Sorry it's a long one!
Haha Ashlymamaward! I have two not-so-small-anymore children and I spend my days home-making, homeschooling and homesteading! My son is almost as tall as me and it makes me a little sad. He's 11 and my daughter is almost 9. They both have a goal of building smaller chicken coops and having their own flocks and selling the eggs. They have to design them, pay for the materials, etc so I don't see it happening for a couple years and I'll count it as some school
Thanks for the memory of our sweet Langshan! He, unfortunately passed away suddenly during the first heat wave last summer. He was alive and acting normally when I looked out the window and then less than an hour later we found him dead in front of the coop. No marks from an attack so we're guessing it was a heart attack.
Mr. Cheep very well could be full Jersey because our first batch of chicks included a male and female Jersey Giant as well as a second rooster that is a Partridge Rock. We only had 7-8 birds old enough for the boys to mate with at the time though we had 25 chickens total. The Partridge Rock (Tasty) hogged the girls but Giant was much more reserved and I only saw him mate a couple times with our other Jersey Giant...they were bought as meat birds so they got names like Tasty or we named them after their breed so our Jersey Giants became Jersey and Giant. The boys got shipped off to a couple new farms to breed all they want and my girls got their feathers back.Our remaining Jersey has been doing well. She's one of the top birds in the flock and appears to be fit and healthy and not losing weight.
I did my last post on this thread yesterday then went outside and let everybody out early. It was a nice sunny day so I spent it working on the coop foundation. Right now that's digging into the hillside to create a much larger level spot.Dig, dig, break up clods of dirt and repeat...while the chickens wait next to me patiently to grab the next worm I unearth. I watched the interactions of the chickens, especially in terms of the Mr. Cheep (we named the two chicks Peep and Cheep until we knew if they were roosters because my husband doesn't want too much crowing) and found there is a golden sex-link that he is especially afraid of. The other hens seem to leave him alone but she'll come up to him and grab the feathers on his head and yank as he tries to run away! I pulled her off him twice yesterday. He was just sitting with Blackie minding his own business.
For feed, I've mixed out feed the entire time we've had chickens. I have tried fermenting but with all the other chores I frequently forgot to grab more feed and bring it up to the house for the next batch. There's just not enough counter space for it right now either. We do have mice and rats so I'm not leaving it out in the shed to provide them with more food. If I can figure out a rodent proof system that I can keep in the shed I'll do the fermenting again as I did like it. I soak most of the grains for the family and so I was doing the same for the birds. I gave our chicks the chick crumble to start out with and when we got close to the bottom of the 10 pound bag, that's when I'd begin mixing small amounts of the home-mixed feed with it. Homemade mix is usually 50# each of barley, rye, wheat, oats, and whole corn. Sometimes the feed store doesn't have whole grains for the barley, rye, wheat or oats and I'll get it rolled, or whatever way it's available. To this, I'll add 40# of black oil sunflower seeds and usually a 50# bag of wild bird food (I said scratch earlier but I actually rarely add scratch, mostly the wild bird food), millet or milo. The bantam really likes the smaller stuff that's in the bird food and it adds just a little more variety. Overall, I'm mixing #300+ of feed in one go and that lasts me about 6 weeks in the winter and 8 weeks in the summer. The new coop will allow me to keep the feed in the coop and a shelf where I can put the fermentation buckets. I have plans for a sprouting system as well for once the new coop and runs are built.
After thinking about what you all have said yesterday, I think what's happened is this: When the chickens were free-ranging all day every day, things were fine and I was able to go without the grit and oyster shell additions because they were getting it from their environment. They were largely confined during a good portion of the winter due to them laying their eggs everywhere but the coop and predators (otherwise their favorite time to be out is when it's raining). With this confinement, I neglected to supplement their diet with what they were no longer foraging for. To correct this, I will be going to the feed store and grabbing the grit and oyster shells. I also began doing private feedings of Cheep especially but also Blackie and our Bantam. I'm mixing some ground beef with raw eggs, shell included. He ate a large portion and left a little bit for Blackie. They will, of course, also be getting the grit and oyster.
Thank you so much for your help ladies. I did see some improvement in him last night and I'm beginning to think that maybe there's nothing wrong with his keel and it's just more prominent because he's lost weight. I put him onto our lowest perch (about 10 inches high) last night and he hopped onto the top of the nesting boxes himself. I put Blackie next to him and hopefully they stayed there all night. I'll be working with my birds and hopefully helping them improve their condition. Fortunately, most of them seem nice and heavy for their sizes and are active and acting normally. We've got a very mixed flock since I wanted to try out many breeds in order to see which ones we liked best..and so it's easier to tell them apart!
. The sex links have always mostly hung out with each other and I guess now they're starting to bully the boy. Then again, maybe they're getting him more now because he's getting special treatment. Blackie will fight back if anybody tries to move her. Salt is just too small for anybody to notice her...unless she scoots up to the wrong chicken on the roost at night. I usually hold her until everybody else is situated then put her next to one of the nicer ones.
