Maine

[yankeehill]

Does anyone see an issue with mixing geese, ducks, and chickens for the winter? Right now, the chickens roost in the coop, but the ducks and sometimes the geese go in to grab a bite of food, and the ducks are starting to lay, so they are laying in the coop. I am debating building a small out shelter for the geese and ducks to use come winter. I am also debating not having water in the coop at all. We have a heated waterer, and were going to enclose it on all but one side to help reduce the water spillage by the fowl, but now I am thinking of having it outside the coop, close to the entrance. As long as we keep a path shoveled, the chickens will come outside, except on the fiercest of days.

 

[Widget]

Does anyone see an issue with mixing geese, ducks, and chickens for the winter? Right now, the chickens roost in the coop, but the ducks and sometimes the geese go in to grab a bite of food, and the ducks are starting to lay, so they are laying in the coop. I am debating building a small out shelter for the geese and ducks to use come winter. I am also debating not having water in the coop at all. We have a heated waterer, and were going to enclose it on all but one side to help reduce the water spillage by the fowl, but now I am thinking of having it outside the coop, close to the entrance. As long as we keep a path shoveled, the chickens will come outside, except on the fiercest of days.

Since mine are together year round I see no issues. The ducks are messier but other than that there has never been an issue. I only offer drinking water in the winter and not bathing water so that does help keep down on the mess.

 

[buckabucka]

Mustard tiger, you were not dumb to not worm the chickens while they were molting. Worming can be hard on them (as is molting), and some of the worming chemicals make their new feathers grow in all messed up (there's probably a better technical term for this ). Mine are molting still, and I am waiting a while before I worm them.

I'm hoping we get our hoop coop moved this afternoon. We worked much of the morning on freeing the hardware cloth from the ground. Last year it was easy. This year it got swallowed up and became one with the earth. We had to use a weed whacker, scissors, and steak knives to chop the sod off of there. Next year, there will be black plastic under the hardware cloth. Lesson learned. Some of the deer fence has been swallowed up by the earth as well.

 

[superchemicalgirl]

You only have to worry about the water mess the waterfowl make - mine make a giant mess (I give a large bucket and they cram their big bodies into it and splash) and thus forming a lot of ice. I don't think it would be healthy for the dryfowl - unless you can find a way to reduce the mess and maybe get a waterer for the chickens that the ducks cant dig in (nipple?).

I mentioned earlier in the week that turkens don't have a lot of feathers. I tried not to get a graphic photo from today's processing, but here's one of my turkens. The feathers shrink in the water, but you can see the bald patches on this guy really well:



He was out in the coop until this morning. Hopefully that will make you feel better about your molting chickens.

 

[thatsjustducky]

Does anyone see an issue with mixing geese, ducks, and chickens for the winter? Right now, the chickens roost in the coop, but the ducks and sometimes the geese go in to grab a bite of food, and the ducks are starting to lay, so they are laying in the coop. I am debating building a small out shelter for the geese and ducks to use come winter. I am also debating not having water in the coop at all. We have a heated waterer, and were going to enclose it on all but one side to help reduce the water spillage by the fowl, but now I am thinking of having it outside the coop, close to the entrance. As long as we keep a path shoveled, the chickens will come outside, except on the fiercest of days.

We also keep our ducks and geese in with our chickens at night during the summer. They have a seperate yard fenced in for them with a pool. Winter time we keep them all together all the time. Don't put any special water out for the waterfowl to have, just a large 5 gallon waterer for everyone on a heated base.

 

[anyasmifya]

I had great success with chicken manure in the garden. Last spring a laid down a light layer of it and had monster tomatoes! The stuff I laid down was super stinky and almost fermented, water got mixed in with it almost like a compost tea. Flies were having a field day but I just tilled it in a little and a month or so later planted the tomatoes. I also used properly composted chicken manure in another area and my plants did pretty well there too except for an aphid infestation, those were cucumbers and pumpkins and squashes. I store the poop in rubber made containers mixed with some hay from the nest boxes and sometimes add a bit of water.

 

[IZZYBELLA]

Being my 1st winter trying the deep litter method. Hope to be able to utilize for the garden next spring. Holding steady for eggs still. Someone was in the nesting box moving the hay and wooden egg around. Fingers crossed!!!

Sounds like you are close! Crossing my fingers for you.

 

[MEMama3]

My new girl! My son named her Kyleigh Angel.

 

[lazy gardener]

Pretty girl MEMama3. I'm really looking forward to seeing what the girls do for my next garden season. For now, they provide an infinite amount of entertainment as they putter around the yard with me. Started some BOSS sprouts today. Hoping that will help them to get quickly through their molt and back to laying. They are down to 50%. Scoping out the yard to see what I can easily set aside for the girls winter munching pleasure. In addition to potting up a mess of dandelion roots, I have an abundant supply of thick violet rhizomes that might provide some tender greens in the dead of winter.

Thanks Anya. I'm loving to hear how you are all managing your chicken manure, and the results it is providing to your gardens.

 

[buckabucka]

My chickens love to eat white pine branches in the winter. The needles, actually.

The hoop coop is finally in it's winter location. DH put the bucket of the tractor through the hardware cloth on the end, so I was out there "sewing" on a patch as it started to get dark. I still need to run an extension cord out there for the water dish, put up fences for the run, and set up the interior better, but at least it is in place now. I'm exhausted!