Fermenting Feed for Meat Birds

[Beekissed]

We are supposed to get dumped on by snow and sleet this week, so that will be interesting after this cold snap. It will really put our animals, coops, and methods to the test so it will be nice if we can all report back here what changes, if any, we had to make to weather this weather.

I'm still nonplussed by the fact that I have six 8 mo. old hens in my coop that haven't laid an egg as of yet. Don't know that I've ever seen such a thing, even in the midst of winter, wherein young pullets didn't come into sexual maturity all of a group like this. I'm even trying an experiment to eliminate the whole winter time daylight hours factor and have had a light in the coop for a week to see if that is, indeed, the reason.

Yes, I lit up my coop...not a practice I have subscribed to nor will I continue it past a few weeks of this experiment. I had a light in my coop one winter over the water to keep it from freezing and never saw any difference in rate of lay at all...nor am I seeing it do anything special here now either. That must work well for other folks but never did a ding diddly dang for my flocks so I prefer not to interrupt their sleep and melatonin uptake with a light on a normal basis....just this two week experiment to see if it will get these pullet's hormones into gear(as what was suggested on another thread as the cause for my situation). So far...nothing.

Not only that, but it caused my one chicken that was laying steady to stop laying quite so steadily.

 

[BCMaraniac]

. Still rainin'....sounds nice on the tin roof!

I'm concerned about my Bresse roosters, Bee. I am sure you have looked at photos of them, but if you haven't, they have the biggest combs I have ever seen.....very very thickened. Their tips are frostbitten down to the main part of the comb, completely black and hard. There was some bleeding at the proximal portion of the tips because I think the tips are coming off.....I put Neosporin on them to reduce risk of infection......took them down from their roosts last night to do it. They are acting fine. Hopefully they will be OK.....I bet there are gonna be a lot of frostbitten combs and wattles from this weather.

 

[beverly evans]

Bee, Are you still up? I need advice. I've put babies outside and it's going to be 22-23 tonite. Not a problem for grown hens but these are only 5 and 8 weeks old and not totally feathered out. The coop has a light in it and peat moss on the floor but the pen part is outside and 5 of them are sleeping there. I tried to wake them to go inside but they wouldn't budge. So I wrapped the pen with tarps so they have no direct wind on them. Will they be alright? They've been inside only days ago with never colder than 50 degrees. (I don't use central heating either.) I don't want to wake up to 5 dead chicks!

 

[BCMaraniac]

Bee, Are you still up? I need advice. I've put babies outside and it's going to be 22-23 tonite. Not a problem for grown hens but these are only 5 and 8 weeks old and not totally feathered out. The coop has a light in it and peat moss on the floor but the pen part is outside and 5 of them are sleeping there. I tried to wake them to go inside but they wouldn't budge. So I wrapped the pen with tarps so they have no direct wind on them. Will they be alright? They've been inside only days ago with never colder than 50 degrees. (I don't use central heating either.) I don't want to wake up to 5 dead chicks!

Beverly, she was up just a couple of minutes ago......can you pick them up and put them inside?

 

[ChocolateMouse]

I would think of it this way... If you move them inside, will that consume less time than you'd spend regretting their deaths if you woke up and they were gone? Is the stress of worrying over them more than the stress of moving them? If youd worry and regret a bunch, just move them in! That's how Id do it. Alternately could you not just lift them into the main coop with the other birds?

 

[Triple Willow]

My older group have slowed down a little bit. That's okay, they can have a rest but they better pull the plug outta that egg chute come spring! lol The younger bunch are still doing okay. My Ancona pullet is going to have nice eggs. Her yolks are darker orange than the rest. I hope she lays good. Might have to have some more of those. I like her, she's always pestering me. Picked her up the other day and you would have thought I was trying to kill her. She's plumb cute. I hope all my roos weather this stuff okay. I hope their combs and wattles AND THEM come out alright. I had read and heard how flighty Leghorns and Anconas are. That's not true in my case. Those two roos are among my friendliest and the pullets are fine too.

 

[Beekissed]

I'm concerned about my Bresse roosters, Bee. I am sure you have looked at photos of them, but if you haven't, they have the biggest combs I have ever seen.....very very thickened. Their tips are frostbitten down to the main part of the comb, completely black and hard. There was some bleeding at the proximal portion of the tips because I think the tips are coming off.....I put Neosporin on them to reduce risk of infection......took them down from their roosts last night to do it. They are acting fine. Hopefully they will be OK.....I bet there are gonna be a lot of frostbitten combs and wattles from this weather.

Probably so. That meat pen of roosters fared pretty well in our low teens weather with their extra large combs and wattles and they were in an extremely open air situation. BC, maybe a heat lamp in the top of your coop to keep things tolerable for your Bresses? They say the chickens prefer heat sources from above, so that might be the ticket.

When I got these boys some of them already had blackened points, some were white and shriveled and some had black spots on their combs and wattles where they were frost bit. I just massaged castor oil into their combs and wattles and let them be...and they all came back to color and reddened right up, despite the low temps. In this pic you can just barely see some darkness at tips but it subsided when the temps warmed up. No one lost any points. I wonder if they would have if the temps went even lower.




Oh..and that rain? It has now turned into torrential rain and massive high winds, so I may blip off of here any second when the power goes down!

 

[BCMaraniac]

Probably so. That meat pen of roosters fared pretty well in our low teens weather with their extra large combs and wattles and they were in an extremely open air situation. BC, maybe a heat lamp in the top of your coop to keep things tolerable for your Bresses? They say the chickens prefer heat sources from above, so that might be the ticket.

When I got these boys some of them already had blackened points, some were white and shriveled and some had black spots on their combs and wattles where they were frost bit. I just massaged castor oil into their combs and wattles and let them be...and they all came back to color and reddened right up, despite the low temps. In this pic you can just barely see some darkness at tips but it subsided when the temps warmed up. No one lost any points. I wonder if they would have if the temps went even lower.




Oh..and that rain? It has now turned into torrential rain and massive high winds, so I may blip off of here any second when the power goes down!

I may try to do that since my brooder lamp is not currently in use

 

[Beekissed]

Bee, Are you still up? I need advice. I've put babies outside and it's going to be 22-23 tonite. Not a problem for grown hens but these are only 5 and 8 weeks old and not totally feathered out. The coop has a light in it and peat moss on the floor but the pen part is outside and 5 of them are sleeping there. I tried to wake them to go inside but they wouldn't budge. So I wrapped the pen with tarps so they have no direct wind on them. Will they be alright? They've been inside only days ago with never colder than 50 degrees. (I don't use central heating either.) I don't want to wake up to 5 dead chicks!

If your light is a heat lamp, I wouldn't worry much. Those are pretty old chicks and the heat lamp should keep them at tolerable levels. Good wind blockage and the heat source, plus the dry and deep bedding should do the trick. Let us know what happens? Make sure that heat lamp is very securely positioned/tied so the winds don't manage to blow it down.

 

[Beekissed]

Hey, everyone! If I don't get to see you on here tomorrow due to power outages, stay safe and warm! I hope your animals weather the weather extremes and we'll all report back here when we can. Y'all stay upright out there...especially you, TW!

No falls!