Recent content by Mumsy

No worries. I enjoy the discussion but I'm also an old timer that has 'been there, done that' and I have had my share of sick birds in the past. Sometimes when a methodology of flock raising doesn't work, it can indeed come back and "bite you in the butt." This is how we learn. I am of an age...

Hah! I can see Vancouver Island from the beach just down the road from my house!

In 1840 at the onset of the great overland migration, there were not near the varieties of poultry in the USA there are now. When people got to where they homesteaded, flocks were often started from doing business with those that got there ahead of them it's true. That is neither here nor there...

X2 All I get is Error uploading images- I can't even make a new album to copy and past from.

I free range all sixteen of my Silkie flock. Twelve Catdance four month olds and four Sheryl Butler seven month olds. They are very savvy at it since they have been foraging in the garden since they were small. I leave the water pan in the same place so everyone can find it easy. I only trimmed...

Hi AletaG! I am really busy outside this time of year but I haven't forgotten you. It's going to be three or four more months before I let go of any of my boys but I know how to reach you. It will be nice to have this strain predominately in the PNW. They are such beautiful and docile birds...

I agree. Super bugs and the fast method of transmission from mega hatcheries, at poultry shows and close proximity to neighbors. Many adults and children on the Oregon Trail died of Cholera, Typhus, Scarlet Fever, and who knows what else. Most of my ancestors ate or traded their chickens...

This absolutely is how I raised my four infants in the beginning and I am all about safety in raising my poultry. Letting them all build immunities slowly. I won't vaccinate or use antibiotics. Back yard flocks are not raised in a sterile laboratory setting. A lot of new comers to raising...

The only predators I worry about come out of the sky and an occasional raccoon. I have electric wire to put up around the hoop house. It worked with the raccoon last winter. The Potager garden is fenced with 1 inch poultry fencing from the ground to six feet. My barnyard is fenced with seven...

Now it's my turn to be jealous! I love this picture. Can't wait for one of my Silkies to be a good mama like this.

The little orphan Silkie is seven weeks old now and just a round ball of puff. I think female but I've been wrong with Whites before. I don't have a green house in my fenced garden, but back in early Spring when I set up the hoop tent for tomatos, I was thinking it would be a good place to keep...

An interesting thing happened today. After feeding this morning, I removed all the dish pans. Out of sight even. Usually I just leave them. They are always picked clean but the flock does not forage far from those pans. I feed at set times but it seemed everybody was always waiting for food to...

My Ron Fogle shipped chicks are now sixteen weeks. The hatched egg chicks are twelve weeks. Nice birds and I enjoy watching them everyday. Twelve week old pullet. Sixteen week old cockerel. Another twelve week old. I like the dark beak. The dark feathers. The dark horn on the legs, the...

I don't have enough property to let fifty birds out all at once and expect them to find enough to eat until 8pm when I shut them up for the night. Most of their foraging is green grass and the compost pile right now until I open the potager garden up to them in the Fall and the orchard starts...

It could be a blocked proventriculis. Gently massage the crop after the olive oil treatment and maybe it will help break up the contents in the crop to help move things along. This treatment may take some time. Crop issues are rarely quick fix problems. A necropsy in this area will be a useful...