Arizona Chickens

[kpgoldstar]

Diatomaceous earth is the silicious skeletons of diatoms, microscopic little critters living in seawater, like plankton. (Hey, I used to live where they mine it, in central California!) The skeletal remains are tiny, and sharp. It kills bugs by wearing holes in their exoskeletons. I'm not sure what makes it food grade or not, but either type will kill bugs. The food grade DE can be used as a food supplement, and will kill many types of internal parasites.
In it's natural form, it looks very much like chalk, but with pronounced bedding planes. Really good for finding fish fossils in, by splitting it apart on the bedding planes.

Hey Carnivore! Thanks for the lesson, but having grown up near Lompoc (DE capital of the world) I know exactly what it is. I also have a pool LOL! My question was more about whether the food grade DE will also kill bugs. It is a different color than your standard pool DE and appears to be finer ground. I was hoping the answer is yes. Also since I am fairly new to chickens I wanted to be sure that I shouldn't be using regular DE around my coop to kill crickets, as that could be harmful.

 

[desertmarcy]

ah what a great thing to do by donating to the homeless. They are grateful for whatever they get. do you like your auto plucker?

Yes, the plucker is a life saver. It is the Featherman Pro. It will pluck 4-5 good sized chickens in 30 seconds and as long as they don't have pin feathers, they come out nice and clean. I found I can't do very small birds in it, they just go down the outside of the drum and get spit out like the feathers. Most people wouldn't be processing them that small, but I do as soon as I identify something I don't want in a bird because I have too many and can't raise them all to good eating size. I'm sure it was designed more for Cornish X types! I can do one heritage turkey at a time also.
I still dunk the birds first in 150 degree water to loosen the feathers.

 

[kpgoldstar]

More pics. Ethel, came in when the door opened, when I was napping. She really likes Ernie's bed. Sweetie, is the only one that stayed at the door. She know I would chase them all out. Ernie found shad and the girls didn't midge sharing it.

Ethel looks so cute in Ernie's bed!

 

[City farm]

I've been back and forth trying different things in my pens. I still haven't found the perfect thing. Perhaps pine shavings are, if you rake them out and replace frequently, but that gets expensive. Sand is nice, and I've bought a truckload of it--8 yards gets me free delivery--but where the truck access is to dump it is far from my pens. It is heavy and hard work, esp. in the heat to wheelbarrow loads to the pens. And I can't easily move the wheelbarrow INTO the pens to dump it, so that means shoveling it into 5-gal buckets that I carry and dump Ugh, I'm tired just talking about it. I do like using sand, as it is absorbent. I use it to fill the huge holes that the hens dig. Then they kick it out again. Some of my pens look like craters on the moon, there are so many pits. Hard to rake out with all those holes.
Other things I've tried in my pens:
Straw. Don't like. Compacts down as soon as it rains and the birds eat too much of it and it has no food value. I worry about impacted crops with them eating it. Some people say it can be a vector for lice/mites. Don't know for sure about that.

I use a chipper shredder for yard prunings and have put this material in the pens. It is a mix of coarse and fine. The birds love it and pick through it and eat material they like. It makes a nice mulch in the pens and is free. Eventually, it needs to all be raked out, because as MagicChicken said, it doesn't compost well here. Raking it all out with all the accumulated poo is a lot of work, but once mixed with the chicken manure and put in a deep hole and watered, it will compost better with the added nitrogen.

I have a lot of growing birds and they eat and poop a lot! I like to clean the pens more frequently with growing birds, so having litter in the pens is a waste. Right now the pens are just dirt since it is easier to rake them clean. It seems like less flies when there is something in the pen to absorb the moisture. I did put several wheelbarrows of chipped/shredder material in a 6'x12' pen that has growing chicks and it is nice for now.

I turned off my mister this morning because too many wet spots in the bare pens and too many flies. I hate flies  Chickens did okay today without it.

For right now, keeping it wet enough is a problem. Rain won't be a deal breaker either, because most of the run has tarps on the roof for shade.
Humidity might become a problem, will keep an eye out for problems, and maybe have to cut back on the watering?
Is anybody having problems with those little ants, and if so, how do you deal with them?

Great information from you all. I plan on going to our neighbors home & raking up all of their pine needles soon.. It was on that list of things to do, but so many other things came up..
DH threatened me with using chemicals on the entire property if the ants came into our house again. So I got some granular poison from @arizonachicken... I put it inder the potted plants, where the flock can not scratch or get to them.. It took about 7-10 days for the front yard, where they do not go. Just put more out in the back yesterday.. It did work well.. I will have to post a photo of what I was given..

 

[City farm]

More pics. Ethel, came in when the door opened, when I was napping. She really likes Ernie's bed. Sweetie, is the only one that stayed at the door. She know I would chase them all out. Ernie found shad and the girls didn't midge sharing it.

Ethel looks so cute in Ernie's bed!

Is Ethel from our flock?

 

[City farm]

The Salvation Army driver just left here a little bit ago. I donated 138 lbs of organic, processed, bagged and frozen whole chickens.
Discovered a Bourbon Red turkey hen in the freezer I didn't know I had. Kept the turkey! These were old chickens, frozen 2011 and 2012, but they are feeding the homeless so they were happy for the donation. And I am happy to get them out of my freezer. They mostly make a lot of stews because the food goes much farther. Perfect way to cook these birds. We can't eat as much chicken as I cull around here. Just culled 8 more today. 7 little cockerels hardly worth the effort and a one year old way too broody hen.

Now I need to move the rest of the stuff out of the freezer, mostly bags of wheat and mesquite flour, and defrost it.

I hope their cook doesn't look at the labels on the bags too closely. He/she might wonder what the heck "bobcat hens" are. I saw there were still some of those. Hens a bobcat killed several years back. It was winter and cool out when I found them all dead in the pen one morning when my poultry house was not 100% completed and bobcat-proof. There were about 20 or more of them. Cat killed them all. I said, I'm not wasting all that meat! At the time I didn't have my auto plucker. I was in tears as we sat there plucking birds. Labeled them "bobcat hens" so we'd know it was that group.

Agh, that's sad..
One day when our westfalia is fixed we would lve to come down & lend a hand or 3/4?! Depending on who we have with us when we go camping there.. It is my first spot on the lst of where we want to go with the westie.. No hils to climb, only like 70 horse power..
Embarising to say the least, going up a hill sucks.. We could have teenagers work to coops, feeding or whatever you have on your list that day,, man power... Between all of us..

 

[a little chiken]

Yes, the plucker is a life saver. It is the Featherman Pro. It will pluck 4-5 good sized chickens in 30 seconds and as long as they don't have pin feathers, they come out nice and clean. I found I can't do very small birds in it, they just go down the outside of the drum and get spit out like the feathers. Most people wouldn't be processing them that small, but I do as soon as I identify something I don't want in a bird because I have too many and can't raise them all to good eating size. I'm sure it was designed more for Cornish X types! I can do one heritage turkey at a time also.
I still dunk the birds first in 150 degree water to loosen the feathers.

TY so much for the info. My hubby wants to get one. We do not process a lot yet but I have a feeling we will be next year. selling them for $5 does not cover the cost to raise one.

 

[City farm]

Check this web site out.. D.E. food grade & the benefits
http://www.earthworkshealth.com/How-Diatomaceous-Earth-Works.php

 

[Gallo del Cielo]

The Salvation Army driver just left here a little bit ago. I donated 138 lbs of organic, processed, bagged and frozen whole chickens.
Discovered a Bourbon Red turkey hen in the freezer I didn't know I had. Kept the turkey! These were old chickens, frozen 2011 and 2012, but they are feeding the homeless so they were happy for the donation. And I am happy to get them out of my freezer. They mostly make a lot of stews because the food goes much farther. Perfect way to cook these birds. We can't eat as much chicken as I cull around here. Just culled 8 more today. 7 little cockerels hardly worth the effort and a one year old way too broody hen.

Now I need to move the rest of the stuff out of the freezer, mostly bags of wheat and mesquite flour, and defrost it.

I hope their cook doesn't look at the labels on the bags too closely. He/she might wonder what the heck "bobcat hens" are. I saw there were still some of those. Hens a bobcat killed several years back. It was winter and cool out when I found them all dead in the pen one morning when my poultry house was not 100% completed and bobcat-proof. There were about 20 or more of them. Cat killed them all. I said, I'm not wasting all that meat! At the time I didn't have my auto plucker. I was in tears as we sat there plucking birds. Labeled them "bobcat hens" so we'd know it was that group.

That is a great thing to do! It must have horrible to find the aftermath of that bobcat attack, I can't even imagine.

 

[Gallo del Cielo]

Quote:
LOL! I bought a 10 lb bag of DE from Arizona Feed a year and a half ago. It was finally running out so I recently bought a 50 lb bag - under $20 on sale, only a few dollars more than the 10 lb bags. But how to store it? If I leave it in an open bag it will get all over everywhere, and probably get wet at some point. I store my feed in five gallon buckets. A 50 lb bag of feed fits nicely into two five gallon buckets. I had a couple of extra buckets, so I started to transfer the DE. Hmmm... That 50 lb bag of DE wound up filling FOUR five gallon buckets and I still had some extra. Might be a lifetime supply. I am going to be climbing over buckets of DE for a long time.

I keep mine in an old vintage galvanized garbage can I got at a yard sale. I still have some of the 50 lb. bag I bought five years ago!