Michigan

[1muttsfan]

Good morning everybody. I have been following the Michigan thread for nearly two months and have finally decided to introduce myself. I am new to country living and chickening, and am just about to place my first chick order. Still trying to decide if I want to hand pick one of this and one of that, or just get a "hatchery choice" in a lot of 25. I don't really want 25 chicks, but have some friends who may take 10 or so off my hands. I had hoped to get the chicks in late March or April, but if I hand pick the breeds, the earliest I can get them is May...just starting the process of converting a little playhouse shed into the coop and run. I hope to post some pics of the construction at some point in the near future. If anybody lives in the Milan area, and would like to show off their coops (and chickens), I'd be happy to come by for a visit to peck your brain (I mean pick). I am pretty clueless about lots of things chicken, so any advice you fellow Michiganders can pass on, will be much appreciated.

Hi B7, and welcome to BYC and the Michigan thread

If you can hold off just a little longer than May, there will be many nice chicks and birds available at Chickenstock. You will probably find them to be a little (or a lot) better in quality than from a hatchery.

 

[RaZ]

Opa, when you're trimming your apple trees, which branches do you choose to cut off? I need to do a major trim job on my old apple trees, I'd like to resurrect them! They still puts out lots of good Jonamac apples, but they're small and buggy.

You want to keep the interior of the tree as open as you can for good air circulation. Prune off any severely damaged branches and "water sprouts". Water sprouts are the branches that grow straight up from the top of another branch. Also cut off the suckers at the root flare. Both of those sap too much energy from the tree.

Fruit trees require too much maintenance for my taste so I cut my down a couple of years ago. One apple tree has re-sprouted from the root stock and is now about 4 feet tall.

 

[Farmerboy16]

Quote: I just read that article and now I have something else to research (instead of working on my mid-term).

There were some good points made but colour me skeptical on a few of the finer points.
1) How similar or different are respiratory tracts of rats vs. chickens.
2) Same as to liver enzymes.
3) Most of the works cited were very old. Not one of my biology professors would allow a study that was published over 10 years ago; they wanted 5 years or less but would allow for 1 or 2 citations up to 10 years. Science has changed rapidly in the past few years and quite a few reports have been shown to be erroneous. Better research methods, tools and experimental designs are now available that have discredited some of the older studies.

I'm not saying that "Rat Report" is wrong; I'm just a little leery about basing my flock health on old data for a different species.

I really hope your flock test negative for MG and good luck with your chicks.

Thanks RaZ, please let me know how your research went and what you did find out about it.

 

[fuzzybutt love]

SillyChicken I have seen "hand painted wallpaper" designs in magazines, but i really like yours the best so far! I like the muted colors also.

Olive Hill Good to hear about the weather! I am sooo ready to get the bedding out of my coop, and start working on a run.

b737drvr Some kinds of chickens do better in confinement than others, and some kinds are kinda wimpy against other kinds... My easter eggers get picked on pretty bad by the red hen we have. She don't like being confined at all either. I love my Easter eggers! one gives me a pink egg, one a pale blue. Shy, but love to be held.I highly recommend a book called "The chicken health handbook" by gail damerow. It talks about space/bird, how much water you need in the winter, what kinds of food for what... and breaks down the things that can go wrong, plus how to treat it when you figure it out. Also, if you see a heated dog dish or pail on sale, snap it up! Soooo much easier to empty out than the standard chicken water container. Nice deep bowls work better for food too, because short sided feed dishes/water dishes get dirt kicked in and pooped in really quickly. I like those heavy duty rubber dishes sold next to the goat supplies, personally.

Farmerboy16 I had read that before for cedar chips, but didn't know about the pine :/
I worked for a short time in a place that used cedar to make stuff, and a lot of the people there did have respritory issues... And hard wood can contain fungal spores, so sand really is the way to go!

 

[Chicken Rustler]

ChickenRustler, snow here too. I was not happy to wake up and see even more fell during the night.

Hot toddy is nearly ready...lemon juice, lots of honey, lots of Jack, a little water and a cinnamon stick.

But isn't snow rather normal there in the winter?? Not here we are the swamp of the west.

 

[fuzzybutt love]

Does anyone have any lavender chicks for sale, that i could get somehow outside of chickenstock? I would love to go, but i have no way.

 

[Opa]

Once the apple blossoms start to fall I start spraying with Ortho Orchard Spray. The reason for waiting until the blossoms fall is to keep from wetting the pollen on the stamens and you wouldn't want to contaminate the pollen the bees are gathering nor possible injure the bees.

Ortho Orchard Spray is a multi-purpose spray to control many fruit diseases such as bitter rot, black rot, brown rot and scab. It controls many insects such as aphids, apple maggots, canker worms, codling moths, curculios, Japanese beetles and spider mites. It contains: 15% Captan and related derivatives, 7.5% Malathion and 15% Methoxychlor

 

[BobBry]

Does anyone have any lavender chicks for sale, that i could get somehow outside of chickenstock? I would love to go, but i have no way.

Fuzzy,
I have planned to go to CS for awhile. I will drive there on 96 past Coopersville. Send me a PM if you want me to pick you up.

 

[1muttsfan]

Opa, is it Volk oil spray that you use in the late winter?

Last year I lost all my apples to parasites - a flock of crows cleaned out every apple orchard in the neighborhood over the course of about 3 weeks. Bird net wrapping for me this year.

 

[Farmerboy16]

Does anyone have any lavender chicks for sale, that i could get somehow outside of chickenstock? I would love to go, but i have no way.

Since you are not too far from me, I can pick you up or you come to my place, and we can go to chickenstock together.