Michigan Thread - all are welcome!

[BackyardFarmMom]

Mmmmm... pecans!!!

 

[ladyrsanti]

I only turned to collecting the poo and building the poop board because of my serious moisture issue. I didn't realize I had the moisture issue so bad until my rooster's waddles got frostbitten when it wasn't even that cold. Otherwise I wouldn't because, like you guys said, the poo needs to be in the mix to make it work properly and while it was warmer and drier outside, the whole system was working fine. I'm hoping that with the new coop, this problem will be solved... along with all the other issues. Live and learn!

Raz, you sound like my mother (who is a science teacher at a last chance school) and I mean that in the best possible way.

But yeah, those are the compost rules we've always followed. I compost everything. I have three huge piles out back, between the sheep poo and hay, chicken poo and shavings and the yard waste, PLUS a compost tumbler and a worm bin that get kitchen scraps. I've been considering that article that was posted on BYC a while ago about composting with chickens. It just takes it that one step further and I'd love to try it in earnest sometime.

So yeah, build up the dirt to discourage muddy issues. Got it.

You guys are great.

 

[1muttsfan]

[COLOR=800080]Good afternoon. Hope everyone is well. Had quite a few posts to catch up on as I've been gone for weeks and I'm afraid I didn't really read them all, so, does that thread still exist with the weekly highlights? [/COLOR]

Hi and welcome back!

 

[fuzzybutt love]

OK, you hit the nail on the head! Thanks. So maybe if i tried it again with smaller pieces, then. We still have a couple months of winter yet!

As far as ease i liked sand. My starter coop was just a little converted rabbit hutch, and the only part i had to clean every day was the nesting area, (I too had some stubborn ones who went in there and pooped) i had put siding up on the top 3/4 of it and poultry wire on the bottom 2 feet (before i knew better about poultry wire).
It then had a perch over the sandy part to sleep on. During the winter i put plexi/ old windows around the bottom, so all year round they had a scratching and bathing place out of the wind, and during the summer they had plenty of ventilation! Covering down to the last 2 feet provided more shade in the summer, and having the siding where the roost was made for a cozy safe dark spot for the birds. (3) During the day i let them out to range. When i had to clean it was just with a rake and sometimes a hose to rinse the sand. (but i've heard of rigging a kitty scoop to a handle, sounds nice to me!)
My next coop will somehow incorporate that design, but on a much bigger scale. I like having the windows on the bottom much better, and the sand was much easier to keep dry.

 

[NovaAman]

Good afternoon. Hope everyone is well. Had quite a few posts to catch up on as I've been gone for weeks and I'm afraid I didn't really read them all, so, does that thread still exist with the weekly highlights?

No... It was felt by the powers that be, that it was just a duplicate thread so they locked it. Sorry.

RIRJen, another BYCer PM'd me about my boy Roger... Anyway, I sent her a PM with your name about the silkies. She's here in MI. soulcircusinc is her sobrique here.

 

[fuzzybutt love]

OK, this is very ugly and don't show the insides,

it was a 4x8 make-do that we slapped together the first summer we got chicks; learned a lot since then but i still like the premise of the design! There are windows all the way around, (the plexi got removed during the warm months) and if you look to the top left you can see that i've left an inch open on the side of the nesting area, this was to make them able to "peek" so they didn't feel trapped, and provided top ventilation. I did run wire over it too, to keep it safe. The human door gives me access to both the nest box, and to the bottom, and the hen door on the bottom could be left open to let the birds wander. I also buried chicken wire in a trench around it so digging predators couldn't get in (again, didn't know back then about chicken wire)

 

[fuzzybutt love]

Just so you guys don't feel like i'm debating, i am stewing over what to do myself and was poking at the methods to try to understand them better, to see where i went wrong with that method.

Hopefully this spring i will be building a new coop too, so i am looking at this with interest as well. Probably do sand, but at least for this winter i need a way to keep the d'uccles from tracking poop all over! And they like being held, so nothing like a flock of poopy feet trying to hop aboard

I often pull out a chair and sit in the camper coop with them, so smell is huge to me.

 

[Wrightsx4]

Great book- just finishing it myself! I had read articles of Harvey Ussery's in magazines and was so happy to get his book finally for Christmas. I use deep litter on concrete (pine shavings) - seems to be breaking down well considering I just started in June. I did have to "undo" something though. I had thrown my used hay from the nesting boxes into a pile under the roost. Over time the hay got really damp and nasty and I couldn't fight the odor so I tossed it on top of the snow in the run. I have high ceilings plus huge wide open vents so ventilation wasn't the culprit - no problems since I removed hay from the floor. I had a chicken that wanted to sleep in the nest because the highest roost was too crowded and the nests were higher than the next roost bar so I had to move it higher and she quit trying to sleep in the boxes.

 

[RIRJen]

Maybe try a thicker roost for them or putting milk crates on the floor for those stinkers.

Well I made the roost bars 3-4" wide so that should be enough for big feet lol. There's no real way of closing them at night, it's just an open frame with bedding in it and they perk themselves along the edges. I went out there tonight and there was one roost full of birds and one roost with one bird on it and the others were piled on the nest boxes! ARGH! I threw them off and made them go to the roosts.

I had a chicken that wanted to sleep in the nest because the highest roost was too crowded and the nests were higher than the next roost bar so I had to move it higher and she quit trying to sleep in the boxes.

That's an idea...I thought about adding another roost so maybe I'll do that. The nestboxes aren't the highest roost but maybe they want more then one high one.

 

[swampducks]

I've got a problem totally non-chicken related and I am asking if any of you have any ideas to help me? I'm beginning to think this is hopeless. I'm probably providing way more info than needed but I just don't know what might be relevant.

My neighbor has 2 dogs, a border collie and what he says is a malamute/german shepherd dog mix. They really barely tolerate each other and it's been this way for years. They're both about 6 years old. They are essentially untrained. He would go to work (truck driver) and let them run loose all day till this summer when "things that happened in town" forced him to put up a fence and a doggie door.

The shepherd mix has perpetual ear infections and doesn't like them to be touched so they never get fixed without getting knocked out first. Both dogs want to be alpha. According to my neighbor the bigger shepherd mix has attacked the smaller BC dog a couple times, (no real damage, as far as I know). He claims the attacks were unprovoked. I have never seen those attacks. I have seen other interaction between both dogs and there is a lot of growling and very often the smaller dog growls first.

My neighbor called me Thursday to tell me Big dog viciously attacked smaller dog on New Years day. He put a good sized hole in smaller dog's right shoulder and a smaller one on the left. My neighbor claims he loves both dogs, he hates the idea but he feels he has to put down Big dog though he claims he doesn't want to, yet will do NOTHING to try to fix things. I got him to talk to the head vet (after I talked to her while taking his smaller dog in for treatment, don't ask why I was doing that), she recommended a dog behaviorist to him. So believe it or not he's going on Saturday morning. (I had to tell him he should be taking Big dog with him

).

However, he says he knows what the behaviorist will say, because she already told him over the phone that Big dog ought to be put down. I know he told the behaviorist every negative thing about the dog without all his "other" reasons for putting him down, crap like he "doesn't have the time to train him", he has "to do this, do that, etc", he can't "deal with it any more". He has an excuse for everything.

In the meantime over these same days I have been walking this dog with my 2 dogs, making sure I keep his dogs separate to avoid conflict. Today on this walk Big dog rolls in the snow rubbing his ears because they always itch, he leaves behind blood. I check his left ear carefully and discovered re-opened bite marks, obviously from the border collie, one a through and through puncture the other ripped right out the bottom edge. It bled like crazy for a good 10-15 minutes. I'd say that might have caused the escalation of the original fight which my neighbor DID NOT SEE till the very end when he beat the bigger dog of with a stick.

I am not an animal behaviorist, nor a person with any experience other than having my own very well trained, happy dogs these past 16 years. When I pointed out these injuries to my neighbor he argued with me that he KNOWS big dog attacked first. Didn't see it, just KNOWS. But now has said if I can find a home for this dog before the weekend is over, he won't put him down after all.

I would say this dog would need a strong owner, no other pets in the house and probably no small children to be safe. He's a pretty nice dog, my little Ziggy adores him and is always throwing himself at him and getting him to play.

Now full disclosure, one time Big dog did suddenly grab my Luna by the head and puncture the skin. I saw the whole thing. They were both standing in front of me, AT Big dog's door into his house. I think it was a territory issue. Nothing bad has happened since. (I'm not even sure if it was last year or the year before this has happened.)

Neighbor offered me his dog but I have 2 I can't afford a third and my husband said he'd move out to his deer camp because 2 dogs are ENOUGH. (Interestingly enough, DH does not like the border collie and likes Big dog.)

So do you think this dog can/should be saved? I figure I am too close to this to make a good decision. The local humane society won't take him because they were told it was a "vicious unprovoked attack".

I thank any of you who have bothered to read this whole thing.

Bec