Recent content by Pack Mom

When we first got our chicks the farm told us not to use straw. He said it is hollow and mold can grow on the inside and you will not see it until your have big troubles. We use pine shavings, a large bale is only 6 bucks at the farm supply store. Dorothy

We add ACV to the water during warm months in the plastic water container. Once we had to switch over to the double walled metal container on a heater we had to stop (ACV and metal do not go together). I started this when the chicks were young, had read it helps with poopy butt - never had...

Does anyone make up their own scratch? What are you using? We feed our hens organic laying pellets from Blue Seal but we can not find organic scratch plus our hens leave most of the scratch/corn laying on the ground for the chipmunks to eat. I was thinking about mixing up some grains for...

yes crickets are the best $1.00 you can spend at the local pet store. We did that for our girls when they were still little chicks in the indoor pen. We are not catching crickets to keep for the winter months when bugs/protein are harder to find in the yard. We also raise mealworms.

We got two hens from a farm and they don't go crazy for the treats like our others that were raised on getting treats from us. Guess we raised some spoiled rotten hens.....lol Dorothy

We put a little bit of apple cider vinegar into the drinking water of both our chickens and dogs. Dorothy

Thank you for the reply. Great idea with the rabbit feeder. Now that I'm looking at size of the oyster shell wouldn't that serve the same purpose as the grit? Kinda a two for one, calcium supply and grit........ ? Our farm store said if we free range our chickens each and have sand in our...

I was wondering about getting my own oyster shell. We live at the ocean and can pick up oyster shells all over the place. Can we just wash it and smash it up for the chickens? Washing sure if they only use freshwater oyster shell or just any oyster shell. Dorothy

I also have a question about oyster shell - should I be giving it to my laying hens all the time? DE - to answer someone question from this thread - NON food grade is extremely poisons and is used in swimming pools - FOOD grade is great stuff, it is silica basically, my husband and I take it...

Just reading through this thread lots of great info, thanks! Just wanted to add if you have extra eggs feed them to your dogs, shell and all. The shell is full of calcium. However, never feed a store bought egg shell to a dog, it has been cleaned with a chemical and oiled. We had our dogs...

Can't wait to show them spaghetti....8-)) We are breeding meal worms for them and they come running when I come out with the container of worms. Love the way they turn their head when I come outside and say "Hey Girls"

We have a nice pair of Lemon Cuckoo Orpingtons that would make a great breeding pair. We picked up what we thought was 3 hens from a breeder here in NJ and low and behold we have a rooster. We are not suppose to have roosters in our town so we are trying to get him a new home that will...

We are so "egg"cited that we stand outside the coop and wait for her to finish laying the egg. We have Rhode Island Reds and Barred Rocks mostly. Dorothy

Our chickens have discovered that they can get up onto of the well box and look into the kitchen window. Now we have chickens staring into our kitchen asking us to share some food with them!

During these really hot days I was wondering if I should put some ice into the waters to help keep the chickens cool? I feel so bad when they are panting. Dorothy