Consolidated Kansas

[chicken danz]

Well….all of my egg customers are at the barn and I already told them! They didn’t seem fazed in the least. I honestly can’t imagine why it would bother anyone (I know you’re right and it would) because the way I see it, once it goes in one end and is processed through, it is completely repackaged. Refurbished. Whatever word you want to use. Its not like they’re going to find pieces of horse apple IN an egg LOL. And, since parasites are for the most past species specific, I don’t even worry about them picking up worms from the horse poop.

My dogs go out to the barn and LOVE to eat the horse apples. That does gross out the other barn ladies who always tell them to quit. Yesterday my horse stopped to poop while I was riding and my dog was right behind, waiting for him to finish, and licking her lips in anticipation. Another barn lady told her to stop and not eat it but I can’t for the life of me figure out why. The poop of vegetarians generally doesn’t smell that foul and all that is in the poop is a little grain and a lot of hay, grass and other greens that have been semi-processed. Since horses are not ruminants, an awful lot of what comes out doesn’t look any different than when it went in, so if the dogs want to use it as a source of vegetation, I say, let them have at it!
LOL I had to laugh out loud thinking about the ladies being grossed out. That's so funny! So maybe I should be collecting horse poo from my friends. Last count I think they had 36 horses so surely they have lots of poo.
Danz, you should see that video – here is a link to it: The chickens in it appear to be in very good health and according to him are producing eggs at a great rate which I would see as an additional sign of good health, so I wouldn’t worry about them not getting what they need from it. Chances are, what they are getting is actually better than what is in commercial feed, since they have access to all kinds of bugs that are working the compost, in addition to the vegetable matter and some grains as well.

http://youtu.be/-W_WPMm8Bxw.
HEChicken the link didn't work.
This morning I had to go within a mile of the barn so I stopped by and grabbed another 3 buckets worth. The birds are out there now, going to town on the new stuff. It is really rewarding to watch them.

Do you remember a few weeks ago I talked about my cuddly chick? Well, I hate to identify favorites as it seems like it is putting an X on them to let the next predator or illness know which bird to target. About 10 days ago I went out to lock up at bedtime and that little chick was sitting under the chick creeper, not making any attempt to go into the coop. It had been one of those bitterly cold days and I couldn’t figure out why she wouldn’t want to be in the relatively warmer coop, tucked up with her brothers and sisters. I picked her up and put her down near them, then watched as she staggered over to them. Something clearly was not right, and I figured it had to do with the cold. It was supposed to get super cold again that night so I carried her up and put her in the 3-season room with the broody silkie who fortunately let her snuggle up to share body heat. She stayed there for a week and a few days ago seemed well enough to return to the coop. However she will never really be the same again. I think on that bitterly cold day she got too cold and her feet got frostbitten – it’s the only thing I can think of, though why it would happen to one and not the others, I don’t know. Her toes are now kind of misshapen and crooked and while she can walk, she doesn’t do it easily. She lurches along a little bit, appearing to lose her balance from time to time. This is affecting her self-confidence and she doesn’t want to get in there and compete at the big feeder with the others. Fortunately she has remained my cuddly girl and lurches over to me every time I go out there. In fact, yesterday, I wound up dumping a bucket of horse manure on her because she was right under my feet and I couldn’t see her with the bucket in the way. I picked her up and dusted her off and then realized she feels really thin. I think she hasn’t been eating much due to not wanting to compete, so now she is getting the special treatment. Whenever I am down there, I pick her up and put her IN the feed bin so she can eat to her heart’s content, all by herself. When she’s filled her crop, I lift her out and set her down in front of the waterer and keep the other birds at bay while she drinks her fill. Can you tell this one is getting special treatment because she is so sweet?

I had a bird that had no toes at all. They got frost bit and fell off in time. I posted a picture at one point. This bird actually walked on the balls of it's feet. I lived quite a while but I think it eventually just got pushed out of food too often. It was a free range broody chick.
I'm getting ready to go out and work on the trailer some more and get these birds moved. Guess I'd better get to it.

 

[HEChicken]

That's weird the link didn't work for you - maybe try it again? I clicked on it from within the quote, right above where you wrote "it didn't work" and it opened up a new tab and went straight to that video….

 

[Trish44]

That was an interesting video HEChicken, I don't know why you can't see it Danz. I can see where if you had a compost system like that guy does that you might not have to feed them much, but he says he is feeding them scraps of food from restaurants & such, so essentially they do get "fed". You could see there were a lot of worms & stuff in that compost, which there would be if the compost was breaking down the right way. I know our ancestors didn't feed a lot of grain to the birds, they just fed them what they had for scraps from the kitchen for the most part or they scrapped around & cleaned up the manure from the other animals & such besides free ranging. I don't imagine they were so focused on egg production like we are, but just accepted what they got in the way of eggs. In the summer I know I don't have to feed quite as much because there are so many bugs & seeds & things for the birds to eat. They don't have really that much this time of year out there to scavenge.

It's been so nice these past few days, I've really been enjoying this weather, it's going to be the pits when the next storm system comes in, yuk. I've been getting lots done outside that needed to be done before the weather gets bad again & I just don't want to be out there. Tomorrow I have to do all of the water again so they all have fresh water before it freezes again. I have one coop pen I want to totally clean out & put fresh bedding in where some birds have been sick. I also want to spray it all down with bleach, that's what I read to use in there, so I will get that done while it's not so cold. I raked up the loose hay & straw outside of the goat shelter today & put it inside of the shelter for them to sleep on. They do waste some of the hay by dropping it on the ground, once it hits there they won't eat it. I'm going to have to just put out small amounts at a time & then they can't waste so much.

I got my Heritage Rhode Island Red eggs yesterday & let them sit overnight to rest. I fired up the incubator awhile ago & am letting it warm up before I put the eggs in, we'll see how it goes in 3 weeks as to whether I get any chicks or not. The eggs took longer to get here than I would have liked.

 

[chicken danz]

Busy and hard afternoon here for me. I got all the holes and mouse entrances fixed on the trailer. Put down a couple bales of shavings, got an oil heater working. Rewired a heat lamp fixture that had been shorted out and got it hung in the trailer as well. Then I caught all the chicks that were in the brooder house and treated each one with ivermectin pour on and put them in the trailer. I ran out of time to get the brooder house washed out and cleaned up. Hopefully I'll get that done tomorrow.
I have two places to go tomorrow at different times so it's going to be a long busy day besides my normal stuff.
I keep wondering when I'll find the time to get this house cleaned and get my Christmas shopping done!
I had a heart breaking evening. I watched my white peachick die. If only it had started eating and drinking I think it might have lived. I guess it was too late to save it. Tomorrow I'll have to wash down and clean the cage and tray up good to make sure there isn't any leftover parasites or eggs left there.
I moved a different brooder in down to the basement this evening too. The chicks down there had spilled their water and they were in a stinking wet mess in the bin. Hopefully within a couple days I'll have the brooder cleaned up and sterilized and can move all these babies out there.
It sure seems my days are short.
I got the video to work. I am guessing that maybe when I was trying there was a glitch on Utube.
I would love to have all the scraps and stuff from local restaurants. I could feed my dogs and my chickens. However I think the health department prohibits you doing that here. I had asked about that at one time and was told there was some liability issue there. Can you imagine just having the stuff that people leave on their plates? Or even the stuff left from food prep that gets tossed?
I am sure I could also save a ton of feed just by having all the birds in one pen if I could, or letting them free range.

 

[Trish44]

Danz, I'm sorry about your peachick, it's so sad to lose a special bird. It sounds like you have been busy as usual. Wouldn't that be nice to have all of those scraps to feed your animals? I had old bread for a couple of weeks after the critter sitter had been here, she left a ton of it in my garage. I'm not sure where she gets it, but I wouldn't mind finding out the source. My animals will fight over bread.

I saw this on FB awhile ago, it looks so simple & I think would even make some nice little gifts for people who like to feed birds. http://moffattgirls.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/toiletpaper-roll-bird-feeders.html. There are a lot of other things on that site to make using toilet paper rolls or paper towel rolls, whatever you have. I may try that, I have some seed out in the garage I'm needing to use. You could poke holes at the end & put a ribbon through it or a wire to hang it with instead of hanging it just on the branch.

 

[22qZoo]

Darn-it ! The post I was writing just went poof !... Trying again.

Hechicken that was a cool video, I never had much of an appreciation for compost till I had to work with this hard Kansas clay. Our chickens and the duck love to "till" up the horse manure. The dogs have eaten their share of the poo too. I think there are some enzymes in it that is good for their GI . I would think that as long as none of the horses at the barn aren't on any medication or maybe a daily wormer that would be toxic to chickens , throwing some manure in for them should be all good. I wonder if the coyotes ever survive starvation because of horse poo ?

 

[HEChicken]

Darn-it ! The post I was writing just went poof !... Trying again.

Hechicken that was a cool video, I never had much of an appreciation for compost till I had to work with this hard Kansas clay. Our chickens and the duck love to "till" up the horse manure. The dogs have eaten their share of the poo too. I think there are some enzymes in it that is good for their GI . I would think that as long as none of the horses at the barn aren't on any medication or maybe a daily wormer that would be toxic to chickens , throwing some manure in for them should be all good. I wonder if the coyotes ever survive starvation because of horse poo ?

Are you on Safari? You might have the same issue I've been having….

I dumped 3 bucket loads in at 10:30 yesterday morning and at 4pm, I happened to look out the window and called DH to come and look. About ⅔ of my flock was congregated in that area, working the area with enormous enthusiasm. As many birds as I have, and the amount of time they spent on it, they must have really been finding a lot of good stuff to eat. I had the same thought about medication/wormers but fortunately we are a very tight knit group and know the history on each of the horses as well as we know our own. Right now they're not on anything but in the event one of them was, I'd probably not bring anything home until it was out of the system.

 

[HEChicken]

Trish, I hope the RIR eggs do well for you. I must admit you got me…..after you mentioned winning that auction, I found myself on eBay, looking at hatching eggs. Then I had to remind myself that I really do NOT need any more birds and I certainly don't need to be brooding at this time of year so I turned off the computer before I could place a bid. I really would love some more BCM as I miss the super dark eggs but not this time of year….

I'm also a little concerned about fertility this time of year. I know heat can disrupt fertility but I wonder about extreme cold? I had put 6 Exchequer eggs under my broody silkie and after a week, none were developing. So I put 3 other eggs in the incubator and had that dilemma when the Silkie stopped brooding, as to whether to keep them going or not. I decided to keep them going thinking that if the Silkie resumes being broody I will already have chicks on the way and if she doesn't, I can always use snake food.

Yesterday was day 7 and I candled and it doesn't look like any of them are developing either. Now granted, one is a green egg and one is a Welsummer, and both were difficult to see into, but the third is just a light brown egg and it really didn't look like it was 7 days into incubation. I'm going to leave them another few days and candle again, perhaps with a stronger flashlight if I can find one, but it looks like perhaps my boy is not getting the job done. Back in the fall I incubated a bunch of eggs and every one of them hatched so I know he isn't sterile but perhaps with the cold weather he isn't as interested. I hope the situation is temporary because I have big plans for him this spring….

 

[chicken danz]

My fertility is down right now. One trio I had that had had 100% fertility is only showing about one out of every 6-8 eggs being fertile now. Of course it doesn't matter much when I can't even come up with enough eggs to eat right now. I think following the winter solstice things will start improving.
I went to a retirement breakfast this morning and just got home. I have a class to go to for a little while later. I don't go anywhere forever and then it seems I go all at once.
Today is going to be busy anyway. I hope to get that brooder house washed down although that wind is cold today.

 

[HEChicken]

Last December I went 3 ½ weeks with zero eggs which was super frustrating, at a time of year when we are doing more baking and really need them. This year though, my egg production hasn't been as bad. Ironically, my layers right now are my older hens. The spring pullets who should be picking up the slack are not laying - at all. So - all the eggs I'm getting are really good sized which I'm not complaining about a bit, but I really wish the younger pullets would get to and really start to lay well. Production has actually been ramping up for me slightly lately, as one of my green egg layers came back on board after molt so I've been averaging one or two more lately than I was throughout November. So far I've only had one day with zero eggs, which is far better than this time last year.