Official Squatch Watchers

[pitbullmomma]

Thanks guys! Today is my birthday. I've been busy with work and the Milk Drinker today. My mom made brownies that I had warm when the MD and I went over to visit this evening. My parents are going to build the winter coop for the chickens in their garage for my present. YAY! One less thing I have to build.

Happy belated birthday, Rae! Lotta us October babies here!

 

[21hens-incharge]

Is Gladys a heavy bird? Jackie started limping a little again. I think she's getting hurt jumping down from the roost. She's a dual purpose so she's pretty heavy and apparently isn't graceful on the dismount.


I insist my birthday wishes are extremely fresh and must occur at the exact time of my birth or they don't count.
Actually I don't tell people when it's my birthday, I also lie about my age to the point that I forget how old I am and have to do math.


I think chickens prefer using forks. They don't have enough dexterity to use chopsticks.


I cut veggies open too. I've seen people give them whole pumpkins and I cut them up into quarters. Partially b/c I have so many birds and they will block the underlings from having any, and partially b/c the skin can be so thick. I do give them whole cabbages though


i wondered if they could have cat food... I mean, I know they can eat it, but wasn't sure if it was ok for them. They certainly like it b/c Tubbs left his dish unattended and of course the chickens found it.


Same. I was thinking the little pin bones could tear through their crop.


Someone at my work asked about if I fed my girls fish b/c he used to get eggs from a neighbor & they'd give their birds fish guts & the eggs would be gross. I'd given my girls some canned mackerel, but their eggs seemed fine. I assume it would take quite a bit of fish to make them fishy, right?


Holy wow. I'm so sorry! How are you birds taking it? This reminds me, I need to get stocked up on foods. We don't get the bad stuff often, but it happens and our cupboards are getting pretty bare.


We had 80's earlier this week. Woke up w/ it about 70 & it's supposed to drop down to the 50's by tonight, we're going to have some overnight 30's this weekend. I'm not ready for this.


I can confirm.


I saw a video where it showed roofs being blown off and some crazy flooding. It's so sad, and makes it even worse that they had such a short warning this time.


I say the same things. It sucks here for it's own reason, but it's not as bad as things in other places so we stay here.


Happy Bday! What an awesome present!

The birds are all ok with the weather. I keep fluffy types.


The cochins have the hoop run tarped so are nice and dry.

 

[pitbullmomma]

Hi!

Hi back atcha!!!

 

[Molpet]

I've seen people give them whole pumpkins and I cut them up into quarters. Partially b/c I have so many birds and they will block the underlings from having any, and partially b/c the skin can be so thick.

I give whole pumpkins , they peck through once they know what is inside. I put a notice in a local FB group and collect free pumpkins and straw bales after halloween
I got 80 one year and they like them better when they freeze and thaw and get mushy

 

[rjohns39]

Apryl the general rule with fish is no more than 5% of total diet. That said, my friend give his way more than that without affecting the egg flavor.

 

[Molpet]

It's been raining a lot here
This is a week's worth yesterday was almost 3 inches in a couple of hours

 

[apryl29]

Me three! This was the worst summer ever, rained almost every weekend.

There was like 2" of fuzzy mold growing in the bottom of my curbside coop run (put out for garbage, husband took it and we cleaned it up and will be using it for the baby seramas) and mold all over the ground of the big run. It was disgusting!

One of the non-rainy days had to go muck all that stuff out, it smelled awful.

Now it's raining again, has been all week. I am SO SICK of rain.

Apparently the way my coop is position water comes in through their back pop door. I need to put something to keep stuff from coming it, but I need to reinforce the run to handle the extra weight of the snow that's going to come. I scraped the mud poop mix that was caked on their ramp and it smelled horrible. It's pretty much a smaller amount of what I scraped out of the run earlier this year. I did shove a bunch of straw out the door, but they did a pretty good job of spreading it out so hopefully it won't end up gross like it did last time. I'm going to toss some more sand out there this weekend after I'm done working. Everything is so moist this year. Last year my girls were able to dig in the dirt and dust in the run, but this year it's been mud the whole time.

I give whole pumpkins , they peck through once they know what is inside. I put a notice in a local FB group and collect free pumpkins and straw bales after halloween
I got 80 one year and they like them better when they freeze and thaw and get mushy

I got a bunch from a farm, but then I read that I shouldn't give them too many. We had a bunch of thaw/ freeze rounds so after a while they ended up just being a soggy moldy mess in a pile. There's a place not far from here that sells bales of straw for only $5 so I just buy it from them. I try to get an extra bale to keep in my trunk so I have one for in the winter. I have no where to store stuff and don't want to give rodents a place to hang out.

Apryl the general rule with fish is no more than 5% of total diet. That said, my friend give his way more than that without affecting the egg flavor.

Good to know. I haven't given them any in a while, but w/ their molting I thought about it.

 

[CapricornFarm]

Apparently the way my coop is position water comes in through their back pop door. I need to put something to keep stuff from coming it, but I need to reinforce the run to handle the extra weight of the snow that's going to come. I scraped the mud poop mix that was caked on their ramp and it smelled horrible. It's pretty much a smaller amount of what I scraped out of the run earlier this year. I did shove a bunch of straw out the door, but they did a pretty good job of spreading it out so hopefully it won't end up gross like it did last time. I'm going to toss some more sand out there this weekend after I'm done working. Everything is so moist this year. Last year my girls were able to dig in the dirt and dust in the run, but this year it's been mud the whole time.


I got a bunch from a farm, but then I read that I shouldn't give them too many. We had a bunch of thaw/ freeze rounds so after a while they ended up just being a soggy moldy mess in a pile. There's a place not far from here that sells bales of straw for only $5 so I just buy it from them. I try to get an extra bale to keep in my trunk so I have one for in the winter. I have no where to store stuff and don't want to give rodents a place to hang out.


Good to know. I haven't given them any in a while, but w/ their molting I thought about it.

You could build a weather baffle. Basically its a box with a hole over the pop door and one side with a chicken door hole. You can put it inside or outside the coop.

 

[21hens-incharge]

You could build a weather baffle. Basically its a box with a hole over the pop door and one side with a chicken door hole. You can put it inside or outside the coop.

Are you meaning the kind where they enter a "box" at one side or the other from the pop door?

Not like a portico but more like a breezeway?

 

[Anansi]

@apryl29 Is it rain coming directly in or runoff from rain as it flows down the hill? If it's rain coming directly in, the baffle or any overhang that is long enough and angled to keep the doorway dry will work, you just need to have a waterproof seal where it meets with the coop. The baffle would be the best, and easiest. If it's runoff, you will need to dig a trench and put in gravel and a perforated drain tube, then cover in gravel so the chickens can walk on it, but the water will still drain off without saturating anything. You can use smooth river stones as the top layer so they don't get bumbles. The key is that the drain is long enough for the water to not build up on that entire side of the coop, so the trench and pipe would have to extend about a foot past the corner at each end of the coop wall.