Michigan Thread - all are welcome!

[RaZ]

Raz-- Can you remember where you saw their views posted,i.e. against small farms? It would be just like them to pass something when there was no one there to stop or protest it. Maybe its time we got a petition going to send to them. It was small farmers getting together that started farm bureau, maybe they have forgotten that.

I read about the Farm Bureau stance here: http://www.mlive.com/business/west-michigan/index.ssf/2013/12/farm_bureau_delegates_will_dis.html
Plus there have been a couple of FB people at the Ag Com meetings who have voiced opposition regarding backyard farming.

An excerpt from an e-mail from a friend after a conference call between a senator, MDARD and the chicken keeper said, "MDARD states that RTF does not apply..." Now consider that the MDARD Director was a speaker on policy at the Farm Bureau annual meeting last week. There are several people working behind the scenes at MDARD to take away RTFA from small operations.

On a happier note, at a township meeting tonight, Shelby Township recognized that state law supersedes their local ordinance, so chickens can be kept. (see the Michigan Right to Farm Thread (https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/...farm-law-what-does-it-mean/1440#post_12479252)

 

[fuzzybutt love]

I am at work but just got in a new children's picture book I had to share. It is a Jan Brett book called "Cinders: A Chicken Cinderella". It has wonderful illustrations and you can pick out all the breeds. My favorite is the Silkie fairy god mother and the prince appears to be a Phoenix.

I LOVE this! I want one now!


Molting chickens.... I have one now, and one that is a month old too in my coop. This part of MI is staying with lows so far at 12 degrees, so not quite as cold. But my advise is still to stay away from electric heat. Cruel, i know but with all the storms the liklihood of losing electric is still there.

My advise is to make sure you have a DEEP bed of straw, straw specifically. Hay can cause pneumonia, leaves are meh unless you have 2 feet of them; wood chips are useless. Straw. I have tried all kinds of tricks and for some reason this alone seems to make a huge difference in the wind chill in there. Also, make up some saddles. I have seen some rigged ones out of fleece, that require no sewing. The only trick is sliding the fabric against the grain of the feather. Makes it itchy for them when molting, but despite what i was told when i did it the hens did NOT have issues flipping the things up and grooming under there! They felt safe and relaxed much too.

I got scorned for my chicken coats, but they did love them that year! My old flock. I miss them. I nearly dropped out of chickens for losing the two on the left, still think about it. It is for the memory of them that i continue, so their legacy lives on. They followed me everywhere and were every much to me as a dog to others.

 

[fuzzybutt love]

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/730663/dog-attack/10#post_10109648

scroll down to penicillin G, on the right of the chart there is a link that will tell you exactly step by step how to give shots.
https://sites.google.com/a/poultrypedia.com/poultrypedia/medicine-chart

Keep lots of triple antibiotic ointment on it all at the least, and make sure nothing you use ends in "caine". Just plain ointment, the numbing ones with the "caine" are poison to them.

Keep us posted, or pm me if you feel uncomfortable.

 

[preciouskitty]

Well it is downright balmy out this morning! 22!! After -1 yesterday....BUT, I just looked at the weather forecast & it is showing 5-11" of snow over the next 36 hours or so. Can't believe the news down here isn't forecasting "Snowmageddon" yet. Plus: if it is gonna be cold, it might as well be white & pretty (I will admit to liking snow for XMAS, AND since it's the weekend, that means I don't have to drive anywhere in it which makes it even prettier )

Ooh...winter weather advisory just hit while I was typing this..3-5" by tomorrow night....

 

[Peep-Chicken]

Darn, I think my rooster has frostbite.

I had my flash light and was letting them out, I noticed his comb had hard white tips. I put Vaseline to prevent further frostbite, I didn't have much time this morning.

 

[Opa]

For those of you for whom the day of the week still matters, your favorite day of the week has arrived. With the temperatures abating somewhat being outdoors isn't quite the trevail it has been. While I don't have the same affection for winter I once held, I don't mind days like today is supposed to be.

Hope had headed to her son's house to take care of the twins, Granny was still sleeping, so I figured that it would be an ideal time to grocery shop. With the forecasted snow fall I would image that the grocery stores will soon start to get hectic. I was in and out of there in less than 15 minutes.

Frostbite can be a real problem and the best preventive measure your can take is to insure that your coop has adequate ventilation. With the falling temperatures many people get overly concern about keeping their coops warm. They will close them up to tightly thinking that the trapped warm will be beneficial to their birds. Far to often they are also trapping the moisture as well. Just through exhalation birds will create an incredible amount of moisture that needs to escape. In addition to the roof and gable vents my coop has, I also keep the windows open. They are located above the birds roosts so drafts aren't an issue.

Keeping a birds combs and wattles dry aids in frostbite prevention. Many waterers are designed so that the birds can only get their beaks into the water. With bowls it becomes much more likely for them to get their wattles wet which is why I would advice not using them.

 

[HollyDuckFarmer]

@ladyrsanti

For my ducks, I sometimes supplement with a few pieces of cat kibble to speed along the molt. It works wonders here. Can you do this with chickens too?

 

[Opa]

Any high protein food will be beneficial during molt

 

[lbrykowski2011]

I did put udder cream on mine last night. I think anytime it gets below 0 I will, my roosters, delaware and RIR's all have very large combs. So i had an egg yesterday with bright red smeared blood all over it and i freaked

, told DH i was done w/chickens it's just to hard, I'll stick to ducks. After reading some stuff on here, I'm thinking it will be ok. It was a light green egg, so I know it was from the EE that just started laying and it was large compared to her other ones. Her vent looked great and no blood around it or on her anywhere, just the egg. Whew, I was scared.

So I put the bully hen back in last night and 1st thing this morning when i let them out, she went right after lil ruby again. Need some advice on what else i can do. It's just the 1 hen chasin and pickin on the other, but pretty bad. Ruby is starting to molt also, so she really don't need this and my garage isn't heated, so i'm afraid if i keep 1 seperated in there to long with no other body heat, just straw, it will be to hard on them.

Have to go to Frankenmuth for a wrestlin tournament tomorrow. I get scared driving in the snow, but it looks like were getting less up here, for a change. Love watchin my son wrestle, do not like all the driving in the winter every Saturday. Maybe i can sneek in some shopping.

 

[RaZ]

With the Holidays upon us, I would like to share a personal experience with my friends about drinking and driving.

As you may know, some of us have been known to have brushes with the authorities from time to time on the way home after a “social session” out with friends. Well, two days ago, I was out for an evening with friends and had several cocktails followed by some rather nice red wine. Feeling jolly, I still had some sense to know that I might have been slightly over the limit.

That’s when I did something that I’d never done before … I took a cab home.

Sure enough, on the way home there was a police road block. But, since it was a cab, they waved it past. I arrived safely without incident.

This was a real surprise as I had never driven a cab before and I don’t know where I got it … and now that it’s in my garage, I don’t know what to do with it.