The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[brandislee]

Thank you! Do you have pics of your setup?

Here it is in it's first winter of use. It still looks pretty much the same, although the canvas has faded some and the sides are roled up at the bottom now. The feeder isn't in there at the moment, but I have two of those crappy plastic chick feeders, lids removed, screwed to a 2x4 and THAT is up on cement blocks, which sits right in the lighter part of the a frame you can see in the picture. Pretty ghetto feeder, but it works! The water actually sits on another cement block right outside the cover, purely because moving it in and out of there, with the bending and the weight of the waterer, was a pain in my butt.

Like I said, I also built a smaller 8x8 one out of 1x2's (I used cedar, they're technically cedar battens used in board and batten siding, but they work really well for this, too) that has cross bracing on each side and more vertical supports (plus the roosts, which also give the structure some support) and it is really nice. The canvas comes down to about 1 foot above the ground on each side and the rest of it is hardware cloth (with a skirt). Really nice for hot weather. I obviously don't use it in the winter. Those chickens get fed outside, but only since I switched to FF.

 

[aoxa]

Wow he's gotten big and so lovable looking

Thanks!

 

[BlueMouse]

Love the a frame!

as per the sick dog (sorry it lost my quote thing) if it's just the runs/puking try rice boiled with ground beef (lean) 1 part dry rice to 1/2-1 part beef, and half again as much water as normal (soupy). Feed only a little at a time. Maybe half cup meals for a large dog, spaced out 3-4 hours at first. For a dog with continual stomach problems over a longer term, you can make up corn starch with any sodium free broth (preferablly home made) it should be very very thick when cooked so that it's solid when cooled. We cut that into cubes and fed with cottage chees to our extremely elderly Newfie who was happy as a clam but had real stomach problems. I'm with you on the vet. We don't have a lot of money, we take our dogs to the vets as little as possible. I have saved up for some proceedures, and I think if it was just a couple hundred dollars I would do surgery, but I won't treat terminal illnesses for thousands of dollars. And I love my dogs just about as much as my kids. The dogs don't understand that you're trying to help them, they just understand that they are sick..... I always try to decide whether I'm extending a pets life for my sake or for theirs, and I consider the quality of their lives. Enough rambling. I think that your gut is right, wait a few days and see, especially if the dog is not acting like it's in extreme distress. Good luck!

 

[armorfirelady]

Oh..AFL - just noticed you are using a pvc pipe. Scroll down in that blog post and you can see the videos. They're really designed to be on a pvc pipe. I just put it on a bucket.

And you can get them all set up and on the pipe if you want them that way. There are several places that sell the setup.

Here is ONE of the places that sells set-ups:

http://www.beaktime.com/water.php


THANK YOU

Quote:
I do find that this is where they like to spend their days when the sun is high & their shade is minimal. Its also where they run when air predators are near since its out in the middle of their forage area

 

[brandislee]

Did he eat anything he shouldn't of?

Koda once ate leftover Mac&Cheese with Salsa in it and puked and had the runs for a full weekend.

I don't think so. Well, other than a bunny. I probably should have included that in the original post. He ate a bunny last week. But not anything else I can think of. Of course, with dogs it is ALWAYS possible, but he's is with me pretty much all day because I don't trust him to be alone, either in the house or outside around my chickens.

Thanks for the reply!!

Darn, I was hoping one of those would be fine... What I'm looking for in bedding is something fairly inexpensive, natural, and preferably very little dust as my dad's lungs aren't the strongest and dust makes him get a super bad cough. Any help or advice would be awesome!!

Leaves? Low dust, and some people use them as bedding. Of course, only if you have them. I have tons, but I don't use them in the coop purely because I have a thing for shavings- so easy to work with and they smell good. But I use leaves in the run/outdoor shelter.

My blue heeler now has a sensitive stomach. I am unable to give her ram bones anymore or those flavored smoked bones since they give gastro distress.

That of course took $$ to figure out at the vets but luckily not as much as I thought. (I originally thought she had a blockage from a bone I gave her) My vet had me put her on a bland diet as soon as it started. Cooked chicken, ground beef, rice, noodles & cottage cheese. I kept her on this for a week at least and her stool had to be normal for a few days before is started giving her regular food mixed into the bland foods
(honestly my Lily thinks the bland diet is super yummy & her brother Bear doesn't understand while he gets kibble & she gets cooked meat) She was also given meds (human meds I got with a prescription) to give her when she has a flare up. She had one more flare up but the neds really helped.

I think that sounds like a plan, unless he takes a turn for the worst. He did eat some ghetto rawhide I got at the Dollar tree last week, maybe that bothered him? But he has never been sensitive before...

Chicken noodle soup. Good for the soul, good for people, good for dogs..... I would make sure the dog is not dehydrated and let nature take it's course. I will assume there has been some improvement. Actually, anything soaked in broth is good. I usually have dogs that will stuff themselves with broth soaked dogfood then puke it up later. Actually this might purge the dog of anything poisonous. So, with broth, if necessary, limit the amount consumed.

I agree! The first thing I give my dogs when they're under the weather is stock. I'll skip the noodles for them, just because I don't feel like grains are particularly healthy for dogs, but maybe I'll throw in some veg and some liver or something. I thought the eggs poached in stock was a pretty awesome idea, too... partially cooked eggs are supposed to be ideal for dogs (can't remember where I read that, though), plus I have tons of them so I'd rather give him eggs than meat. Plus it gave me the opportunity to practice poaching eggs, something I've never been horribly good at... and it's my husband's favorite type of egg, which I don't understand because I don't like eggs that taste like water, I want my eggs to taste like butter o bacon fat....

Nobody thinks it might be worms? I didn't think worms caused vomiting in dogs, but I swear I saw a worm in his poo (long, white, looked segmented... could have been well digested runner grass though). I put it in the freezer (yeah, ew) so I could show the vet if I needed to.

 

[RedRidge]

On water, stock tanks, and gold fish.
Yes... the gold fish eat the algae... not a perfect job, but a definitive improvement... works best when the tanks are in the shade.
There are pros and cons to that however... we prefer to put our tanks for the larger livestock in the sun because they don't "hang out" at the stock tank all day this way.
If the tanks are in the shade they will leave the shade only long enough to graze close to the water source/shade and over graze close to the shade and undergraze further away. By having stock tanks in the sun, the livestock go to the tanks to drink and graze more evenly between shade and stock tank.
Sounds like a similar case for not having water in the hen house, but I have never considered it - food for thought.

Stock tanks that are short... also pros and cons.
The plus is that all the various size animals can drink from one... (pardon the skinny ewe, she is nursing twin lambs who are now 60 lbs each)


The disadvantage is that every once in a while you have an animal who just has to be creative... rather like finger painting with spaghetti, Beth has always thought the short tanks were for cooling off in... This water was clean not 2 minutes this picture was taken.

 

[smccuen]

Mine would not stay any cleaner or make any less mess outside buy more importantly I couldn't run a bucket heater in each one in the winter. I guess I just never thought about it being necessary so never move my buckets. They come back to coop to lay, drink and roost. Also, the coop provides shade which is cooler water as opposed to outside buckets.

So in really thinking about the question I guess it depends on each person's setup

yep.

 

[brandislee]

On water, stock tanks, and gold fish.
Yes... the gold fish eat the algae... not a perfect job, but a definitive improvement... works best when the tanks are in the shade.
There are pros and cons to that however... we prefer to put our tanks for the larger livestock in the sun because they don't "hang out" at the stock tank all day this way.
If the tanks are in the shade they will leave the shade only long enough to graze close to the water source/shade and over graze close to the shade and undergraze further away. By having stock tanks in the sun, the livestock go to the tanks to drink and graze more evenly between shade and stock tank.
Sounds like a similar case for not having water in the hen house, but I have never considered it - food for thought.

Stock tanks that are short... also pros and cons.
The plus is that all the various size animals can drink from one... (pardon the skinny ewe, she is nursing twin lambs who are now 60 lbs each)
Lol

The disadvantage is that every once in a while you have an animal who just has to be creative... rather like finger painting with spaghetti, Beth has always thought the short tanks were for cooling off in... This water was clean not 2 minutes this picture was taken.

lol! That's hilarious. When I was in 4-H we had a calf who used to stick his whole face in the tank and blow bubbles... And I remember another time my dad had to put posts around the tank in the lot because one heifer would jump into the (full sized) tank so she could get out (the tank was in the middle, three sides butted up to four different pens, the fourth side was the hydrant and OUT of the lot...)- she would jump into the tank, then jump OUT! He put posts around the top of the fence, about 2 feet above the tank, so the cows could drink but not jump into the tank.

Watering inside vs outside- My water gets way dirtier inside the coop than outside of it. They kick shavings EVERYWHERE, and when I have it inside over the winter it'll regularly be completely full of shavings in just a few hours (and it's on top of a couple cement blocks AND a warmer). Outside, as long as it's on a cement block, it stays clean. Yeah, it gets warm in the summer, but then I change the water more often.

 

[TexasLisa]

If she has been off them for more than a few hours, they are probably dead. If they are more than 24 days old they are probably no good. You could take them in a dark closet and candle them just to make sure--look for any movement. If you don't have an incubator or another broody, it doesn't make any difference though.

Thanks for replying. I figured as much but wanted to make sure on my thinking.

Lisa

 

[armorfirelady]

On water, stock tanks, and gold fish.
Yes... the gold fish eat the algae... not a perfect job, but a definitive improvement... works best when the tanks are in the shade.
There are pros and cons to that however... we prefer to put our tanks for the larger livestock in the sun because they don't "hang out" at the stock tank all day this way.
If the tanks are in the shade they will leave the shade only long enough to graze close to the water source/shade and over graze close to the shade and undergraze further away. By having stock tanks in the sun, the livestock go to the tanks to drink and graze more evenly between shade and stock tank.
Sounds like a similar case for not having water in the hen house, but I have never considered it - food for thought.

Thank you for the info. And I just love this picture. That is one smart cow