Chickens for 10-20 years or more? Pull up a rockin' chair and lay some wisdom on us!

[jvls1942]

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same here, I still don't knw what it looks like.. I wouldn't know where to buy some..

a few other thing I never encountered until I came onto byc are: bumblefoot, prolapse uterus, impacted crop, worms, stuck egg and a few others that escape my senile mind at the moment..,

I have never done any kind of "surgery" either.. I do not feel that I have the knowledge to diagnose, or the skill to cut on a live animal..

I have had thousands of birds in my lifetime.. never had the trouble that some of these backyard 6 chicken flocks have.. I personnally think it is a sort of imposed hyperchondriac disorder..

and I don't have time to daily check 120 birds" pooh so see what color it is.. wouldn't do any good anyhow,, I am color blind..

None of my birds have ever shown any human type emotions.. ie,:mourning, sorrow, ecstacy, loneliness,bravado.. my roosters do not guard the flock.. they run like h--L when the spot a hawk of fox... It is more like,, come on ladies, follow me and let's get out of here....If I get there first, he will get you and not me..

 

[Gypsi]

I have never had time to read the whole thread, what is the cayenne pepper for?

 

[Beekissed]

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DE is wonderful to have around the garden if you garden organically and also around the chicken yard. Kills those wicked little desert fire ants that I get all summer so that I don't have to resort to poison bait. It's also good for aphids, squash bugs ( need to get them before they are an epidemic), other soft bodied bugs, cucumber and Colorado potato beetles.
It won't kill pollinators and other beneficial bugs, which to me, is very important. Other than the lacewing and ladybug larva. I won't apply it when I see them crawling around. But most of the beneficials fly over the top of the plants, unaffected by the DE. Unlike sevin dust, which kills everything and which bees and other good guys are particularly susceptible to.
Have you ever had an aquarium? You know how you have to wait for all the good bugs to establish? How your fish will die if you put them in a brand new tank before the good bacteria have a chance to establish? This is sort of how organic gardening and organic chicken farming works. When you start wiping out the good bugs with sevin dust, dewormer and antibiotics, you're back to that sterile aquarium. All the bad bugs have a chance to restablish fast. This is why the chicken often gets a respiratory infection right after being dewormed or gets sick with something else right after a round of antibiotics. You must restablish that system of good bugs which time and probiotics. During that time, the chickens are at risk and vulnerable.



Excellent explanation! I agree whole-heartedly.

 

[Gypsi]

Quote:
DE is wonderful to have around the garden if you garden organically and also around the chicken yard. Kills those wicked little desert fire ants that I get all summer so that I don't have to resort to poison bait. It's also good for aphids, squash bugs ( need to get them before they are an epidemic), other soft bodied bugs, cucumber and Colorado potato beetles.
It won't kill pollinators and other beneficial bugs, which to me, is very important. Other than the lacewing and ladybug larva. I won't apply it when I see them crawling around. But most of the beneficials fly over the top of the plants, unaffected by the DE. Unlike sevin dust, which kills everything and which bees and other good guys are particularly susceptible to.
Have you ever had an aquarium? You know how you have to wait for all the good bugs to establish? How your fish will die if you put them in a brand new tank before the good bacteria have a chance to establish? This is sort of how organic gardening and organic chicken farming works. When you start wiping out the good bugs with sevin dust, dewormer and antibiotics, you're back to that sterile aquarium. All the bad bugs have a chance to restablish fast. This is why the chicken often gets a respiratory infection right after being dewormed or gets sick with something else right after a round of antibiotics. You must restablish that system of good bugs which time and probiotics. During that time, the chickens are at risk and vulnerable.



Excellent explanation! I agree whole-heartedly.

I'll second that agreement. Squash bugs I usually just pick, didn't know DE would work on them, but I don't get many, according to my 40 ft watermelon vines and 12 ft summer squash vines before the last freeze finally killed them off. Excellent info!

 

[bobbi-j]

Quote:
DE is wonderful to have around the garden if you garden organically and also around the chicken yard. Kills those wicked little desert fire ants that I get all summer so that I don't have to resort to poison bait. It's also good for aphids, squash bugs ( need to get them before they are an epidemic), other soft bodied bugs, cucumber and Colorado potato beetles.
It won't kill pollinators and other beneficial bugs, which to me, is very important. Other than the lacewing and ladybug larva. I won't apply it when I see them crawling around. But most of the beneficials fly over the top of the plants, unaffected by the DE. Unlike sevin dust, which kills everything and which bees and other good guys are particularly susceptible to.
Have you ever had an aquarium? You know how you have to wait for all the good bugs to establish? How your fish will die if you put them in a brand new tank before the good bacteria have a chance to establish? This is sort of how organic gardening and organic chicken farming works. When you start wiping out the good bugs with sevin dust, dewormer and antibiotics, you're back to that sterile aquarium. All the bad bugs have a chance to restablish fast. This is why the chicken often gets a respiratory infection right after being dewormed or gets sick with something else right after a round of antibiotics. You must restablish that system of good bugs which time and probiotics. During that time, the chickens are at risk and vulnerable.

Very good explanation. I do have an aquarium - have had fish most of my life. But I have a confession to make. I've never dusted anything - plants, chickens, or anything else with Sevin. I've also never dewormed my chickens or given them antibiotics. I feed them, water them, let them out during the day and shut the door of the coop at night. That's it.

Oh, and I do garden but don't use any chemicals on that, either. DH tills between the rows, and I pull by hand the weeds that the tiller can't reach. I'm not saying use of DE is wrong, I've just never had a reason to use it that I know of.

 

[bobbi-j]

Quote:
same here, I still don't knw what it looks like.. I wouldn't know where to buy some..

a few other thing I never encountered until I came onto byc are: bumblefoot, prolapse uterus, impacted crop, worms, stuck egg and a few others that escape my senile mind at the moment..,

I have never done any kind of "surgery" either.. I do not feel that I have the knowledge to diagnose, or the skill to cut on a live animal..

I have had thousands of birds in my lifetime.. never had the trouble that some of these backyard 6 chicken flocks have.. I personnally think it is a sort of imposed hyperchondriac disorder..

and I don't have time to daily check 120 birds" pooh so see what color it is.. wouldn't do any good anyhow,, I am color blind..

None of my birds have ever shown any human type emotions.. ie,:mourning, sorrow, ecstacy, loneliness,bravado.. my roosters do not guard the flock.. they run like h--L when the spot a hawk of fox... It is more like,, come on ladies, follow me and let's get out of here....If I get there first, he will get you and not me..

Exactly! Until this thread showed up, I was beginning to wonder how my chickens ever survived my ignorance. I'm so glad to know I'm not the only one.

 

[Clay Mudd]

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See? There is knowledge here that not available ANYWHERE ELSE!!

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Let's call it "Veterinary Munchausen's by Proxy".

 

[perchie.girl]

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Scott, I don't know about everyone else but I live in a place that doesn't really require such things. My gates have latches of some kind just to keep them closed but they don't really lock and my doors have pieces of wood nailed next to them that you turn when you want to keep the door closed and turn again when you wish to open it.

I use big dogs to protect my chickens, so locks and latches aren't as important for me as for some chicken owners.



I see that I misspoke/typed here, I should have said some kind of latching deivice. Locking with a lock didn't even cross my mind. We also have several large dogs that keep the worst chicken killers away.

My place is on eighteen acres. With twenty acre parcels the norm in the area. My closest neighbor has twenty acres and on the other side of him is BLM land with a Railroad easement going through. On the other side of that is Mexico....

I have gates that can be locked.
My horse corral has latches that have dummy padlocks on them.
My goat pen has latches at the top and leashes that wrap around the bottom.... goats are escape artists.
My chicken house/coop has latches.

My house.... I only lock the doors when I leave....

When I am home I have the shotgun for protection. But to be honest I would rather they take what they wanted than have someone break a window to get in. I am sixty miles from a sober repair man. I live alone and the only time I have seen illegals was the first year when I was having grading done. The tractor noise drew them up from the road. I didn't see them till the Tractor guy told me they were there. He was sitting much higher. One fellow came and asked for water and as soon as I turned the water on twenty more came out of the Chaparral. It was 105 degrees, I couldn't say no. Otherwise no one knows there is a house up there until they get up off the road about three quarters of the way up my driveway.

I lock the horse corral because if she gets out there is too much open land and loose barbed wire for her to be safe roaming about. If the goats get out they don't go far but they tend to get into stuff.

I have a dog but shes getting on in years. When she passes I am hoping to get something that will serve as a Livestock Guardian Dog, and something to do a little herding, and something to help with the vermin, and maybe a greyhound or two. Cats dont last more than 24 hours outside here, without dogs to run off the coyotes. EVERYTHING is hungry in the desert.

Heck to have a garden Just about the only way is to build raised beds with hardware cloth on the bottoms and hardware cloth around the outside. We have Jackrabbits, Cottontails, and Bush Bunnies. Then there are the Pack rats, Kangaroo rats and those cute little church mouse looking mice. And the Ground Squirrels and chipmunks. Trying to grow a garden calls them all in.

 

[cbohn80]

goodness this is a long forum already, only on page 13, glad to know that i'm right about alot of things my wife says i'm wrong about. she's still keeping 2, 13 week chicks in our 3 season room thinking they will be too cold because the older birds picked their but feathers when i had them out for a week 3 weeks ago. now they will have to establish a pecking order all over again.

 

[Tracydr]

Quote:
DE is wonderful to have around the garden if you garden organically and also around the chicken yard. Kills those wicked little desert fire ants that I get all summer so that I don't have to resort to poison bait. It's also good for aphids, squash bugs ( need to get them before they are an epidemic), other soft bodied bugs, cucumber and Colorado potato beetles.
It won't kill pollinators and other beneficial bugs, which to me, is very important. Other than the lacewing and ladybug larva. I won't apply it when I see them crawling around. But most of the beneficials fly over the top of the plants, unaffected by the DE. Unlike sevin dust, which kills everything and which bees and other good guys are particularly susceptible to.
Have you ever had an aquarium? You know how you have to wait for all the good bugs to establish? How your fish will die if you put them in a brand new tank before the good bacteria have a chance to establish? This is sort of how organic gardening and organic chicken farming works. When you start wiping out the good bugs with sevin dust, dewormer and antibiotics, you're back to that sterile aquarium. All the bad bugs have a chance to restablish fast. This is why the chicken often gets a respiratory infection right after being dewormed or gets sick with something else right after a round of antibiotics. You must restablish that system of good bugs which time and probiotics. During that time, the chickens are at risk and vulnerable.

Very good explanation. I do have an aquarium - have had fish most of my life. But I have a confession to make. I've never dusted anything - plants, chickens, or anything else with Sevin. I've also never dewormed my chickens or given them antibiotics. I feed them, water them, let them out during the day and shut the door of the coop at night. That's it.

Oh, and I do garden but don't use any chemicals on that, either. DH tills between the rows, and I pull by hand the weeds that the tiller can't reach. I'm not saying use of DE is wrong, I've just never had a reason to use it that I know of.

You're probably not having any problems because you haven't used any chemicals.
I don't have too many problems but for the few I have ( desert fire ants love to farm aphids, making aphids and ants a problem here in AZ, despite having plenty of good bugs), the DE usually works, along with blasts of water.
My neighbor has a huge problem with ticks, after having used chemicals for years. Have you ever tried to kill a tick with insecticide? I once tried to. Put some ticks in glasses of insecticides. They just swim around in the stuff for hours, they are so resistant! Perfect example of needing the good bugs and birds to get rid of the bad.
Read BYC on any given day and you'll have so many posts recommending antibiotics and especially dewormer it's simply incredible. I've never paid attention to the follow up but how many of those who gave the dewormer and antibiotics are on again in a month with another problem?