Fermenting Feed for Meat Birds

[LOVEIGEE]

BF....what brand of chicken layer food do you use....and do you add single grains to it?

 

[Beekissed]

Oh I don't baby him. If I am off and he goes out in the am he stays out for the day. Doesn't like it and stays on the porch but he copes. He is from the SPCA and I think he was negleted/abused before I got him at 10 months. He was so bad when i got him with anxiety. This change has no known reason. My son said he went after the alpha cat in the house a couple days ago when he got up in bed with my son & Bear. He has never done that. Max is alpha over all critters in the house. He bites if someone crosses him including the dogs. Always has. Bear didn't hurt him thankfully but its out of character for him. As for food Lily will push him out of the way when she finishes her food and he lets her. But at bedtime he happily eats double his serving of food. So that's when I feed him now. He also doesn't tolerate strange dogs anymore as well. Esp small yappy dogs. The dogs he knows he is fine with. I am thinking something going on inside that has caused the changes but he still looks good so time will tell.

I am cautious now when I take him out. He has nipped 2 people who have come in the yard. Both men. once when I wasn't home but my father was walking in with my uncle. And a friend who came in the yard when dogs were out and I was inside. No skin broken and out of character for Bear. But I do have to say he is very protective of me and my son so I have no fear of intruders

My old Lucy went through some changes when she got much older too and I think hers was pain and weakness from her arthritis that made her more aggressive towards stray dogs or visiting dogs and she wasn't like that before. She only did it when they came on our land and never when we would go elsewhere. I think she was feeling less able to defend her territory so she took a more aggressive stance on visiting dogs. Her teeth were worn down to nubs and they hurt her and her hips were arthritic, so I think she just got crankier from the pain of it all and was feeling more vulnerable, so she took a more aggressive stance. She also changed in that manner when she got a partner to back up her play...she would start a fight and Jake, easy going and friendly to all dogs, would take her cue and start on the other end of the dog. They would work on either end and meet in the middle and fur and blood would be flying like confetti.

It's no wonder the coyotes and black bears never tried it on my sheep and chickens...gave our land a wide berth because of the cranky ol' dog living there!

What did they/you do to Bear when he bit the men? Did he bite on their lower legs, like he was herding them? I had a friend who had an old Aussie that kept doing that and then started trying to herd the tractor tires and got run over.

 

[Triple Willow]

Leave it when they scratch it up like that...I'll tell you why.  I used to do the same thing...find it piled and rake it all back to look even.  Then I discovered that the bugs like to live in the deepest, most moist parts of the bedding, so they finally dig through that litter, moving it all in the opposite direction in their search for critters.  If you leave it in the place they raked it, the bugs will gravitate to THAT deep part and pretty soon the chickens will shovel it out and back to the original position.  All that time I was working on it, if I had just waited they would have done it for me...over and over and over.  They are "managing" their own deep litter and I'm now very content to let them do so!  They are building up a pile to attract bugs, then eat the bugs and build up another pile...it's like a bug trap.  Smart birds.

Well mine never do move it back the other way. lol I hate them being on bare ground but it is a battle with them to keep them off of it! They do a lot of digging in the deep stuff and if I move something they come running looking for bugs.

 

[Triple Willow]

I need a Lucy and a Jake! LOL The best dogs I have had to keep strays away were Dobermans. They wouldn't come near the place when I had them. They wouldn't even come when the female was in heat. LOL

 

[Beekissed]

I need a Lucy and a Jake! LOL The best dogs I have had to keep strays away were Dobermans. They wouldn't come near the place when I had them. They wouldn't even come when the female was in heat. LOL

Jake is pretty useless against stray dogs without a Lucy. He just wants to play with them...Lucy wanted to eat them alive and pick her teeth nubbin's with their mangy bones. When he saw she was ready to kill, he was just being a good friend by joining in the fracas.

Come to think of it, she got that way after she finally had a flock to guard...she wasn't sentimental about the animals like Jake but she took her job quite seriously. Jake just wants to love everyone to death, including his flocks, be they sheep or chickens. If it will hold still to be licked, he wants to lick it. Nothing much more disgusting than catching your dog licking your sheep's butt..and the sheep gladly standing there, tail in the air, letting the lovely massage continue...

One day when I had those first meat chicks, we spotted Jake lying out in the yard with all 20 chicks gathered up against him, with one between his paws getting a good licking. Two of them had been injured the day before in the push at the feeder and Jake was licking their wounds. When we walked outside he got up quickly and chicks fell off him like leaves off a tree!

Big sissy, mushy pup.

 

[armorfirelady]

He nipped them both in the buttocks. Didn't even tear the material but he let them know he was unhappy. The one friend still causes both dogs to bark at him when he comes over. It's not all males. My best friend and another close male friend he loves them to bits and kisses them non stop. Bear is a licker to but just to humans. Bet says its anxiety. I can't break him of that either. My poor mom gets a bath whenever she is not looking lol

 

[Beekissed]

Yeah...Jake is an insecure licker too. He was from a very large litter whose mama couldn't feed them so they were taken off her too soon. It took me a couple of years to even put meat on his ribs. Meanwhile, he was obsessed with licking. We trained him off it when he was a pup but sometimes he'll take a swipe at us when our guard is down.

Never the face, though...that's a big, big no-no.

We'd catch him with his tongue out, mid-lick, and clamp his jaws down on it, then shake his muzzle up and down while saying, "NO LICKING!". Funniest thing you ever saw to see this dog's tongue flopping up and down and his eyes bugging out. Didn't take him long to catch on and now when he gets near my face or starts to lick my leg, I just say, "No licking!" and he will duck his head and move away from it. He's an interesting dog...never a dull moment with the Jakester.

 

[BCMaraniac]

Thank you.

Yep it is hard to leave them alone, they are so cute. But I try not to mess with them much because I don't want to ruin the little roos and cause them to have to go to the freezer.

I was thinking it was a week or maybe two for an incubator, can't remember. One of my pullets lays pretty much every day and lays a darker egg than the rest so I put her eggs under the broody hoping for more of the same. I have one pullet that is accidently/possibly part Cookoo Maran. She is gray barred and I imagine it is her that lays the darker eggs. It will be interesting to see how the chicks turn out. I do expect them to be good layers. Now the male/female ratio...?

You mentioned part Cuckoo Marans. I have mentioned several times my mixed flock capons, and that they were all black, but I forgot about the ones that ended up barred. I have a total of 4 barred chicks out of 33 that hatched. I have a Barred Rock hen, but I don't hatch her eggs because they are so small....she was really small when she started laying. All of the barred birds are roos, and none of them have feathered legs like my Marans. I have no clue how the barring happened. I hatched out some chicks for a lady in my area, who just wanted chickens that would lay eggs, after feral cats killed hers. I think a couple of them are barred as well. I wish I knew how that happened, because they are big birds, and appear to be making great capons. If I knew, then I would purposely try to replicate the genetics since it is some type of hybrid. Puzzling to me.......

 

[Triple Willow]

Jake is pretty useless against stray dogs without a Lucy.  He just wants to play with them...Lucy wanted to eat them alive and pick her teeth nubbin's with their mangy bones.  When he saw she was ready to kill, he was just being a good friend by joining in the fracas. 

Come to think of it, she got that way after she finally had a flock to guard...she wasn't sentimental about the animals like Jake but she took her job quite seriously.  Jake just wants to love everyone to death, including his flocks, be they sheep or chickens.  If it will hold still to be licked, he wants to lick it.  Nothing much more disgusting than catching your dog licking your sheep's butt..and the sheep gladly standing there, tail in the air, letting the lovely massage continue... 

One day when I had those first meat chicks, we spotted Jake lying out in the yard with all 20 chicks gathered up against him, with one between his paws getting a good licking.  Two of them had been injured the day before in the push at the feeder and Jake was licking their wounds.  When we walked outside he got up quickly and chicks fell off him like leaves off a tree!  Big sissy, mushy pup.

HA! That's cute! lol I still can't get over that pic of your Rock roo with all those chicks - so dang cute. My dog is one of those nervous lickers too. It drives me crazy, he's always slipping up on me and licking my hand. I don't like dog slobber! The only thing I have seen that my dog gave a good licking to was a possum. It sulled up and layed down and ended up thoroughly SLOBBERED. If it had of ran he probably would have killed it. It's just no fun when they won't run! lol

 

[colburg]

We just made the switch from a 5gal bucket to a 30 gallon bucket. It's nice to only refill about once a week, and when winter comes, it will be nice to not have 2-3 5gal buckets so that everything gets a full ferment.

It's also nice because when we head out of town, it'll be a little bit easier for the MIL to do the feeding.