INDIANA BYC'ers HERE!

[Chaneys Ranch]

Quote:
nubian purebreds. one brown doe one black doe both with frosted ears. one black and white buck also frosted ears.

My pretty egg basket today. Apparently my Legbars and at least one of my EEs have started to lay again!


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LOVELY!

Yay browncow15! Mine are getting back into it also, the cold has set them back a bit though.

LOVELY too!!!!

Some of my girls eggs are really dirty, no matter how clean the boxes are they still get poop on them. Feet probably. Any suggestions for safe cleaning? I don't really want to wash them, but my customers may gag if I leave them the way they are.

I use a few drops of original dawn dish soap in tepid water. The plastic shower loofa scrubbies work great. one egg at a time, put in, loofa off rinse and put on a cotton towel. Dawn is considered safe for wildlife rescues, and does work well in saving them. Personal experience on rescues on many a bird, kitten, puppy falling in a bucket of used oil or grease during animal control days! That tells me its safe to wash my eggs with too. One motor oil soaked kitten lived to be 19 years old with me.

Quote: We use kerosene heaters in the house even if needed. Safest heat I know of. Expensive too! Electric baseboard heat is ok.. also can get expensive. Ceramic or a radiant oil filled electric heater is even better. The salamanders are noisy, can get noxious fumes and need a lot of maintenance. we use them, and its always something. Natural gas heat IMO is least expensive, but like here we can't get it, even though they ran new natural gas lines right across my driveway a few years ago

I am not done with that fight yet BTW.
Dust safe, my feeling is radiant oil filled heaters, or ceramic. I worked in a factory that had ceramic heat and never saw a fire on those bulbs. Too smooth and hot for dust to collect. Same with oil filled electric radiators. The shipping dock had them, never a fire. And those guys were for sure not cleaning them.

 

[kittydoc]

Some of my girls eggs are really dirty, no matter how clean the boxes are they still get poop on them. Feet probably. Any suggestions for safe cleaning? I don't really want to wash them, but my customers may gag if I leave them the way they are. 

My research said the best way to clean dirty eggs is to use water as hot as you can stand it, and scrub with a veggie brush. As soon as they're clean, dry with a paper towel and then pop into the fridge. Cleaning solutions are unnecessary. We have a special brush just for egg cleaning, and wash it in the dishwasher periodically. If the eggs are frozen, let them thaw first. Sometimes you don't notice cracks from freezing until they are washed. We don't sell any eggs that are cracked, but use them ourselves.

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

jchny2000, have you tried an oil-filled electric radiator personally? Or has anyone? I would think it safe since there is no way for dust or straw to cause a fire, as long as the cord is protected with conduit. I do wonder how to keep it from being a poop magnet, though. All my roos except the Jubilees have comb frostbite, but I already use heatlamps, block some floor openings at night, and added a ton of insulation. There is still adequate ventilation since nothing is perfectly tight.

Jubilee Orps may be the dumbest chickens ever, but they rock this bitter weather. No frostbite on anyone. Solid egg production. They snuggle very close together for shared warmth. Plus they are superbly fluffy and trap lots of heat like wearing down over wool over fleece.

I LOVE them, since propane has got so ridiculously high we are only using them to heat the house this year. Its dropped our heating bill about 260 a month, no kidding. With the size of the house and addition, the gas bill alone was almost 400 a month last year.

 

[Leahs Mom]

Okay - so the oil-filled heaters...

We use them where I work in the offices that don't have ducts and a couple years ago I was looking at the one in my office wondering if it could be used in the chicken house to raise temps some while brooding, etc.

So I've used them indoors before, but have to ask again...

HAS ANYONE USED THEM IN A CHICKEN HOUSE OR BARN? I'd like to hear from anyone that has experience in that setting because I'm still concerned about how much dust there is in a chicken house.

I imagine rigging something to keep them from roosting on it wouldn't be too hard if I thought the heater was safe.

 

[bradselig]

I'll be curious to hear heat recommendations that people have tried.  There just has to be a good solution to heat a shed safely for brooding and birthing.  I see that the sweeter heaters are used for such uses, but I would want to see one and feel what kind of heat it puts out before purchasing one.  I get the feeling that they have to be pretty close to the animals for the heat to be felt.  But I'd love to find a heater that can stand up to the dust in a barn and still provide heat that is very fire-safe.

Besides a salimander type heater, what do folks use in garages or workshops?  Seems like that could be the answer.

The breeder I got my moderns from had a heated shed for them. He used an Eden pure heater.

 

[Faraday40]

Just wondering if the frostbitten comb tips will fall off in spring. My lav Orp roo has a TALL comb. During this last week the very tips of his comb & a little area on edge of wattles turned black. Some of my hens have some frosting too. (theirs looks whitish not black.) Last year I saw posts of a roo that recovered well with no interference. Did the edges fall off then heal up smaller or did it kind of grow back?

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Saw this on Facebook and thought of Brad and his little Moderns. Have you thought about taking up knitting for them yet?

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Faraday, is this the post you were thinking of? Hope this helps either way!

A STORY OF FROSTBITE I want to post a little about frostbite and what I did last year when I had a problem, hoping it might be of use to someone here. PREVENTION is best! I'm very careful not to give open waterers in which the roos or birds with larger wattles have their wattles in the water while they drink. I was also feeding wet feed last year and provided restricted opening feed dishes for the same reason. One day, I got the great idea to change how I had my feed set up last year. I thought it would still keep the wattles out, but I was wrong, and in just one feeding, "Mister" got frostbite on the wattles. He already had a couple of tips that were bothered but they were not of great concern. These wattles looked bad. I started looking to see the things that other folks were doing for frostbite. Everything I saw appeared to be causing much worse problems with the birds than the frostbite itself. Some were just putting various oily substances on. Some people were bringing them inside the house, treating, then putting them back out over and over. Some used other things. As soon as they started treating, huge portions of wattles and combs were turning black, becoming putrid, and causing a huge amount of trauma to the birds. You can see samples of it all over BYC if you search. And everyone thinks that's what needs to be done. Many of these "treated" birds have lost huge portions of both comb and wattles. From observing these things, I began to question the wisdom of treating in that way. So this is what I decided to do: -I decided that I'd take a "hands-off" approach unless it appeared that it was deteriorating. I was looking for any wetness, oozing, rotting of flesh, etc. -If I did not see any of those things, I would be "totally hands-off". I did not want to make things worse than they already were as I had seen so many others do. -I decided that if I did observe any of those signs, He would come into the warm area, be treated, and remain INSIDE for the remainder of the winter. No going in and out. This would be an "all or nothing" thing until the weather was consistently above freezing to avoid extra trauma after the fact. ************************************************************************************ So here is a cc from last year's "FROSTBITE CHRONICLES" [CONTENTEMBED=/t/730582/indiana-bycers-here/20920#post_12706066 layout=inline] [COLOR=FF0000]FROSTBITE CHRONICLES - FEBRUARY 9, 2014 UPDATE: 1 MONTH AFTER INITIAL FROSTBITE[/COLOR] Quick update: -Had changed my wet feed setup and it didn't work correctly; have since returned it to the better setup which is restricted access so that they don't have wattles dragging through wet feed. -Jan. 9 when things weren't working, Mister got frostbite on the wattles. So...I'm taking photos and tracking how he does. I'm watching for any signs of infection, wetness/rotting, etc. If I see anything that looks like deterioration, inability to eat or drink, etc., I will change my MO. In the meantime: -I have not treated or even touched it. I do not want to cause more trauma to the tissue by handling it. -I have NOT brought him in to warmer temperatures than the outside hen house. It is not heated. -I have kept the hen shed doors closed if there is an extreme wind chill to be sure none of the "lowers" get chased outside and stuck in those extremes. ***************************** Just took updated photos for February 9, 2013. Newest photos posted at bottom of post. Photos listed in date order. You can see the progression. They continue to look good. [COLOR=FF0000]As of Feb 9, Right wattle looks completely healed; small spot remains on left.[/COLOR] [COLOR=FF0000]January 9, 2013: [/COLOR] [COLOR=FF0000]Day after he got it. -7ish outside; -30s windchill. [/COLOR] [COLOR=FF0000]This was caused by getting wattles into the wet feed when I made a change to the way it was set up. I always have wet food and water in restricted opening feeders and waterers so the wattles don't get in there. This day I had made a change to my feed setup and in just that one time, he got frostbite on his wattles because they got in the feed. This would have also happened if he were drinking water from an open bucket, bowl, etc.[/COLOR] <img alt="" class="lightbox-enabled" data-id="6115793" data-type="61" src="https://www.backyardchickens.com/content/type/61/id/6115793/width/500/height/1000/flags/LL" style="width:500px;height:375px;"> <img alt="" class="lightbox-enabled" data-id="6115792" data-type="61" src="https://www.backyardchickens.com/content/type/61/id/6115792/width/500/height/1000/flags/LL" style="width:500px;height:667px;"> [COLOR=FF0000]January 15:[/COLOR] [COLOR=FF0000]Temperatures in the 40s for a few days.[/COLOR] <img alt="" class="lightbox-enabled" data-id="6122905" data-type="61" src="https://www.backyardchickens.com/content/type/61/id/6122905/width/500/height/1000/flags/LL" style="width:500px;height:705px;"> <img alt="" class="lightbox-enabled" data-id="6122904" data-type="61" src="https://www.backyardchickens.com/content/type/61/id/6122904/width/500/height/1000/flags/LL" style="width:500px;height:554px;"> [/CONTENTEMBED] [COLOR=FF0000]January 26[/COLOR] [COLOR=FF0000]Temperatures in the 20's[/COLOR] Look how nicely this is healing! [COLOR=FF0000]FEBRUARY 9, 2014. [/COLOR] RIGHT SIDE APPEARS TO BE COMPLETELY HEALED. LEFT SIDE STILL HAS SMALL SPOT. I DID NOT TOUCH THESE WATTLES. THEY HEALED ON THEIR OWN. -I did fix the feed back to it's original situation that kept the wattles out. -I do continue to keep water with restricted openings. This also protects feet from mistakenly getting into the water and risking frostbite there as well. @jchny2000 now has Mister. I'm guessing that she could not tell that he ever had frostbite. Janet, if you have a camera and can catch a photo, could you post a current photo of Mister? These photos were taken in April, 2014. The stuff on his comb is not frostbite... I should have washed him off before taking the photos but didn't..wish I had. Check out those wattles.... A far cry from what I was seeing on the threads in which folks were treating and having a rotted, infected mess and lost huge portions of wattles and combs.

Edited to fix something.

 

[SallyinIndiana]

Quote: I use lukewarm water and a baby bottle brush from Avent. no soap and eggs get dried off. Then into the carton then a slip of paper with the date goes into the carton then into the fridge.

Saw this on Facebook and thought of Brad and his little Moderns. Have you thought about taking up knitting for them yet?

They might look cute now but there will be a need for a load of laundry in under 24 hours.

 

[RoyalPayne]

Checking in from Bristol, Indiana. 5 miles from the Michigan border. Got a large egg this morning...3.74 oz. haven't done any research for records. Truly do not have time. Went on BYC to sorta check, got swept up in Indiana Chicken Keepers blog. Late to it, but love it.