My flock is growing up.

[Some Old Guy]

Oh-kay. I have an oddity happening before my eyes.

I've settled into a routine where I give the poultry about 8 pounds of feed each day. 3/4 to 1 pound in the morning, spread across the yard for them to scratch at. Actually, I lead them from one section of the yard to another, so they scratch up a different section each day.

In the late afternoon or early evening, I feed about 3/4 pound to the ducks, and six to seven pounds to the chickens and guineas. They've been consuming that feed fairly consistently, leaving only a little bit overnight.

Three days running, they've eaten a little less each day, and I was prepared to cut their ration today to avoid so much leftover feed. It only attracts vermin, after all, when it's left out overnight.

However - all the poultry has returned to the run and the pen repeatedly today, apparently in search of feed. I finally gave the ducks their normal ration of layer pellets, and they gobbled half of it by 2:00. I gave the chickens and guineas 1/2 of their normal ration, and it was nearly gone by 4:00.

All I can figure is, they've cleaned up almost all the readily available forage within their comfortable forage range. No more June bugs, I'm not seeing grasshoppers, and I guess I just don't see a lot of other insects.

I'm kinda wondering how I can lure the birds a little further from the house, where I'm sure they can find improved foraging. I'm wishing that I had mounted that chicken coop on wheels, so that I could just move EVERYONE a couple hundred feet this way, or that way. Not a chicken tractor exactly, just a chicken coop on wheels.

As things stand, they seem to have quite a limited foraging range, and I need to expand that range if possible. I'll be thinking . . .

 

[Some Old Guy]

So, I need to stop showing off, and practice safe chicken handling.

All the birds come back to their coop every night, but always, one, two, or more decide they want to roost on top of the coop. Since I can reach up to them, it's been a simple matter of sweeping an arm against their legs, letting them step on my arm, slowly lower the bird, and wrap the other arm around the chicken. Looks cool, and makes me feel like I've accomplished something. Now and then, a bird will give me a near-puncture wound when it feels off balance. No big deal, up until tonight.

I swept one of the bigger roosters onto my forearm, I stepped back and turned to carry him to the door. A near stumble made him feel insecure, and he raked me pretty good.

I need to hang one of my heavier work shirts beside the back door, and put it on before I go out to round up chickens. At my age, wounds don't heal as quickly as they used to. Gotta use my head, before I manage to get a more serious wound, and an infection! Lord knows I've got plenty of long sleeved work shirts, because I always wore them at work, year round, for burn and flash-burn protection.

Whodathunk that a chicken can be as dangerous as a hot steel injection barrel, or working with metal cutting tools?

 

[sourland]

Love this thread. Keep it happening.

 

[Some Old Guy]

Love this thread. Keep it happening.

Got another little story right now.

Brother and sister in law came for a visit, and stopped at a bakery, buying a couple huge garbage bags of expired bread. They dropped one bag with the other sister in law, and brought the other to me.

So, I had 30 or 35 pounds of bleached white flour products to feed to the poultry. I'm mindful of the fact that there is little nutritional value in bread, aside from carbohydrates. So, I open a loaf of bread, and toss one slice this way, another slice that way, and so on. Here come the chickens, the ducks, the guineas, AND the goats. The poultry has to work at a slice of bread, but the goats just inhale a slice, and move on.

Uhhh, the goats don't need the carbs any more than the poultry does. They already get a handful of sweet feed each, on most days. And, I'm not really sure what bread is going to do to a ruminant's digestive system. It can't be good.

Next day, I moved the bread feeding operation inside the fenced portion of the yard, where goats can't get in. Bread flies this way and that, poultry congregates, and so do my wife's cats. There's a good bit of bullying between the species, and the cats escape the yard with their stolen slices of bread. Again, I'm not sure how much good bread is doing for a cat's digestive system. It's probably alright, but if they all drop dead, I'll be accused of poisoning the cats!

Oh, I can't forget my Speckle dog. She will steal slices of bread if I'm not watching. A slice probably isn't going to hurt her, but she certainly doesn't need 1/2 a loaf of bread!

So, bread feeding has been restricted to inside the chicken house or inside the run.

I have observed that the guineas have mostly lost interest in bread. So, it's a scramble between ducks and chickens, who can gobble the most bread before it disappears.

I still have ten pounds of bread to dispose of. I hope BIL doesn't dump another huge bag of bread on me real soon!

 

[sourland]

Bakery bread might be a bit more nutritious. Here when I toss out leftover carbohydrates, the 'Wonder' bread is last eaten. Critters seem to know better.

 

[Some Old Guy]

Little banty hens have outsmarted me. With a flock of 40 birds, I don't get terribly personal with each and every bird. I know I have so many big black birds, so many little black birds, so many red birds, two white speckled birds. When I put chickens in for the night, I get a feel for who I've seen, and who I haven't.

Well, I was taken completely by surprise today, with the appearance of a couple chicks out by the abandoned old house. Investigation found that the three red hens have a communal nest, and five chicks had hatched! I mean, I've been WONDERING why they aren't laying!

The thing is, each night, I see red hens in the chicken house, but don't always take a careful count. At least one red hen has stayed out each night to keep those eggs warm. I would have noticed the absence of 3 hens pretty quickly. I think I would have noticed the absence of two hens sooner or later. But, if they girls were playing hooky in turn, one after the other?

Rather than fight the hens, and disturb the chicks, I placed water and feed close by, and left the little family alone. When I checked on them again, I found a sixth chick had hatched. Oh, I haven't mentioned one chick that hatched, but didn't survive. I haven't even counted the remaining eggs - probably another 7 or 8 among the already hatched shards.