Recent content by Davaroo

  1. Davaroo

    What breed of chicken should I get?

    Sex links are great. They make it easy to have pullets only, and they possess hybrid vigor. The downside is they won't breed true. Each successive generation comes out farther and farther from the originals. You either buy new ones each season or hope for the best. For the average chickeneer...
  2. Davaroo

    Hay vs. Straw

    Two problems exist with hay: 1. It often contains weed seed, so if the nesting ends up in the compost, well... Undesirable volunteers may appear in your gardens, etc. 2. Hay is prone to dusting, mold and fungus due to the high content of organic fines it contains. This leads to the bane of...
  3. Davaroo

    Played a trick on an egg eating hen and.........

    Thank you. Hehehe... The benefit of a life spent on the literary path.
  4. Davaroo

    Desert Foraging? High Desert, not much vegetation

    Really spot on replies! Id only add this: It's a mistake we make in supposing livestock (including chickens) have everything they need on "range." Unless we have infinite land they can rotate to, coupled with rigorous management, this is almost never the case. Even then, the seasons change...
  5. Davaroo

    How to save money on chicken feed?

    Be wary of "free ranging" as a sole source of nutrition. Many people have the old, flawed notion that chickens can just fend for themselves. Turn them suckers loose and forget about them. To a degree this is so, but it is also lacking in a couple of crucial ways. - forage foods are seasonal. In...
  6. Davaroo

    What breed of chicken should I get?

    In the city, kinda smallish, but docile with good egging ability? Simple. Wyandottes.
  7. Davaroo

    Adopting ex battery hens

    I live right in the middle of industrial chicken country. Large battery and growing houses dot the landscape everywhere. I pass three massive feed mills everyday, enterprises devoted to making feed solely for housed chickens. We even have an annual "Poultry Festival" to fete the boon these...
  8. Davaroo

    Building the ideal chicken run

    Ive moved two years past and now have a small Low area in my yard. It fills to an inch or so with water during really severe rains. I stuck a small kitchen garden there without realizing this, simply as an expedient. But the spot is not a dead zone... grasses and weeds flourish there, and it...
  9. Davaroo

    THE all purpose chicken

    Yes, you could. The solid strip heaters would be best, the glass tube type less preferred. If it had some kind of thermal protection, that would be nice. Chickens are notorious for upsetting things like feeders and waterers, so if yours isn't "chicken proof" solid state heaters protected from...
  10. Davaroo

    Need advice on floor of run

    Just plain sand? How many chickens?
  11. Davaroo

    composting

    I just use a working pile, and an adjacent empty, or "turning spot." I cover the turning spot in a layer of cardboard to smother whatever is beneath, and poke it full of holes with a pitch fork. Everything soft goes onto the pile - weeds, roots, plants, leaves, dug soil, turges, grass...
  12. Davaroo

    Best type of chicken for kids to raise...

    New Hampshire males crossed with Silver Laced Wyandottes gives the Cinnamon Queen.... They might be fairly docile at that. Docility is kind of a bird by bird thing, in my experience.
  13. Davaroo

    Layer Assortment

    A nice mutt flock! If you aren't interested in pure bloods, this is the way to go. They won't breed true to anything, because they are such a mishmash of breeds. Think of them as a giant genetic soup... and you don't know the ingredients! But for fun and eggs, this is a cheap (usually) way to...
  14. Davaroo

    Plymouth Rock thread!

    I'd like to hear the logic behind that statement myself.
  15. Davaroo

    Not what I was told.

    Thanks Cyn for clarifying the "smut" thing with pictures. Since yours don't appear to have much if any, they will probably be good and white. I don't have experience with rose or pea comb development, but those look pretty sharp and single-ish.
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