Chicken Tips - Take a Tip, Leave a Tip

[SteveBaz]

Quote:
Gosh this would have been a lot cheaper than what we have. We have cameras on the indoor and outdoor run. I check in several times a day (as well as about 100 other people since it is also on my website). I'm not sure why we did this. I had a chicken website and thought it would be fun to put the camera on it. Now I have to watch out that I am properly dressed when I go out in the morning and open up the henhouse. Oh, well!

cambriagardener,

I am with you. I have seen so many very sophisticated monitoring systems here on the BYC. I never knew there was so much to shop from for surveillance really until reading some of the predictor threads after my flock was slaughtered by coons. The following nights I waited around with my .22 cal pistol for revenge for my precious (to me) girls, but to no avail they never came back or they did and slipped by my sleeping on watch (go straight to the brig for it) awareness. I researched day after day for an inexpensive way to protect my 1 baby girl, Blondie that survived the attack and was left before replacing them from that awful discovery first thing in the morning. Everything was so expensive and being on an extremely tight budget bc of the economy and not working while raising grand kids. Now just after reading this thread post I went to a local mercantile and bought a very cheap $9.99 baby monitor

 

[dlc]

Tip for Coop Building: My DH and I bought a garden shed; then left an end panel off for access to the run. I enter through the doors. The hens decided the built in shelves made great roosts. It turned out to be cheaper than buying the materials and we just had to follow directions. It took one day to build the coop and add a run.

Tip for run: Bury your chicken wire "walls" at least a foot deep otherwise your darlings will dig their way out.

Tip for free-ranging in garden: Grow extra - the trade off in good eggs is worth it. Hens don't care for lettuce, potato greens, squash leaves; but they love swiss chard, beet greens, cabbage. Also, I'll split open any overgrown squash and they'll eat the middles out to the shell. **Note: In winter they'll eat anything green they can get their beaks on.

 

[maggie&thechicks]

I find a good farm dog very useful. I have two English Shepherds that keep my birds safe from predators when ranging, both from the ground and the air. Also, the dogs keep the chickens out of the front garden and off the porch. They can herd the hens back into their run if I need them put up in the middle of the day. The dogs keep unexpected visitors safe from the rooster. If the rooster tries to attack anyone, the dogs run interference and we have a short tussle where the little guy looses a few feathers and his dignity. They've never injured him. While the dogs sleep in the house, they do patrol the yard and surrounding area last thing before bedtime. Then they listen out for strange noises during the night. If they hear unexpected sounds, I let them out to deal with it. They have killed two possums and numerous snakes, mice, moles & voles. They keep the deer out of the vegetable garden. I have been the only one in my neighborhood that hasn't lost any chickens in the last 3 years (as long as I've had chickens)!

 

[mshuey1]

maggie&thechicks :

I find a good farm dog very useful. I have two English Shepherds that keep my birds safe from predators when ranging, both from the ground and the air. Also, the dogs keep the chickens out of the front garden and off the porch. They can herd the hens back into their run if I need them put up in the middle of the day. The dogs keep unexpected visitors safe from the rooster. If the rooster tries to attack anyone, the dogs run interference and we have a short tussle where the little guy looses a few feathers and his dignity. They've never injured him. While the dogs sleep in the house, they do patrol the yard and surrounding area last thing before bedtime. Then they listen out for strange noises during the night. If they hear unexpected sounds, I let them out to deal with it. They have killed two possums and numerous snakes, mice, moles & voles. They keep the deer out of the vegetable garden. I have been the only one in my neighborhood that hasn't lost any chickens in the last 3 years (as long as I've had chickens)!

I wish my dog was like that, mine what's to play w them then eat them.​

 

[the-bird-man]

think of the max number of birds you would want and how much space they need and then build your coop 2x as big as you need because chickens are addicting and even if you do not get more the extra space will be put to use and it will save you from building another coop if you do end up getting more. build your coop so its easy to stand up and move around inside because it will not be fun to stoop when you are standing in the coop. make it easy to clean, i know i love useing a poop board. have a space for storage for things like a heated base or extra heat bulbs if you use them, chick waterers and stuff like that. build a roof on your run because a flooded run can smell like a swamp.

 

[maggie&thechicks]

My favorite winter waterer is a black rubber Fortex bucket. I don't have enough room in my coop to put a heated waterer, but a good heavy-duty rubber bucket placed in the run, can be easily dumped and refilled even when frozen. It usually only freezes hard at night in this climate, so I normally only have to dump it in the morning. I take hot water from the house to add to water from the cold tap in the barn to make a comfortable, long lasting water supply during the day. I set the black bucket in the sun.

 

[maggie&thechicks]

Quote:
I wish my dog was like that, mine what's to play w them then eat them.

It helps to have the right breed of dog. However, nothing replaces training and explaining to your dog what you expect from him. I've seen all kinds of dogs co-existing happily with poultry. They might not be a lot of help, but they shouldn't be destructive. It takes some work, especially if bad habits have been allowed to develop but it's not impossible.

 

[Scooter&Suzie]

Quote:
And buttons. Small silver round buttons that happen to be on your dress... Yep. She almost snatched of my earring too...

 

[royalhighlandbantams]

I looked all over the internet for an inexpensive solution to keeping poop out of my chickens' water. After reading every single website and doing some research on my own, I have come up with this as my solution. I found these push in chicken drip watering valves at www.Farmtek.com for $2.09 each. I found them cheaper somewhere else but can't remember where.



First I tried using gallon milk jugs but discovered that they were too thin to push the valve into. I tried Arizona Iced Tea bottles which worked better because they are thicker than the gallon milk jugs. Here is a picture of the ones I use.



The drill bit they recommend you use is an 11/32 or 8.7 mm which is an odd size. I found this bit at Lowe's made by Hitachi. It was a single drill bit in a package. Then there was the question of where to drill the holes. There happened to be two circles on the bottom of the bottle so I centered the drill bit on these two spots. First one, then the other and drilled two holes through the bottom of the bottle. I took the black grommet that comes with the valve and got it wet (in the dog's water bowl, you don't have to use the dog's water, there is nothing special about that step) and forced it into the hole. Next I wet the red valve's small end in the dog's water and forced the red valve into the black grommet using a pair of pliers. I found that the valves go in better and it doesn't hurt your hands so much if you ask your husband to do it. When he wasn't home, I used a workbench vice and secured the valve in the vice and used both hands pushing down on the bottle to force the valve into the bottle. You have to have it really tight so it doesn't twist. These valves and bottles are tough and the valves were able to withstand the pressure from the vice with no problem. Don't be tempted to widen the hole, because it has to be tight so it will not leak. The final product looks like this



I worried when I first started using these waterers and trained my chickens by tapping the valves to let a drop of water fall. I found they are most interested in the morning especially if you take their water away after they have roosted. I was anxious to get them trained but they caught on fairly quickly. I also found that if I use these bottles as soon as the chicks hatch, they learn faster than the adults. I set the bottom of the bottle low almost even with their backs so that the valve is at eye level. They have three days to figure it out and because they are so curious they normally do within a couple of hours without fail. Just make sure you set the height to the smallest chick. I found that silkies don't seem to catch on as quickly so I wait until they are about two weeks old before I introduce silkies to these waterers. Older chickens like to have the water slightly about their heads so that the water drops into their mouths. You can clean the water bottles using a solution of bleach and water to get rid of the green that collects if the bottles are exposed to brooder light or sunlight. You could paint them black to solve this problem also.

 

[spacecowgirl]

My three month old pullet, Lucy, loves to jump on my shoulder the second I squat down for any reason, and has jerked an earring completely out of my ear twice so far. The second time I was sure she had swallowed it. After inspecting the ground I found it, but I've learned some lessons from the experience.

She also likes to peck at my teeth, if I smile....so, no smiling if she's close by. My eyes seem to be equally interesting, so no face to face time unless we're atleast a foot apart. ( She's pecked at my eyes twice, but I was lucky enough to blink at exactly the right time, and avoided having my eye put out! ).

That's probably another reason not to allow chickens on your shoulder; they're way too close to your vulnerable face parts, but I have to admit I still let her do it, as long as she doesn't have muddy feet and I look the other way.