The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[Pozees]

Ashdoes - I totally get your DH's desire for land, especially here in CO. When we went shopping for land, our goal was land with a well and at least 35 acres, because in CO if you have a well and less than 35 acres, and they run public water where it is accessible to you, you can be forced to cap off your well and use public water. We settled on a 42 acre parcel on a highway frontage road with ~600 acres of State owned land to our West leased for cattle grazing, almost the entire 42 acres to the North before the next neighbor, and a trailer housing an elderly gentleman on the 18 acres next door to our South, with the frontage road and then highway to the East. Our South neighbor died a few years ago so we have had essentially no neighbors, although it appears the property has recently been purchased as there has been activity there lately, and we are worrying about what will come of that (there is no fence between the properties, so if/when someone moves in, I will introduce myself and politely inform them if they have dogs and they show up on our property they will not be given a chance to kill chickens). We are admittedly somewhat hermit-ish - I like people just fine, just not in my back yard telling me what they think about ... anything, I guess. At work I deal with people all day and do a reasonable job of it; when I come home I want peace. DH, cats, chickens, gardens, trees we are trying to get growing, native wildlife, cooking to varying degrees, not necessarily in that order, are the things I want to experience. When I was younger I wanted to live near people and socialize, but as I've aged I've changed. Aside from work we largely live by nature's rhythm. DH was laid off in January and is probably home for good (not much call for heavy equipment mechanics in their 60s). It's okay. Though some days he gripes about it, he mainly likes being here taking care of the piece of the land we tend to. The rest is just buffer between us and "civilization." It is the buffer part that makes the difference, for us at least. Given the way your DH has had to live in the military, I honestly don't blame him a bit. You have been a wonderful wife to him, and as you begin to see why he wants the same kind of buffer, you will understand and embrace what he seeks.

Also, goats want more than an acre. I once had a herd of mostly cashmeres, to eat the weeds, on another property I had of 35 acres, and they used the whole bit and then some.

 

[Leahs Mom]

Quote: No... You take out the rice at the end of step 1 or the beginning of step 2...however you want to read that. You use only the "wash water".

 

[starlingdaly]

Technically, it makes it for you. You just give it something to feed on (sugars/juice/cider) & leave it a few days/weeks/months.

I would imagine it would be easier than my sourdough starter which requires feeding twice a day and is on holiday in the fridge right now.

 

[Quailsong]

I would imagine it would be easier than my sourdough starter which requires feeding twice a day and is on holiday in the fridge right now.

Got it. I figured I was reading that wrong somehow. Just didn't know where. Thank you, Leahs Mom.

starlingdaly, as I've yet to get a solid sourdough culture going, I'll have to agree. I'm good with quick ferments, like Injera. But so far it seems challenging to maintain. Granted, I'm moving very soon so my mind's a bit more than distracted.

 

[Leahs Mom]

Quote:
Interesting! I make farmers or polish cheese (aka Paneer in India) so I've plenty of whey to use for baking or whatever. On a slight de-rail, might I ask how you make your various cheeses if you do them from scratch?

I've thought about 'seeding' my cheeses w/ the store bought stuff via shredding. I know it wouldn't do -much- but even just to impart a bit of flavour and/or stretch a good cheese is a good enough goal.

I'm going to have to ask this question because people often call cheeses by names that aren't their real names...

When you say "Paneer", is your process to heat the milk to a high temperature and use an acid (lemon juice, etc.) to cause it to curdle?

I need to know the answer to that before I can answer if you can use the whey as a LAB containing item.


************
I mostly use a basic mesophillic culture (LAB bacterial culture) for most of the cheeses I make. I could do these by allowing a natural culture (wild culturing from what is native in the air), but I have chosen to use specific cultures that I purchase. Otherwise, it is raw milk with just the addition of the mesophillic culture.

I make a variety of pressed cheeses including Caerphilly and Darby ("cheddar style" cheeses that don't require quite as long an aging period as cheddar does) Queso Fresco (which is designed to eat right away but I allow a short aging period because I like a sharper flaver); Several fresh cheeses including Fromage Blanc, Feta, Chevre; and a few others.

eta: I center on raw milk cheeses - these cheeses are all made under 100 degrees in their "cooking" process.

 

[lalaland]

I thought mash was ground like dust pretty much.. That's what everyone told me once I said I thought it was whole.

Feed your chicks all sorts of things early on. They can eat anything in small pieces, as long as they have grit.

I give day olds small red worms. They don't always get it.. Also, if I put a clod of sod in the brooder in the very beginning, rather than waiting a week or two, they are much more likely to enjoy it early on and not take so long to accept any new treat.

yes, mash is mostly ground but not like flour - or at least the stuff around here is ground that way. this stuff I just opened up has practically intact large kernals of dry corn - also whole oats with the husk on...

I do feed them all sorts of stuff. in their two weeks they have had: grass, sod, dandelion flowers and leaves, violets and violet leaves, lambs quarters, clover, sorrel, yougurt, worms, ticks, ants, beetles, oatmeal, egg, and chick feed.

I agree that if they start with a variety they find it easier to try new things later on. just like cats - if you feed them only one thing, they have a hard time with a different food, but if you start them out always changing out the food, they like the variety and aren't as persnickety.

Well if it is starter mesh, I'm thinking they will eat what they can and leave the big pieces. or you could strain out the big pieces and put them in the food processor. I would give them chick grit just in case. With the purena brand of chick food I did not need the grit right away though. Not sure how much it costs.

i sift out the regular grit (which around here is crushed granite) and use the smaller pieces for the chicks. sprinkle it like salt on the feed, and have a tiny dish out for them to pick at.

have to confess that I am afraid that they will take a large kernal and choke. they are still pretty small chicks. well, some of them are bruisers now, but there are some breeds that are still tiny.

 

[Quailsong]

I'm going to have to ask this question because people often call cheeses by names that aren't their real names...

When you say "Paneer", is your process to heat the milk to a high temperature and use an acid (lemon juice, etc.) to cause it to curdle?

I need to know the answer to that before I can answer if you can use the whey as a LAB containing item.


************
I mostly use a basic mesophillic culture (LAB bacterial culture) for most of the cheeses I make. I could do these by allowing a natural culture (wild culturing from what is native in the air), but I have chosen to use specific cultures that I purchase. Otherwise, it is raw milk with just the addition of the mesophillic culture.

I make a variety of pressed cheeses including Caerphilly and Darby ("cheddar style" cheeses that don't require quite as long an aging period as cheddar does) Queso Fresco (which is designed to eat right away but I allow a short aging period because I like a sharper flaver); Several fresh cheeses including Fromage Blanc, Feta, Chevre; and a few others.

Traditional Indian Paneer is made using vinegar or lemon/lime juice. Heat is usually incorporated, sometimes with acidic ingredient as it's warming up, or as it cools. Sometimes I use those, or I use another citrus (orange!) I also let it curdle non-heated on its own for a week by itself, via yogurt or even kefir grains (as I now have those). That may or may not be the right way to do it, depending on how so-and-so tradition/culture makes it, but it makes cheese so it works for me.

My main focus is wild cheese that is simple to make. I'm not a fan of commercial starters, although if I could buy a one-time & keep it going indefinitely (much like kefir, unlike yogurt) I would definitely be up for that. I've a special fondness for blue although I've no hopes on replicating that safely. I'm also interested in aging cheese for much longer than a week, but I'm well aware that's a whole 'nother ballgame.

I'm in the same boat with canning, actually. I can frozen can stuff, but pressure cook stuff is still out of my league. I will have more tools & storage for it in the next house though. So it won't hurt to make some mistakes there.

lalaland, sounds like a mislabeled bag. You could always try to sprout the feed, or ferment it. Or even just ground it up in an old blender/coffee grinder.

 

[brandislee]

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?

Ew is right... but at least my dogs don't have fleas too. Yet.

As far as food for your dgs are concerned. I think your best bet might be raw. There are quite a few good websites on info on feeding raw. TBH, feeding raw is sometimes not quite as expensive as people think as animals eat alot less of it than they do commercial food. Commercial food contained a lot do fillers while your dogs will actually absorb most of the raw and be satsfied faster. As far as the buunies and squirrels perhaps it would be helpful to fereeze them for a couple of weeks to get rid of any parasites.

In a perfect world I would do raw, but even though I know you're right about them eating less then, I still don't think I could afford it. I have two dogs, one is 32 lbs and would eat like nothing... but my problem with her would be that she utterly refuses to eat raw meat. Yeah, she's a weird dog in a lot of ways. She catches the bunnies and squirrels and my other dog eats them...

And my other dog is 100 lbs of muscle and energy. I could afford to feed the other one alone, but not the big one. He would need to eat 2-4 lbs of food a day, according to the raw feeding guides I've looked at. My family doesn't eat that much meat a day because we can't afford it, I'm not going to feed to to my dog! Maybe if my husband hunted or we had some other super cheap source of meat.

For me personally, 10 acres would be enough. It'd give me room for 2-3 chicken coops (for clan breeding or diff breeds), a barn for goats/kidding, enough pasture for the goats/birds, & an area for a good house for a LGD. The rest of the area would be permaculture - food forest, berry bushes & some rinky-dink raised beds for 'show'.

Any more land than that and I'd need hirelings. Bleh.

What's your ideal, Ashdoes? Adding in livestock you want.

Lol, one acre. We have 2.5 and I feel over-whelmed. I made him fence just an acre for the backyard, and I'll be filling it with trees and berry bushes, lots of chickens and maybe a couple goats. I love the look of over grown and filled in, and that's easier in smaller spaces. I won't get my way though, we'll pay this off by military retirement and rent it out while we move to a bigger piece of property....because if you go to war, I basically say yes to anything you ask for.

We have 2.6 acres and were overwhelmed at first but have now (more or less!) got it under control. The hardest part for me was getting the right equipment for the jobs we needed to do. We didn't even own a mower when we moved here! I don't have even close to all of it utilized the way I would like it, but I'm on my way. There's still some territorial conflict going on over the top yard (the house is on a hill and most of the yard slopes down, but there's a big expanse of yard, probably a little less than an acre including where the house sits, that's just open grass) between my husband and I. He likes grass, I hate it and think it's useless (well, not totally, chickens like to graze on it and cows eat it, but that's all it's good for!) and would like to get rid of most of it in favor of garden beds, fruit trees, etc. He hates mowing around the nonsense I do (but I do it anyway!). But most of the rest is fruit trees, my very large garden, walnut trees, an oak grove, and chicken pens. It's a process.

I think I could handle 40 (maybe more) acres by myself (more or less, I'd need help occasionally) because if I had that much I'd raise cattle (and possibly other large stock, but definitely cattle) and a few horses to ride to check said cattle. So like 1/2-1 acre for the house and surrounding permaculture beds, 2 or so for fruit trees and shrubs and a large annual garden, then the rest would just be pasture and hay ground. Why don't I list chickens? I'd probably have a coop near the house for breeding and raising chicks, and just because I love having chickens around the yard, but if I had that much property and the resources to buy/build all the necessary infrastructure, I would do intensive rotational grazing and follow the cattle with chickens, which would be housed in large mobile houses. And obviously I would need a LGD to guard the chickens... See, I have it all planned out! The only thing missing is the money to fund said idea...

Quote:

I really LOVED watching my first (and only so far) mamma w/the new kiddos. I could have just sat and watched for hours. I observed her telling them different things like, "Here's food" "Come here NOW" "Freeze" and others. Pretty interesting how she talked to them and how they responded. Amazing thing to me was that she was a hatchery chick herself that had no mama. Just knew what to "say" and do.

I think it will be amazing and just as exciting every time (if I could just get someone to cooperate out there

)

Nope, it never gets old! My first broody was a hatchery chick, too, and she's my best broody to date.

Here you go .... as that VIDEO IS LONG and unnecessarily LONG ... I think I have in memorized so here goes nothing

1. take a cup or so of rice and soak it in a cup or so of water .... shake it up, stir it ... whatever ... you get cloudy rice water.
2. Put this in a jar with plenty of headroom.... cover with a paper towel let stand for a week it will turn yellowish & grow some scum....
3. Strain off scum
4. Add Milk to the liquid ... 10 parts to 1 part
5. Put in glass jar with plenty of headroom , loosely cover with paper towel let stand a week
6. Curd will form liquid will be yellow
7. Strain Curds leaving LAB liquid
8. Feed Curd to chickens
9. put LAB into fridge for up to 1 year or mix 1 to1 with molasses and it can sit out on counter and be stored for up to 3 years!

TO USE: 20 parts water to 1 part LABs liquid ... mix & spray


EASY

I keep seeing people refer to LAB's... I know what they are, and now I know how to make them, but what are they for?

Yeah, I've used nustock on the legs. It is just that you can't tell if progress is made - I've never seen the scales that have lifted come completely off. So it contnues to look as if there is an active infestation. I try to keep up with treating, and preventive treatment of clean legs, but maybe a year later I'll notice a hen who was previously scaley leg mite FREE start to have the mites.

Could be the huge number of wild birds in the coop run, who knows.

garlic in feed would be easier than continuing to treat legs preventatively, but the amount of garlic might be too costly for me. especially since this years garlic crop is tiny as moles destroyed it over winter in the garden.

Not to be a pain-in-the-butt know-it-all, but moles are insectavores. It's a common misconception that moles eat roots, bulbs, and root crops, but it's not true. They may nibble a veggie here or there, but never enough to do much damage. It was more likely pocket gophers, which are really common here in MN. I tell you this not to be a know-it-all (well, that might be part of it) but because it may help you control them if you know what is actually stealing your crop!

 

[Leahs Mom]

Okay. That IS how Paneer is made - just as you describe.

So, in short, the whey from that process is not a LAB containing ingredient. You can use it for a soup base, etc., but the process used in making that kind of cheese is not a fermentation process and does not contain live active cultures.

We can discuss the cheeses more in PM if you want to continue the conversation - so we don't bore everyone!

And..I'm off to bed for the night so if you PM I'll catch you tomorrow

 

[BlueMouse]

Float tested my eggs. None sank. Neither did any wiggle any more than could be interpreted as just sort of bobbling in the water from being placed in. Unsure what that means. Putting them back in the incubator, and just saying that cut off is friday. If nothing hatches by then I'm declaring them dead. So discouraging to have a total failure like this.