The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[armorfirelady]

Their crop isn't at their neck, it's just above their breast. Feel around there. 

LW is going to say something about that, I can just feel it 

With a lead in like that, I must....

When feeling for the crop A: You must butcher a chicken so that it is unmistakeable or
B: Feel them in the morning, later after lunch then later as they go to roost. Pet them, head to back, then stroke them under chin to belly.

Feel anything different? If you feel the crop, which is indeed unmistakeable, you can actually feel the gritty grains.

Ok while I didn't butcher my chickens I just came back in from checking on them and I felt the front of them at the base of the neck around the breast area I felt a bulge/ lump on all 4. Varied in size from golf ball to a little bigger. I am guessing since they all had it I found their crop . I've felt for it during the day with no luck but tonight it seems I learned where it was. Not hard not squishy .......but I didn't palpate it enough to feel the grains lol Pretty cool....at least I know they are going to bed well fed. Their bigger foraging area must be full of good eats for them. I know when I watch them during they day they are busy scratching and pecking. They especially liked the garden today but I'm sure that's because of all the bugs in the compost. They don't even touch the romaine hearts I throw out anymore. I only had a couple left and they bypass them. I didn't even bother buying any veggies today for them because I figured they didn't need them. I am def going to cut back their FF as well. Guess I need to downsize buckets sizes since they are eating so much less. I'm not complaining since that's a good thing. Who knew a 25# bag of food from October would last so long!!
Tanks for the explanation Aoxa, LM & LW. And del the pic where u show the crop is where I found the bumps. It's not really noticeable to me unless I feel for it. I'm thinking its cuz they have brown feathers.....they always say dark colors are slimming lol

P.s. I think LW is the unofficial birthday singer of the group

 

[BlueMouse]

Each time one of my girls laid they pulled a couple fake eggs under them, but once they were done they just got up and left. I can wait, as long as when the time comes I can find the Legbar eggs somewhere. While I liked my chickens from MyPetChichen I don't know that they'd have great stock for the Legbars. I guess I could email and ask them.

I'm getting legbar eggs from papa brooder here on BYC, most likely in two weeks. He has a good reputation from what I can tell, lots of positive comments. His stock may not be greenfire farms quality, but I think it's good, and the price is reasonable for someone like me who just wants a couple in the backyard flock. We'll see how it goes... I've never incubated eggs before! I have a dozen french pearl guineas coming, and six cream legbar eggs a week later. I'm crossing my fingers to get two legbar pullets out of that hatch...

all the new kids are settling in here. I finally took the poor ameracauana out of the bantam brooder and stuck her separate with the little maybe cochin bantam for a friend. the other bantams were beating her up (she's TWICE their size) and she was cowering under the water dish. I came out to get more tea, and my husband had her on his lap; he was telling her that she was a good sweetie and that those mean bantam boys were going to be dinner.

 

[Eggcessive]

Heritage RIR chicks (notice Mr. Spayleg showing his hiney)--he got a bandaid around his legs.
These are the German New Hampshire babies.

 

[Eggcessive]

These are my black copper Marans chicks.

This is Elvis who likes firewood for chew toys.

 

[aoxa]

lol..that duck is going to get him some chicken

He had his girl friend duck hiding in the brush near him. I was up at the house peering through the sunroom.

My yard is one big giant puddle, which is a dream land for the ducks!

Also took some pictures of a wild male pheasant hanging around. He sure is beautiful!



and than there is the baby bunnies my Daisy Mae had this weekend. This weekend was full of new life! 19/21 chicks hatched and 5 baby bunnies. Duck eggs - well one is pipped. Hope there is more than that.. I'm nervous since they weren't turned for more than 2 weeks. The RIR eggs didn't mind the 1.5 weeks of not being turned.

 

[delisha]

Nice hatch Justine

Beautiful German Hampshires..they are nice and fat!

All my Orps hatched..I had two BCM hatch..shoot

My Muscovy hen has some ducklings..they hatched today..not sure ho many she has..she only had 4 eggs. So it will be a small clutch.

 

[gevshiba]

Uh-oh, one of my Speckled Sussex chicks seems to have a problem. Last week his eye was crusted shut. I used some Neo Poly B for a couple days and it was fine. Now his chest/crop area is bare of feathers/fluff. He had been eating fine, but his crop doesn't look full now. He's puffed up under the light. He's probably 2 1/2 weeks old. He's now much smaller than the other SS chicks and turkeys. He started out the same size, so he's obviously not very thrifty. I put new shavings in last week and again today. Before they were on pellets. All the others are fine. They had a june bug tonight, which was pretty entertaining. 2 of the turkeys displayed a bit in all the excitement. The little SS joined in a bit of the chase, but not for long. Any thoughts?

 

[Bulldogma]

Warning: Graphic content. If you don't have spring yet where you are and might expire if you witness spring elsewhere, please look away!

Beautiful. Whst are the purple flowers?

They look like henbit here are some close ups from my yard of what I believe is the same flower

I'll go with Kassaundra on the Henbit:





But these are different... these are Frostbit:

The basement babies are so big now but still no crowing from the 3 boys. There is a lot of chest bumping lately between them.

Notice anything different in the picture? We have a visitor

Duck looks right at home, doesn't he?

 

[FridayYet]

 

[brandislee]

I'm having a rough week... I mentioned earlier that I found little bits of one of my chickens (I was unsure at the time, because I didn't think I was missing a chicken, but now I'm pretty sure it was a buckeye hen and I just can't count...) scattered around my yard and I have NO idea what happened (hawk or raccoon... something that got into the run, because they've been confined due to the snow). Then I went out to gather eggs this afternoon and my Lemon Orp (named Lemon... we're not real original here) was laying dead on the coop floor. NO indication there was anything wrong with her before, except for the fact that she actually let me pet her earlier today while she was in the nest box (she usually will peck me and growl at me).

And these things tend to happen in threes... apparently here they also tend to happen in the spring as soon as the ground thaws. Last spring it was my two cats (poor things, got up in my husband's pickup undercarriage) and my black frizzle, all over two weeks. So now who's the third one going to be? Spring is supposed to be about babies and new life, not death!

Looking at the positive side- at least it happens when the ground isn't frozen. I have no idea what I'd do if I had a chicken die when the ground was frozen. I'm sure I'll have to deal with that someday!