Crazy_Beautiful
Songster
Second year battling this.
2 separate flocks.
Chicken keeping 5 years.
Last year we found some areas of loose wire the birds were stepping on and eating (yes eating the had it in their crop when we culled). I lowered roosting bars. And we stopped letting them free range as they were always in with the raspberries that have thorns.
This year I noticed one coop was much more affected than the other this coop had ducks. So I sold the ducks thinking the constant mud wasn’t helping. I removed some more wire the birds had uncovered.
My thought is and I’d love to hear others chime in as I do feel terrible this keeps happening and I’m trying to learn and get better.
I feel I’ve done so much much trying to eliminate what could be causing the injuries and that maybe is more a cleaning issue. I raked up my run yesterday and don’t think I’ve done that ever and my husband is going to rototil it this weekend. This is a very big run and I never thought of doing this as I figured the birds would just mix it all together and nature takes it course. We also are going to add in dirt to low lying places like where they dust bath and try and smooth out the big holes.
I’ve always used mulch in my covered run and I do rake that out maybe once a year but maybe it needs to be done more often. Inside the coop I clean it out every 1-2 months until December than I find it has to wait until March if we don’t have days where it isn’t so cold.
Context:
Coop 1 is 6x10 covered run is 20x6 and uncover portion is 70x40 12 birds in the winter
Coop 2 is 8x8 covered run is 8x8 and uncover run is 50x30 12 birds in the winter
More birds in the summer with grow outs
Anything else I can do?
2 separate flocks.
Chicken keeping 5 years.
Last year we found some areas of loose wire the birds were stepping on and eating (yes eating the had it in their crop when we culled). I lowered roosting bars. And we stopped letting them free range as they were always in with the raspberries that have thorns.
This year I noticed one coop was much more affected than the other this coop had ducks. So I sold the ducks thinking the constant mud wasn’t helping. I removed some more wire the birds had uncovered.
My thought is and I’d love to hear others chime in as I do feel terrible this keeps happening and I’m trying to learn and get better.
I feel I’ve done so much much trying to eliminate what could be causing the injuries and that maybe is more a cleaning issue. I raked up my run yesterday and don’t think I’ve done that ever and my husband is going to rototil it this weekend. This is a very big run and I never thought of doing this as I figured the birds would just mix it all together and nature takes it course. We also are going to add in dirt to low lying places like where they dust bath and try and smooth out the big holes.
I’ve always used mulch in my covered run and I do rake that out maybe once a year but maybe it needs to be done more often. Inside the coop I clean it out every 1-2 months until December than I find it has to wait until March if we don’t have days where it isn’t so cold.
Context:
Coop 1 is 6x10 covered run is 20x6 and uncover portion is 70x40 12 birds in the winter
Coop 2 is 8x8 covered run is 8x8 and uncover run is 50x30 12 birds in the winter
More birds in the summer with grow outs
Anything else I can do?
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