Thanks Bee, I really do appreciate you guys time and energy. I am trying to read this whole thread. I've read 50 pages tonight. I think I'm to that point where the soil is ruint and I'm going to have to work to reheal the land, honestly. I wish it were different but it's not. I'm paying for my past stupidity I guess. I definitely agree with what you said about people starting out with too many birds. I started out with 2 birds: 1 black jap hen and 1 guini hen. I'm now up to 20 chickens and that is about the limit right now on what I can handle since I am going to be moving in 3-4 years. I guess what I need to work on now is getting the soil back to the way it's supposed to be. I do free range my birds, even the bantams. Unfortunately, I didn't in the early years. That's probably why the soil is ruined. At least I'm learning, though. I can start over new in my new place in a few years and not make these same mistakes. I can't wait.All of these questions have already been answered in this thread, so I'll give you the abbreviated versions....my thinking is this~if it's worth it to you to learn about these things, it's worth it to read the whole dang thread. It's no different than reading a book on the same subject...sure, you have to sift through all the nonessential info but it's really worth it. I'll tell you why...my answers aren't the only answers.
I don't have my birds in a penned run, so my answers regarding that aren't from experiencing chickens in a run all their life. We used to do that some when I was young and it wasn't ideal but we didn't get sick birds. The run was huge and we didn't put too many birds in it, it had good drainage overall and it had good airflow. Now I don't use a run....I create situations when raising chickens where I don't have to confine birds to a stationary run.
Overstocking the soil is having too many birds on the same soil for too long...you will see a barren, slick run that gets slimy in wet weather, gets packed down so that it cannot absorb fluid, gets too much nitrogen on the same soil, is dry and dusty in hot weather with no areas of moist, cool earth. This creates unbalanced life in the soil where the beneficial microbes cannot thrive but the bad ones will have an overgrowth. In nature, soil has many filters and ways of cleansing itself. If you remove the grass, the topsoil(the loose, absorbent layer at the top that is lost with soil erosion by water, wind and foot traffic), the natural sieve that is normal soil...all these things help the soil stay healthy and balanced...when removed, you have poor conditions for drainage, for cleanliness, for health.
Air flow..this isn't only essential to the coop...a run, though fully open to air, can be in a situation that doesn't allow for good cross breezes or sunlight. Both of these things also help with drainage or wicking of moisture from a run.
Rain isn't the problem...not even if you live in a rainy area. Rain is cleansing the soils on a regular basis if the soils are healthy. The soil is the key to balance in the area of your livestock...all their waste go there, they are constantly in contact with it, they eat it, they dust in it, they live on it. Guard the soil integrity and you invest in your animal's health...that goes for dogs and cats, as well as livestock.
You know when I see the start of trouble for many people on this forum? When they ask a question like this one~"How many birds can I put in a ___ X ____ pen, coop, run, yard?" No one can answer that question effectively. You know why? Because one has to find that out for themselves and you find out by starting with a low number and then adjusting upwards, not the other way around. By the time you find out you have too many birds in one space, it is often too late and the damage is done....then you have to do the long process of healing the land or getting rid of the number of birds to fit your coop size, etc.
When someone asks that question, I can almost guarantee they are going to start out with the maximum amount of birds that someone says will fit in that space. Everyone wants everything right now...no one wants to wait and do it right. No one wants to earn their own knowledge..they want someone to tell them how to do it and then they want to do it right then, immediately, because they just want to.
Then you hear a lot of people sending out urgent posts with lots of exclamation points at the end of the title....I don't even bother to click on those. They merely irritate me to even see the title~this is someone who rushed into something and now wants to rush everyone into giving them a solution to a problem they have created...and they want that solution RIGHT NOW.
Deep litter? We have written tons about that here and there is a whole thread devoted to it on the forum, so I won't go there tonight. I've already rambled on too long....maybe tomorrow.
Thanks Bee, I really do appreciate you guys time and energy. I am trying to read this whole thread. I've read 50 pages tonight. I think I'm to that point where the soil is ruint and I'm going to have to work to reheal the land, honestly. I wish it were different but it's not. I'm paying for my past stupidity I guess. I definitely agree with what you said about people starting out with too many birds. I started out with 2 birds: 1 black jap hen and 1 guini hen. I'm now up to 20 chickens and that is about the limit right now on what I can handle since I am going to be moving in 3-4 years. I guess what I need to work on now is getting the soil back to the way it's supposed to be. I do free range my birds, even the bantams. Unfortunately, I didn't in the early years. That's probably why the soil is ruined. At least I'm learning, though. I can start over new in my new place in a few years and not make these same mistakes. I can't wait.
This OT says it's mostly a load of poppycock.In reality, it doesn't take that much thought or processing to feed your chickens in a healthy manner and I certainly never advocate for sterilization of equipment, housing, waterers, etc. It's articles like this that confuse and overwhelm a newbie into thinking that raising chickens is some science that only the nutritionist/biologist can do....trust me, it's so incredibly simple that children can raise healthy chickens.
Sterile means no germs..none. Not even the good ones that can keep an overgrowth of the bad ones at bay. If you sterilize once you have to keep doing it over and over...daily. You are dealing with the outside environment and an outside animal. That animal has a certain amount of bacteria, both good and bad, in their bowels...this is natural and normal. It is a balance and their environment needs to reflect that or you get an overbalance of harmful pathogens. Unfortunately, the more harmful pathogens grow more quickly than do the more beneficial microbials, so when you sterilize the whole area...guess who grows and reaches maturity and reproduces the quickest first? Yes...the bad guys. Growth of the good guys actually inhibits or slows and keeps in check the bad guys but this cannot happen if the bad guys get there first, get stronger first and multiply first.
News flash...chickens poop. They poop and their bowel born pathogens enter their environment...there will always be germs there. You simply cannot control all the germs by sterilizing their world...not only that, you create more problems when you do this. How do you keep a balance? Promote an environment that is naturally cleansing by fresh air. sunlight, not overstocking your soils, good drainage of any area in which animals live, culling for health and hardy animals, balanced deep litter, etc. We've been preaching it over and over on this thread.
As to the feed? Yep, I agree that all the processed feeds like pellets, crumbles and commercial producer's idea of mash are not the best bang for the buck nor do they provide the most optimal nutrition. That is why I advocate for going directly to the source where the whole grains meat the grinder and then the bag. A whole grain is going to get ground in the gizzard before ever making it into the digestive "extraction" center of the small intestines, where nutrients are started to be processed for the body's use. Grinding before they eat the whole grain or after they eat the whole grain is still grinding, so whole grain or ground grain is no matter. It must be ground to digest it.
It is why I also advocate free range on good forage.
In the end? If the best you can do is feed your bagged feeds and a penned life, then don't expect to have birds that live and produce for a long time. Just replenish your flock as needed, kill all unthrifty birds, get what you can out of the birds you have until you can no longer justify their feed, then get a new flock. A lot of people use this approach and that is one way of having eggs and meat. Just because it is not how I do it, doesn't mean everyone has to raise their food like I do.
Either way is likely much better than a commercial poultry house operation, so do the best you can and don't sweat adding this percentage or that percentage of this oil or this seed or that protein, etc. It just muddies the waters to act like it has to be that technical...heck, my granny fed whole corn. We would walk out to the coop, take a cob of field corn out of a big barrel and rub the kernels off onto the ground. The free ranged flock would run over, gobble the corn and go back to their business~her chickens lived to be a ripe ol' age and produced all year round. It ain't rocket science and those that try to pretend that it is have way too much time on their hands.
I must have missed some posts, why don't you like Purina brand and whatwould you reccommend?
to Bee
