The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[countrygirl74]

Thanks for all the advice! I will just see how it all goes. So far, no bare backs, just a very "tired of these boys" RIR girl.

 

[pigeonguy]

I believe it has been tried. But let us know how it goes!

Any info on who might have tried it? I can use all the info I can get even if failed.

 

[pigeonguy]

My turners are not time delay, they just move very slowly.

Rollers should be fine except when the chicks hatch they'll be sucked down and legs ripped out if you're not paying attention.....

Your turner moves constantly. Interesting I never heard of that.
The eggs would be taken off at day 18 for lock down. Do you still see any problems. I would rather hear them now as apposed to later after a mistake is made.
Please do elaborate on the constant moving turner. Do you take it out for the hatch and such? Do you ever shut it off? Any info you have. I do like thinking outside the box.

 

[pigeonguy]

I'm not sure where my head was, but did your chickens get into lead also?

Can anyone tell me what a debeaked chick is? Please don't tell me that it is what it sounds like!

Also, I was so excited to take my teen aged chicks out of the house last night but as I was readying everything around, it started snowing like crazy, I checked the temp and it was 20 and it got even colder over night. So, you can guess, i didn't move them. Tomorrow is the big move day. REGARDLESS!

Sorry to say yes it is. It is common on big egg farms.

 

[pigeonguy]

I am feeling kind of strange....

I went out and looked at the new girls..... egg production was up a bit.... even with the stress of a new place.....

Looked a little closer.... They are all beaked!

I don't know whether to be angry about helping to perpetuate the cycle, or be happy that the rest of their lives will be free range....

Skinny little things too...

You are not the one that is helping the cycle. The people that buy the eggs are. As far as the eggs company's are concerned there birds at a year old could be thrown away as well as go to someone else. They just don't care. Trust me I worked at one for a short time when I was in my twenties.

 

[countrygirl74]

So, I've been working on my little red silkie roo who is ornery as can be. I tug the feathers on his back as aoxa suggested and so far, so good. He still likes to get close and pick up and drop little sticks, etc. but doesn't really do the "dance" too much anymore and definitely doesn't try to rip my skin off my hand with his little beak.

However.... he does NOT like my husband. He actually goes right up to my husband and flies up at his leg just to about knee height, which he has NEVER done to me or my 12-year-old daughter who is often out with them alone. I told my husband to do the feather pulling, which he tried, but the silkie kept dodging him. So, today this little guy comes and does it again, attacking my husband's leg out of the blue, surprising my husband, so he just reacted and kicked him. The silkie roo didn't bother him after that but does anyone have ideas for the next time around so he doesn't get kicked? And why does he leave me and my daughter (who is smaller than my husband of course) alone and go after my husband? I can sit right on the ground and he'll walk all around me without attacking. Although, sometimes I wonder what he's plotting...

In the order of things, he is 3rd place out of the 3 roosters and they are all 5 months old. He occasionally gets in scuffles with the blue silkie roo but the EE usually steps in and breaks them up.

Here he is doing his afternoon crow. Red silkie roo - Snuffy


The other weird thing is that our blue silkie roo does the dance at me ALL the time (no pecking, attacking - just dancing) but could care less about my husband. I do the feather pulling on him too but he just keeps dancing. Our big EE roo is just pretty good all around to everyone. He sort of came at me once when I was kneeling down doing something in the run, but I pulled his feathers and then walked him around the pen (what I mean by that is "stomped" after him making him back off). The only time we saw him do a partial "fly-up" warning attack was at my 4-year-old nephew and just for safety, we removed my nephew from the pen because we had NEVER seen him show any type of aggression and wasn't sure what he might do.

Blue silkie roo - Disco



EE roo - Chubby a.ka. Fabio




Sorry if you've seen these before - can't always remember which photos I've posted and where I might have already posted them...

 

[OohLaLa]

Loganville here..we have low flying hawks every day all year long. My husband pulled in to our driveway to find two turkey vultures. One flew off the other just looked at him. My husband has a 7 foot wing span to lol so when he went at the bird it flew off. My girls wont have much open time around here.

 

[rowerjen]

How many birds do you have?

LM - I have 7 at the moment. I'll be adding some more this spring after I expand the coop. All of those baby pics everyone has been sharing wore down my resistance. Hope to get some icelandics from Mack Hill Farm. I started my flock with 5 birds and added 3 more later on. The first batch was a little rough on the newbies for a while, but I made sure they had places to hide from the bigger girls and after a few weeks they all settled down.

LM, free ranging your flock is a choice only you can make, after deciding what you can live with. My DH has never had chicks or chickens, and last year when I re-entered chicken world I got two pullets at POL and 5 Speckled Sussex pullets 4 or 5 weeks of age. I kept them in the coop and run for a few weeks, then let the two older girls out with me standing right there with them for an hour at the end of the day when I knew they would head back to roost at dusk, then a little longer, then walked away, and the day I watched them flatten and go still when a pigeon flew overhead I knew they instinctively knew what to do if a flighted predator was present. A few weeks later I started letting the SS out with them. Now they are all out all day every day. I have shrubs and trees they can hide under whenever they feel the need. The price is, no more mulch in my gardens, they have flung it out onto the grass, I have raked it back in many times, and now I'm going to rake it all up and put it in their run, it obviously is not going to stay in the gardens any more. My sedum bed is now a dust bathing bed.

When I first got my chickens I would only let them range when I was around to keep an eye on them. Then I'd leave them out when I had to run errands. One day I came home and there was not a bird in sight. Eventually I found them all hidden in the the accumulated junk in my garage. At that point I decided they were savvy enough to take care of themselves. I agree, though, it's all about what you can live with, including trashed sedum beds. Which my chickens also chose as their preferred dusting area.

 

[delisha]

So, I've been working on my little red silkie roo who is ornery as can be. I tug the feathers on his back as aoxa suggested and so far, so good. He still likes to get close and pick up and drop little sticks, etc. but doesn't really do the "dance" too much anymore and definitely doesn't try to rip my skin off my hand with his little beak.

However.... he does NOT like my husband. He actually goes right up to my husband and flies up at his leg just to about knee height, which he has NEVER done to me or my 12-year-old daughter who is often out with them alone. I told my husband to do the feather pulling, which he tried, but the silkie kept dodging him. So, today this little guy comes and does it again, attacking my husband's leg out of the blue, surprising my husband, so he just reacted and kicked him. The silkie roo didn't bother him after that but does anyone have ideas for the next time around so he doesn't get kicked? And why does he leave me and my daughter (who is smaller than my husband of course) alone and go after my husband? I can sit right on the ground and he'll walk all around me without attacking. Although, sometimes I wonder what he's plotting...

In the order of things, he is 3rd place out of the 3 roosters and they are all 5 months old. He occasionally gets in scuffles with the blue silkie roo but the EE usually steps in and breaks them up.

Here he is doing his afternoon crow. Red silkie roo - Snuffy


The other weird thing is that our blue silkie roo does the dance at me ALL the time (no pecking, attacking - just dancing) but could care less about my husband. I do the feather pulling on him too but he just keeps dancing. Our big EE roo is just pretty good all around to everyone. He sort of came at me once when I was kneeling down doing something in the run, but I pulled his feathers and then walked him around the pen (what I mean by that is "stomped" after him making him back off). The only time we saw him do a partial "fly-up" warning attack was at my 4-year-old nephew and just for safety, we removed my nephew from the pen because we had NEVER seen him show any type of aggression and wasn't sure what he might do.

Blue silkie roo - Disco



EE roo - Chubby a.ka. Fabio




Sorry if you've seen these before - can't always remember which photos I've posted and where I might have already posted them...

If you ever decide to cull a roo the Buff/Red needs to go. A birds that refuses to learn needs to be in the stew pot.

 

[loanwizard]

Somebody mentioned chicks and pasty butt- Apple Cider Vinegar, and IMO only, Braggs, with the mother, is not necessary. I have used Heintz.... no more pasty butt. I do have some Braggs.... yet to open it, yet to ferment some feed for 100 birds.

Country Girl- 3 Roo's 2 Silkies, 17 girls= just fine. Who calls a Silkie roo a roo? In fact, Is a Silkie a chicken? (Just an FYI, I had one, a predator got her, I was mad at the time and miss her)

Sally- A debeaked bird has half to very little upper beak. I am not sure how they will ever peck works or grubs, but sweet little creatures they are. Out of the 50, I only had to reintroduce the roost area to 6. Now I had about 20 on the ground but as long as they were in the roost area.....

Pigeon- Aren't ALL turners moving 100% of the time? Mine is a yellow thing that goes into the styrofoam bator. It has a tiny electric motor and 2 plastic cogs. I can't see, in that cheap little set up a timer. I "assumed" that as the cog turns, that little plastic lever starts the turner back the other way at some point. That said, I am thinking this out with just a picture in my mind and, I am NOT an engineer.