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

[unkadan]

The debate of straw versus chips versus X Y Z will go on forever. Use whatever you wish. Fact is the birds are gonna poop on it and soil it and the mix is gonna provide compost material for the field.

I still prefer straw, good clean yellow wheat straw. It's half the price of chips. I've never used hay, but my brother does, as he keeps cows.

I have a 1 acre market garden here, agree Fred about the debate, also agree use straw (oat) for bedding, this winter I am mixing straw with leaves in the coop deep litter. I also raise meat rabbits, that manure is composted with worms in a covered pile, this year I have added my chicken litter to the pile,,,,the worms love it and have increased activity. It will be interesting to see what it looks like next spring at the "unveiling".
This special compost I use in the high tunnel beds, for the main gardens I compost horse manure. Only wood shavings I use is in the nest boxes not enough to really make a difference in the overall picture.

 

[Pozees]

I have a 1 acre market garden here, agree Fred about the debate, also agree use straw (oat) for bedding, this winter I am mixing straw with leaves in the coop deep litter. I also raise meat rabbits, that manure is composted with worms in a covered pile, this year I have added my chicken litter to the pile,,,,the worms love it and have increased activity. It will be interesting to see what it looks like next spring at the "unveiling".
This special compost I use in the high tunnel beds, for the main gardens I compost horse manure. Only wood shavings I use is in the nest boxes not enough to really make a difference in the overall picture.

I am curious about your covered pile composting with worms - it gets even colder in WI than in CO, what do you cover your pile with?

 

[unkadan]

snow!

or leaves, or old rotted hay,,,,most years the worms go deep anyway the tarp is to keep it from leaching and to retain moisture

IF I had the room it would be under a roof, actually do have a small pile 3'X 3' in the ht this year to see what it does

 

[galanie]

okay al walt and bee leave my crossbeak alone. she is right here with me under my covers so she can keep warm,. after all she has special needs and i want her to feel loved.

LOL your not going to get any sympathy from me LOL, I know your going to feel that wet spot very soon. Make an appointment to visit the therapist, because that ain't right at all, a cross beaked special needs Foo-Foo bird should have been thrown in the trash the second I saw the beak. I have special needs to too, that special need is to wring their necks LOL.

 

[galanie]

Ok I'm not an old timer and I'm not a newbie. I have had chickens for almost 20 years. An old lady that owns a ranch down the way puts oyster shells in her water troughs. She says it adds the calcium to the water so the chickens drink it. Is this true? Is it worth it?

Hmmmm....  if the calcium in oyster shells dissolved in water, wouldn't there be a bunch of naked oysters running around?  Just wondering... 

That's common sense, right there!

Also pretty funny!

 

[thedragonlady]

Liver is great motivation. The best way to cook it for dogs is to BAKE it at 350 until it is almost dry.Some galic salt and oregano added first really turns dogs on. More like "people food"! This baked liver is what you see in dog show handlers' hands. We keep it in 2" x 2" chunks so we can flick off tiny bits with our thumbs. Being dry, it does not ruin your pockets unless you forget it for a week or so. Then you have a mess!

Well said.

There are two important reasons to teach your dogs - and it is NEVER too late - to follow your commands, once they understand them, instantly: Saving another life, and saving their own. A dog who instantaneously drops to the ground when you say Down can be stopped from running into the path of an oncoming vehicle, and a dog who learns to go where you point or nod can keep another animal or child from doing the same.

A dog who does not sense the Alpha position is occupied by its human is a worried individual who constantly tries to control and patrol things because he or she feels the human is not doing so. Alpha is in charge of everything - food, activity, shelter, and position in the pack of all other individuals.

As Alpha, when your dogs are milling at your feet you should tell them what to do, and the fastest thing to teach is Sit. Dogs learn this quickly, and almost every dog I've ever worked with has been very motivated by food, a favorite being boiled liver cut into little (1/4-1/2") chunks. I always used to keep chunks in the freezer in little baggies or containers - cooking it stinks up the house (IMO), so only doing it every month or so was easier than every week. Teach it before the milling, so you aren't impatient, then reinforce regularly. I always snap my fingers, place my hand palm down above their heads and slightly behind where standing point of vision is for them, and say Sit. Because of the position of your hand, the hindquarters are naturally headed down anyway. If they actually sit, say Good Dog and give a tiny bit of liver, and if they don't just press down with the other hand on the point of the hips until they do, then reward so they know what you want when you say Sit. It is harder with two at once but it can be done. Once they do it every time, make them hold it longer and longer, and teach them they must hold it until you release them, I used to say Okay, but if you use that word a lot choose another. You can even just say Release.

Once your dogs learn sit, you have a new tool that can reproduce itself as you teach them new words, and they have a JOB - obeying you - which is almost always a dog's favorite job. Pleasing you is what they live for, and when you teach them how, they have a whole different attitude. Once they know you are in control, their anxiety level will go down, and as you teach them more commands they will gain the quiet confidence of a dog who knows what to do and who is in charge.

 

[thedragonlady]

Calcium carbonate (oyster shell) isn't very water soluble, though higher acidity will break it down if you have soft/low pH water. I used to use it to harden the water in my fishtanks, since harder water keeps a more stable pH, and it always balanced out around pH 7.5-8.0 no matter how much I had mixed in with my gravel, so it hits an equilibrium (only 47mg per liter of pure water, and none of us are on a pure DI system so I'm sure our water has interfering factors). If you already have really hard water, it won't dissolve or make a difference, but it can't hurt anything if you have soft water and want to try...my mom attributes the fact that none of us kids ever had cavities to the fact we grew up on nice hard well water, plenty of minerals to keep our teeth strong. I'd still leave the shell out free choice and wouldn't depend on it for their sole calcium source since I don't know how that equilibrium or an individual chicken's drinking habits would factor into them actually getting enough.

I've used oyster shell for years in my koi ponds to raise the PH of my very acidic water, but I feed it dry to my Orps for better absorption.

 

[christyg]

Greetings all OT's and Rockin' Chair followers from a shadowy lurker of many months. I have only been keeping chix a year, but have been told by my mother i was born an oldtimer, and at 42 am no spring chick myself! So, that is why I love this thread and all the good old fashioned, time tested, sensible & practical advice. I have been slogging thru the old posts and trying to keep up with the new and is often the last thing i read before bed. Boy have i learned from all of you, BK, Al, Fred (old posts) and many others.
My chix keepin' style? Laid back, no bras, no scarves or hats. Yes we handle the flock and enjoy them and their delicious eggs.

Well, here I am needing some advice or just a pat on the shoulder or kick on the bottom or something. I keep a 6 chix flock for eggs, 2 BO, 2 americauna, 2 golden comets (red sex link mix) in my city backyard. It's fenced that is probably a little bigger than 1/2 acre and they have a 10 x 10' completely chciken wire covered house and yard where they covered nesting boxes and a small inclosed roost area. They free range 1/2 day, on nutra feed, a bit of scratch for fun, table scraps, water w.ACV. this morning i went out and found my top hen (we got as a pullet and is only 11 months old) dead as a doornail under the roost w.her final parting gift, last egg (was not warm) in the laying box. In may she had an broken egg internal and was sickly. Before falling sick, this same hen had been laying double yolkers and oddly shaped jumbo eggs. I seperated her from the flock, and in a few days she seemed to bounce back. So, returned her to the flock. She started laying again and has been laying very relaible a large, normal size, single yolk eggs. I was hoping she got her oviduct back in gear, kicked an infection and would be ok. Because what i read on here predicted a dire outcome...said likely a massive infection would set in because of yolk trapped inside. She seemed to be thriving and eating drinking and laying well ever since. Clear eyes, perky, shiny feathers and
ruling the roost. I observed her yesterday late afternoon foraging, eating and drinking and moving normal. Then, this morning, ol' mary had kicked over.

Sorry for long post, wanted to be detailed. What should i do, if anything? Check internally for anything? I have wanted to keep hens for a decade abut refrained because i was sorta squeamish about knockin' them off when they quit laying or got sick. However, i married a man from the domican republic and he has no such squeamish-ness being he was raised very rural up in the mountains where everyone had free range flocks and had to catch dinner and do the plucking. So hooray, i got my hens and my "heavy" when needed. the flock seems to be doing great, otherwise, with absolutely no issues.

Thanks for reading and looking for an OT shot of wisdom here since I can't go lean on the fence and talk to the neighbor and solve this particular problem, tho we solve many others!

 

[Beekissed]

You can cut that bird open and explore....this is a good learning opportunity. Know what to look for and look at...I'll post a few diagrams that may help. In the future? Eggbound hens are cull hens. I've never had an eggbound issue in my flocks in all the time I've had chickens and mother had never even heard of the term. I must confess I hadn't either until I came to BYC. If you are culling for hardiness, production and other desirable traits, it may be that this bird would have been culled before this ever happened. Maybe that's why I never had one.

Did let an old leghorn live past her prime once and she had double yolkers for some months before she was finally culled for nonlay....and found a huge ovarian cyst inside her body cavity. It was so large that it filled the palm of my hand and consisted of layers upon layers of egg material. Should have killed her long ago but she was an old fave and was otherwise very healthy in her life.

If you find you could "never cull" a pet hen, remember this event and determine if this bird suffered any over this issue...I'm betting she did. Culling is not only for you and your flock goals, but it can help give your birds a better death than otherwise.

 

[fowlman01]

The barn I posted earlier is just outside of Shawnee OK if someone is looking for a fixer upper. I couldn't pas up a picture like that.

I use straw as litter for chickens and waterfowl. It is the only substrate that works here with this clay base when it get wet.

Walt