These chicks are one week younger hatched on the 10th


I have 4 that hatched today also..no pictures..They are still in the brooder.

 

[lalaland]

its beginning to look a lot like springtime .....on this thread anyway

I figure I am at least a few months away from any chicks. and I have that brinesa brooder I won....under the bed.....just waiting to be used.

 

[ki4got]

well, I'll jump in here too... had 14 eggs shipped (same breeder the rest of my silver laced cochins came from) crossing fingers for a boy at least as nice as my last one. even tho I've got another boy from her (not as nice type-wise) on his way once the weather breaks... then i'll be able to pen up my trio FINALLY!

oh got sidetracked. 14 eggs... well only 4 developed at all (would you believe a few were empty? no yolks at all!) and hatched for me on Thursday. so here are the 4 latest additions to my silver laced bantam cochins!

 

[aoxa]

Lockdown tonight. WOW.. I did not realize how many eggs were about to hatch. It was a VERY tight fit between two of my Genesis incubators.​

I locked down despite not all being internally pipped. At least half were. I just can't candle that many eggs until they are all internally pipped lol.

I have locked down:​

19 Mutts (per request)​

2 Frizzled Bantam Easter Eggers​

9 Naked Necks​

7 Buckeyes​

26 Mottled Houdans​

19 Barred Plymouth Rocks​

4 White Ameraucanas​

27 Easter Eggers​

and 34 Silkies​

 

[lalaland]

Lockdown tonight. WOW.. I did not realize how many eggs were about to hatch. It was a VERY tight fit between two of my Genesis incubators.​

I locked down despite not all being internally pipped. At least half were. I just can't candle that many eggs until they are all internally pipped lol.

I have locked down:​

19 Mutts (per request)​

2 Frizzled Bantam Easter Eggers​

9 Naked Necks​

7 Buckeyes​

26 Mottled Houdans​

19 Barred Plymouth Rocks​

4 White Ameraucanas​

27 Easter Eggers​

and 34 Silkies​

its gonna be crazy when they start hatching! can't wait for pics. keeping my fingers crossed for you for a great hatch.

 

[Scott H]

O.K., Leahs Mom asked me to detail my variation of the poop hammock. I got the idea from this thread and we were kinda brain storming on the best way to build them. A poop hammock takes the place of a poop board or poop tray. Most of the people on that thread were sewing or gluing some sort of fabric around poles but I'm not much of a seamstress so as I was cleaning the coop one day I came up with this.

My roost is 4 feet long so I took 2 of those pickets they use for deck railings. I think they are 1 1/2 X 1 1/2 and 4 feet long. I ripped them in half the length of each picket on the table saw.

Then I got an old brown vinyl tarp, you know the ones, blue is the most common color

and cut it to the size I wanted. 4 feet by whatever.

Take one of the halved pickets and sandwich the tarp between the 2 halves and screw it together. You should probably pre drill the holes. Do the same with the other board on the other end of the tarp. Here's a picture in case you need a visual. Notice the tarp sticking out between the ripped halves.



More closer up...



By the way....that's not poop on the floor it's feathers!

I then hung this up under the roost with chains. You could mount them to the wall. Whatever suits your coop design, everyone's different. Fill with Sweet PDZ.

The result is all the poop that is released at night ends up resting in the hammock on the SPDZ. SPDZ almost instantly sucks the moisture out of it meaning no ammonia and thus no smell. I haven't changed the pine shavings since last July and that's what the coop smells like, pine shavings, since they free range during the day.

A couple of times a week I take this highly specialized tool......



...to this dirty hammock.....(actually, this isn't bad as I cleaned it 2 days ago)



And in less than 2 minutes it looks like this.....

Any questions will be happily entertained!

 

[lazy gardener]

What fun! Do you have to drop the front down to be able to reach everything? How often do you have to top off the PDZ?

 

[Scott H]

What fun! Do you have to drop the front down to be able to reach everything? How often do you have to top off the PDZ?

Nope...just poop scoop it like it hangs. That is the same PDZ that I originally put in last summer....some does cling to the poop so I will have to add some eventually.