The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[Mtn Laurel]

On the topic of Natural Chicken keeping:

Would you all be willing to name the top 5 (or more) things that you do (or want to do) that have been the most valuable to you in raising chickens naturally? Have you changed things to go more natural? What makes you want to go the more natural route? What tips do you have for others along those lines? If you're willing, let us know how long you've had chickens - from mere months to decades.

After a lifetime of observing relatives and friends with chickens, I got my first only 6 months ago. I studied BYC for months before getting the girls and several of my top 5 were directly influenced by this website. The top 5 things I do to raise them naturally are:

1. UP/ACV in water. Have always been a big fan of ACV, use it for myself, family and in my home for a variety of purposes.
2. Fermented Feed. Raised in a rural, agricultural community so am no stranger to fermented feed and silage. Read/researched FF on BYC and began doing it. Saw almost immediate improvement in comb color, consistency of poo, quantity of feed used.
3. Deep Litter using dried leaves in coop and run. I use some pine shavings in the coop but seem to be moving more towards a higher percentage of dried leaves. The leaves work as well - if not better - than the shavings. I have dumped large piles of leaves in the run and not only do they give the girls something to scratch through, the leaves encourage leaf-litter eating bugs and worms that the girls love to snack on. Also helps keep the run from getting muddy.
4. Garden Partners. To me, one of the benefits of having chickens is to rid the vegetable garden of bugs and grubs while fertilizing and tilling. Of course, can't always allow that as they'll EAT IT TO THE GROUND but we allow them in specific areas after harvest and between plantings. They love the remnants of the plants, the bugs, insects and grubs and the garden benefits by the removal of those bugs plus the addition of chicken "fertilizer".
5. Meat. I know some don't feed their chickens meat but - as they are omnivores - meat seems a "natural" to me. After watching their delight and preening when they'd catch and consume a snake or frog, I decided to add any leftover meat to their diet. I give them every meat - including chicken and turkey - that isn't eaten in our household. My only exception to that rule is country cured ham because #1: it's really salty and #2. any leftover country ham is going into a bean pot.
   

 

[aoxa]

Hello all! I am a BYC lurker. I spend lots of time reading through lots of different threads. I found this one and was hooked! I read all 169 pages in three days! My goodness you all have a lot to say and thank you for it! I have learned a ton on BYC but never so much in one place as here. Thank you thank you thank you!!!!!!!

I am in my first year of ckicken keeping. I got into it quite by accident but I am truly hooked. I have a small flock of feed store impulse buys and I love every one of them dearly. Last year we babysat an incubator for a friend while they were on vacation and the chicks hatched on our watch (hence the accidental dive into chickendon. How to give back the very first chick your kids watched hatch after she peeped at us for 48 hours from inside!?) We raised our little flock in our family room in a portable dog run and held and loved each one every day. My girls and I all made special chicken aprons with large fuzzy high pockets that we carried the chicks around in. Because of this or maybe due to our chickens natural personalities we have 8 of the sweetest chickens. Every one is happy to be held and snuggled. Our little bantam sneaks into my daughter's jacket to snuggle up where it's warm. We can take eggs out from under anyone, pick up and move our two constantly broody girls, and share snacks with any of them from our laps. We love this!\

This spring we are planning to hatch a few rare breed bantams for my daughter to show 4-H and maybe a couple super layers for her little egg business. We have a bantam cochin and silkie who are broody almost every other month. It would be fun to let them hatch some babies but we don't want to lose the chance at having super friendly birds. Also we are homeschoolers and would like to be able to do daily candeling for a school project.

I know the thinking here is to let chickens be chickens but how much do you give up in the friendliness department when you have hen raised babies? would it make sense to do half and half? Half in the incubator and half with the broody? I want healthy happy chickens but I also want a happy chicken loving daughter.

Thoughts? Ideas?

I'm off to stir my first batch of ff. Thank you for all the valuable info!

I'm surprised this wasn't answered. Here I am to reassure you that broody raised chicks are MUCH easier to bond with, especially if their mama loves to snuggle with you already. She will show them that you (and your kids) are not to be feared.

If anything, chicks raised by hand are much more skittish, as they are responsible for their own safety instead of a parent.





For example.. Here are a bunch of broody raised chicks. They were not afraid of me, as their mother is one of my groupies. I didn't try to handle them much at all, unless I had my nephew over and he wanted to see one. There were 21 of them, so I probably never handled each of them more than once. Unless you count me giving each to mama in the beginning.

There is nothing wrong with what you are doing. When I say let a chicken be a chicken, I don't mean to never handle them. I have a few that really enjoy handling. I have a 8 week old chick that is already attached to me, and I've named her Dovely (she is lovely and resembles a dove). She'll fly up to me.

 

[Leahs Mom]

Quote: Delisha
Are your coyotes around during the day time also, or only at night?

 

[aoxa]

Forgot to mention wife makes sure I have 5 gallon milk jugs full of water sitting by the ferment bucket at all times. Would be lost without her.

You're such a sap

Hope you tell her this! Women love to hear how they are needed.

 

[aoxa]

window/vent openings should be covered with 1/2 inch hardcloth. IMHO

If you didn't live near water, wouldn't minks not be an issue?

 

[stonykill]

If you didn't live near water, wouldn't minks not be an issue?

I've had 1 mink attack in 9 years. 1 weasel attack as well but the cat killed 3 weasels this year. The only weasel I have ever seen is a dead one the cat kills. Here is the point I am trying to make. Cutting any corners on a coop, any coop that isn't built strong and secure will ultimately lead to dead chickens. Any coop can have a breech. BUT building one that is one BIG easy access breech is just asking for a predator to kill your chickens.
Here is the for instance. The small coop that housed 9 chickens that were killed by a weasel last year. I used it for 6 years prior. No issues. There was a small gap 1 inch by 1 inch near the door. It did not bother me in the least. What could POSSIBLY happen with that small a hole? Well EVENTUALLY a weasel found that hole. And killed 9 chickens early one morning. So after I butchered 9 chickens i tightened up the coop so I could use it again. And I still am. I'm thinking of the hoop coop pictured earlier. It appears the back is up against a fence, full of holes and is just covered with a tarp. At least that is what it looks like in the pictures. The cattle panels or whatever the sides are made of have huge holes in them, on purpose. If they are 4 x 4 holes a young coon WILL fit through them. I had 3 young coons this spring get into my feed through similar sized holes in the floor of the storage shed. I had a young coon OPEN a hole in 1 inch chicken wire to make a roughly 5x5 hole to climb through. Fortunately the coop was super secure, and I killed the coon before it could escape the run.
Skimp out of your coop, you WILL eventually lose your chickens. It may be tomorrow or you may not have problems for 5 years, but if you build an insecure coop, you will wake up one day to dead birds.

 

[aoxa]

I've had 1 mink attack in 9 years. 1 weasel attack as well but the cat killed 3 weasels this year. The only weasel I have ever seen is a dead one the cat kills. Here is the point I am trying to make. Cutting any corners on a coop, any coop that isn't built strong and secure will ultimately lead to dead chickens. Any coop can have a breech. BUT building one that is one BIG easy access breech is just asking for a predator to kill your chickens.
Here is the for instance. The small coop that housed 9 chickens that were killed by a weasel last year. I used it for 6 years prior. No issues. There was a small gap 1 inch by 1 inch near the door. It did not bother me in the least. What could POSSIBLY happen with that small a hole? Well EVENTUALLY a weasel found that hole. And killed 9 chickens early one morning. So after I butchered 9 chickens i tightened up the coop so I could use it again. And I still am. I'm thinking of the hoop coop pictured earlier. It appears the back is up against a fence, full of holes and is just covered with a tarp. At least that is what it looks like in the pictures. The cattle panels or whatever the sides are made of have huge holes in them, on purpose. If they are 4 x 4 holes a young coon WILL fit through them. I had 3 young coons this spring get into my feed through similar sized holes in the floor of the storage shed. I had a young coon OPEN a hole in 1 inch chicken wire to make a roughly 5x5 hole to climb through. Fortunately the coop was super secure, and I killed the coon before it could escape the run.
Skimp out of your coop, you WILL eventually lose your chickens. It may be tomorrow or you may not have problems for 5 years, but if you build an insecure coop, you will wake up one day to dead birds.

It's a scary thought, that's for sure.

I do believe Mumsy who posted this coop lives on an island that has very little predation other than birds of prey and cyotes (who are stopped by fence). But it wouldn't work for me.

 

[Leahs Mom]

All birds are different and have different needs. in the beginning they will eat so much because there body's are telling them they need the added nutrients. Eventually they will get to a point where they do not need as much and will taper off. In the beginning I would recommend you run out of dry feed.

Interesting point. Not long after I started w/fermented feed, I decided to track how much feed I was using. In October my 6 birds went through a 50 LB BAG IN ONE MONTH. That's an incredible lot of food for 6 birds! Then, in November and December, they haven't yet finished a 50 lb bag total. In November thy used about 1/3 bag; December maybe a little more than 1/3.

I think you're right - I think their body is craving and they finally get what they need then even out.

One more question I forgot to add.
Where do you get your seeds for sprouting? I picked up some at the grocery store today in the bulk food isle but I'm sure there must be a better source.

I buy all my feed - including seeds and whole grains - from a local feed mill. They mill my feed to order (I do "no soy", with fish meal, organic with Fertrel Nutribalancer at this point for the regular feed). I also purchase bags of barley, spelt and/or wheat, sunflower seeds from them.

Only catch is that I have to purchase the whole bag on the grains/seeds so I end up w/ a 50 lb bag or whatever I purchase. It is less expensive to purchase the bag if you have a feed mill nearby. As for storage, the whole grains store much better than feed that has been milled.

While I don't use DE in the deep litter or anywhere else for the chickens, I do put a bit of DE into each bag of whole grains that will be stored for any length of time -BUT NOT TO FEED THE CHICKENS!

As I understand it, the purpose of putting DE into the grain bags is to deter weevils and other buggies from hatching and living in the grains.

Did anyone notice I did not water the chickens? That is because the water is in the FF. I noticed that my chicken water-er never had but a very little bit gone out of it.So I started adding extra FF juice to my feed bucket. I then took a marker and put a line on my water-er as I suspected no water disappeared from the water-er. Did that for 1 week straight and never had even a drop of water gone so I stopped watering the chickens other than the FF juice. I also put UP/ACV in my ferment bucket every time the smell of UP/ACV starts to go down. (2 or 3 times a week) That way I know they are getting it. Does no good to put it in a water-er that they don't drink from or drink very little from. I figure if you are going to give them UP/ACV make sure they consume it.
That is another reason I would not have holes in the bottom of my feed troughs. You waste all that good juice they could be drinking. I always have about 2 to 3 inches of water on top of my FF in the ferment bucket so that I have plenty of juice to give them to drink.

Interesting point. I also have noticed that they don't drink as much water after having started the fermented feed. And I also keep my feed well under the water line in the fermenting bucket to hopefully create a more anaerobic environment in the feed that's fermenting below the waterline. (This is a principle in fermenting veggies like sauerkraut or pickles - fermentation in that environment takes place under anaerobic conditions so I've tried to follow that out at least somewhat with the ff by keeping the feed under the water line.) I do stir the feed from time to time (probably at least 1X daily) so it doesn't really stay strictly anaerobic, but it does settle back down under the water line with only a small amount of stuff floating on the top.

Now I haven't gone so far as to remove their access to water as they do drink - and I don't think I leave as much of the liquid out in the bowls for them as you do. But I HAVE noticed the need for less water.

I think the idea of adding the ACV to the feed that you know they are eating is a good idea!

I am also one of those that DOES leave some dry feed out as well. They don't eat as much of it as the ff, but I want them to make that choice. I leave out very little as they don't use much but I do see them pecking through it from time to time.

 

[stonykill]

It's a scary thought, that's for sure.

I do believe Mumsy who posted this coop lives on an island that has very little predation other than birds of prey and cyotes (who are stopped by fence). But it wouldn't work for me.

I for one had no idea how much predatation Ihad here until I got chickens. If some get lucky with an insecure coop, good. Everyone is basing this hoop coop cattle panel idea on one persons thoughts. And LIMITED experience with it. Plus I know I for one was SHOCKED to find out this OT didn't HAVE chickens until the Knarly ones were brought back. Leaves me pondering...........

 

[aoxa]

I for one had no idea how much predatation Ihad here until I got chickens. If some get lucky with an insecure coop, good. Everyone is basing this hoop coop cattle panel idea on one persons thoughts. And LIMITED experience with it. Plus I know I for one was SHOCKED to find out this OT didn't HAVE chickens until the Knarly ones were brought back. Leaves me pondering...........

I'd like to know more about that, but am worried it will cause a scene.

I've lost cats to predation. Not sure why I've never lost any chickens to predators. My dogs definitely help.

Are night time predators your biggest worry? See my fears are daytime ones. My barn is very secure - and if something got in, my dog sleeps in the barn with the birds, so I think she would handle it.