Spiralized sweet potato...what looks like pasta to me looks like worms to the chickies. It's a win, win!
And the biggest treat of all: Head Chicken Edie Belle decided it was time to fly over the fence and go out into the yard now that the snow is melting, so I shoveled out the passageway...
My chicken "coop" is half my shed. I have stall mats over the floor and use a deep litter mix of chopped fallen leaves with some pine shavings. It composts beautifully. Plenty of free leaves in the Northeast!
I am having rat issues, too, and I'm just beside myself. I like the snap traps, I put them under milk crates in a fenced off area near the coop where my animals don't go, but I've had to release a skunk, a possum, and 2 rats that just got caught by one limb. Any ideas?
I appreciate your...
I am using camo netting, too, over a modified hoop run. I'm glad to hear you say it works well. It certainly makes the run blend in to the environment and I hope will deter hawks, etc.
Last year the squash that I grew up and over bird netting over the run dragged my bird netting down, so I...
FYI, I checked out the above sources, too, then called a local business that installs ponds and sells aquatic plants. The owner invited me to come to his greenhouse once a month and harvest it, because he just sucks it up from his potted plants with a wetvac! I got enough to feed the chickens...
Those chickens must love you! Mine is a combo of the above answers... I've given mine handfuls from the worm box, but I've sifted out the chunks of food first, and they do love the compost pile, too, but it is well composted. Worms are a nice high-protein snack. I think a big attraction in...
floridachickhatcher, just out of curiousity, why do you want to use Crisco instead of suet? If hydrogenated fats are not good for us, how would they be good for chickens?
Looking over your recipe, the DE taken internally by the chickens will not help with the external problems you mention, but...
Very elegant system! You must be using screw in chicken nipples. I ended up using silicone caulk on my push ins, I just use gallon jugs. I showed my chickens the nipples by dripping water onto my finger for the nearest chicken and the rest caught on quickly.
So, Fred, even if the litter freezes, it counts towards your 60-90 days of "curing"?
I am using the deep litter method, with litter made mostly of leaves, with some pine shavings. I am thinking of removing just the litter under the roost for composting, since my leaves are collected in the...
Mine aren't crazy for the soaked alfalfa cubes either, so I snuck them into an omelet (including shells) with some black pepper. They also got blueberries and oatmeal. Sundays are special!
I looked that list over again and I also saw things on it that are fine for chickens. Clovers? Kale? Mustard? It seems to be copied from a book on reptiles. (When I clicked on the links, I got a list of porn sites.) I wouldn't consider this list reliable for chickens.
Wow! The Reader's Digest Condensed Version!
From what I understood, and correct me if I am wrong:
Mix LAB 1: 1 with molasses to stabilize
Dilute some of that 20:1 with water (4T solution per gallon) (That math doesn't really work out, does it? Must be chicken math.)
Further dilute 2-4...
Hey, RaZ, you are right...today I noticed some gray deposits on my eggs (since giving the girls more bananas than they are used to). It gives them a little homegrown je ne sais quoi, so I don't mind, but it is very interesting! I'll cut way down on the bananas.
I had purchased some EM1 and...