The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[BlueMouse]

I think red ridge does at. As soon as I can catch up on my never ending to do list I plan on scrubbing out the rain barrel and building a new stand for it and putting a few Walmart gold fish in it and see how it goes

I know that you can do it in stock tanks, Just wasn't sure if they'd do ok in the dark. I thought red ridge was the one who does it.

 

[TexasLisa]

That's my fear that Stella will try to get through it again. I think they will stay in their run for now and perhaps in a few weeks they will be big enough to not fit thought those holes. They are growing so quick !! Tho I might try a small fenced in area to put them in when I am home. They were so excited being on the grass yesterday and sun bathing

Is there a 'Stanley' in the group?

Lisa

 

[SallyinIndiana]

Quote: My boy won't let the chickens near his box. They don't go near it now even when he is not out there. But that first day they discovered it they acted like it was gold. But a few times of my boy hitting them on their backs with a and box toy shovel and now it is scary. Even our new cat won't go near it.

 

[brandislee]

I put coconut oil on the diaper rash/open sores of doom with a teeny bit of tea tree oil in it, and it's not so super fragrant. I might wash it out carefully with something gently antiseptic, and then cover it with the coconut oil with maybe a teeny bit of tea tree in it. If you feel like that's not staying put well enough you could make a basic salve with a little beeswax?

Still no internal pips... trying not to freak out too much.

Got my mysteriously losing weight hen by herself yesterday and fed her a dish of plain yogurt, rolled oats, and pumpkin seeds. She gobbled it down with abosolutely no hesitation. I think my plan of action is to attempt to get her back up to a good condition, and then see if she can stay there with on just free range and limited extra feeding. Our area is lush this time of year. I don't really have a place in my flock for a hen who cannot thrive on free range in june with purely supplemental feeding. I feel bad saying that, but that's the fact.

Thanks for the ideas and feedback from everyone. I am all for going with one's gut in most situations, but in that particular situation my gut was so lost! Then when I found it and my gut was saying to take the eggs from her I was like "what, will that even work?" So without this forum and this thread I would have been SOOOOO lost! I've been using coconut oil with a tiny, tiny amount of lavender EO (overall lavender is one of the safest EO's that I know of, and I found a reference to someone else using it on chickens, then used half the amount she used since she was using it on adults... I'm still worried that was too much, but the chicks seem to be okay). There are two of the three pecked chicks still alive, and they look okay. At least, one of them I'm pretty confident is going to be okay, and it's wounds are pretty superficial. The other one is missing a pretty big chunk of scalp... like I'm pretty sure I can see skull. It's walking around and eating and drinking, especially now that the swelling around it's eye has gone down and it can actually see. But it doesn't act quite as normal and energetic as the other one.

Oh, and one more word on that situation. So yesterday morning, after I took a little nap, I was feeling pretty darn good about myself saving all those chicks. I decided my son and I were going to have eggs in a hole for lunch, and the first egg I tried to crack just would NOT crack. When I finally got a piece off (thankfully not onto our food!) I saw blood and was like "oh crap." So I cracked the egg into a bowl and there was a fully developed chick. Then I looked at the shell and saw the very badly faded mark. Apparently I had taken a developing egg away from my other broody because I couldn't see the mark. So yeah, I killed the chick.

As others have said, absolutely, in fact I associate it with some of the best roosters. When I'm building a new cage the boys are all eyes for it and can't wait for me to finish before they make multiple inspections of it and try out all the nest boxes, making a rapid very soft clucking noise. They're always under my feet as I'm building! They shape nests for the hens and are careful with any eggs there. In the wild roosters are very much involved as fathers, it's only human intervention that's bred mating-only purpose roosters who are only focused on the next hen and the next and the next and couldn't care less about chicks, or worse, kill them.

Off topic... How is it, with this thriving thread, that some people are visiting natural-solution-seeker's threads to say all natural methods fail as one can apparently see from all the threads on them, etc... I've always pursued the natural methods and found higher success rates than everyone I know who uses commercial/normal methods of poultry husbandry. So personally I vouch for natural as opposed to chemical 100%. But some people seem to make a crusade about chemicals as being the only way. I think the naysayers put a lot of beginners off what it in fact the best choice for their health and their animal's health. It's a shame.

I completely agree, and I deal with it all the time. The vet, even, that I take my dogs to was super adimant that I needed to worm my chickens asap (not even an avian vet) because my dogs had tape worms. I just shook my head, but I'm working on preventing them either from getting the tape worms or from getting bad. When I even hinted that I wasn't going to immediately worm them she was like "well you can't always tell if they have worms." And I was like "1) you had to google it to even find out about worms in chickens when I mentioned I had them, so don't act like an expert, and 2) if you can't tell they have them, then why does it matter?" I mean, as long as the chicken is healthy, there are no apparent worms in the poop, the chicken isn't loosing weight, etc, what's the problem? I run into the same issues with my parents and my in laws when talking about both chickens and other livestock, but I don't argue with them much (yet) because so far I've only kept chickens myself, so that's the extent of my experience. BUT when I get my other animals eventually (and I pretty much plan to have a little of everything- sheep, goats, pigs, cows, horses, geese, and ducks in addition to the turkeys and chickens I already have) I will NOT be using their methods.

Speaking of which, I really need another plastic water-er. All my peripheral coops have them, but my main coop has been without vinegar in their water for a while because I'm one short, so they have a metal one.

Oh, and I want to take a quick poll- do you put garlic in your chicken's food or in their water, and what form of garlic do you use? (dried, fresh, powdered, etc) I was thinking about giving garlic to my new kittens (I got them Friday, they are SOOO cute!) because they came with pretty bad infections in their eyes, but I was afraid it would either put them off their food or their water. They're so little I was afraid of them not eating for even a short period, and water is super important for cats and it's hard enough to get them to drink enough as it is, so I didn't want to put them off their water either. I saw a supplement at the pet store for cats and dogs that contained brewers yeast and garlic, but it was $20 flipping dollars!

Another thing... about the dogs and tape worms. So my dogs are on less than ideal food. They're young and (other than the worms...) healthy, and I just can't justify spending a huge amount on an animal that in reality doesn't contribute to food production... it would be one thing if I considered them livestock guardians, but they are so not... they'll chase off a stray dog or other large predator, but they aren't the right type of dog and I don't trust them alone with the chickens, so they're only outside when I'm outside, which kind of defeats the purpose... and yes, it was dumb to get inside/non-useful dogs, but the one is from my "old" city life, and the other I really really wanted to have be an outside/guardian dog, but 1) his instincts are all wrong... he basically wants to chase anything that moves. He leaves the chickens alone oddly enough (although he will occasionally point them), at least when I'm around, but he would eat these new kittens if I turned my back... and honestly if he hurts one of them or a chicken he's gone. And 2) he was born in November and came home with us, to Minnesota, in the beginning of January. He was an outside dog when we got him, BUT that was with his mother and siblings and in a milder climate. I am too much of a softie to keep a puppy alone outside in that kind of weather. So here we are. Anyway, they eat cheap crap food. And supplement with bunnies and squirrels. The result being tape worms. I wormed them with the awful stuff the vet gave me because their worms were BAD. The one was off his food for weeks (he's still recovering, in fact) and the other one had them in her fecal float so bad they said they'd never seen a worse sample. But now that the worms are presumably gone, is there anything I can give them to prevent it from happening again? I'm going to guess ACV in the water and garlic, but anything else? And similar to the chicken question, how do you give garlic- fresh/dried/powdered?

I hate pine shavings sooooooo much, but am looking into sand, since I think it should be pretty hard for any little bugs to live in there, Starting to think it's baby spiders, since there are cobwebs in the corners of the coop, maybe they are just dropping in? lol.

Hmmm... to each their own. I love pine shavings. But I love straw, too. I don't use it as chicken bedding because I love pine shavings and, oddly enough, pine shavings are cheaper than straw here, but I love using straw in the garden- I love the way it looks and smells. So I get that.

 

[Ashdoes]

Tape worms are caused by the dog eating fleas. I know this because our base housing in Little Rock was INFESTED so bad with fleas it took antimology two times to get rid of them. Anyways, our Doby got tape worm twice in a month and the vet said it was the fleas. So, your bunnies and squirrels probable have fleas and that is what's causing the dogs to have them. Ew all around, right?
Ok....the other reason I came on today....the babies are here! They sent three boys, instead of two and the five girls. Pics(-which you should enjoy, because while I was emailing them to myself I knocked the over-priced iCrap off the brooder and cracked the screen, yay me)
Babies in a Box

A boy and a girl

Nice and warm

They're pretty full from the gro-gel, so not eating much yet, but seem super happy and vigorous.

 

[aoxa]

Tape worms are caused by the dog eating fleas. I know this because our base housing in Little Rock was INFESTED so bad with fleas it took antimology two times to get rid of them. Anyways, our Doby got tape worm twice in a month and the vet said it was the fleas. So, your bunnies and squirrels probable have fleas and that is what's causing the dogs to have them. Ew all around, right?
Ok....the other reason I came on today....the babies are here! They sent three boys, instead of two and the five girls. Pics(-which you should enjoy, because while I was emailing them to myself I knocked the over-priced iCrap off the brooder and cracked the screen, yay me)
Babies in a Box


Nice and warm

They're pretty full from the gro-gel, so not eating much yet, but seem super happy and vigorous.

What is on the ecoglow?

Very cute

 

[starlingdaly]

What is on the ecoglow?

Very cute

I was just wondering that too!
I taped some fine grit sandpaper down on mine. Figured it would prevent slipping and allow them to hone their beaks if they needed.

 

[Ashdoes]

DE. We have the worm bucket and FF in the garage, and the newly awake ants have found their way in. Since I'd prefer not to bug spray where the chicks or worms are, I used the DE. Worked like a charm, no more ants trying to eat my worms or FF, and I feel better knowing none will go in the brooder.

 

[starlingdaly]

DE. We have the worm bucket and FF in the garage, and the newly awake ants have found their way in. Since I'd prefer not to bug spray where the chicks or worms are, I used the DE. Worked like a charm, no more ants trying to eat my worms or FF, and I feel better knowing none will go in the brooder.

Does the DE not kill the worms? I have avoided putting it in my mealworm bucket even though it appears I have a fruit fly infestation. :/

 

[Ashdoes]

We had mites in ours, and in research it said the DE wouldn't harm the earth worms, because they don't have the hard shell....but I don't know about meal worms. We only did the light sprinkle over the top for the mites and that worked out fine. For the ants my husband built a little stand for the bucket and I sprinkled the DE around it. I've checked the worms twice and they're thriving just fine, even though I worry about having the DE in there.