Preparing Your Flock & Coop for WINTER

[Goronson Chicks]

By the way - great tips on the poop scooper.

 

[Lori Marie]

Well I think your doing great and didn't blow it on the sand. It will be fine. Sounds like your doing just right with all the eggs your getting. I really enjoy our chickens they really make me laugh.Great pets.Ours our May & Sheila and they are BFF's. Nice chatting with you. Lori

 

[Goronson Chicks]

Thank you, Lori. Really nice chatting with you, too.
Maureen

 

[iwiw60]

Hi Lori,
We have 18 birds. Three of them are roos - 2 accidental ones that were sold as hens and ended up being roos. For hens we have 3 Polish (white crested black named Dina Ross) a buff named Susie Q and a gold laced Polish named Audrie Fandango. The we have 2 Guinea hens, 4 Gold Laced Wyandottes, 2 Jersey Giants, 1 Red Comet, 2 French Black Copper Marans and 1 Easter Egger. They have laid all winter - of 15 hens we were getting 10 to 11 eggs each day - but just 8 eggs when our light timer got messed up. We fixed that and it slowly increased back up to 10-11/day again. The 2 Guinea hens were not laying for a portion of the winter, but have just started again.

Yes, this is our first time with chickens/poultry. We feed them the Poulin grain recommended by our FBCM breeder and also 2 cups of organic cracked corn as scratch each day and also tomatoes, green peppers, cucumbers, onions and melon rind every day. Our coop is insulated and we put a cozy legs heater inside. The light and heater seemed to increase the egg production at the start of the really cold weather. We also bought a heated water fountain - they are great aren't they?

They have a 20 X 40 ft enclosed run. We tried to do everything right - I just blew it on the sand part.
Thank you,
Maureen

It's my understanding that onions are on the "no-no" list of food treats for chickens.

 

[Goronson Chicks]

I didn't know about onions being bad. We feed very few but tell me what it does to them?
Thank you,
Maureen

 

[JavaJones]

I didn't know about onions being bad. We feed very few but tell me what it does to them?
Thank you,
Maureen

Speaking as a professional Chef, the restaurant gets it's eggs from local organic farmers. Onions, garlic, as well as other strong tasting foods could import undesirable tastes to the eggs your hens lay.

Keep in mind onions have a toxin substance called thiosulphate that destroys red blood cells. If excessive amounts are fed to chickens, it might cause jaundice or anemia in your hens or even death. I learned this from one of our local organic chicken farmers, so she avoids feeding onion even if it would be a little bit.


Jeff

 

[Goronson Chicks]

Thank you, Jeff. I am certainly learning a lot from these posts. And learning about what a rookie I really am.

No more onions!

Best,

Maureen

 

[JavaJones]

Thank you, Jeff. I am certainly learning a lot from these posts. And learning about what a rookie I really am.

No more onions!

Best,

Maureen

I am still a rookie myself.

I find I learn a lot from this forum and from simply talking and making friends with my local farmers. They are a fountain of knowledge when it comes to their chickens.


Jeff

 

[Goronson Chicks]

Yes, it's all good and I would much rather learn at the front end of doing something wrong than at the back end, when I've done it a lot ,and might have done some harm. Thank you so much for chiming in. My chickens thank you. And, to think this all started with a comment about play sand and someone asking how many chickens we had.

Maureen

 

[iwiw60]

I didn't know about onions being bad. We feed very few but tell me what it does to them?
Thank you,
Maur

No onions, which contain a toxin called thiosulphate hat destroys red blood cells. Excessive amounts can cause jaundice or anemia in your hens or even death. Some claim that onions will taint the taste of your eggs as well. We can't validate that claim because we don't feed them to our chickens. We don't recommend feeding onions because any possible health benefits are far outweighed by the potential health risk.

(One thing to note: Garlic, which is in the same allium family as onions, contains only 1/15th of the thiosulphate as onion does and has some truly amazing health benefits. Once processed, powdered garlic has only negligible amounts of thiosuplhate in it, so I feel very comfortable adding garlic powder to our chickens' daily feed in the amount recommended by the experts.