INDIANA BYC'ers HERE!

[Leahs Mom]

I am doing this. I have 5 lasagna beds and then we till a large area that we plant our root veggies and sweet corn. I think this is a great way to put the chicks to work and a will be a great way to keep them out once new starts are planted!! I have had to replant too many times because they make it into the garden before the plants have had time to get good and rooted! I'll take pics when I'm done!
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/662890/easy-chicken-run-plans

Have you seen this....I love this guy! (Chunnels for the garden )

 

[SallyinIndiana]

Quote: It might be labor intensive but if you have a chicken run that is not growing grass, I'd use it in there for a layer of deep litter. Plus it will look good compared to dirt or mud.

We used wood chips to make a path from our back door to each of the coops we had last year. I'm going to try and make those paths a bit fancier later this fall but it has been nice not to walk in mud. Maybe your hay could be a base for a walkway in the horse area. Maybe from the gate to where ever you go often.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

RE: MG and eating eggs, yes they are safe to eat. I never really thought about it before (kind of one of those, 'Golly, I hope so!' type of things, since we've continued to use eggs from the girls), but I knew I had seen it somewhere that it was mentioned and pulled it up just now to confirm. The only time an MG-carrying flock's eggs should not be eaten is if that flock is being treated with some sort of medicine, as is the case for any flock being treated.



Why keep a flock with Mycoplasma Gallisepticum? For me it was a matter of the heartbreak involved in culling my flock. These are my beloved pets, some of them know their names, most come to me just to hang out, some even beg for time in my lap. I've known enough chickens over the 10 years I've raised them to know how varied their personalities can be. Could I get the same breeds? Yes. But I could never replace the individuals of those breeds that make my flock what it is. I don't believe them to be a replaceable commodity in my situation. My choice may have been different if I was breeding them and selling birds, as I would ethically have to restart if I wanted to continue doing so.

There are several sources that are now saying there isn't much of a point in culling and starting over when it's just MG. MG is believed to be in as many as 80% of the backyard flocks in the U.S., and some estimates are even higher than that. That is a statistic, by the way, that I never gave much credit to before I knew it was in my flock, but then my birds had never shown any signs of carrying MG and I would never have known if I had not gone ahead and tested them. As mild as MG can be, who can say without frequent testing that they don't have it in their flock?

I'm not saying, of course, that people should be lax with their biosecurity measures when their flocks test positive for MG. To me, that's like saying everyone is bound to get a cold eventually, so I'm not going to bother covering my mouth when I cough or sneeze. I don't know whether anyone else in the area has MG in their flock or not, so I take precautions with my carrier flock to make sure I'm not responsible for causing its spread. Biosecurity is a bit of a pain, but the effort is worthwhile. If you have a clean flock and want to keep it that way, you should practice biosecurity as well to keep things out, as not everyone with carrier flocks is as considerate when stopping by the feed store or going to swap meets and shows. Just some things to keep in mind.



Edited to clarify something

 

[Bawk]

...

I am doing this. I have 5 lasagna beds and then we till a large area that we plant our root veggies and sweet corn. I think this is a great way to put the chicks to work and a will be a great way to keep them out once new starts are planted!! I have had to replant too many times because they make it into the garden before the plants have had time to get good and rooted! I'll take pics when I'm done! Have you seen this....I love this guy! (Chunnels for the garden )

We have a friend in MO who has a "Certified Naturally Grown" farm. This is larger scale than we would want to do but loved what he does. He fences in a field area he wants clear for gardening and later moves that fence area. Inside is a huge chicken trailer more than a tractor. It has laying boxes for each of the hens and they tend to use the same one so he has them numbered and keeps records so he knows which ones are laying. He has a rooster which will warn if hawks are around, then all the hens run under that chicken trailer. It is set up to catch rain wter with a drip type waterer around the bottom edge of one side. he can add water if it hasn't rained. It's all set up. When the chickens have clearned one section, he moves it to another. I think he locks the in a coop at night. The chickens tend to eat everything then it's ready to go. He doesn't till but just enough to rough it up for planting as it adds weeds otherwise. Interesting. We aren't set up on that scale. I will show my husband the chicken tunnel though, pretty neat.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

And while I'm here, I have some pictures of the call duckies to share. They finally made the move out to their coop this Sunday. Been an interesting week. The girls have never seen ducks before, so they gave them some strange looks. The ducks have seen chickens, but still returned those odd looks as if they couldn't believe there were more of those things! I just took some glamor shots, though. I missed the funny looks. And Malcolm really stole the show, so there are a lot more pictures of him than of Trudi.

"Why yes, I do know I'm adorable."

I love his chubby cheeks!

Trudi Patooti

Something flew over, but eeek, their faces!

Oh, it was pretty cute, too. I moved the ducks up and was all set to put Mr. Toes (the rooster that was quarantined with the ducks) in his pen, but he was freaking out. So I took him up and put him in the duck coop with Mal and Trud, and you could just see him relax! He just needed to know where his ducks were, I guess. Strange birds.

Edited to add watermarks.

 

[racinchickins]

Had my first hatch of the year start yesterday. When I got home from work, I had a CCL/BCM olive egger hatched. Does anyone know if this is a cross that could be autosexing or sexlinked? The chick is mostly black with a very obvious head spot. I know the head spot in CCLs means boy. I'll be keeping an eye on this one to see if that is true here.

Then over the next couple of hours I had 3 American Bresse hatch. This morning a lot of the Bresse were pipped or zipping, and my lone CCL egg of this hatch was zipping. I hope it's a girl. That would be a great start for hatching season!

My first set of turkey eggs goes into lockdown tonight!

 

[SallyinIndiana]

Had my first hatch of the year start yesterday. When I got home from work, I had a CCL/BCM olive egger hatched. Does anyone know if this is a cross that could be autosexing or sexlinked? The chick is mostly black with a very obvious head spot. I know the head spot in CCLs means boy. I'll be keeping an eye on this one to see if that is true here.

Then over the next couple of hours I had 3 American Bresse hatch. This morning a lot of the Bresse were pipped or zipping, and my lone CCL egg of this hatch was zipping. I hope it's a girl. That would be a great start for hatching season!

My first set of turkey eggs goes into lockdown tonight!

I'm sure you have seen it before but there is a legbar hybrid thread where people are trying to keep track of the autosexing crosses.


My easter hatch is in lockdown right now. so far only wiggles.

 

[raisinemright]

Here is an almost finished tractor. The front will have a door, around the door frame and the very back will all be fence. Don't mind the tri colored siding lol it's been laying around for 12 years and decided to use it on these. It will clean up and be painted later. But for now it's more rain!

 

[raisinemright]

All done ( except paint and door hinges). Pulls easy and seems to be pretty dang sturdy. So hope the CornX like their 7-9 week stay in it.

 

[SallyinIndiana]

All done ( except paint and door hinges). Pulls easy and seems to be pretty dang sturdy. So hope the CornX like their 7-9 week stay in it.

It looks great. I might make something similar for the spare roosters to sleep in out front. Since I need to leave the buck out front and my girls will be in the back, I keep trying to dream up ways to move the roosters out front to get more use out of the east front yard. The back yard is not secure enough to move the buck back there and I would not want him near the current chicken pens anyhow.