The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[BlueMouse]

We finally replaced our digital camera, so here are some chicken pictures

Broody Mama with her one chick. She keeps trying to sit on the plastic easter eggs as well as her chick.... which is just sort of odd... Aren't they supposed to lose interest in the eggs once they have chicks?


Charlotte and Eliza. Bug hunting.



Mary and Mr. Bennet. Hoping Mary will start laying very soon. She's really pinked up around the comb and wattles.



Creek is high with all this rain we've had.


I'm about 98% sure that this bird is a cockerel now. Still no saddle feathers but so much more leggy than any of the pullets.

 

[delisha]

This happened a few minutes ago.

CW - Freida



-Lynn

Maybe this one first

How long do you think I need to wait before I get some eggs from these girls?

Not yet..look for red or do an exam

I have a production RIR roo. He is nice but lately I have noticed that the bottom inch of his legs and most of his toes swell as the day goes on. By night fall his legs and toes are quite large, but they look fine again the next morning. I have checked for bumble foot but don't see any thing that looks like it could be cut out. It is both fee as well not just one. He does not limp but he does not run as fast as the other roosters I have either. He is still mating of course, after all he is a rooster and knows that he either mates well or bye bye.

edema..could you have cocci? or a bacteria going on? Or too much corn being fed?
Sounds like a heart issue, causing the blood to pool in his legs. It happens and can be congenital too. It also can be from excessive grain and not enough proteins. In the old days it used to be called corn legs. It caused the legs to swell and turn colors from excessive corn.

Hi all! I am new to this forum, and haven't started raising chicks yet. Have no chickens but am starting to research. Wanted to get into chats before I started. I have a few questions and who better to answer than you all, who have experience. I hope not to annoy, and will thank you in advance for any and all help. I have been wanting for a while to move to the country and become more self sufficient. One of the things is raising chicks. both for eggs, and meat. My first question, I have noticed that you have to feed laying hens differently than those you are raising for meat. I am confused as to how this works.... am I gonna have to have two coops? one for laying and one for meat chckns? How does that work?

research is great and your best tool.
I raise dual purpose. I use my chickens for both eggs and meat. I do have three coops but they are separated by age and breeding pens not by eggs verses meat. Even when I was breeding cornish for meat I raised them with all of my chicks.



all of them raised together.

Some use different quarters for meaties..

I have chosen at this time to raise dual purpose chickens. My egg layers that I have at this moment that are over 4 have cornish blood. The new pullets are all Orpington.

Quote: lol..funny stuff

 

[Bulldogma]

Great pictures, BlueMouse! Thank you for sharing!

And now for some of my new Swedish Flower Hen roosters. (oxymoron much?)

This is the younger of the two. His crow sounds like a child's birthday party noise maker!


The older one. He may be about ready to service my hens once he gets out of quarantine. He's blue based and uncrested.




As you can see, the younger boy has a crest. Between the two of them, my current hens and the pullets I have that will soon be of age, I should get a great assortment of colors and crested/uncrested chicks!

 

[bbsnooks]

subtly?

If it wasn't for IT I wouldn't have been HERE.
x's 4!

me.. to.. !! I avoid blogs.. same as face book
to much.. time.. if im on the computer i need to be finding an education. i havent found a good use for face book but wasting time and i figured it would be "addicting"

i found the natural blog.. and was so happy to find like minded people.. articles.. and real life experience. and so i say thanks to all.. the OT's for answering the same questions over and over.. for the new folks for asking things.. that i learn from.
The blog.. is so much easier to read thru than this long post.. when starting a project like fermenting, or what to do when you see those creepy crawly's.

and now.. i'm addicted to .. this thread.. -- just when i think i can skip.. some thing.. great is put in.

How do I get more posts per page to read? I am so totally hooked on the ot thread, the gnarly bunch and this one but my oh my, the pages to read. And I certainly want to read them ALL!

I Dont know if this will help. as i cannot get more posts/page on the laptop.
however .. i ofter will open up 2 tabs in the browser.. of this post.. this one is "1632"

at the top of the page.. there is this

• « Previous​
• 1​
• …​
• 1624​
• 1625​
• 1626​
• 1627​
• 1628​
• 1629​
• 1630​
• 1631​
• 1632
  ​
• ​

--
this helps for slow connections.. while i'm reading one.. the next page is opening..
on the 2 tabs i open one for odd and one for even..
this helps.. so that when i'm done reading 1624 page.. select 1626. ( and same for the 1625 to 27)


however .. i think this is all mute point if your reading on a tablet or ipad.. / phone.

- maybe tell us .. why.. you want more per page, rather than just clicking next. ( slow connection time?)

 

[armorfirelady]

This is the younger of the two. His crow sounds like a child's birthday party noise maker!


The older one. He may be about ready to service my hens once he gets out of quarantine. He's blue based and uncrested.

YOUR BOYS

I am curious what makes them be called blue?

I figured out the sumatruo blue are actually grey in color.................is that the same for SFHs?

 

[Bulldogma]

YOUR BOYS

I am curious what makes them be called blue?

I figured out the sumatruo blue are actually grey in color.................is that the same for SFHs?

Yes - many would call it gray, but by most breed standards (for those that have a set standard... which the SFH does not) the color is referred to as blue. SFH have multiple colors on each bird. Some are all blue with white flowering and some, like my new roo, are mille fleur colored but the blue gene mutes the black to blue. A double copy of the blue gene would be a "splash."

There's actually an article about it on the thing.

 

[Ashdoes]

BDM-at what age would the crest become apparent on the chicks? The CLs are crested as well, and I'm wondering when it'll show up.
I didn't get an age on our CL chicks, so I was wondering if someone had a guess...under a week right?
A male

The group

I emailed Jenny at GreenFire, to get a hatch date, but she hasn't responded.

 

[armorfirelady]

Quote: Ooooh off to the the thing I go to read & learn Thank you

 

[chooks4life]

Quote: You can try it of course but I think it will make it fizzy and bubbly. Also some of the better known properties of raw garlic are liable to dissipate with the passing hours. I would think a whole night may be too long.

Quote: Chickens do some sort of chicken math too.

It's like a rooster not eating if he sees you've only thrown down enough for the hens. One chick is not a good investment of time for a strongly instinctive hen; if something goes wrong she's just put all this time into one baby instead of starting the next clutch, and there's a breeding season wasted that she won't get again. Kinda like putting all your eggs in the same basket as it were. The smarter chickens aim for a certain level of success, I could swear some of them view mothering as a business. Many of my hens will try to start another clutch immediately if they don't like the one or three they ended up with. Also some hens have incomplete instinct governing their brooding, often due to unnatural ancestral breeding cycles involving man made brooders as a standard and hens being disallowed to rear chicks by themselves. They can recover the instincts given time. In the meanwhile they may fail to brood, overbrood, fail to mother, etc.

 

[SallyinIndiana]

Quote:
I will try to get some pictures tonight. Most nights he sleeps on the ground in our open coop. Once in a while he will get on a roost but since this started, he likes to make a nest in the ground or in a nesting box.
I will try the vaseline tonight too.

As for the other post about corn, it did not multi quote for some reason. He eats layer feed that I soak the night before and what ever free ranging food he finds too. I did toss some frozen peas in their coop the other day. But no corn. Now there might be too much corn in the feed but it is the blue bag purena pellets for hens.