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  1. HennaRose

    Evacuating with chickens?

    Emergency/medical kit is all set. I'll double-check it before we leave. I have no idea how long we would be gone for, hopefully not more than a week, but you never can tell with hurricanes. (I'm still holding on to ever-waning hope that Irma makes a hard right and ends up in the Atlantic, but...
  2. HennaRose

    Evacuating with chickens?

    Luckily they're already accustomed to nipple drinkers, so it shouldn't be too hard to affix some travel bottles with nipples attached. Feed may be trickier in the van, but I can probably use travel bowls like for dog food, right? I'm not sure how much yard space I'll have for them where we're...
  3. HennaRose

    Evacuating with chickens?

    I live in Florida. Hurricane Irma is headed right for me, and I am making plans in case I need to evacuate. I would be less stressed bringing my flock with me (as it is I will feel horribly guilty having to leave behind our fish), and today I learned that the restrictions on intrastate travel...
  4. HennaRose

    Is this too much to ask of my chicken feed?

    So, I'm not trying to not offend one subset of humans or another with what I feed (or don't feed) my chickens. I couldn't care less who feeds what to their birds, but I know what I'm willing and not willing to feed mine. Mostly, I'm trying to not get fishy-tasting eggs.
  5. HennaRose

    Is this too much to ask of my chicken feed?

    They are all laying fishy eggs. Every single one of them. I know because I've cooked one egg from each bird separately, washing the pan between eggs, to see if I could narrow down which one it was in case it was a medical issue or something. Every egg tastes fishy enough that it's noticeable...
  6. HennaRose

    Is this too much to ask of my chicken feed?

    I don't know if they're heritage breeds or not; I got them all from the same hatchery (except the Australorp, which I got from a feed store, who got her from a different hatchery). My MPC birds are one RIR, one EE, one white Leghorn, two Buttercups, and two Fayoumis. I'm hesitant about the...
  7. HennaRose

    Is this too much to ask of my chicken feed?

    EVERY chicken, though? I could agree with that if it was only one or two of them, but it's all eight, and they're varying breeds. And, I'll say once again, the homemade mix they were on before contained flax seeds, which made up about 12% of the feed.
  8. HennaRose

    Is this too much to ask of my chicken feed?

    My homemade mix had flax seed, and no fish smell or taste made it into the eggs. I'm thinking it may be a combination of flax, fish and crab, since the feed I buy now has all of those things. I know other folks don't seem to have this issue on the same feed and I can't account for our noticing...
  9. HennaRose

    Is this too much to ask of my chicken feed?

    The homemade mix? It had peas, lentils, wheat, oats, flax,sesame seeds, and some other grains and seeds that would change depending on the prices at the store. Sometimes it was millet, sometimes amaranth.
  10. HennaRose

    Is this too much to ask of my chicken feed?

    Not unless it's in the feed mix. They've scratched up and eaten all the weeds in their enclosure and the rest of the yard is mostly shade, so not many weedy plants grow in the first place. I don't pull up weeds for them often enough for it to reliably affect the taste of the eggs. ETA: Here's...
  11. HennaRose

    Is this too much to ask of my chicken feed?

    Two are brown egg layers (Rhode Island Red, Australorp), but the blue egg layer and the white egg layers all have the same problem. The eggs didn't taste fishy when the birds were on a homemade whole-grain feed, and I switched them before they started laying so I don't know how the eggs would...
  12. HennaRose

    Is this too much to ask of my chicken feed?

    Price is a consideration, but not necessarily a breaking point (though I will admit, $100+ is too much to spend on feeding 8 chickens). I would just like to be able to feed the eggs to my kids without having to add a boatload of cheese to it to mask fish smell/taste.
  13. HennaRose

    Is this too much to ask of my chicken feed?

    They're on a layer feed now. Whether a feed is for laying hens or not has to do with the protein and calcium in it. I want the feed to be whole grain, and not have corn, soy, or fish in it. Organic isn't necessary, but it is a big plus. (Basically, I want nutritionally dense feed that doesn't...
  14. HennaRose

    Is this too much to ask of my chicken feed?

    I looked through all of them. Fish meal in every list. It is a bit cheaper, though, so I might still switch brands.
  15. HennaRose

    Is this too much to ask of my chicken feed?

    Yes, but the local one doesn't sell any whole-gran feeds. They only have crumbles and pellets, and most of it has corn and/or soy in it. I don't know about fish meal because I wasn't looking for it at the time I switched to whole-grain. They've been getting whole-grain feed since the oldest...
  16. HennaRose

    Is this too much to ask of my chicken feed?

    That has the same ingredients as what they're currently on, only it has corn in it. And I mentioned no local grain mills in my first post.
  17. HennaRose

    Is this too much to ask of my chicken feed?

    Right now my girls are getting Scratch and Peck Naturally Free - organic, whole-grain, no corn, no soy. They seem to be healthy, they're laying well, their feathers are shiny and smooth. The problem I'm having with the feed is it has fish meal AND crab meal in it, and the eggs have begun to...
  18. HennaRose

    So we have fowl pox.

    They're all in the same flock and have all been exposed - as of this post, only one is not showing any symptoms yet. I saw some early-stage bumps on the other one I had previously thought unaffected. The rest have scabby bumps. Everyone is eating, drinking, laying, and otherwise behaving...
  19. HennaRose

    So we have fowl pox.

    8 birds, 3 are 12 months old, 5 are 6 month old, all but three young ones are laying. All but two adults have at least one dry pox lesion on their combs. It's been about a week since I noticed the first lesion, but a couple of my young ones are very fast and tend to avoid me, so it may have been...
  20. HennaRose

    How does decreasing flock size affect the chickens?

    I got rid of a rooster about a month ago and noticed no issues, but nobody really liked him. Everyone kinda went out of their way to avoid him because he was beginning to try to get amorous. The younger girls - all his age - weren't ready for his attention, and the big girls wouldn't have it...
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