California - Northern

[PetRock]

Thank you! corn is supposed to make yellow legged breeds have a brighter yellow. It is supposed to help with yolk color too.

Marigold will do the same thing though.

King Freedom layer feed has marigold petal extract in it!

 

[gryeyes]

4 more cockerels went to the Ranch this morning. A fifth took the ride, but rode home with me again. He's got a lame leg, and the boys who had been there since yesterday ganged up on him the moment I put him in the coop. Luckily, the bad boys scattered when I moved toward them, so I just scooped him back up and brought him back home.

I think I will move him - maybe - when I bring over a slew of pullets at one time. (I don't want to take just a few girls which would have to deal with the horniest cockerels in the Universe whilst they have to be cooped up without access to the run. Safety in numbers, perhaps?) The lame cockerel does fine at the Homestead because the coop is so huge; he roosts about mid-range on one of the two wide ladder roosts. Here, he is not the lowest of the low in rank.

There are about three more crowing fellas to relocate, not counting Carl. I think.

So far, I have boxed up the chickens without assistance. I may box the next batches at night instead of right at dawn.....

About alfalfa, I buy a bale now and then for the flock and let them tear it apart themselves, only occasionally pulling a flake out a bit from the bale for their easier access. I got it - originally - more for the geese because the chickens decimate green growing things so quickly. Guess now I'll be buying TWO bales at a time, dropping one off at the Ranch on the way home.....

Pellets are not as much fun to watch them consume.

 

[OR4-hmom]

I bought a bag of alfalfa pellets thinking the deer would eat it in the winter - they don't! The pellet size was bigger than the chickens pellets and they didn't eat it either, maybe if I had soaked it first.

Deer won't eat baled alfalfa, or I just have fussy deer.

 

[ronott1]

Do they have separate starter and broiler crumbles? I was looking at their website yesterday and the tag info for both of them is identical and says Starter/Broiler Crumbles.

They have 4 products in the line. Layer crumbles, layer pellets, Broiler crumbles and starter crumbles. The Starter says it is a starter\grower. I think the only difference is that the broiler crumbles are bigger. The ingredients look identical.

 

[OR4-hmom]

Darn! DH is up and dressed to fall a tree he girdled a few years ago. I had hopes he might change his mind about playing lumber jack today. It should be drier than the wood we bought earlier.

While he's got the chainsaw out I'll make his day by reminding him he needs to buck up the two tree tops that he fell into the big patch of poison oak last year!

 

[ronott1]

Darn! DH is up and dressed to fall a tree he girdled a few years ago. I had hopes he might change his mind about playing lumber jack today. It should be drier than the wood we bought earlier.

While he's got the chainsaw out I'll make his day by reminding him he needs to buck up the two tree tops that he fell into the big patch of poison oak last year!

Sounds like a busy day!

Get the Tecnu and calamine lotion ready....

 

[Ali707]

Okay what am I missing with the Alfalfa? You are giving them Alfalfa????? Isn't that the dried big rectangle bale of stuff you give horses?

Please forgive my ignorance (yet again) I am not a country girl, however much I would like to be.

 

[ronott1]

Okay what am I missing with the Alfalfa? You are giving them Alfalfa????? Isn't that the dried big rectangle bale of stuff you give horses?

Please forgive my ignorance (yet again) I am not a country girl, however much I would like to be.

Alfalfa takes the place of green pasture grass. It has fiber and nutrients that is good for the chickens.

Has anyone tried timothy Hay?

 

[AmyPaperlady]

Alfalfa has more calcium (and thus shouldn't be given free-feed to grown/not preggie/nursing guinea pigs).

 

[Ali707]

Do you guys have an easy way to give the worming medicine to the chickens? I have the Valbazen and I don't relish the idea of catching each one and forcing it down their throat. Some some to be a little easier to work with some and not so easy. Mine don't seem to like bread.