The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[lalaland]

good news - the hen is pooping green! very oily as she has had two doses of oil mixed with teeny tiny pieces of bread - and not normal yet, but a good dark green.
she still isn't too interested in food. I am hoping to return her to the coop tonight.

I am going to be sure to make a quarantine pen in the coop I'm building in the storage half of the trailer coop. Would love not to have the big old dog kennel in the house! And now that I have two cats, it is hard to deal with the hen and two cats when you are trying to treat her/bathe her, etc.

I decided she doesn't have lice - used a flashlight to get a better look at her bloomers and I think I was just seeing urates stuck to the feathers.

only 2 inches of snow so far, more coming!

 

[loanwizard]

Question for EVERYONE:

What do you do to prepare your hen house/coop when a tornado watch/warning or severe thunderstorm watch/warning is issued?

-Do you lock them inside?

~OR~

-Do you make sure their pop door/entry door is open so they can escape if they need to?


-Do you MAKE them go inside or just leave them to decide?

My chickens are in a large barn. They are never.... maybe 2-3 times per year, locked down. They are 100% Free Ranged. If they want to sleep outside, that is up to them. Nope. not going to lock them up. I don't want to end up going to Kansas to look for them.....

We had a bad bad storm last year. Winds I estimated at 60mph +, rain coming down in spirals when it wasn't horizontal. Had meat birds in hoop, pig shelter, and electronetting. Hoop flipped as did hog shelter, birds in fence..... I unplugged.... Very nasty 20 minutes or so. Never lost a bird..... Very wet, but never lost one. Way I look at a tornado, Coop them up and they have no chance if all the stars align. Let them be, and they can move..... If you lose any, as Bee might say and I DEFINITELY would say, "You don't need Dumb(vent) genetics anyway!

 

[BlueMouse]

dumb newbie question of the day..... (drum roll please) I've been giving the chicks a scoop full of creek sand most days that the sand outside is dry enough to bring in, and a clump of dandylions or chickweed that I've dug up with a clod for them. I figure they can scratch and dustbathe that way. Yesterday I swear to you that 5 bantam chicks ate at LEAST a cup and a half of dirt. should I be concerned about this?the day before the picked the roots of the dandylions clean of all dirt, but only ate maybe half of the leaves. They have, honest to god, poops that are like solid sand this morning.... are they going to eat sand and then not eat their regular food and be malnourished?

 

[Mumsy]

A great visit with my daughter from Seattle yesterday. She is hedging a bit on taking the pullets any time soon. No coop or pen yet. I told her no worries. If I sell her four, there are plenty coming along she can take any time. She is really fascinated by the HRIR chicks. She may get some of them.


No tornadoes where I live. Or floods or pestilence either. Living on an island in a temperate climate was by choice. However we do get the occasional big wind. Our fear is and always has been falling trees or big limbs. I lock my birds up every night. They free range all day. I wouldn't do anything different during a storm. Except maybe not go outside myself to avoid getting hit by trees and falling branches. I've had limbs come down and smash fences and pens but birds were safe inside the barn. We've had big limbs hit the house too and damage the roof. Lot of big trees in the PNW.

My turkeys will be arriving May 1. I'll keep them off the ground for a couple weeks and on FF with the usual stuff all my other birds get in it. I've been adding high doses of ground pumpkin seed, Cayenne, garlic, alfalfa cubes, oregano, whole oats from the beginning. Once a week I stir in plain Greek yogurt and fresh crushed garlic into the ff. Once a week I buy fresh beef liver and mince it and stir it into individual feed pans. They get all food kitchen waste to pick through in the compost pile every day. I'm feeding over fifty chickens including chicks.

 

[lalaland]

i wouldn't worry about the eating dirt! as long as the poops look good. my chicks have always eaten a fair amount of dirt, and I notice in the spring that the hens eat dirt too. now if this was a day old chick, i might pull back on the dirt, just like I would watch if they were eating nothing but shavings. but other than that, no problem.

if it is pure sand, I'ld cut back on that and just stick with the dirt clods

 

[aoxa]

Guess what I just found out..

Our local co-op has organic feed!

Guess what else I just found out?

It's 38.50 a bag!

How the heck am I supposed to do that?!

I'm thinking about doing a whole grain feed.

http://www.gardenbetty.com/2013/04/homemade-whole-grain-chicken-feed-updated-and-now-corn-free/
Can someone (LM) check this over. This seems very doable to me. The author has healthy chickens, but they don't have a large operation by any means. I want to make sure I am doing the best for my birds. I don't want to offer a diet of whole grains if it is going to make them nutritionally imbalanced.

I will be free ranging all year round, but we have 3-4 months of nothing but snow, so I will need a complete diet during those terrible months of nothing to forage.

I don't want to grind the feed.

Do they need added salt if they are free ranged?! This question is for Delisha

What would they pick up while foraging that would supplement that need?

Lots and LOTS of questions. Please help me figure this out!

 

[Pullet Surprise]

Quote: A couple of years ago a tornado hit a "chicken house" near my daughter's friend. They were on the phone at the time (not the chickens

) it was a small tornado when it hit friend's neighborhood. There were wet / dazed chickens all over friend's back yard. Her dog went nuts retrieving said chickens, (gently) and kept bringing then up on her deck and wanting to bring them in the house. Of course her young daughters wanted all the wet chickens brought in and kept as pets. That was the worst part of it. Not knowing how many chickens were in the "Chicken house" it's hard to say how many survived, but the ones that were deposited in friend's back yard all recovered nicely, even despite an over helpful dog and crying children. There really isn't a whole lot you can do as no one knows where tornadoes will hit. i worried about it last year and decided this year it's in the hands of Providence. Besides, I don't want anything slowing down my own race for the closet under the stairs and there is no room in there for 11 chickens. Sorry girls, you will be on your own. I hate tornadoes.

 

[SallyinIndiana]

Question for EVERYONE:

What do you do to prepare your hen house/coop when a tornado watch/warning or severe thunderstorm watch/warning is issued?

-Do you lock them inside?

~OR~

-Do you make sure their pop door/entry door is open so they can escape if they need to?


-Do you MAKE them go inside or just leave them to decide?

for the chickens in our hoop styled coop we do nothing. If the wind blows it over, we do have pine trees for them to hide under. Before we had the hoop coop, the chickens were left in their run with the chicken door open if it was daylight. They tended to hide in the coop during the storms or the storms were at night.
For storms at night we leave the coop closed.

 

[Leahs Mom]

Don't know about tornados, we never get them here. Thunderstorms though... Hmm.. Never had to think about it, but I'd most likely let them decide if it happened during the day. What's the chances of them being struck by lightening?

My chickens are in a large barn. They are never.... maybe 2-3 times per year, locked down. They are 100% Free Ranged. If they want to sleep outside, that is up to them. Nope. not going to lock them up. I don't want to end up going to Kansas to look for them.....

We had a bad bad storm last year. Winds I estimated at 60mph +, rain coming down in spirals when it wasn't horizontal. Had meat birds in hoop, pig shelter, and electronetting. Hoop flipped as did hog shelter, birds in fence..... I unplugged.... Very nasty 20 minutes or so. Never lost a bird..... Very wet, but never lost one. Way I look at a tornado, Coop them up and they have no chance if all the stars align. Let them be, and they can move.....

I'm not all caught up yet but...I wanted to answer these and AFL
The lightning wasn't my concern - the HIGH WINDS are, as LW mentions. If we get a tornado through here it can twist high intensity towers and take whole houses off their foundations. Since the hen house isn't "moored" to any foundation, I imagine it just rolling by like an over sized, square beach ball...somewhat like lw described his hoop.

But...if the door is open, at least they have a chance to escape from something like that...at least that was what I was thinking. Seems that if the doors are all shut tight, they may just end up being inside a death trap.

Quote: LS

 

[Leahs Mom]

Okay..just caught up. Thanks for all the storm answers! Very helpful. The story of the chickens in the back yard and the dog was great!