Australia - Six states..and that funny little island.

[Fancychooklady]

Sorry got another question. Does a white spot on an egg yolk always mean fertilized? Or could there be another reason? This white spot was quite noticable.

We love questions
@Sally Sunshine explains it perfectly here. Not all white spots indicate fertility, you really want a ' bullseye '.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/...nds-w-host-sally-sunshine/43320#post_16467344

 

[LuckysMum]

This afternoon all that is left is skin. I cut half way through in quarters then pop it in the oven for 20-30 min whole. When you drop it on the ground it cracks open.
Crazy cat only liked the butternut.
Laucke is a bit more expensive but because it is a micro pellet there is no wastage. I find that the barastoc is too big for them and they leave it to the ducks or it gets wet and turns to slop. I pay $30 for 20kg, but on average most feeds that come into tassie are about $5-6 more expensive than on the mainland. We stock up on hygain products for the horses when we are in Victoria.

The one I get has a mix of grains and pellets and my girls go crazy picking out the sunflower seeds. I pay $20-25 for 20kg bag.

 

[Fancychooklady]

The one I get has a mix of grains and pellets and my girls go crazy picking out the sunflower seeds. I pay $20-25 for 20kg bag.

Yeah they all go nuts for mixed grain ( scratch ) but a little goes a long way .

 

[Anniebee]

The copprice ' lucky layer ' RSPCA approved pellet seems popular around here , but only for those of you with hens only. My birds are just a bit fussy and don't like big pellets. I find the copprice the next best thing to laucke micro pellet.

I found this pic on a forum, comparing some of the feeds available in Aus.

Interesting ! Found some Barastoc layer pellets in a bag in a pet food store recently, and as I was running low on chicken food, decided I should get the 5 kg bag. The pellets were tiny and I questioned the shop owner about it .... " is that really Barastoc Golden Yolk layer pellets" and she replied 'Yes, for sure", and showed me the 20 kg bag she had used to bag up 5 kgs.

I had time to toddle off home ( this was a Saturday morning ) and have a look at my small amount remaining ( enough however for the weekend ) of the Golden Yolk. Sure enough, they were are a lot smaller than I thought ( I hadn't noticed any change in size for the whole bag !!

..... nothing wrong with my sense of observation ?? .....

So ... it would appear that Barastoc has reduced the size of chicken layer pellets to a more manageable size - - - - for chickens. Good on them.

I have no idea what a micro-pellet size would be, but can assure anyone who is interested, that the Barastoc pellets are smaller than they used to be.

hmmm. ....

 

[Anniebee]

Anniebee, My fussy little blighters won't accept anything other than fresh, live mealworms. They turn their little beaks up at the dried ones. Too spoilt they are, though if you want to see the dark side of a d'uccle, give it a mealworm. Beatrice goes from being sweeter than sugar to a vicious little killer in less than a second when there's some up for grabs. Funny but scary too lol. I occasionally get the giant ones as a treat for the larger girls, it's interesting to watch how they eat them. They'll grab it, smack it against the ground to knock the head off.

Today's treat though was more grass clippings to dig through from mowing along the side of the house. Hours of fun.

Don't think I will have much luck in purchasing live meal worms around where I live ?? ..... but I have seen what the chooks can do to earth worms that appear after a storm has drenched the run. It is not nice to behold. The big girls argue over the 'prize' and tear the poor thing to bits, or if one has it far enough away from the other girl, will swallow it whole very quickly. But that's as it should be. They are birds, and birds do that !!

Occasionally I will gather up a small bag of earth worms ( from a compost mainly ) and throw them to the big girls. I then turn my back and walk away.

Mindy pecks at them only .... they might be a bit big for her to handle ?? ( I don't know ). She eventually eats them I believe ( unless they wriggle away to safety ).

Nice chookies !!

Cheers .......

 

[Anniebee]

Fizzybelle yep, I do know the good quality of Martyn’s items and hope I did not give the impression that I thought otherwise. I can not fault his great service and prices. His large live meal worms are so much bigger and cheaper than the only place I have found them locally. Unlike the live meal worms though, I do not think he actually processes the crickets, just distributes them. Dusty, who was the only other one who seemed interested in them and ate them with KiKi, had diarrhoea for a couple of days. Again, this could all be a huge coincidence but I may have got a bad batch. Anyway, the little Diva’s and Princesses get live and dried meal worms and were not that keen on the crickets, so I will err on the side of caution with the batch I have and not hand them out. Hubby agrees that it probably was not the crickets but the ‘what if it was’ thought and the possible consequences if it was, is enough for me to not continue to feed them.

Anniebee my girls do not love the dried meal worms as such but they are a good back up for when the stocks of live ones are running low. Also, while we give them a couple of live meal worms each intermittently during their free range time, we do throw a hand full of dried ones on the lawn occasionally, al fresco

Anyways, I think they eat the dried ones because they were introduced to live ones first. Martyn’s recommends adding a dash of cold press extra virgin olive so that the dried mealworms look ‘life-like’ to the birds’ but I have not personally needed to do that.

Teila .... glad your footy team won. Bad that you had to stand so long to watch it. Not good for the joints / aches / pains ....

I rather think that throwing the crickets in the garbage bin, is a darned good idea. You will never know if it was that, but seeing as how Dusty also had diarrhoea after eating them, I would be highly suspicious of their suitability. Bad batch ? Very likely. Good idea to err on the side of caution - in everything to do with chickens ( I have found anyway ).

No more dried crickets - EVER, if it were my option to decide. Not at all your fault though - we can get all kinds of nasties in our own food .... salmonella etc., from eating something that is not up to par. ... and we don't know about it at the time.

I have yet to try soaking a spoonful of dried mealworms in hot water - just to see if they plump up, and look at least like something that is edible to the chooks. If that doesn't work, I have done my dough !! .... they were not cheap by any means. Meanwhile, Mindy is in for a weekly treat - she eats them grandly.

Cheers .......

 

[LuckysMum]

Don't think I will have much luck in purchasing live meal worms around where I live ?? ..... but I have seen what the chooks can do to earth worms that appear after a storm has drenched the run. It is not nice to behold. The big girls argue over the 'prize' and tear the poor thing to bits, or if one has it far enough away from the other girl, will swallow it whole very quickly. But that's as it should be. They are birds, and birds do that !!

Occasionally I will gather up a small bag of earth worms ( from a compost mainly ) and throw them to the big girls. I then turn my back and walk away.

Mindy pecks at them only .... they might be a bit big for her to handle ?? ( I don't know ). She eventually eats them I believe ( unless they wriggle away to safety ).

Nice chookies !!

Cheers .......

I know when I dig in their run the chooks make it very hard to shovel as they're in there trying get the worms and I'm trying to save them for my vege garden. I've seen them catch a mouse and try and snatch it off each other not nice either. I end up feeling bad for the mouse. Chooks are definitely food orientated.

 

[Anniebee]

Here's the barastoc book. Interesting that whilst they list a anticocidiant they don't name it.
The pullet grower and finisher however is nice and low in calcium. Too much calcium in the early months can cause calcium deposits and bone deformity.

http://www.ridley.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Chook-Book.pdf

Fancy .... that link provided more information than I thought possible ( considering I have been rummaging on the internet for approx. 4 years for heaps of info about chooks ) .... and being a user of Barastoc product, I have only ever looked at the ingredients - never found the site you have shown ....... thank you heaps for that.

The link is extremely informative about all matters relating to chickens, and I would urge all to read it.

..................

I don't think a company is obliged to name a drug used - either its' chemical name or trade name. Might even be against the law for all I know. Just a thought on that one.

I did find a link listing anti-coccidial drugs which you might find interesting, although whichever brand of chicken feed ( from baby chicks up ) uses whatever anti-coccidial drug, would be a wild stab in the dark.

http://www.thepoultrysite.com/publications/2/Coccidiosis Management/46/drugs/

Again - thanks for such an informative link.

Cheers ........

 

[Anniebee]

Pumpkin smash, even the cat got in on it.

Must try that little caper. !! .... and at 90c a kg, I think I could swing it.

90c ??? ..... from a previous post of yours. Nothing like that price in Victoria. Japala and Queensland Grey, between $1.90 and $2.90 per kg or even more ? Except on market days, when it might well be cheaper then.

I laboriously grind up raw pumpkin in my mini-mixer ... and they love it. But I figure I must have bored chickens, if what you give yours, is any indication. I notice that is Japala pumpkin you have used in the pics.

Always something new to learn on BYC ....

Love the pics - especially of your cat chomping on the Butternut !!

Cheers ......

 

[sjturner79]

Fancy .... that link provided more information than I thought possible ( considering I have been rummaging on the internet for approx. 4 years for heaps of info about chooks ) .... and being a user of Barastoc product, I have only ever looked at the ingredients - never found the site you have shown ....... thank you heaps for that.      

The link is extremely informative about all matters relating to chickens, and I would urge all to read it.   

.................. 

I don't think a company is obliged to name a drug used - either its' chemical name or trade name.   Might even be against the law for all I know.   Just a thought on that one. 

I did find a link listing anti-coccidial drugs which you might find interesting, although whichever brand of chicken feed ( from baby chicks up ) uses whatever anti-coccidial drug, would be a wild stab in the dark.  

http://www.thepoultrysite.com/publications/2/Coccidiosis Management/46/drugs/

 
Again - thanks for such an informative link. 

Cheers ........ 

I was actually given that book by our feed store when I first started buying chook feed. Barrastock do list thier anti-cocci on the bags.
It is lasalocid sodium. I believe Laukie also use the same one.