I get funny looks and laughter in this ranching community when I consult the vet. I sprout grain for them and they are free range on at least an acre. They have a tub in the chickenhouse for dust bathing and a weekly change of pine shred bedding. Every day they get kitchen scraps and it is...
We have had several dogs that got along well with chickens.The secret was to make an impression early. A beagle sounds like a bad choice as they are hard to train anyway, and this one is too old.
My biggest problem has been other people's dogs that race through and decimate my flock.
I have 20 hens. I sprout organic wheat for them and sell the eggs. During the winter II put a light on a timer so they had 14 hrs. They began laying so many eggs I couldn't sell all of them, so I turned off the timer. After a few weeks my demand had grown, so I turned it back on. Nothing...
Everything loves to eat chickens! I am near the wilderness and plagued with skunks, raccoons, coyotes and weasels. The worst of these are domestic dogs who kill for sport and leave injured hens behind, or weasels that only suck blood from heads and necks and leave a whole, dead chicken. Weasels...
It is an infection. If the soaking doesn't help or the cysts get bigger they will lance them and give antibiotics. She is to be isolated and not supposed to jump from heights.
I had a metal waterer over a heated dog dish, but it got too cold this winter. And then there is the pooping problem. So...I got a big heated plastic red&white job, big enough to serve my 26 chickens. And...I figured out a poopshield. What you do is, you get a large dog-neck cone from your...
Some of my chickens are getting old, so I'd probably like a couple sexlinks for their big eggs, a Brahma for huggability and some easter eggers to add variety to the colors in the carton. For beauty, a partridge or phoenix rooster, and for dependable lay-til-you-die eggers, the leghorns. For...
I guess I worded that badly. My questions is, are they growing organically empowered eggs inside while resting in the winter? I get a better price for my eggs rest of the year because they are free range and fed sprouted organic grain and organic layer, which are expensive and time-consuming.
I have been feeding only organic feeds, and sprouted grain, to get the best eggs for my customers. When the hens quit laying for the winter do I have to keep this up?
I try to stick with expensive organic wheat from Azure Standard, but sometimes it's scraps that won't sprout, or immature or something. Then I go to the feed store and get Payback wheat, and it always sprouts.
I've tried to find a way to keep this from being a mess in the house in winter. My...
Sarah,
I would let your customers set the price. If they buy at $4.00, go for it. I charge $4.00 for mine in this rural location because I sprout wheat (organic when possible) for the chickens and it is more work. But I think I'm just donating to the community as the cost of feed is so high...
This sounds like a winter plan... I have 30 birds and am getting at least a doz eggs a day, and you have to not use the eggs for how long? 10 days after?
I had my vet do a fecal test. He found a worm that lives in their crops, so we squirted the medication into each beak. I did lose a few chickens shortly after, which might have been a coincidence.
This is going in a new direction--purebreds vs mongrels. Am not sure my experience matches yours although I appreciate mongrel hardiness also. If you have a female dog in heat the yard fills with interested suitors, purebred and not, and I don't believe I've met a selective male. People dump...
Walmart, huh? That might be a good job for him, as greeter.
He has definite bulge of a head that decreases sharply above his eyes. Not sure if that's how they are or if it's scar tissue. Anyway I took a strip of fabric a little wider than the width of his head folded it in half the long way...