Does anyone here have an organic or all natural flock?

[Laigaie]

We don't sell many eggs with just five hens and four of us, but we feed all organic (.44/lb), except the occasional non-organic veggie scraps, and refuse to use non-organic pesticides. Our folks buy for $3, when they do buy, but we have few enough that we're mostly selling to folks we know. Really, our only trouble is when we come on here asking for advice and everyone basically just says, "You can't really keep chickens organic. You'll kill your chickens. It's a waste of money. Stop now, dirty hippies." So instead we look for advice through our local co-op and don't worry about what everyone else thinks.

 

[floridachickhatcher]

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I dont think there is anything wrong with organic i think the chickens would be healthier and live longer than have a bunch of chemicals pumped into their body from all the crap thats in the company feeds.Plus more and more people are learning that ORGANIC is a better way of living for people and animals,and yes it cost more but would you put a price on your health and that of your animals?

 

[centrarchid]

I am attempting organic production with a free-ranging flock of about 20 birds. This effort involves life cycle closure. I have been using incomplete diet formulations made up largely with intact grains to supplement natural forages. Hitting bit of a wall with supplemental nutrient needs changing with season and with snow cover during winter. My formulated diet when only nutrient source is not adequate to support egg laying. Problem is partly with my birds that have been kept on some pretty nutrient dense and complete diets for generation after generation.

I want to scale up to a 100-hen flock that is driven by an organic food chain. It is gonna take a couple years to work out kinks. Folks expressing interest in my birds as meat want the old roosters and hens with lots of yellow fat. They want them tuff because that is what they are used to back in their old countries. Market volume is about 100 birds per year so very small and they want to pickup birds alive. For them it is like going to the farmers market which is part of the fun.

 

[JoePa]

OK - so you feed your birds organic food - but what about when the chickens have worms - then what do you do? - or when they have mitts and fleas . etc - if you use any chemicals to worm them or to get rid of the mitts .etc I wouldn't say that your eggs or chickens are organic - just my thought - now if you get rid of internal worms some natural way then I would think they could be classified as organic - right?

 

[centrarchid]

I may need to be corrected but but most organic treatments for parasites have very limited efficacy. When I identify animals suffering production loss from a heavy parasite load; they are culled. Resistant animals are allowed to breed. Over time parasite resistant will improve. My games have not been treated to my knowledge a any time for parasites and they handle parasite loads very well so genetics of flock obviously can be used as a tool, albeit slow acting, to enable eventual devlopement of a flock that can perform in an organic setting.

 

[floridachickhatcher]

You can buy all natural treatments from murray mcmurray

 

[centrarchid]

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Do they work?

 

[floridachickhatcher]

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Do they work?

Only thing we have bought is the Avia Charge 2000 it was suppose to help reduce pecking and improve feather durability and color but im not sure if it worked or not i mean when i go out there i havent seen as much pecking but my mom says they still are and some of the chickens are starting to look naked so im going to try what one of the members said about using vicks vapor rub on them cause they look so UGLY right now