NY chicken lover!!!!

[stonykill]

For some reason I haven't been getting the NY thread. I also tried fermented feeds. I used whole oats instead of mash or pellets. Yes, It was less expensive, but in the winter, unless you have a heated place to keep it, it will freeze. I didn't like using pellets or mash as it was a huge mess. My birds had wet heads, maybe it was just them, but it was ugly....LOL I appreciate doing fermented feeds, but it proved to be too much work for me and time consuming. I have 13 coops. Just more time than I wanted to spend.

I didn't bother ever trying for the reasons you gave. I have 100 or more birds at any given time. I can't even imagine all of the extra time it would take me each day to keep multiple buckets going, in the house all winter long. Like you, more time than I am willing to spend.

 

[County Boy]

13 coops seems like you need to trade eggs for a pole barn also.lol

I can't imagine 13 coops. I agree, Jlaw, you need a BIG pole barn.

I have 5 barns/ sheds/ coops and each one has a different number of birds depending on how I have it set up inside.

 

[armorfirelady]

Making fermented feed adds less than 5 min a day for me.  My chickens love it and the food bill is waaaay down.

A Hawk question.  All spring and summer I had 7 crows hanging out.  No hawks at all.  The crows have moved several houses down and now I see the hawks.  Did I read thousands of posts ago that crows help deter hawks?

Posted to get rid of my BCM roosters a few hours ago and I've gotten rid of 2.  Turns out that out of 11 chickens hatched 9 turned out to be roo's. 

Hmmmm maybe try more ACV in their water. I remember someone saying that made more girls? Lol
I'd love to see a pic of a yard full of George's. I miss George still :/

 
Making fermented feed adds less than 5 min a day for me.  My chickens love it and the food bill is waaaay down.

A Hawk question.  All spring and summer I had 7 crows hanging out.  No hawks at all.  The crows have moved several houses down and now I see the hawks.  Did I read thousands of posts ago that crows help deter hawks?

Posted to get rid of my BCM roosters a few hours ago and I've gotten rid of 2.  Turns out that out of 11 chickens hatched 9 turned out to be roo's. 

in the spring when the crows and ravens are breeding they will attack hawks. Not so much this time of year

Yesterday after the hawk landed in the neighbors trees the crows found him and escorted him out of the area. The crows live in the neighbors pine trees. I hear them all year in them. They are welcome to move into my pine trees if they will keep the hawks away pernamently

 

[Tab's chicken obsession]

It took me all afternoon to catch up but I did it with a lot of skimming. Everyday has had something going on and I haven't been able to get online much.

I believe we'll be going to the show on Sunday. We usually go to support the feather club.

 

[Gramma Chick]

Quote: I used to use a plastic strainer ...Now I dont strain it ..
.If you vary the consistency ...you dont need to strain it ...add little more feed to the mix till you get it to
do a thicker layer on top ...it should have a more fluid layer on the bottom ...
Did you add too much feed ? and theres no fluid layer in the bottom ?
Dont worry ...scoop out what you need for this feeding ...then add more water to what is left ..it will still continue fermenting .
Add your feed again to the pail & mix ...
If you find it is too liquid when you scoop it out ..you can also add some of the dry & mix it in ..let it set a little bit ...it will absorb the extra liquid in your feed pail .
I use those 2 gallon ? ice cream buckets for a feed pail to transfer the food to their dishes .
You can play with the mix as you want ...too thick add more water ...too thin add more feed .
Understand ? Any more questions ?
If you want to talk PM me & I will give you my phone # ..I am usually up till 1;00 am +

 

[Gramma Chick]

Another question on the fermented feed, if this is done to also save the amounted of wasted feed, once it's fermented how much do you measure out for each bird you have each day? Right now I just a fill a bowl for them, I'm not even sure exactly on the amount that's given. If I do this I want to start out giving it to my larger 4 chickens that free range during the day in the chicken yard.

Quote:
if you gave a bowl a day give them the same amount of fermented feed .
You can ferment any kind of feed - pellets , grains , mash , etc ..you dont have to add anything extra to the feed if you dont want to .
Sometimes I add scratch to the feed , right now I am mixing in sunflower seeds , just for variety .

 

[Sally8]

Freezing was a big problem when I first started out. After reducing the amount I put out until I found what could be consumed before they lost interest. I still had dry but some days it was never touched. In the winter months I have a few more bowls out so they all had the same opportunity to eat. The dry is a home made feeder from an old plastic gutter I found. DH put ends on and I screwed it to a covered area outside the coop. (I have been known to slap some ff on the ground for them to scratch at when all is frozen. My ff is not always truly fermented but soaks in ACV and water over night until it is an oatmeal consistency. (next to the wood stove). Like I said, takes less than 5 min. I can't afford not to. I also add some grains to it and soak BOSS for sprouts a couple days a week. It has to be quick, I'm not a morning person.

 

[houseofknauss]

Saw a great TED talk on why bees are dying. It was very powerful, pesticides, monocultures, flowerless landscapes...organic mixed vegetation lots of flowers will help.

we need more bee keepers around. we have a rental house and our tenant called us and said there was a swarm of bees in the pine tree and she couldn't go outside. hubby went out and took a picture and sent it to me.

as you can see a big black lump on the pine tree branch in the center. it was a group of honey bees that broke away from the original hive and was looking for a new place. thank goodness we know a couple bee keepers --one came up and got them and gave them a new home. there were approx. 15,000 bees in that clump. hives get too big often and the bees apparently talk to one another and decide to split and find a new place.(per the bee keeper) they stop and rest (like they did here) and try to find new homes. its like a big collective. very interesting stuff bees are!!!(and we got free unfiltered honey out of it. it is awesome)

 

[LuvMyChicks1491]

Lets see if I can get caught up..Had lots of toads this year. More then ever before. Not to many snakes though? We usually see about 20 or so over the course of the summer. Only saw 1 twice in the run, big garder snake, when we first got the chicks. It was rehomed across the street. Did catch a small worm snake today while cleaning out the duck hut. It was under the straw. I picked it up and put it in a bucket till my daughter got home. I showed her then we let it go next to our barn wher it would be safe.

Bees...Wow want to talk about bees. When we bought out house it had been empty for 3 yrs. There were lots of bees in the house and we finially found where they were coming from. There was a hole in the back of the house where they had taken up shop. We (not knowing to much) bought a few cans of bee spray, but when we realized it wasn't going to work, we contacted a friend of a friend that was a bee keeper. They came and ended up cutting a hole in the back of out house. When they were done the hole was 6 ft wide and 5 ft high. The hive itself was about 5 ft wide by 4 ft tall and about 6 ft deep into the space between the floors. He was here over the course of 3 days getting almost all the bees. He estimated that the hive was over 100,000 bees. He took the box full of bees and move it to an apple orchard in cortland somewhere. We never did get the honey that he said he would give us!

Crows... We have tons of them around here. I guess that is why I haven't seen any hawks in so long.

Fermenthed food... may have to look into it.

 

[Sally8]

LuvMyChicks1491-Great sum up. haha

All summer we kept getting stung but couldn't see why. After the leaves left, we saw why. Different lenses on my camera shows it a little differently.