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

[galanie]

I'm going to try to simplify picking out hay a little into a beginners lesson. Smell it. Does it smell good? Does it smell dusty, moldy, like it has mildew? Should smell sweet and good. If the smell does nothing for you either way, it's probably ok hay. I like it to smell sweet. And look a bit green still if it's coastal (which means it was cut from Coastal Bermuda grass primarily) or of course alfalfa. Even nice straw has a sweet smell to me. So there ya go. Smell it and look at it. You want it to smell good and not ugly brown and full of stickers.

 

[galanie]

Quote:
x2 - Better advice than mine. I just wanted to simplify so folks could take a smaller chunk at once, then hopefully look at what the others are saying again.

 

[Tracydr]

Fred's Hens :

Is anyone else a gardener? Then you already know that if you live near the Canadian border that you cannot grow Bermuda or St Augustine grass for a lawn or plant southern Azaleas bushes, citrus trees, or grow some of the vegetables that southern gardeners grow. It wouldn't do any good for me to plant 140 days sweet corn, or peppers that need a certain heat to produce well. I accept where I live. We are professional, market selling, organic gardeners and I know which varieties I can grow well, which are risky, and which I should never even bother with, considering our 100-105 day growing zone.

I am not going to keep dainty chickens this far north. I'm not going to be running a heat lamp on them for pity's sake. If I bring home and try to raise certain breeds, shame on me. I would consider myself irresponsible. My grandparents kept chickens in this state in the late 1800's and their parents before them in the mid 1800's. No one could have imagined Thomas Edison's future invention of the light bulb, to say nothing of an electric heater of some kind.

I can whine, worry or fret about the climate in which I choose to farm and keep a flock, or I can accept it, gain some wisdom, practice a lot of common sense and succeed as our fore-parents did before us. This is a state of mind, for the most part, a world view and I've found it helpful over the years.

I understand you, Fred. You trying to keep a large combed leghorn or delicate silky up there is like trying to grow a citrus tree in the wrong zone. You could probably do it in a pot but you'd have to pamper it, bring it in on cold nights, give it a grow light in the living room for the winter and ultimately it would never really thrive like it does in Mesa, AZ.
Conversely, I don't try to grow rhubarb, blueberries or cranberries here in AZ. I also don't try to raise Buff Orpingtons or other big, cold hardy breeds. Lots of people do but when it gets hot they start dropping like flies. I'll stick with my heat hardy, flighty little Meditterean breeds and am happy to enjoy my fresh lemons and winter garden until I finally get my dream farm in a more temperate climate.
Anyway, I guess that was a long way to answer the poster's question of what to do about frost bite. Ultimately, she needs to consider a rose comb rooster or dub her rooster as frostbite will continue to plague him and Vaseline is only a very poor bandaid for a breed not suited for the climate.​

 

[Tracydr]

Quote:
How about the Dorking? That's my dream DP chicken. I hope to raise them after I move.

 

[galanie]

Quote:
I understand you, Fred. You trying to keep a large combed leghorn or delicate silky up there is like trying to grow a citrus tree in the wrong zone. You could probably do it in a pot but you'd have to pamper it, bring it in on cold nights, give it a grow light in the living room for the winter and ultimately it would never really thrive like it does in Mesa, AZ.
Conversely, I don't try to grow rhubarb, blueberries or cranberries here in AZ. I also don't try to raise Buff Orpingtons or other big, cold hardy breeds. Lots of people do but when it gets hot they start dropping like flies. I'll stick with my heat hardy, flighty little Meditterean breeds and am happy to enjoy my fresh lemons and winter garden until I finally get my dream farm in a more temperate climate.
Anyway, I guess that was a long way to answer the poster's question of what to do about frost bite. Ultimately, she needs to consider a rose comb rooster or dub her rooster as frostbite will continue to plague him and Vaseline is only a very poor bandaid for a breed not suited for the climate.

Our temps here in coastal Texas averaged 109 this summer for two to three months. Not a one of my orps died. Granted, there's only 9 of them right now but mixed ages and made it ok. All but one who had a very hard time once it got to around 110. He's now elsewhere. I know what you're saying about climate though and your point is still accurate in that one really should get birds that are best for the climate. It just really made my eyebrows raise that none of mine died yet even some supposedly hardy flocks had many losses in the heat this year. I think husbandry plays a large role when it comes to extremes.

 

[Tracydr]

Quote:
Central Arizona here Fred and yes we garden with the added bonus of year round growing. But takes some practice and many a disaster for an import from MI and Northern IL in the 70s....

Keeping chickens was also a whole lot different and heat can be a real killer, but as in most places ventilation is the key.

Folks that do not list their location in their online info really should list location when asking questions in any section of this forum so that answers can be better thought out by those offering help. I know from experience that issues faced and their solutions are much different in Charlevoix, MI than here in Morristown, AZ and often diognosing problems can be very geographically specific as are the solutions from disease and pest to predator.

So true. Having kept chickens from Northern CO to both ends of OK, WA state and now the desert AZ, a location in your identifier can really help when you're asking questions. Sort of like when you're on a gardening thread asking "when do I plant out my tomatoes" and you don't have a location on your identifier. Well, that would be hard for me to say, since I don't know if you're in MN, AZ or ALaska.

 

[Tracydr]

Quote:
I understand you, Fred. You trying to keep a large combed leghorn or delicate silky up there is like trying to grow a citrus tree in the wrong zone. You could probably do it in a pot but you'd have to pamper it, bring it in on cold nights, give it a grow light in the living room for the winter and ultimately it would never really thrive like it does in Mesa, AZ.
Conversely, I don't try to grow rhubarb, blueberries or cranberries here in AZ. I also don't try to raise Buff Orpingtons or other big, cold hardy breeds. Lots of people do but when it gets hot they start dropping like flies. I'll stick with my heat hardy, flighty little Meditterean breeds and am happy to enjoy my fresh lemons and winter garden until I finally get my dream farm in a more temperate climate.
Anyway, I guess that was a long way to answer the poster's question of what to do about frost bite. Ultimately, she needs to consider a rose comb rooster or dub her rooster as frostbite will continue to plague him and Vaseline is only a very poor bandaid for a breed not suited for the climate.

Our temps here in coastal Texas averaged 109 this summer for two to three months. Not a one of my orps died. Granted, there's only 9 of them right now but mixed ages and made it ok. All but one who had a very hard time once it got to around 110. He's now elsewhere. I know what you're saying about climate though and your point is still accurate in that one really should get birds that are best for the climate. It just really made my eyebrows raise that none of mine died yet even some supposedly hardy flocks had many losses in the heat this year. I think husbandry plays a large role when it comes to extremes.

Yes, I understand. But, a lot of chickens did just fine here in AZ too. Until we had two weeks over 115. It was that 122 day that really did a lot of birds in, especially since it came after weeks of terrible heat stress. There is a huge difference between 109 and 115 when it comes to cooling a chicken. It also depends on your setup. I actually had some Cornish X that were shipped from Mcmurray's by accident and they survived the summer but I have a completely shady yard. The Cornish X is terrible in heat and really suffered but they did live.
Folks without trees didn't fare so well.
However, there was a huge difference in comfort level between the Cornish X and my little Meditterean breeds. Even between the EEs,which do pretty well, and the Medittereans. They would start panting at a much lower temperature and were much less active.
Many, many people keep buff orpingtons alive in AZ. Marans as well. They are just not as suitable to our climate as a leghorn or Hamburg. When the furnace is blasting, they suffer and it's more likely that they will die of heat stress.
It's a personal choice. I didn't lose anybody even when it was 122 degrees, even the Cornish X. But, I wouldn't ever choose to raise those types of breeds in this climate at that time of year. Just saying, for my flock, I prefer to choose breeds appropriate for the climate.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Right Tracydr. It takes much longer for people to get their questions answered if we have to first ask 'where are you' and then wait for them to respond. If that identifier doesn't have a location people really need to give fairly precise locations. For many flock management questions, climate, latitude and elevation dictate a proper answer.

 

[galanie]

Point taken Tracy. I know there's a huge difference between 109 and 115 as it did get to 115 often, the 109 was only an average. But I don't think it ever got over 119. And as I said, the one had problems over 110. Just like garden crops, always get the chickens that will survive best in your climate. Part of my aim actually is to have the ones that can take the heat the best. Oddly (or not) the one that did the best was a hatchery orp. I may just see if I can breed her for a more practical strain than my others as she not only didn't seem to mind the heat, she laid like a champ every day.

 

[Tracydr]

Quote:
Al,I would say a lot of the folks on BYC don't know how to buy hay. I've had to explain the difference between straw and hay many, many times. Not to mention explaining what a "flake" is. So, how to buy quality hay is probably a skill that many folks here do not have.
Would probably be a very good discussion, since many here don't come from a general livestock background.
I've been helping with hay since I was about 5 years old and when I married my second husband ( a city boy) I was actually surprised to realize that people from the city aren't just born knowing this stuff. I dont remember ever not knowing about hay and other feedstuff. Like what a flake is, the difference between Bermuda and alfalfa, moldy vs fresh hay, square bale vs round bale, 1st, 2nd, 3rd cutting ( or 10th cutting here in AZ). Just trying to teach a city boy how to put up a fence or tarp a stack of hay can be " interesting". And, my husband is an engineer who actually has some common sense from being a mechanic first.
I never realized I spoke such a foreign language until I spent time with a city boy. Taking my husband to Gainesville, TX during horse breeding season was an education for him.