The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[Miss Lydia]

I just wanted to say thanks to those on the other threads who gave me some suggestions on how to get my newly laying hens to use the nesting boxes. Ive been off sick for over a week now with bronchitis & the flu but finally had a little energy to go out yesterday & make a small change to the nesting box and was happy to see Bossy Hen gave it her approval this morning.


I had new doors installed last week and this was a scrap piece left. Its 6 inches high & apparently thats all she needed to feel safe & secure in the nesting box. Curious to see if my other hen lays in there as well now. But she only lays every other day so I will have to wait till tomorrow to see.




And we finally got some snow last night. The hens were happy to come out for some homemade suet but wouldnt venture any further even for table scraps. Oh well maybe they will venture to the covered outdoor run if the high winds ever die down. They prefer to be in the coop now talking with Bossy as she lays her egg. Its like a chicken klotch of old biddies in their gabbibg away

Sweet pics, and it is funny how they like to gab isn't it. Hope your feeling better

 

[Miss Lydia]

Love the blog!

I have been fermenting in a pickl-it, which is basically a Fido jar with a "bubbler" on top. I get much, much better results.

I also plan to start sprouting. I have a few things to sprout here. I am going to dehydrate the sprouts so I don't have to do it as often. I think it will work out ok. I'm also thinking about dehydrating the fermented feed, so that I can feed the probiotics when we have to leave for a few days. Not sure how that will all work out yet.

I really am looking forward to sprouting the BOSS and maybe wheat if my feed store ever gets more in.

 

[Leahs Mom]

Love the blog!

I have been fermenting in a pickl-it, which is basically a Fido jar with a "bubbler" on top. I get much, much better results.

I also plan to start sprouting. I have a few things to sprout here. I am going to dehydrate the sprouts so I don't have to do it as often. I think it will work out ok. I'm also thinking about dehydrating the fermented feed, so that I can feed the probiotics when we have to leave for a few days. Not sure how that will all work out yet.

I almost got soe Pickl-its too but I did some reading just before purchasing and found someone that had done some experimenting with many different kinds of jars. She even took samples and measured bacterial content! When I found out that the fido's worked all by themselves, I decided to go that way instead of getting the pickl-it with the air locks since they can only be used for fermenting and the regular Fidos are multi-purpose. Here's some links you might be interested in:

Some links by a lady that tried out lots of different jars for fermenting. She did samples and counted Lactic Acid Bacteria and other things in them and did a report:

Link to last post about the different jars:
http://www.nourishingtreasures.com/index.php/2012/07/03/sauerkraut-survivor-final-report/
And
http://www.nourishingtreasures.com/index.php/2012/09/07/sauerkraut-survivor-update-the-fridge-results-i-never-would-have-guessed/

And
Here's the link to the first post in the series:
http://www.nourishingtreasures.com/index.php/2012/06/08/sauerkraut-survivor-day-1-packing-the-jars-and-baseline-samples/


About Fido Jars for fermentation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeUE8uKaiAw&feature=player_embedded

http://www.nourishingtreasures.com/index.php/2012/08/20/can-fido-jars-defy-science-can-they-provide-a-fail-safe-spoilage-free-ferment-with-no-brine-cover-find-out/

Pretty interesting! And strangely enough, there is a Fido fermentation group on facebook! http://www.facebook.com/groups/FidoFermentation/?ref=ts&fref=ts

I have thought about the dehydrating on the fermented feed too. It's a great idea and experiment...if you try it be sure to do some photos and show!!!

 

[AlivianAcres]

Woohoo! 6 chicks!! I candled the remaining 5 eggs and they had passed. 2 were breech and 3 piped internally but never externally.

 

[Leahs Mom]

I really am looking forward to sprouting the BOSS and maybe wheat if my feed store ever gets more in.

I'm going to post some photos showing the way I sprout over here later tonight I think.... pretty easy the way I do it without a lot of hassle.

Woohoo!

6 chicks!! I candled the remaining 5 eggs and they had passed. 2 were breech and 3 piped internally but never externally.

How in the world can you see that well to know they're breech? I did take a look at 3 of mine the other night - 2 look full and dark and alittle heavier; one was lighter and I only saw a small dark area inside. This was at 14 days.

 

[texasmomma]

Pretty interesting! And strangely enough, there is a Fido fermentation group on facebook! http://www.facebook.com/groups/FidoFermentation/?ref=ts&fref=ts

I have thought about the dehydrating on the fermented feed too. It's a great idea and experiment...if you try it be sure to do some photos and show!!!

I have read those and talked with KerryAnn of Cooking Traditional Foods as well as Kathleen at Pickl-It. I chose to continue with the pickl-it. Kathleen's response to what happened in these experiments is quite interesting. Since I can't transcribe our conversation, I will just say that I wasn't convinced to just use a Fido. The science is not there to back up the results of these experiments, IMHO.

If you haven't seen KerryAnn's responses to these, I can send the links. Otherwise, I won't bore everyone else here on the thread.

The chick food is basically dehydrating under the ecoglow. I figure that I can do it on a grander scale once spring starts and I can do it outside in the sun.

 

[Leahs Mom]

You could send me in pm!

So far I'm liking the fido - way better than anything else I've tried. And the price is great at about $4/jar for double duty!

 

[texasmomma]

My husband is giving me 2/3 of an old garage turned greenhouse turned into a garage again for my chicken coop. So far, he plans to frame the open end with a full sized door. We have an old door from when the house flooded that he will put in there. Maybe. Or he can make a door. He did that when he built the mobile coop. Regardless, it will have a full sized door. LOL I need to be able to move around in there, etc.

Other than that, he just planning on putting up roosts and nesting boxes. Nothing fancy. If you had this kind of space, what would you do with it. His time is limited, so I also need to be mindful of his time. He gets two days off a week, but one of those days is often filled with work stuff. He is not usually available to work on it after work as his schedule is very varied. I can do a few things, but I'm really unhandy.

We have 9 chickens right now. Two are baby cockerels that will probably be culled when they start to crow, unless someone wants them for a breeding program. I expect to get a few more chickens as we get closer to spring. I'd like to have about 20, but his number is 12. We will have an outdoor run outside of the garage. I'm thinking of a pop up door, but we'll see what he ends up getting me.

The garage has two slabs of concrete for car tires. The rest of it is gravel over the slab. There is a 2-3 foot brick base. Some of it is falling apart. The rest is framed with metal covering. It has a metal roof. The eaves look like they can be opened and we plan to open them and put hardware wire over them for ventilation. Will get some pics for you later, but would like to know your opinions. We don't need anything fancy, but we also would like to make it as serviceable as possible.

 

[Miss Lydia]

I'm going to post some photos showing the way I sprout over here later tonight I think.... pretty easy the way I do it without a lot of hassle.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Woohoo!

6 chicks!! I candled the remaining 5 eggs and they had passed. 2 were breech and 3 piped internally but never externally.

Congrats!!!!