BYC Café

[Shadrach]

I don't know if you saw, but she looks right as rain this morning after a dose of vitamin E last night. She was stuck to the shell by her umbilical cord, but otherwise no issue. Pipped and zipped fairly quickly.

I do free range all year, to an extent. Not much to eat in the winter time compared to summer. They still cleanup around the cows/pigs/goats, pick through hay and straw, afterbirth , etc. But they are still fed year round, just eat much less when it's not frozen solid.

I agree with you on free range chickens during the warmer months, but when it comes to winter - I just don't know.

I get quite a few broodies a year. Are you wondering why I bought an incubator?

I wasn't suggesting you shouldn't feed them. I still feed the chickens here three times a day with an 18% protein, 1% calcium all flock type feed.
Even in winter here, okay, we don't get the big snow and big freeze like you do, but the chickens still forage for about 40% of their shit weight to commercial feed intake. In effect this means one doesn't really have any control over their diet, unless one is going to tube feed, or force feed to ensure a particular hen gets a particular amount of anything.

I was wondering why you got an incubator. More trouble than they are worth if you have roosters and hens that go broody.
Predation takes care of population increases here in general. Only one or two hens have ever managed to get all their chicks to adulthood. With most the loss rate is about 50% to 60% around the time they introduce them into their tribes.
Harsh, but it's the way chicken life is free ranging. If you limit the clutch size with the predation rate in mind; I usually limit from 4 to 6 eggs you can roughly estimate your next years laying pullets.
Chicks like the one with the damaged/stuck umbilical cord or shrink wraped get left at the nest by the mothers. She only takes those who can follow her when she's decided that it's time to go. I usually kill the chicks left behind rather than let them die naturally. Not a pleasant task.
So, why did you incubate if you don't mind me asking?

 

[aart]

Big Ole Moon out there in the Late Light Gloaming.
Pic from last year...but very similar.

 

[Sally PB]

Big Ole Moon out there in the Late Light Gloaming.

I love the word gloaming.

Love the picture too.

 

[aart]

I love the word gloaming.

I do too....and it's my favorite part of the day.

 

[CLSranch]

Moon here is almost overcast by the clouds. There is so many things that I wanted to quote or reply on that I can't remember anything but the last. The moon. And nice pic. I just found out that my new computer/laptop doesn't have an SD card input. So instead of sending you guys pics I actually have to have the wife show me pics off of the deer cam. And I think LF said death rates of 50-60% I would invest in a camera and a few traps. You tube has a lot of good and not good videos on getting rid of predators. Just remember local laws and regulations, which are often different for pest control.

 

[pennyJo1960]

Been out most the day suffice to say Hi all. Meg do you think all have hatched or are you still in process ?

 

[Perris]

They used to do in a drink if memory serves me correctly

yes - I had to have one as a child; a barium drink. Of course I have no memory now of why...except that it didn't lead to anything so I guess there was no obstruction!

Well, it's frowned upon because it does lower/dilute the overall nutrition of the feed,
especially the vitamin/minerals/amino acids.

I'm reading Harvey Ussery The small-scale poultry flock at the moment, and he disputes this trope. He has several chapters relevant, most notably 15 Thoughts on feeding and 16 on Purchased feeds. His drift is that the more varied, live, and natural foods a flock eats (ideally, can source for itself) the more naturally balanced it will be, and the more the purchased, highly artificial feed can be viewed as the supplement. And he argues that we know that highly processed food is bad for us; odd that we don't extend that perception to chicken feed, which is made up of variable ingredients (the cheapest possible on any given day), many of them byproducts i.e. wastes from other processes with other primary outputs. And he points out that scientific studies of pastured flock nutrition is almost zero, partly because of the huge variability in free ranging (unlike with a caged flock lacking the ability to eat anything but what the researcher offers them), so there is little to support the instincts of the flockster wanting their flock to eat more natural food, like grandma's flock did in the era before commercial feeds were formulated for flocks of thousands in sheds with no access to anything else. I'll get off my soapbox now

 

[sourland]

Good morning - there's a fresh pot waiting to be enjoyed.

 

[DobieLover]

Good morning Cafe. Coffee is ready. Oops! Thanks for the coffee Sour! I didn't even hear you in the kitchen getting a pot ready before I announced myself.

It's a little chilly at 21F but we'll again go over freezing for the day. Lots of melting. The garage roof snow load is down to about a foot thick now. The house roof spends the day pissing down on the deck and then it freezes up into a thick sheet of ice for me to deal with in the morning.

 

[aart]

and he disputes this trope.

Many do.

But, again, I only mentioned it because of the fertility issues being discussed and hat supplements to use to improve it.