Naked Neck/Turken Thread

[chickengr]

I'll take predators over mice/rats...I have the very easy cure for predators but the mice and rats still find their way into the barns, once in a while.

I think the cold (extreme cold) kills off lots of 'bugs' that would otherwise affect the birds and people.

Good luck. I'm thinking we should have traveled to Greece this winter. Just might do it next year or the year after.

EDIT: the 'cure' we use for predators is dogs. We rarely have to shoot one. The bear that was taken just a while back was taken legally. My daughter was alone, caring for the farm and our neighbor took the bear LEGALLY, with his Bow.

I prefer april and may in greece. nice weather, still green grass and not too hot.

I don't want dogs near my chickens. a few weeks ago I lost my most beautiful hen due to dog attack. 100% my fault

 

[chickengr]

We don't treat illness in birds...we dispatch them. If a bird has a minor injury, we will spray Blue Cote or other topical ointment but a 'sick bird' will often lead to a sick flock if it's not dealt with NOW.

my (hybrid) chickens often catch viruses due to our climate. that's why I want to hatch chicks with broodies, they are healthier. my broody raised brahma didn't get fowl pox. my avatar roo almost died last spring and has never been sick since. he didn't get fowl pox either. if I treat chickens it is with baytril and 3-5 days only.

 

[chickengr]

Here are some recent photos of my aquaponics setup. Keep in mind, nearly everything has been started from seed, and most of the seedlings were seeded directly into the lava rock. (There is no soil at all). I have 16 Tilapia that I bought last year providing the nutrients for the plants. I feed the fish a few times per day when they indicate they're hungry and let nature do the rest.

Two things I've learned:

1. Peas and beans DO NOT seed well in aquaponics and need to be started in soil. One black bean actually sprouted, but all of the others and the peas simply dissolved into mush.
2. Rosemary, the herb, absolute hates me. It doesn't matter where I plant it, rosemary dies in a matter of weeks. The rosemary in in the top grow bed in the photo...dying a slow, painful death.

The large container on the far left at the top is the fish tank. The grow beds are gravity fed and the sump in the bottom left part of the photo returns the cleaned water back to the fish.

this is great. I wish I had room to do that.

rosemary doesn't like water. plant it outside. even if it starts dying in the summer it will recover in september. my rosemary looks dead at summer, I rarely water it (keep forgeting). and I have a nice flowering bush at the moment.

 

[chickengr]

Grass is here all year round. It never goes away, but it stops to grow somewhere in October so we don't have to cut it.

Chickens love it, and actually go to our neighbours lots, and the neighbours don't mind, so they have more then enough space.

I don't know what am I going to do when we start a garden. It wasn't problem until this year, sinve we had just a few chickens and they could be closed in run the whole time. Actually, the run was covered in grass just like
part of the yard you can see in a photo. Now, it's just mud. We tried to keep them in last week for a few hours when we were busy in the morning. Can you guess what they did? Jumped out. Of course.

you can buy some plastic net that protects fruit trees. put some wood sticks (1,5 m height) and the net (it is usually orange or green). make sure chickens don't scratch tunnels, lol.

 

[Kev]

What would I do for place where winter doesn't exist. There is nothing like summer and heat, I don't like snow and rain one tiny bit.

Me too.. lived up in the mountains for 2 years, the snow piled up to 4 feet.. never ever again.... the summers were awesome but I was so miserable for half of the yea up there.

you need to experience the summer time desert heat. It's very intense.

 

[Kev]

my (hybrid) chickens often catch viruses due to our climate. that's why I want to hatch chicks with broodies, they are healthier. my broody raised brahma didn't get fowl pox. my avatar roo almost died last spring and has never been sick since. he didn't get fowl pox either. if I treat chickens it is with baytril and 3-5 days only.

A while back then, people tried to improve conditions for "poor people" in third world countries by introducing RIR, leghorns thinking those poor people would become awash in eggs and meat chickens. Oh so much better than their lousy "village chickens".

Most of them did very poorly... either killed off by the local diseases or did not produce very well.. ended up they went extinct or got crossed into the village chickens a little bit.

They learned the hard way that the local chickens had value, they were resistant to the local diseases, were able to survive on the kind of care they were given and so on.

There are small localized movements to improve on the local chickens- better care, selection etc.

I'm hoping you see better resistance and healthier chickens after a few generations.

 

[chickengr]

which one is broody, lol.

jumbo is in the middle, emily is just a bit smaller. they were exactly 2 months old on 14th feb.

 

[Kev]

which one is broody, lol.

jumbo is in the middle, emily is just a bit smaller. they were exactly 2 months old on 14th feb.

Looks like some cornish type broiler blood present with the long and wide bodies. Nice.

 

[DesertChic]

What would I do for place where winter doesn't exist. There is nothing like summer and heat, I don't like snow and rain one tiny bit.

Then you definitely need to visit this little corner of the world. We've been enjoying record high temperatures this week and last week. It's supposed to hit 90ºF today with very low humidity. We've all been wearing T-shirts, shorts and flip flops.

 

[chickengr]

Looks like some cornish type broiler blood present with the long and wide bodies. Nice.

possible. they come from a farm where they produce chicken both for meat and eggs. all of them are minimum 3 kg and good layers. all colours as well. although I have been told that they lay well for a year or two only. another problem is that they don't cope well with heat. I did loose my only big girl last summer due to heat. she was my best layer and I do miss her eggs. I am more prepared for this summer. I built a big porch in front of the coop and I have just made new nesting boxes. there is plenty of ventilation there.