NY chicken lover!!!!

[Cass]

Ah got it! Thanks for the info!

NICE VIDEO! Wow you have some adorable chicks!
Is this diatomaceous earth? They have it at TSC? I was watching you tube videos about homesteading and someone said there's white diatomaceous earth but TSC has brown diatomaceous earth. Any difference? Is it clean and good for them? I'm afraid to expose them to real earth, I don't want them to get sick. I'm worried if a wild bird touches the ground and my 3 little ones are exposed to it they could get sick. We didn't have them vaccinated against anything. They are pure from hatching eggs. They live in our bathtub on the 2nd floor of the house. We clean their little paper towels at least once a day. I'm waiting for them to get big enough to fit into chicken diapers so they can walk around the house. We have a little cardboard box with woodchips and another box with a chopstick through it for roosting (Silkies are Asian birds right?) So far we have a container with grit, 2 small containers with chick starter, distilled water with ACV and probiotics, paper towels and wood chips. Should we buy them the diatomaceous earth? Thanks so much for the advice!

Silkies have 5 toes and I never saw one roost. Chop sticks are too narrow for them to roost on anyway. Something one inch wide would be better for their feet, if they decide to roost at all. Mostly my silkies huddled on the floor together.

And OMG, you are going to make yourself nuts. Give them tap water, the minerals in it are good for them. You are duplicating your efforts by giving both ACV and probiotics. They are gonna get constipated. One or the other, cuz they are the same thing.

Do not give chicks DE. It is a lung irritant. Some folks put it in their birds dusting location to kill small insects that infect chickens. DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT put it in your house where you and your family will be breathing it. I wear breathing protection when I sprinkle it in the nest boxes and that is in an OUTDOOR coop.

You need to expose your birds, slowly, to the real world or once they go outside they will get sick. Add some dirt from outdoors to their grit box. Just a sprinkle of it. Unless your birds are always going to be house chickens, they need to gain immunity to things in the real worldl.

I know you love your chickies. I know you will cry if something happens to one of them. (we all do) But an old farmer once told me, "If you are going to have live stock you are gonna have dead stock at some point". I still tear up when one of mine dies. But they will get sick sometimes and they will die at some point. Maybe not this week, but sometime it will happen. Think of their passing (sometime in the distant future) as an opportunity to add fresh birds to your flock; a time to learn to love another bird or another breed.

 

[Cass]

Hey.... My rooster laid an egg. I guess that calls for a revamping of my entire breeding plan, now doesn't it. LOL

 

[stonykill]

You need to expose your birds, slowly, to the real world or once they go outside they will get sick. Add some dirt from outdoors to their grit box. Just a sprinkle of it. Unless your birds are always going to be house chickens, they need to gain immunity to things in the real worldl.

I know you love your chickies. I know you will cry if something happens to one of them. (we all do) But an old farmer once told me, "If you are going to have live stock you are gonna have dead stock at some point". I still tear up when one of mine dies. But they will get sick sometimes and they will die at some point. Maybe not this week, but sometime it will happen. Think of their passing (sometime in the distant future) as an opportunity to add fresh birds to your flock; a time to learn to love another bird or another breed.

can I get a non religious AMEN sista!

 

[JLaw]

Nice info there rancher. I wonder how they would grow up here. Not a bad looking flower and if the chickens could eat seeds I could see making a small flower bed of just those.

 

[JLaw]

Hey.... My rooster laid an egg. I guess that calls for a revamping of my entire breeding plan, now doesn't it. LOL

Hmmm I think you need to take that rooster into cornell for some testing lol.

 

[rancher hicks]

Yeah, Rancher, I forgot about the whole weed killer thing. I saw the show on Monsanto and their practices years ago so much of what I knew has been forgotten. I mainly remember that Monsanto is trying to corner the market on farm seeds, which is why they are actively seeking out farmers that try to save seeds from year to year (just trying to make a profit, those poor farmers). Once they find "seed savers" they test their seed for GMO properties and SUE the small farmers for owning seeds that are under their patent. Makes me angry as all get out. Like someone said "how can they sue when mother nature is doing the pollination"? Hmmm? But they DO sue and they DO win. And they DO put small farmers out of business. Which is exactly the reason that I don't buy GMO seeds of any kind and I try to avoid Burpee seeds also. (Cuz they patent their hybrids and could do exactly what Monsanto is doing, if they aren't already)

If you research Monsanto, you will find that they already own most of the seed companies. They let those companies keep their own names, of course, but the seeds are from Monsanto and the profits go back to Monsanto. There are very few seed suppliers that aren't in bed with Monsanto in some fashion. It's pretty disgusting, to be sure. And a couple of years of crop failures are going to ruin the USA. Ok, maybe it'll take 5 years, but once the reserves are gone, we are as sunk as the titanic. Everything in this country is dependant on the wheat, corn, soy and cotton produced here. Even our gasoline.

Keep canning folks. And learning how to live without supermarkets. Knowledge is power.

If you can tell me which seed companies are not owned by Monsanto I will patronize those companies only.

 

[rancher hicks]

Hey.... My rooster laid an egg. I guess that calls for a revamping of my entire breeding plan, now doesn't it. LOL

Wouldn't it be nice if ALL roosters laid eggs?

 

[rancher hicks]

can I get a non religious AMEN sista!

AMEN

edited by staff

 

[why do birds]

My 2 cents: If I were in a 3rd world country subsisting on dirt I'd be grateful to eat GMO or any other kind of edible substance. However I'm in the USA so this scenario doesn't apply. Here's how I see the evolution of food. Go on sites like Eat Wild, and other organic food sites. Making mass raw product for large corporations isn't going to change. BUT...allowing chef's to purchase direct from the farm is still a possibility in our quickly becoming socialistic nation. We cannot market to the large companies, or we will be forced into the Monsanto GMO lawsuits and business. If we connect direct with the cooks, the chefs, the restaurants, with a healthier product we could obtain sustainable sales. My goal has never been to sell raw product, or animal carcass, although I would do this for restaurants. My goal is to create the best quality raw ingredients, make food, and sell the prepared product. Funny how dog cookies are probably healthier than human cookies, isn't it? Monsanto isn't going to dive into the apple pie that I baked, or the omlettes, or the bread, right?.
Our great dictator and his administration have tied our hands when it comes to production of wheat, soy, and other Monsanto raw ingredients. But we can still circumvent this socialism by selling local, or selling to restaurants, chefs, or selling prepared food. When we build our house we plan to have catering capacity in our kitchen on the farm. Why sell raw eggs at the farmer's market when we can sell egg products from unvaccinated, organic, non-GMO fed poultry? Better for us, better for our community.
As for the ? do I eat GMO? Probably, it's in everything. I want my chickens to eat non-GMO so that I can have non-GMO cooked food for sale for those interested. Our farm hasn't been active in about 10 years so I believe that we can be certified organic once we are up and running.

Our fields have been maintained by a local farmer and without any kind of pesticides or chemicals.

We plan to have a healthy ecosystem, we have a natural spring fed stream running down one side, pond, fruit trees, so are thinking of eventually getting ducks, and expanding poultry, have 1 dairy cow for personal use, goats or sheep, and a horse of course (for fun)! Currently we're working on the infrastructure and buildings. Hope to be up and running in a year.

 

[Cass]

Hmmm I think you need to take that rooster into cornell for some testing lol.

LOL. I think I need to have my eyes checked. I just assumed (and we all know what that does) it was a rooster because it was twice the size of the "hen" that died. Now it never crowed and when I put 2 hens in with it, they pecked the living $&^% out of it, so I removed the hens. Ok, maybe I need more than my eyes examined. My common sense, perhaps?

So I caught my favorite rooster slated for the chopping block and put him in with her....hoping for a dual purpose egg laying machine from the offspring of the pairing. (Brahma momma and Red Leghorn or Rhode Island Red Daddy. Should yeild something I can eat and collect eggs from)

In my defence (not that there is any for not being able to tell the gender of an adult bird), I also thought the Rooster was a hen for a very long time...which is what saved it from the chopping block for so long. Lo and behold I catch the ducks picking out his tail feathers, so I didn't see it was a rooster a long time ago. He is such a sweetie that he would stand there and let them do it. Silly bird.