Fermenting Feed for Meat Birds

Others had the same results when reporting mouse chewings....some birds had it but not all. Seems like the birds that roosted lower(lower on the pecking order) were more likely to have it and it's never the rooster showing up with chewed feathers~presumably because he's the highest in the pecking order, thus roosting further from the floor of the coop. I don't ever have ladder roosts, so a mouse would have to crawl a vertical surface to ever reach mine and I usually have linear roosts so most birds are roosting at the same level.
 
Others had the same results when reporting mouse chewings....some birds had it but not all.  Seems like the birds that roosted lower(lower on the pecking order) were more likely to have it and it's never the rooster showing up with chewed feathers~presumably because he's the highest in the pecking order, thus roosting further from the floor of the coop.  I don't ever have ladder roosts, so a mouse would have to crawl a vertical surface to ever reach mine and I usually have linear roosts so most birds are roosting at the same level.  

My roosts are all the same level but I am thinking about changing it to a ladder roost just to give them more room. A mouse could get up on my roosts though. I've got work to do on my coops now that the crazy weather is (hopefully) over.
 
These babies have been with me two weeks today. I think they must be three weeks old tomorrow. Are the bulging bottoms normal?
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Cute!

Mine are 2 weeks today. I've lost 3, out of 29. I don't know what i'm doing wrong. :( I ordered from McMurray, and got 12 Cornish X, 6 Pioneer, 6 Red Ranger, 2 Dark Cornish and 2 Speckled Sussex, and they threw in a free "rare breed," which we think is a Brahma. All of the deaths were out of the blue. One of the Cornish X died a few days in, then a few days later one of the Pioneer, then yesterday a Dark Cornish..

I'm feeding them organic starter feed. I'm offering them both fermented and dry. They prefer the fermented, but eat the dry too.

Oh, one of the Cornish X also has spray/spraddle leg. I've got a band aid on it and she can get around okay now, but great. The other chicks don't pick on her though and she can definitely get to food and water fine, so hopefully she'll be okay.

Any thoughts on what I could be messing up?
 
Cute!

Mine are 2 weeks today. I've lost 3, out of 29. I don't know what i'm doing wrong. :( I ordered from McMurray, and got 12 Cornish X, 6 Pioneer, 6 Red Ranger, 2 Dark Cornish and 2 Speckled Sussex, and they threw in a free "rare breed," which we think is a Brahma. All of the deaths were out of the blue. One of the Cornish X died a few days in, then a few days later one of the Pioneer, then yesterday a Dark Cornish..

I'm feeding them organic starter feed. I'm offering them both fermented and dry. They prefer the fermented, but eat the dry too.

Oh, one of the Cornish X also has spray/spraddle leg. I've got a band aid on it and she can get around okay now, but great. The other chicks don't pick on her though and she can definitely get to food and water fine, so hopefully she'll be okay.

Any thoughts on what I could be messing up?

Most likely not a thing. Sometimes it's the source. The last batch of meaties I got, I lost two big healthy chicks in the first two weeks...nothing wrong with them one day, dead the next. Then I didn't lose anymore like that afterward, so it's just nature weeding out the weak.
 
Poor thing, that's really awful looking!  I can't guess how that happened.  Mine were just broken badly and looked bad but no skin showed. Sorry, but if it gets better when the roo is out of the picture  we'll know.  : (

It does look awful but it doesn't seem to bother her at all. I believe she is the top hen and always causing a ruckus, bossy bossy. lol
 

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