Modern chickens quickly go feral if they escape into a somewhat safe environment as they have done to a very large degree in Hawaii. There they live on basically a jungle fowl diet. In Hawaii the feral chickens are a mix of the semi domesticated birds the Polynesians and more recent domestic...
Feed your dog a diet of nothing but rats and you will have a much healthier dog. In fact hamburger would probably be OK and IMO better than dry dog food. But they need the organ meat, eyes, brain to give complete nutrition. They are carnivores and in the wild might eat some berries but...
Have you ever tried
Have you ever tried that? Do you know that if you put out greens, fruit veggies and tuna in unlimited quantities that they would only eat the tuna and not eat anything else? Tuna is good meat nutrition. But I wager that if you put out unlimited tuna, greens, veggies and...
Sprouts are great. You are doing right by your quails :clap
I found sprouting to be a bit of a chore, so I found a way that works for me. I make a "cage" of hardware cloth that I put on the ground and sprinkle wheat in it. When it sprouts I lift it up and move it and the chickens devour it in...
Sorry for the long lecture on chickens and eyes. You wrote "but I obviously don't want to have to monitor their interactions all the time now." which I misunderstood to mean that the kids and the chickens mixed without you being close. But having seen how much pain my husband was in when a...
Sorry I didn't know that English is not your first language. However you need to know that having dust baths does not necessarily mean lice or a bad infestation of lice. Our chickens do not have lice or if they do they are so very few that they do no damage and I never see them. Yet they take...
You say "caught them taking dust baths" as if that is something bad. Its how birds handle feather parasites. I never see lice or other parasites on our chickens and I see them take dust baths all the time. So the dust baths work, but I also think they are just programmed to do it and "enjoy"...
Crossing chickens is so much fun, you never know just what you will get! Makes for a lot of variety and for IMO stronger chickens as it diversifies the genetics. Have fun with it. Like your birds!
I had one roo that started getting aggressive. So every night I took him off the roost and held him upside down for a bit. It actually calms them as the blood runs to the head. But it also established my dominance. He got better.
Whatever you do with the roo however do not let your...
Please be aware that chickens will peck eyes. They see the white and think food. A two year old has their face much closer to chickens than we do. Even without the aggressive behavior I would not leave your two year old alone with your chickens. And when he is with him please stay on...
Papi is our top dog rooster. Not the biggest bird he has a fair amount of banty in his line. Pretty much all our birds have some game blood in them but others have more than he does. But being top dog is about much more than size or strength. A good part of it is confidence and skill. He...
Here are a few of the chicks we hatched this year - all about 3 months but pics are from a week or two ago. Amber's father is Welsummer and her mother a mix of Americana, Marans, Game Banty, English and Brazilian Game, Wyandotte Banty, Leghorn, Rock, and Hamburg. Mother is blue. I am...
No oops. I didn't know that either. I thought it was just because it was a short time (usually 3 days). Your question prompted me to learn something new :thumbsup
No more than "fermenting" milk produces alcohol rather than yogurt. The difference is that fermenting for alcohol uses yeast, and fermenting milk, yogurt, vinegar, kefir, sauerkraut, etc uses bacteria. http://naturalchickenkeeping.blogspot.com/p/fermented-feed.html Hard cider and vinegar are...
https://www.foodqualityandsafety.com/article/contamination-and-animal-feed/ "Many of the ingredients used by the animal feed industry are materials not used for human consumption or are products remaining after processing materials for human food, known as co-products for animal feed. This...
I have read that baby chicks get immunity by eating some of the broody mommas poop. I can't find a link for it at present. But it would be something like human babies getting immunities from breast milk especially very first milk called collustrum. They also get good bacteria as they move...
Yes an impacted crop feels firm but so does a normal crop right after feed. A firm crop in the morning is impacted. A firm crop after feed means you have a bird who is eating well.
"Be sure the crop is emptying by feeling it first thing in the morning before the chicken eats. If the crop is...