The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[Leahs Mom]

On another thread I was reading regularly, MOST of the people treat their birds that way and can't figure out why they are dying. Especially the "overcrowded conditions", not being able to get outside, etc. What I was surprised about was that most of those people had never even heard of - or thought of - the idea that the kind of conditions their birds are living in was what was causing all their problems.

I know I was surprised to see that so many are clueless. And it is often - in fact most the time - that the folks would do it differently if they just knew. So much of the literature out there encourages folks to purchase "coops" that are way too small and stuff a bunch of birds in them.

A couple winters ago when we were looking for a hen house, we visited a place that made them and sold them. It was a private party and he was making coops that were quite attractive in appearance. He was showing us one. It was winter. Classic tiny coop that wasn't more than about the size of a large box that perhaps a washer or dryer would come in.

He opened the door. Dark in there and about 10 birds inside. Stuck in the dark. No door to get outside. Just existing in the box.

Depressing. And to me, quite incredible.

Except that folks do it every day and are encouraged to do so by the literature...and they don't think it through. They just want to have backyard chickens.

 

[delisha]

Well with the popularity of chicken keeping, there are going to be people who simply have not read a book or done research before purchasing a bird. On a thread was reading on, there are new people coming and going constantly, they come to show pictures of the new purchases and the sad tails of the dead, and are so excited about buying more chickens. One was bragging about her first egg and mentioned she thought it was time to think about build an outdoor coop.

 

[Quailsong]

Bruce, I don't want to jump to much into this topic (as it's already at an end) but I wanted to say thank you. While I don't personally agree with the way you did your experiment (I'd rather you convinced a battery farm to experiment & grow healthy chicks, rather than you doing the reverse), I appreciate that you wanted to help.

Get that report done as best you can, then move on & don't worry about future flack. You showed us what we've rambled about wanting to see, but were too chicken/shy/etc to do it for ourselves. I don't think those chicks died in vain since you are actually reporting on deaths (rather than the battery farms which would SSS).

(Bolded & underlined for what I feel were the most important parts)

As for the garlic topic. I read someone say earlier that it's easy to peel a garlic clove after it's cut in half. I've never done it that way so when I was making some kimchi last night I tried it and...it didn't work. My favorite and FAST way is to cut off the hard end of the clove, crush the clove under the flat end of the knife & the peels come right off. It's a cinch.

To grate the cloves, I don't cut by hand anymore. I have a tiny food processor (2 cups or so) that I toss all my cloves into, zip for 4 seconds & done. They're in very tiny pieces, maybe 4mm across at most. Cleaning is as easy as rinsing the processing cup (or with a bit of soap) & blade, wiping the top machinery & stuffing it back in its counter space.

If I were to do 50 cloves with my method it would take me no more than 10 minutes. But then I'd take extra time to put the peels & ends away in my compost bin.^^

 

[Bulldogma]

On another thread I was reading regularly, MOST of the people treat their birds that way and can't figure out why they are dying. Especially the "overcrowded conditions", not being able to get outside, etc. What I was surprised about was that most of those people had never even heard of - or thought of - the idea that the kind of conditions their birds are living in was what was causing all their problems.

Well with the popularity of chicken keeping, there are going to be people who simply have not read a book or done research before purchasing a bird. On a thread was reading on, there are new people coming and going constantly, they come to show pictures of the new purchases and the sad tails of the dead, and are so excited about buying more chickens. One was bragging about her first egg and mentioned she thought it was time to think about build an outdoor coop.

The above is so true, and exactly why Bruce's experiment is so important. Bee's "Road" thread was based upon this very thing... the people that had her flock kept them in overcrowded, nasty conditions with no access to the outdoors.

It becomes too easy for people to say things like, "Well... it must have been a disease in my area," or "our weather here has been so much worse and that's why my birds are sick..." and so-on. This experiment shows the impact that one owner in one geographical area can have on a flock - both negatively and positively. One person - two methods - two outcomes. No more excuses. Period.

 

[NanaLynn]

Well with the popularity of chicken keeping, there are going to be people who simply have not read a book or done research before purchasing a bird. On a thread was reading on, there are new people coming and going constantly, they come to show pictures of the new purchases and the sad tails of the dead, and are so excited about buying more chickens. One was bragging about her first egg and mentioned she thought it was time to think about build an outdoor coop.

Well us newbies really need people like you and the other experienced people on here to set us straight. I also looked at the tiny coops as well, they sure were cute and would have looked good in the yard, but I thought about what was best for the chickens. I keep that train of thought all the time and threads like this one help me focus more on what is best for the chicken, not what would look best in my yard.

I have a ugly open air coop, but it is built solid and it is big enough for all my chickens, plus they have a huge run and they free range in a large fenced in garden. If I had more land and was further away from roads, they'd be completely free ranged.

We just got our 1st egg yesterday from our leghorn and number two from her today. I also got one little green egg from one of my EE's as well. My chickens have been outside since they were a few weeks old and they're loving every minute of it. I'm still new to all this and all of the advice, studies, etc. on here are so helpful. Plus the thing helps too with all the compiled info.

Now if I can just get them to lay their eggs in the nest boxes...maybe tomorrow,,,we'll see

 

[brandislee]

Brandslee, sorry about your turkey.

Yarrow made into a tincture with alcohol makes a good bug spray, doesn't smell good though, could add something to it.... Running to hide now since it isn't chicken related.

Totally chicken related... I needed something natural that I could put on my turkeys, since the gnats have been driving them batty lately (and me as well).

'Cull! Cull! Cull!' --- Jokes, I only say that when a rooster has attacked someone. Regarding your hen, or any hen with an unknown problem, 'cull' is often a mistaken choice in my opinion, because if one animal shows symptoms the chances are at least some others have it, and until you know what it is, culling is like sweeping dirt under the carpet and turning a blind eye... Doesn't make it go away. I would always rather know, and strive to find a cure. It can be diet or inherited inability to utilize the complete nutrition, it can be she's toxified herself by eating something stupid, it can be genetics, etc, so culling isn't going to find the answer or help in future.

If her sister/hatchmate died mysteriously... To me that sounds genetic but the problem itself that is causing the egg production failure could be any of many issues, even a virus. Casportpony linked to some viruses that can cause that in some other thread... I'll see if I can find it. Aha!:

If you go to post number 26, she gives links to a few sites (I think it's several anyway) detailing some causes of bad eggs. But of course all the treatments stated are for chemicals.

I know my hens lay flat sided eggs with thin spots when they are harbouring a paralysis tick. The ticks can't cope with the garlic too well either, I've had literally three chickens get ticks on them out of hundreds raised within a few metres of (and daily freeranging in) a forest absolutely swarming with the paralysis ticks. They seem naturally quite strong against the tick's effects. None have died yet.

(My dingo mix was bred and born in that forest, so he's completely immune; he gets ticks but THEY die, not him, lol! I suspect his blood responds with an anti- anti-clotting reaction to the tick's anti-clotting enzymes. Those pups gallop around covered in a minimum of 50 adult female paralysis ticks each, completely immune, so I think that would make him valuable as a stud dog as the immunity is passed on to most pups in each litter).

I don't think we have paralysis ticks here... at least I've never heard of them, unless they're called something else? But I've looked her over a few times a week to see if I see anything amiss- no ticks, no mites (that I can find, it is hard to see on black skin)... I'm just keeping an eye on her. She seems fine for now, other than the laying weirdness.

Leigh,

I posted these pictures on sexing your EE thread, and everyone loved the visual. Maybe you can use them for your thing.

PS: Post 15,000 for me.. Had to make it here

Talk to me more about this sexing of EE's, especially the sexing by color. My first batch of EE chicks is about 2 weeks, so I should be able to tell soon, but with all the mixed colors what am I looking for? And can they be wing feather sexed? Someone I know showed me how to do it with Buckeyes, but it has to be done at a certain age (like 5 days old or something) and is only accurate for certain breeds? I'm dying to know what my rooster/hen ratio is...

Every so often the subject of predators comes up here. There are a few ways that seem to be popular in dealing with this. Since the beginning of man raising domestic animals, predators must be addressed.

Killing the predators. Protecting the livestock. Together? Or selective? I do not bring this up to start an unwinnable debate. Both ways of dealing with the problem have merit. Both ways are not 100% effective.

Rather than tote one better than the other I will state this from experience rather than just cutting and pasting stuff off the internet.

For me, protecting my flock has become more effective than wanton killing of all things that eat chicken. Weasels are perfect little killing machines. That doesn't make them evil. Anymore than I would think of a domestic cat as evil. They are perfect killing machines as well. Both could cause havoc in my barn if allowed access. This is key. ACCESS.
Rats are the normal diet of weasels. They can access a barn or coop from an opening as small as one inch. They find a ready made highway in old rat tunnels. If you kill off rats on your property and don't deal with the tunnels.....Weasels will need a new food source and rat tunnels will give them access....To your chickens.

Every day I allow my flock outside to free range. Knowing full well the risk they take with predator birds of prey. It's a big risk. This morning two Bald Eagles swooped into my yard without a sound. They were after a rabbit on the lawn. They missed. I watched in awe as they sped a way as fast as they swept in. My flock were all under cover in the shrubbery and hiding. I was standing staring with my jaw on my chest! I had been watching four Osprey overhead and never new the Eagles were in the neighborhood. The chickens knew! They knew and I was caught unawares.

As humans raising domestic livestock, it is our job to protect our flock. Predators have a job. It is their job to find food for themselves and their young. It is a balancing act with all of us and it takes vigilance, experience, know how, and knowledge. Today my flock was lucky. So was that rabbit.

I couldn't agree with you more. I love most of the most predominant predators we have around here- especially the raptors. And I will jump up and down like a fool to scare them away from my chickens, but I would never dream of shooting one. But I've never had to, because as you say, the chickens know and they hide. A few of the pestier predators (namely racoons and possums) I may consider trapping, but even then it would depend on the situation and the density of their population. I definitely wouldn't be out shooting mindlessly. I believe in balance in everything, and that is why I don't do a lot of things people think I should do. I won't get rid of the moles on my property, because they don't do much damage (other than making ridges) and they keep the grubs in check. If I got rid of them I'd probably have a grub problem. I don't poison mice and rats (anymore... okay occasionally, but only in my attic) because of the reason you say- eliminate them as a food source and their predators will be out for my chickens more often. I respect the raptors because they keep the mouse population in check (along with my cats). The same with the Turkey situation- I'm still not sure what happened, but I moved the turkeys to the main coop where they can bet better protected. I didn't put out traps or anything. Nature has a way of working things out, and the less we interfere the better. Like you said, my job is to protect through reasonable means (fencing, livestock guardians, solid coops, etc).

RHUBARB!
My chicks are 6 weeks old and love the rhubarb leaves - if I'm not right there, they are in the rhubarb pecking the leaves into not so pretty lace - What is the consensus here on rhubarb leaf eating? In my research, it looks like over time it could be damaging to kidneys from the oxalic acid - but others say no - it is fine and is a great dewormer...let them eat it. I don't know whether to try to fence in my rhubarb or not worry about it. Right now I'm spraying them with the hose when they start chomping down

I can't speak to the long term affects, but my general rule is that, as long as they aren't confined with it and have plenty of other plants and stuff to eat, they won't over-eat any one thing. Mine don't have access to the whole patch because it's inside the garden fence, but it's on the side that is bordered by their pen, and while they were confined a few days (to get used to their new home) they did a number on the leaves they could reach through the fence. They did the same last year, and I haven't noticed any issues.

I have a question for those of you feeding 1-3 cloves of garlic per chicken per day, where are you getting that amount of garlic from? How many chickens do you have? In my area garlic costs about $3.50 per pound. I can't grow enough yet for what we eat, and I don't think if I planted the whole place in garlic I could harvest enough for 20 - 40 birds (how many I keep depending on the season) that much garlic everyday of the year.

It's 3.50 a lb here, but that's a lot of garlic. I got a lb a few weeks ago and I'm still not out. I don't feed a clove per chicken per day, though. I mix batches of FF in 5 gallon buckets (1/2-2/3 full, depending on the pen- enough to last 2-3 days) and put in about 1/2 a head per bucket. And as for the chopping, I use a garlic press that I keep in my "kit" right by the feed can in the shed. It's pretty fast and easy.

oh boy have i gotten flack for this post i fully knew the consequences when i posted the findings of this experiment . i did this because i wanted to see first hand on the effects on proper and improper care of birds. i am around a lot of folks everyday who think well they are just birds who cares how they are kept. i knew of broiler houses and the egg laying industry. however 2ND hand. other than you tube ,Internet and someone told to do this sources how many folks really know first hand. yes there are some that do. however the majority do not have this knowledge first hand.
is it offensive to some? yes it is. it is not something i would do on any other basis. folks that know of me on this thread and other threads know of my husbandry practices . this was a test to see first hand knowledge of the effects of poor husbandry. i am sorry those birds died as well. now that i have the answers first hand i can explain to others in a more productive manner.
i am sorry for the offense taken by others . however education comes at a cost. so if i can show the effects to others, others may improve their practices.

for those of you who do not know me. i have helped many folks with their questions. i raise wonderful layers and breed heritage rhode island reds to the s.o.p.

bruce h.

I also don't think it was horrible... for starters, I would be willing to bet that a good percentage of the people who gave you a hard time eat either conventional eggs or chicken, and that is the epitomy of hypocritical (which, btw, makes me insane... same as "I can't kill my own chickens/raise them for meat, but I have no problem eating battery hens".... grrr....anyway). I don't think that your experiment is necessarily something we all need to go out and replicate, since it's happening far too in the industrial farm setting, but there is value in what you did, and your intent was far better than those who are doing it for profit. Yesterday my daughter was asking me about grocery store eggs so I took her online to watch some videos- I showed her the news coverage of the Sparboe story last year, which makes me crazy. The conditions in the undercover footage were sickening, but it made me almost as mad when the Sparboe exec marched them through a cleaner version like it was totally okay to keep hens crammed into tiny cages like that. That, of course, led us to watch videos of the treatment of other "commodity" animals. Sickening, and makes me infinitely glad we buy well sourced meat and dairy and have our own chickens...

Sorry about the tangent, it was just on my mind still...

 

[brandislee]

Well us newbies really need people like you and the other experienced people on here to set us straight. I also looked at the tiny coops as well, they sure were cute and would have looked good in the yard, but I thought about what was best for the chickens. I keep that train of thought all the time and threads like this one help me focus more on what is best for the chicken, not what would look best in my yard.

I have a ugly open air coop, but it is built solid and it is big enough for all my chickens, plus they have a huge run and they free range in a large fenced in garden. If I had more land and was further away from roads, they'd be completely free ranged.

We just got our 1st egg yesterday from our leghorn and number two from her today. I also got one little green egg from one of my EE's as well. My chickens have been outside since they were a few weeks old and they're loving every minute of it. I'm still new to all this and all of the advice, studies, etc. on here are so helpful. Plus the thing helps too with all the compiled info.

Now if I can just get them to lay their eggs in the nest boxes...maybe tomorrow,,,we'll see

I live on the corner of a major highway and an intersecting street that goes to a busy (rural) neighborhood. My birds free range all day. I don't think they like pavement, and the house and coop are set 200 feet from the road, plus the highway is raised and there are no trees in that part of the yard, so they don't like it as much. But I am here to watch them most of the time, and it took a long time for me to get this comfortable with it. My new rooster has gotten really close to the street a few times, but I've called him back. I do have a friend who lives on a country road, and both her house and coop are really close to the gravel road they live on. She looses a lot more birds to farmers driving by too fast.

 

[uglychickens]

oh boy have i gotten flack for this post i fully knew the consequences when i posted the findings of this experiment . i did this because i wanted to see first hand on the effects on proper and improper care of birds. i am around a lot of folks everyday who think well they are just birds who cares how they are kept. i knew of broiler houses and the egg laying industry. however 2ND hand. other than you tube ,Internet and someone told to do this sources how many folks really know first hand. yes there are some that do. however the majority do not have this knowledge first hand.
is it offensive to some? yes it is. it is not something i would do on any other basis. folks that know of me on this thread and other threads know of my husbandry practices . this was a test to see first hand knowledge of the effects of poor husbandry. i am sorry those birds died as well. now that i have the answers first hand i can explain to others in a more productive manner.
i am sorry for the offense taken by others . however education comes at a cost. so if i can show the effects to others, others may improve their practices.

for those of you who do not know me. i have helped many folks with their questions. i raise wonderful layers and breed heritage rhode island reds to the s.o.p.

bruce h.

Bruce thank you for performing this study although I don't see it really changing anyone in the commercial side of chicken farming... I worked for a company call Lahmen's Egg Service out of Greencastle PA for 6 years. Part of my job duties was going directly to these commercial farms to pick up pallets of eggs. In that time I got to know first hand a lot of these "farmers" and started asking questions. These "farmers" buy double the amount of chicks they will need for one year, Yup they expect 50% losses! The chickens are either crowded into cages (egg lands best) or crowded onto a concrete floor with only a five x five box to get sunlight from... The definition of "cage free" only states they need access to the outside NOT how much space they need! Organic, organic feed. But no where in the codes does it say as to how much space birds need or how clean facilities have to be. Each day ( once a week ) that I visited these farms they STUNK!! And I could count at least 4 dead birds that were just laying on the ground! But an even more disturbing fact then how these birds were kept was. " who do you think bought these birds after their one year was up?" McDonalds, Wendy's, chick fill a, exc. they market birds as young because they are but I wouldn't want to eat that, would you? Another thing I've learned a lot of these operations don't have to worry about an egg being fertilized because these birds ha e been engineered for so long to have huge breast meat that they can't possibly mate on there own!

 

[Bulldogma]

*long sigh*

Swedish Flower Hen eggs are hard to hatch in an incubator. They do best under a broody. So a few weeks ago I lose my SFH rooster to accidental poisoning, and today one of my SFH hens goes broody for the first time... and I don't have any fertile eggs to give her.

Gotta laugh at the irony.

 

[hotrodflash]

How long until the new roosters can go into the rest of the flock? If it is only a week or two, I would let her sit on fake eggs until that time is up and you are getting fertile eggs from the flock and then go ahead and give her eggs.