NY chicken lover!!!!

[stonykill]

Earthworms can give chickens "gape worms". They can cause a chicken to suffocate due to the worms that block their airways. Just a warning.

and walking outside can cause me to get crushed by a tree

my thoughts are this. Chickens naturally eat earthworms, frogs, snakes, grubs, bugs, larvae etc. They don't naturally eat bagged processed food. My chickens eat everything I listed and more on a daily basis and I've never had to worm chickens.

just my .02. Well .005 in this economy

 

[Tab's chicken obsession]

cotton.....

mouth

 

[armorfirelady]

Earthworms can give chickens "gape worms". They can cause a chicken to suffocate due to the worms that block their airways. Just a warning.

and walking outside can cause me to get crushed by a tree

my thoughts are this. Chickens naturally eat earthworms, frogs, snakes, grubs, bugs, larvae etc. They don't naturally eat bagged processed food. My chickens eat everything I listed and more on a daily basis and I've never had to worm chickens. just my .02. Well .005 in this economy

I let my girls eat what they find to. They seem to not eat what they don't like ........earthworms they like so they proved as I was digging in the gardens lol I have to believe that before processed food old time chickens ate whatever they could find & survived just fine. But that's just my thoughts & opinion

 

[marquisella]

Quote: Yeah...I've had chickens with gape worms, its not funny, so for me I don't intentionally feed them something that could possibly harm them. If they eat it themselves, that's another story.

 

[mderby48]

I have never heard of gape worms. I'm with Stony, my chickens have always free ranged and I've never wormed them and never have had any problems. I think it's the over medicating people do that make their chickens susceptible to all these diseases honestly. The only thing I feel the need to protect my chickens from is predators. Just my opinion..

 

[Cass]

cotton.....

mouth

No one's said "candy" yet...how could y'all miss CANDY?

 

[stonykill]

I let my girls eat what they find to. They seem to not eat what they don't like ........earthworms they like so they proved as I was digging in the gardens lol

I have to believe that before processed food old time chickens ate whatever they could find & survived just fine.

But that's just my thoughts & opinion

I have never heard of gape worms. I'm with Stony, my chickens have always free ranged and I've never wormed them and never have had any problems. I think it's the over medicating people do that make their chickens susceptible to all these diseases honestly. The only thing I feel the need to protect my chickens from is predators. Just my opinion..

if I were a religious man an Amen would be in order

. My firm belief is just like in people over medicating is a large part of the problem. We honestly have no idea what processed chicken food does to a chicken. I will say I have seen pics of a few chicken autopsies and tumor pic in a dead chicken. Processed food causes cancer in people so there is no reason not to believe it does the same to chickens.
I have cut back on my feeding. The girls and boys are out foraging all day long. And 2 days in a row a Sumatra had a young frog to eat. I cut back on feed about a week ago and still got over 3 dozen eggs today. That I found

. I prefer nature over meds and stuff the internet says. Works for me for 9 years now. Your results may vary

 

[Tough Old Bird]

The first pictures are of marans and marans crosses from our own chickens. My rooster is a double barred golden cuckoo marans and my daughter has a regular golden marans rooster. The eggs were from cuckoo marans, golden cuckoo, blue marans, white easter egger, olive egger, buff orp, white rock, and black australorp. All the babies have fuzzy legs. Got 22 out of 26 first try and all were fertile.

This is my rooster and a couple of his hens:



The second batch was mixed mutt from a flock of 100 mixed with everything that I got as part of the deal in a duck trade. I offered 5 muscovies for a trio of pekins. We set 55 and got about 15. Still not sure if the late ones will survive. Poor chickens were living on scratch feed, so most quit after the second week or needed help.

That is one gorgeous bird -- very striking!

TOB

 

[Tough Old Bird]

RANCHER ....


Congratulations on the new job!!

I hope you are happy there, are surrounded by kind folks and that the transition goes well.


TOB

 

[blzzrdqueen]

Congrats on the new job Rancher! Great feeling to start something new! Good luck on the new endeavor!


2 questions...when can I give my chicks my fat meal worms and is there a way to stop chicks from bullying each other without separating them? I only have one brooder...I could do another one but don't have room for another, nor another heat lamp...