INDIANA BYC'ers HERE!

[Mother2Hens]

Hello fellow hoosiers .. I am just getting started in chicken... will be a small venture because i only have an acre of land and live in a rural addition, yet thought that fresh eggs would be a good thing and i like taking care of critters . My grandmother always kept chickens on their farm in Bryant , Ind. and so thought I'd try ... .to date we only have 3 hens ...pullets and i am trying to modify a garden shed to a small coop and a run is in the works. Have learned much from this site and found people to be very helpful. My chickens will free range but in a contained manner if that makes sense.. can't let them roam the neighborhood but they can go outside or that is the plan

.I look forward to meeting other folks and exchange ideas etc. Have a great day!

Indiana feather ~ Welcome to the Indiana Thread! Please click on the links at the bottom of this post to find out more about our great thread.
@Mskayladog ~ Good to see you posting! Hope someone can help you find fertile LF eggs.

@Kassafrass I've had cats my whole life, and I believe that any normal kitten has the instinct to pounce. However, they can be taught through consistently saying, "NO!" and chasing it away from the chickens or putting it in an area away from the chickens for a while. No hitting, of course. One thing I've consistently done is walk in-between the cat and the chickens, and chase the cat away. It reinforces the message to the chickens that the cat should be chased away, and it reminds the cat to stay away. Your chickens are old enough to gang up and chase away the kitten, so they'll soon get the idea. I recently posted about my cats quickly learning to stay away from my hens because they were pecked in their noses. It was a response to @kabhyper1 's similar question on page 3407, post 34064 towards the bottom.

Speaking of @kabhyper1 -- Please tell me that you bathe Lily regularly and keep her in the house-- don't act like Silkies are supposed to look like that! lol Lily is just stunning. She looks big, too!


I was finally able to get my Ditzy girl cleaned up, but nothing on the level of Lily! Ditzy was always dirty from eating watermelon every day over the summer. The sticky juice on her "fur" attracted dirt, so that's why I especially had a hard time getting her crest cleaned and fluffed!

Glad you had a safe trip! My sister who lives in Louisville sent this pic of her deck on Monday following a sudden hailstorm.

 

[LonelyPageTurne]

Ok so far the brahma pair is gone and the legbar. I still have 2 free gorgeous silkie Roos (maybe one) one is blue partridge and the other splash partridge. The blue might be taken. Also have 2 plump blrw pullets one that will be the start of your showline, one with incomplete lacing but great type. Easy fix on her.

 

[kabhyper1]

M2H, yes Lily does get baths. She has some skin issues so she gets selsun blue baths.She and my other whites dostay really clean naturally though for the most part. Dont ask me how. Wood chips and sand I guess.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

here is the all flock we buy.  it is pellets.  I feed our chicks medicated food until we put them outside and then for about a week after that sometimes 10 days if it is rainy. 
http://www.ruralking.com/nutrena-country-feeds-all-flock-feed-50lb.html


But the bag looks just like the one Leah's Mom posted a link to earlier.  It used to be the blue bag but now there is the turkey picture on it. 


The turkey food I get is crumbles.  I have been considering trying to mix that high protein food with the layer pellets to come up with an all flock.  But the crumbles just are unappealing.  Yet the price of the turkey feed is great and we can pick it up when we get our goat feed.

Oh, I didn't know it could be found locally! I have used crumbles forever, but they are quite wasteful. And, well, the last time I had feed mites, I had a population living in the coop because of all the wasted feed in there. Last time I tried to switch the flock to pellets, though, they all refused to eat them for days, until I finally gave up and gave them their crumbles. That was years ago, and now when I find the occasional pellet in my crumbles and toss it to them, they snap it up like a treat. I wonder if I could get them on pellets now...



P.S. To others, Purina Flock Raiser comes in a pellet, too, but I have only found it online, myself.

I keep a package on hand in a ziplock, but I deal with piglets and other livestock also. Local neighbors and friends know I probably have stuff on hand too if they have an emergency.

Corid is part of my chicken first aid kit; I store mine in a ziplock in the freezer to extend its expiration date. It's a good idea to have some on hand if you plan on bringing chicks into your flock year after year.

All the main flock birds free range, so for the most part, space isn't my issue as much as feed. I am working towards more roosting area tho, since winter is coming on fast. I may have to band aid the main coop til spring, and add more roost space inside. If I remove my storage cabinet and the big 55 gallon aquarium that opens another 24 feet of roosts. I am also adding the roosts I had removed since we wont be moving the shed til spring.  I do take a lot of misfits. Its also given me a lot of joy finding the home they needed. If any are continually aggressive to people or other birds, they wont stay.

Aggressive roosters have no place here, either. There are so many more gentle roosters out there for any of my space to be taken up by a meanie!


Just yesterday, on one of my FB groups, someone posted a video of their D'anver rooster attacking their feet and claimed that he was just playing and did this every time they came home. I felt like saying, Honey, that's aggression, not play! If this was a larger rooster, I don't think she would think it as funny! She won't think it funny if a young child wanders over and is attacked by him, either! Seriously, any aggression toward humans is not a silly, funny little trait, even in bantams!

M2H, yes Lily does get baths. She has some skin issues so she gets selsun blue baths.She and my other whites dostay really clean naturally though for the most part. Dont ask me how. Wood chips and sand I guess.

The Selsun Blue comment made me chuckle. I know she isn't pure white like Lily, but my Silkie, Marge, seems to keep clean just fine on her own as well.

 

[hoosiercheetah]

I need to get some more pine down in my run. Chickens are looking shabby and it smells like rotting death.

Okay, not that bad, but it's stinkier than I like.

 

[Leahs Mom]

I need to get some more pine down in my run. Chickens are looking shabby and it smells like rotting death.

Okay, not that bad, but it's stinkier than I like.

Definitely get some wood chips or more shavings. I've never had a smell at all in my run. Seriously. If I did, I'd be worried for health reasons.

Didn't have flies either.

 

[twoboystwogirls]

M2H, yes Lily does get baths. She has some skin issues so she gets selsun blue baths.She and my other whites dostay really clean naturally though for the most part. Dont ask me how. Wood chips and sand I guess.

Do you put sand in the run and wood chips in the coop? I was thinking of putting sand in my run but I have 20 chickens and quite a big run. I really don't want to scoop it like a big kitty litter box. I put straw in my coop-deep litter method, which seems to work okay but right now my run is mud and my chickens can get pretty filthy.

 

[hoosiercheetah]

Definitely get some wood chips or more shavings. I've never had a smell at all in my run. Seriously. If I did, I'd be worried for health reasons.

Didn't have flies either.

I still have several trash bags full from the last time I cleared out the run, and I have a bunch of last year's leaves, too. So I'm all fixed up, except for dumping it in the run. ;-)

 

[kabhyper1]

Do you put sand in the run and wood chips in the coop? I was thinking of putting sand in my run but I have 20 chickens and quite a big run. I really don't want to scoop it like a big kitty litter box. I put straw in my coop-deep litter method, which seems to work okay but right now my run is mud and my chickens can get pretty filthy.

Yes, wood chips in coop, and coarse sand we get by the dump truck load from a landscaping place,for the whole farm. I don't scoop the runs. Typically the poop will dry out and become part of the sand as it breaks down, but I do take a leaf rake and rake it off the top of the sand, or a broom works really well separating the leaves and poop and wood chips from the sand. I mix wood ash into the run sand for mites, or Gardstar poultry dust when I clean then runs and fluff up the sand. As long as the run is covered, the sand stays dry. The chickens nails stay filed and they have a nice place to dust bathe.

 

[SallyinIndiana]

Quote: This is true of my chicken run but not even close to the duck run. Their pool stinks within 2 hours of being cleaned. And even though they root and dig for bugs the flies hang out in that pen because of the pool.
Our duck run will be getting more wood chips as soon as the tree trimmer brings us more. If not by Saturday I'll be buying those shavings. The savings sure do look nice for a few days. Much more of a golden look. We would dump our brooder shavings in the duck run just to get the golden look. Then the ducks would have a party in the new shavings. They do about the same with the pine trimmings but the shavings are easier for the ducks to toss in the air.