Crooks- very informative post. I as a small backyard chicken raiser have/do feed layer pellets. But my plan when it is gone is to switch to grains and supplements for their better health. I do know that between last fall and this spring my 4 older hens (1yr old in May) look much healthier since I ferment their feed & routinely add herbs to it. I've also added. Oats, wheat, flax seed as well. This means they get less layer pellets with the addition of grains and hence why a 50# bag I purchased in September will probably last thru fall. They also forage daily for their food which also has cut back on their layer pellets intake. My tots are on grower crumbles because they don't forage yet but my hope/plan is to have them all on grains only with supplements and herbs by fall.
I also feed commercial feed... but I wouldn't call it pellets. I figure it's pretty close to what I would mix if I could do it myself (GMO free cracked and whole grains mixed with protein and nutri-balancer... they also mix in grit, which I HATE that I have to pay for in each bag). I ferment that with added herbs and garlic, and pretty much everyone free ranges all day... except today and probably most of this weekend. I moved a bunch of chickens to the summer pen so the broodies and chicks could have the more secure main coop, and I have to keep them there for a few days until they accept it as "home."
I also use a lot of vinegar for cleaning too - I do keep bleach around for certain things, to use rarely, sometime just to sit in the toilet bowl.
My disinfectant of choice is a bottle of Everclear - LOL. I dilute it into a spray bottle and use it on EVERYTHING from bathrooms to kitchen. I even used it to disinfect my kids toys when they were little. I couldn't stand to see people spray their babies' and toddlers' toys with Lysol - yuck! You can soak stuff in a solution of it or just spray on and let dry. Kills pretty much everything without any toxic smells, etc. Around here, ranchers even buy it from the liquor store to clean their tractors. It might seem pricey to buy the initial bottle of it, but it really does last a long time as you can dilute it quite a bit and it's still very effective.
I keep a bottle of bleach, but only rarely use it for like a load of dish cloths that got rank... or my husband's socks
I used to use a few T when I washed diapers as well. And I figure it's a good emergency supply to keep around if I for whatever reason needed to sanitize water and had no other means to do so.
I usually use vinegar, hydrogen peroxide (less so these days, though, that was more like when the kids were potty training if YKWIM), or Vodka. But the vodka gets used more for deodorizing things- like a febreeze replacement. I mix EO's with it and put it in a squirt bottle. The alcohol evaporates a lot faster (and has a lot less smell itself) than vinegar, so it works well for deodorizing like the rug or the couch.
What's everyone's "natural" approach to reducing flies?? They're not so bad in my chicken coop - just my ducks' area... they just recently started showing up but there's a lot of them!
I like fly tape, it seems to be the only thing that consistantly works. And why the heck would anyone want to make fly tape, unless you live like 50 miles from a store? Fly tape is like $2 for a dozen rolls. I bought two boxes last year and still have a ton left (speaking of which, I need to put one in the coop and one in the shed by the kitties...).
Why don't my chickens eat flies? They were THICK before I cleaned out the run (now they've migrated with the crap to the compost pile, which I occasionally spray with this EO based fly killer). But I've never seen one of my chickens go after a fly. I think they're too fast. I'll bet they put a dent in the number of larvae, though.