Théo and the chickens des Sauches

[MaryJanet]

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Look at this lady! So sweet.

 

[lightm]

We were given another wonderful book ! It's made by the local ecomuseum, about old varieties of fruits that grow here, and the local history of fruit tree growing and orchards. It's really cool to read because they have interviewed all the old people we know from around here, like our elderly neighbour with the spoiled meat, or the neighbour who taught my partner to graft, and also we can identify all the fruits species that have been planted in our garden, like the "daluissoune" , a sweet fat red apple... and recognise some old tools that we didn't know the use of.

What a wonderful book!

I never tried dried meal worms for the chickens, but am still thinking about starting a mealworms farm. I haven't yet found a way to get them through winter in a room without heating though.

I am currently reading on this theme (animals' innate ability to select the foods they need in the amounts they need). Will post on it when I feel I have a firm grasp on it.

Looking forward to it.

Would a haybox work - to insulate them enough to get them through winter, though maybe not reproducing during it? They can be stored in bran in the fridge, so I think they are OK as low as 4 degrees C. Their metabolism just slows right down.

I was going to say the same thing. I've put mealworms in the fridge for a long time and it is totally fine. They stayed dormant ish. But I don't understand why your mealworms can't be in a heated room like your bedroom... I have one bin only with closed top. I did carve out a hole for fresh air but the hole is covered with mosquito screen. This ensures nothing can get in.

 

[ManueB]

But I don't understand why your mealworms can't be in a heated room like your bedroom... I have one bin only with closed top. I did carve out a hole for fresh air but the hole is covered with mosquito screen. This ensures nothing can get in.

Our bedroom isn't heated but it's isolated, so it is warmer in winter than the other rooms we could use.
The only reason is irrational - it's the "eeewwwhhh" factor for me . Doesn't make sense as our bedroom hosts spiders, scorpions, moths, various species of tiny insects that sting, and occasionally other live stuff the cats bring in to eat at night...but of all species I don't like worms and I would rather not have them where I sleep .

Today it's two years since I began this thread. Thanks to everyone following me ! I have ups and downs with it and lately I've been finding it hard to keep writing it. It may be time for another pause soon. It is nice to be able to find back all the things I wrote about though.

Today Alba seemed to not feel so much pain so I did not give her the anti-inflammatory. However her leg is still swollen and her foot pad is also swollen now. So I'm not sure if it's progress or just that she is getting used to the pain.

The very bad surprise this afternoon was that Laure has a leg gone limp, or rather she is completely stumbling on one side. First I thought she broke a leg but watching more closely I think it's that she has lost control of it. At some moments it looks like she is paralysed but at one point she got afraid when Théo came in and she ran all across the yard : once she was running it looked almost normal. It's possible that she is not getting enough to eat since she is terrified of the other chickens.
It's a good thing it's not the first time I see this and all my hens recovered because at some point it was very worrying. And she acts like she isn't in pain : she forages, tries to run for bugs and to do everything as usual although she can't keep on her feet. She fell off the roost this evening and went back to sleep on the lower platform where she stayed when she was really ill.

I will mail the vet Monday to make sure it's not a dangerous side effect of the implant.

Here you can see her stumbling but this was just the beginning, it got far worse.

Théo, Merle, and Gaston still have that drama where Merle goes regularly back in the chicken yard and Théo doesn't bear it and goes flying in to get her back. She just wants to live her own life but he is a jealous guy. And then they pretend to fight a bit, Gaston retreats, and Théo does the same after a while. I try to refrain from calling him ugly names !

Different eggs from Annette and Lilly today. Annette overdosed on the calcium and Lilly's brown inker needs to be changed.

That kind of morning.

Pretty Annette.

I think Lilly is the only hen I've seen that is hyperactive during her moult.

Kara is tired again but she has also grown a huge fluff of brand new feathers. Except on her butt where there is a rough looking red patch of skin with pin sticks coming through !

A local folklore picture ! My partner dropped by thursday evening to help our elderly neighbour filter the wine grapes. That is him with another friend from the village who like most of the people here is a remote cousin of my partner.

 

[Molpet]

who like most of the people here is a remote cousin of my partner.

Ha used to be like that here. I was dating a guy until I found out his grandfather was a great uncle

 

[lightm]

The only reason is irrational - it's the "eeewwwhhh" factor for me . Doesn't make sense as our bedroom hosts spiders, scorpions, moths, various species of tiny insects that sting, and occasionally other live stuff the cats bring in to eat at night...but of all species I don't like worms and I would rather not have them where I sleep .

Totally understandable.

 

[ManueB]

No long post today, I just wanted to share that Laure has improved. Sunday she was still falling almost every time she tried to move, and I was quite worried. Yesterday there was a small improvement, and today she was definitely better. I'm very relieved !

I've learned through the clinic's social media that they work with a young animal osteopath who treats chickens. I looked up her rates and it's quite reasonable, especially considering she does visits at home. I wonder if it could help this type of issue when it lasts, as it has happened to several hens here.

Gaston goes a bit crazy whenever Merle decides to come back in the chicken yard with him.

 

[Perris]

wonderful to read that Laure has turned a corner and is improving.

 

[MaryJanet]

Gaston goes a bit crazy whenever Merle decides to come back in the chicken yard with him.

I imagine Theo is not happy about it.

 

[Shadrach]

Online info AR https://www.arwebshop.nl/bio-legkor...MI28jpqcPMiAMVsKmDBx2Xvi_iEAAYASAAEgIrmfD_BwE:

Gegarandeerde voederwaarde/values

Berekende gehalten *
Ruw eiwit (g/kg) /proteine	170 g/kg
Ruw vet (g/kg) / fat	59 g/kg
Ruwe celstof (g/kg) / fibers	60 g/kg
Ruw as (g/kg)/ ashes	126 g/kg
Lysine (g/kg)	8 g/kg
Methionine (g/kg)	2.8 g/kg

Mineralen en sporenelementen *
Calcium (g/kg)	37.5 g/kg
Fosfor (g/kg)	5.6 g/kg
Natrium (g/kg)	1.5 g/kg

Toegevoegde vitaminen *

* Zie afleverbon/productlabel voor de juiste gehalten

I will look if I can find a label of the AR feed I have nowadays later.

I often give some soaked feed as a treat. Especially Ini mini and the juveniles love the soaked chick crumble.

Because layer is not good for the youngsters and all who lay few or no eggs I give mostly chick crumble. I fill up one little bowl with layer pellets each day.

In other situations or other times of the year I change their diet to more layer and less chick feed. Or no layer at all.

In winter I give them more mealworms.



Mine too. 3 juveniles, 3 oldies, 3 younger layers who stop laying sometime in autumn until next spring.
All under 1 kg.



My chickens get scraps (food waste) too. If they are lucky they get some animal proteins like cheese crust or fish. But they also love boiled rice, spaghetti , bread, green beans, fruit and much more. If we have much food/leftovers we don’t want to eat ourselves anymore, I portion it over a few days.
We don’t eat salty and prepare most food from fresh ingredients. Only the cheese is probably too salty (limited).

They also get clipped grass if I can’t let them free range, for real fresh vitamins. They love these clippings too.

The first few years I had chickens I worried a lot about the chicken feed. Wanted to do it right. But Im more relaxed now. I do keep in mind that the animal feed factories make feed to supply optimised cheap/ nutritious feed for the chicken-industry and organic famers. Not for hobbyists.
I trust my chickens to choose what is good for them as long as its not delicious. I know they cant resist yummie food like grapes this time of the year (diarrhoea). So I try to limit that a bit. And mealworms are too expensive anyway.

Im not vegan, not real vegetarian either. Don’t like the idea that animals (especially mammals and poultry) have an awful life and get killed for food we don't need.

And I hate factory farming not only bc of the animal abuse but also for polluting the world with the import of lots of poisoned GMO feed. Our drinking water gets polluted too because of all the animal poo the farmers dump on the land. It’s soo wrong.

Most dreid mealworms one can get in the UK are not raised in the UK and some at least have some very unpleasant chemicals in them.

 

[Shadrach]

Price isn't really an issue for me, especially now that we're selling some of the eggs, the chickens pay for part of their food ! But paying a lot without knowing what I'm getting bothers me.

Yes, me too ! I had completely given up on hoping to ever see something other than foamy liquid yellow poop from them . It happened gradually, in spring all the chickens had pretty bad poop with a lot of intestinal shedding, and after that I was paying more attention to Nougat and Kara's poop. And one day I realised the yellow foamy poops were 95% gone. There is one every now and then but it's rare.

I don't know what did it and why it took so long.
When they first arrived they ate like they were ravenous but that was over in less than two or three months. They were all dewormed and two, Lilly and Nieva, had rounds of broad spectrum antibiotics for other issues, and that did nothing.

I don't think it was only due to the food because food gets digested in a few hours, and the transition of diet could maybe take up to a month, but not more.

I only saw two sets of chicks hatch here but it was a worry for me that although they were fed exactly the same way, the first lot had perfect poops from the start whereas the second hatch of chicks last summer had terrible poops. I kept thinking they would fall sick, but it didn't happen.
Although both had access to starter feed, the broodies Léa and before her Chipie were very reluctant to let them eat it past the first day, and they actually really began eating it only once they were on their own at six weeks. I was giving it on the ground, as a mash, on small plates, mixed with yogurt and no matter what Léa would make screaming noises like it was a dangerous thing .

That's great news ! We would put them in a storage room that is closed and not heated in winter, and usually stays between 8 to 12 (46 to 50) so it might work without supplementing heat. Although it would be nice to have some worms to give to the chickens in winter.
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I ended up just unwrapping Lilly's foot yesterday and soaking it for ten minutes but she's now really too full of pin feathers to do anything more. The foot will have to wait, which isn't great because there is obviously a small mass of hard pus forming inside. At least it doesn't hurt her and in spite of her awful way of moulting she is still full of energy. She took a break from laying today, I hope she will slow down a bit or even pause. That would be good as she is one of those who lay daily.

Alba has been limping for the past days. She is more or less healed from her bumblefoot, but now her other leg is really hurting her. She could not put the foot on the ground yesterday. She has a small swelling on her leg just above the foot. I thought it could be the chicken equivalent of an ankle sprain but when I looked up the image I could find of the chicken's anatomy, which are not sufficiently detailed for the leg, it turns out the ankle is actually much higher. I'm not sure if there is some joint where her leg is swollen, and it feels squishy. Does anyone know ?
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Today I gave her some metacam as NSAID and she is responding to it, she can walk again, so there must be some kind of inflammation.

It feels much calmer now, partly because the chicken's days are getting much shorter. They are not so eager to get out of the coop and they go to bed really early - there's still some rooster kerfuffle but they are all settled down at six. There also isn't as much work left in the garden. We need to finish harvesting the potatoes and beans, harvest the squashes that are already ripe and wait until just before it freezes for the others. Because it's much colder now, we only need to water twice a week and since we don't do winter crops the only things that still need weeding are the carrots and leeks. It's been the shortest summer season for the garden but hopefully we will still get tomatoes and courgettes until mid october.

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I'm still getting courgettes, just about, but the late planted tomatoes are not going to produce any more ripe tomatoes this year. It's just too wet and chilly with not enough sunshine.