INDIANA BYC'ers HERE!

[Leahs Mom]

@hoosiercheetah

I guess I should also state this to save folks any messing around...

I originally tried wet SAND in the heated bowl. It DID NOT WORK WELL and was a real mess. Save yourself if you had that thought cross your mind. Grit worked great, but not sand.

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

Busy and exhausting weekend, but think everyone will be warm and dry tomorrow when we get the bad wind chills. Heavily loaded dry hay into all the coops, blocked low drafts. Helped DH get the plow and tractor ready when he got home this afternoon. He goes into town and helps get the officers driveways clear, and a few older folks we know. We have a fair amount of plowing here too so I can get to all the coops and pens easily.
On the frostbite, I tried the vaseline thing last winter and honestly, it didn't seem to help. or hurt. the prior year I did nothing. I just made sure they had a dry run and coop. My only issue was my GLW roo, Red. He would stand in the snow for what seems like hours. never switching feet, just stands there watching the girls. He lost part of a rear toe. I had a BA roo with a frostbit comb tip, that's all I recall. With the number of birds I keep, thats a pretty good average.
Before I moved all the water outside the coop, I had one muscovy drake with a frostbit caruncled bill, just on his bump over the nostrils, he had unusually heavy caruncling even down his neck..He healed fine.
@Leahs Mom I am really hoping the horizontal watering system stays working, that will knock out a big part of my water woes! I like your idea very much!
@racinchickins I am doing a lot of hard thinking, I will probably not hatch many chickens next year, aside from my LOs. Will focus more on my turkeys. Want to step back and really decide what breeds are "my breeds" lol. My EE line are hardy and feed themselves most of the year, so they are staying. Want to see how it goes with adults on the RIR and the new rocks I added. Incubator turns on when the turkey hens start to lay! I have had numerous requests for poults and didn't have nearly enough to go around.

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

@Leahs Mom I will try to get a picture of Mister if I can persuade him! He has decided its more fun to hang out with the girls. I will see if I can catch him at night on a roost. His comb and waddles look perfect, you would never know he was frostbit.

 

[kittydoc]

I finally sold my last excess Jubilee Orpington cockerel (8 months old) today. He was a good boy, very nice with my girls, but not the best one to keep for breeding. I had bought 5 chicks last spring and 4 turned out to be cockerels. Sigh. I did keep two gorgeous boys, though. Even though I lost money, as one almost always does when selling cockerels and roos by themselves, getting some money was much better than getting no money and worrying about him winding up as cockfighting bait.

I still have four sweet and handsome black/lav split cockerels that are just 3 months old. I hatched 7, only got 2 pullets. Sigh again. I'm only keeping one of these boys for my lavender program, but if you are looking for an outcross or wanting to get into lavenders, please PM me. These guys will go to freezer camp if I can't find them new homes. I will consider any offer short of free. They have been vaccinated against Marek's, which cost me $3 per chick, but I think it's important. I was fortunate not to have to spend a lot for the hatching eggs. I don't think the gentleman who sold them to me realized how good his birds were. The larger of the two black roos in the breeding pen was the size of a female Labrador retriever! Tons of amazing plumage on top of very large bodies, and his lavender hens were also good sized with stout, round bodies. I can't wait to breed these splits to my March hatched lavs next year!

Switching subjects, I had only one mild case of frostbite last year in a hen that was lowest ranking and not allowed to stay in the henhouse. She wound up living in our garage, but not before she got just a little frostbite (small grey spot) which healed perfectly on its own, as Leahs Mom noted with hers. If the tissue is just discolored, I recommend leaving it alone. I am not a believer in Vaseline. We have open waterers with about 2" width of water exposed in a ring. Last year, we did use a heat lamp in the henhouse when the temperatures were 15 or below, or 20 and really windy. I know that's controversial, just wanted to make full disclosure. Our coop is mostly open hardware cloth, with an enclosed henhouse that has excellent ventilation from the floor opening to the ceiling, which has an open gap of about 6" between the hardware cloth ceiling and the roof. We use the "deep litter" method in the winter. In fact, today was our last major cleaning until it starts to warm up again. We just keep adding additional straw as the girls smash it down, and letting the poop slowly degrade, which also creates a little extra heat. We also add more straw to the coop floor (dirt) so they can snuggle down into it. This is our first winter with roos, so I will be on the lookout for frostbite. The roos apartments are scaled down versions of the henhouse, with the same ventilation and solid walls.

My Jubilee pullets will NOT go into the henhouse at night, so I have been letting them roost overnight in the open coop. I figure that if it gets cold/windy enough, they will go inside with the other girls. However, if you have never seen the plumage on English Orpingtons, they have about twice as much feather volume as an American Orpington, so I am not as worried about them except combs and feet. Fortunately, they have small combs/wattles. They really hunker down and seem to get their feet covered well, too. As for the one Australorp with frostbite from last year, she is still the bottom girl, but she sleeps inside a nest box now, so I don't think the other girls will bully her out of there this year. Poor thing has no feathers on her rump and no tail at all. She is wearing a winter weight butterfly saddle that helps keep her back and shoulders protected. I recommend butterfly saddles if you have any girls that still have thin spots from either molting, breeding, or being picked on. Louise's Country Closet makes great ones at a very reasonable price, ships them free, and you can usually Google to find a 10% off cou pon code. The website is http://www.louisescountrycloset.com/butterfly-saddles/ . There are also smaller regular saddles, but they aren't "padded" and don't last nearly as long. For the additional $1.50, I just always buy the heavier weight, larger coverage butterfly saddles.

 

[Mother2Hens]

I collect them and put them in different sections on the egg flat. Otherwise I just bring my Chinese marker out with me and mark them as I pull them out of the pen. I think that's what the marker is called. It's like a large pencil that you peal away the label to re-"sharpen" it.

bradselig~ I think your term is politically incorrect. lol. Here's an interesting description of a China Marker or Grease Pencil. I especially liked the German name for it-- a Nerd Pen. (I'm not implying that you're a nerd!) haha
Grease pencil - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
@flyladyrocks @Faraday40 @CCCCCCCCHICKENS

Here is some info from "Chicken Health for Dummies" about Frostbite





About Pain
Chickens are prey animals, so they try to hide pain or any sign of weakness so they won't be seen as an easy target for predators.
A chicken may seem okay, but frostbite is a painful condition.

 

[Mother2Hens]

Sudden Temperature Changes Cause Stress
Chickens have difficulty tolerating sudden changes in temperature such as being brought inside a warm house and later being returned to the cold, snowy outdoors. They have to have time to gradually adjust from one extreme to another. My avian veterinarian told me that a temperature change should be no more than 20 degrees difference. I provide a little heat in my coops at night that is limited to less than 20 degrees higher than the outside temperature.

 

[hoosiercheetah]

And...could you post a photo of yours tomorrow?

Here's my 1.5 gallon heated water bowl. I got it at Petsmart; they price matched it to the one Rural King sells for 20 bucks. It's mostly full of grit, and topped with water. It's not as dirty as the pic makes it look.



The hen is Ariel, the Golden Comet. She is very confused.









This is my TSC 1-gallon waterer, which sits on the grit in the dog bowl like it was made to be there:





The blur is a totally different hen. They're fast!









Just for fun, here's Queen Penelope, who kept trying to photo bomb the other pics:





I think that will do nicely until I find out that horizontal nipples are the way to go.









How does one teach chickens to drink from horizontal nipples?

 

[Leahs Mom]

@hoosiercheetah

Is there some water in the grit to transmit the heat?

Please keep us updated on how this works for you.

 

[hoosiercheetah]

@hoosiercheetah

Is there some water in the grit to transmit the heat?

Please keep us updated on how this works for you.

Yes, I filled the bowl with grit first, then put as much water in as it would hold. The grit didn't go all the way up to the top; I left just enough space so that when I set the waterer in the dog bowl, it sits flush. The chickens took to it right away. I'll definitely keep an eye on it and let y'all know if it keeps the water thawed!

Oh, I also used hot water from the kitchen in the dog bowl, so that it would have a head start on staying warm.

 

[flyladyrocks]

Make your own water heater on the cheap:


http://www.the-chicken-chick.com/2011/11/make-cookie-tin-waterer-heater-under-10.html

http://www.howipinchapenny.com/2013/01/chicken-waterer-warmer/

We are planning on making 2 of these, one for water the other for the fermented feed. Much less expensive than any other option.