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  1. Vadard

    Strange behavior with Non-GMO Feed

    Thank you all for your responses. I did moisten the feed some, and they ate it at about the same rate. The hens still look fine. I think the Kalmbach feed might just be more nutritious.
  2. Vadard

    Strange behavior with Non-GMO Feed

    Now this sounds really good. Hopefully that's the case. I guess time will tell. My wife and I have been joking that the cheap Nutrena stuff we had before was McDonald's, and the fancy non-GMO stuff is like a $12 salad from the hippy health food store. Nobody wants to eat their veggies LOL.
  3. Vadard

    Strange behavior with Non-GMO Feed

    Good points, thank you. They are otherwise behaving normally. I will probably try to ferment the rest of the Kalmbach stuff I have, then switch to a simple all-flock mix or something similar. Will lay off the mealworms, too.
  4. Vadard

    Strange behavior with Non-GMO Feed

    Greetings. I've wanted to put our hens on non-GMO feed for a while, and a local feed store started carrying the Kalmbach 17% non-gmo layer pellets. It's affordable, and I was impressed with the quality as it looked and smelled fresher and better than my previous feed (Nutrena 22% pellets). I...
  5. Vadard

    Black Bear Bandit

    Sorry for your losses. My two cents: Get your electric fence back up, and put a cellular-enabled trail camera on it to hopefully deter or catch the thief in action. Talk to local law enforcement. Honestly, I think the thief concerns me more than the critters. You need to deal with that...
  6. Vadard

    M I Crooked Letter Crooked Letter...ahh, nevermind....Mississippi

    Long time, no post. Checking in from George Co. Anyone here near me (Lucedale, Benndale, Wiggins, Hurley, Agricola, Leakesville)? How about Hattiesburg, the coast, or going toward Mobile? I'm frequently in those areas, too. Would love to meet more local chicken-folk to swap, team up, or work...
  7. Vadard

    5th black snake today out of the coop- can’t find nest, getting atleast one every day for the past week.

    Wow. I have no idea what the range of a rat snake is, but I’d be inclined to thin them out to see if it helps. Maybe kill every other one, at least? Could be that the snakes came for your mice first, then found the eggs. So you have something like a fancy casino buffet for rat snakes going on...
  8. Vadard

    5th black snake today out of the coop- can’t find nest, getting atleast one every day for the past week.

    That’s a lot of snakes! All I know about rat snakes is that they can get through about anything except for hardware cloth (HWC). Put it everywhere you can and bury it around the perimeter if possible. This will sound crazy, but does your coop have a corrugated metal roof? Years ago, I had one...
  9. Vadard

    Backwoods Open Coop

    I live in a hot, muggy climate (Gulf Coast) and am a big fan of open coop designs. This coop will be 12x30 overall with an 8x12 roosting area at the north end. The roosting area will have a single-slope metal roof and will have 1” pine board & batten siding on 3 sides. The south side of this...
  10. Vadard

    Brooder Overhaul - Winging It

    Thanks for all the replies. I received 24 chicks from Cackle (ordered 22) and only lost one little too that was in some kind of respiratory distress. We couldn't help him, so I culled. Otherwise they're doing great so far. RE: Marbles: I couldn't decide, so I did an experiment with 1 waterer...
  11. Vadard

    Brooder Overhaul - Winging It

    Good idea, thanks. I don't have any marbles. Seems like limestone rocks would work? (The stuff you pave a gravel road with.)
  12. Vadard

    Brooder Overhaul - Winging It

    Here's the finished product, and just in time. Chicks shipped yesterday! I plan on using the Brinsea warming plate exclusively after the first few days, but I saw a video from Cackle Hatchery saying that you needed a brooder light at arrival to help the chicks recover from the trip.
  13. Vadard

    Brooder Overhaul - Winging It

    Ok, I've about gotten this thing thrown together. I moved the tractor/brooder under the lean-to and put it up on some 6x6 post drops. I then strategically surrounded it with all my junk to scare predators away...:gig I hung a tarp on the north side to keep rain from blowing in, replaced the...
  14. Vadard

    Meat Geese - Slaughtering Process

    That is good to hear, especially the part about picking them up. Thanks.
  15. Vadard

    Meat Geese - Slaughtering Process

    ~48 pounds of meat from 100% pasture for 21 weeks is darn impressive. Do you notice any significant differences in their temperaments from one breed to another? I've read that certain breeds (Chinese and African, I believe) are more aggressive than others. I'm not worried personally, as I'll...
  16. Vadard

    Brooder Overhaul - Winging It

    Well I made some progress on a couple of fronts. I’ve got the metal roof screwed down on the lean-to. Also added the HWC to the bottom of the brooder. I found more termite damage than I was expecting, and I didn’t trust staples to hold on in the bad areas. So I ran big deck screws thru to the...
  17. Vadard

    Meat Geese - Slaughtering Process

    Thanks! I’ll check out the Metzer Farms link.
  18. Vadard

    Meat Geese - Slaughtering Process

    Thank you. I appreciate you sharing your experience with several breeds. The main reason I’m looking at geese is their grassy diet, that said, I’ve been looking at moscovies, too. I just don’t want another processed feed-dependent critter right now. I also harvested wild geese infrequently as...
  19. Vadard

    Meat Geese - Slaughtering Process

    Ok, that makes sense to me. Sounds like geese might be coming to my farm. I appreciate all the info you shared!
  20. Vadard

    Meat Geese - Slaughtering Process

    I’m thinking about adding geese to my flock, mainly for meat. I’ve got some idle pasture that would support quite a few geese, but I think I’d start small, maybe 4-7. I’ve kept and slaughtered chickens, quail, and rabbits for meat, and in each case the animals to be slaughtered were kept...
    • Vadard
    • Thread
    • #geese
    • Replies: 15
    • Forum: Geese
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