Arizona Chickens

[Parront]

I envy you not having any rocks or gravel laying around! I'm always finding some pieces of gravel to get rid of!

I have gravel, just not where the chickens are. There is enough to fill their gizzards with grit! The duck yard is entirely packed down clay and decomposed granite. Zero drainage.

 

[springvalley123]

I have gravel, just not where the chickens are. There is enough to fill their gizzards with grit! The duck yard is entirely packed down clay and decomposed granite. Zero drainage.

Do the ducks like the zero drainage?

 

[Parront]

Do the ducks like the zero drainage?

They love ponds formed by ZERO drainage. To dig down & make a pond is a lot of work until the rain comes! This area was parking for the last 100 years. The ducks dug up a spark plug that I googled, it is from the 1930's! Archeology in your own backyard here!

 

[CaroleW]

They love ponds formed by ZERO drainage. To dig down & make a pond is a lot of work until the rain comes! This area was parking for the last 100 years. The ducks dug up a spark plug that I googled, it is from the 1930's! Archeology in your own backyard here!

That's one reason I'm afraid to put ducks on my property too quickly-- I'm afraid with all the metal stuff I find all the time they would die of hardware disease! Trying to figure out the best place for them as I continue to sweep areas with a magnet.

 

[Parront]

That's one reason I'm afraid to put ducks on my property too quickly-- I'm afraid with all the metal stuff I find all the time they would die of hardware disease! Trying to figure out the best place for them as I continue to sweep areas with a magnet.

I did loose my young male Runner to unknown cause, and considered that it could have eaten a screw or something. This was prior to the sparkplug! It happens. Not stoppin' me from having them there, they could eat some old rusty barb wire, too. We have a metal detector you could borrow! We have found some interesting stuff . . . no gold, though!

 

[springvalley123]

That's one reason I'm afraid to put ducks on my property too quickly-- I'm afraid with all the metal stuff I find all the time they would die of hardware disease! Trying to figure out the best place for them as I continue to sweep areas with a magnet.

I started out with ducks, and saw the drake (a runner) pickup and mouth what turned out to be a nut (for a bolt). he dropped it on his own. He was a hatchery duck too.

 

[Coffee N Chickens]

Trim those little cute wings now! They are learning!

Learning??? Hah, they can fly!

I'm not confident on clipping chicken wings without hurting the bird.

 

[Parront]

I started out with ducks, and saw the drake (a runner) pickup and mouth what turned out to be a nut (for a bolt). he dropped it on his own. He was a hatchery duck too.

Young ducks seem to try and eat anything they can fit in their bills. They get more cautious as they get older. It makes them great bug destroyers, they swallow huge cicadas.

 

[BlueBaby]

I found this study interesting, and it makes me sort of glad that I don't buy mine from hatcheries.

Hatching broilers in stables rather than in hatcheries increases animal welfare https://www.thepoultrysite.com/arti...r-than-in-hatcheries-increases-animal-welfare​

 

[springvalley123]

I found this study interesting, and it makes me sort of glad that I don't buy mine from hatcheries.

Hatching broilers in stables rather than in hatcheries increases animal welfare https://www.thepoultrysite.com/arti...r-than-in-hatcheries-increases-animal-welfare​

It makes me want to buy an incubator! Two things: 1) interesting that they moved the incubator (essentially) to the brooder environment at the start of lock down, rather than moving them to the brooder (barn) after hatch. 2) the hatchery birds in the study only traveled from 5-25 hours---the typical here is 40 hours, and up to 48 (longer, but you get dead chicks). So the weight loss and stress would be much worse after the typical 40 hours rather than 5-25 hours as studied. I don't know, but I'd expect the death rate, disease, etc to go up exponentially as time progressed.