The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[AlmaB]

This should dry up on it's own. She should be just fine, so long as more aggressive chicks don't try to eat it while it's raw.. 

I have had many that had this. It is almost always fine, unless it's very large of a prolapse. It doesn't look to be though.

Here is a better picture

 

[MumsyII]

X2

Glad to hear you are having such a successful hatch Mumsy. And that the bees seem to be gone

Thank you. Fifteen lovely little White chicks counting Judy's four. Bonney and Peggy are diligently brooding their share. Forgot to mark the calendar for those two. Next few days I think. This will be their first hatch.

Not one live hornet to be seen or heard around the porch today! Maybe I will remove the tarp tonight! Wish I had a HAZMAT suit! Hah!

 

[BlueMouse]

well... I finally caught up again, it's been a busy month with this and that. Bad month for chicken keeping though. I've now lost five chickens, including a chick from my spring hatch, to the fox. he also scared off/ate my flock of six guineas.I actually watched him chase my chickens out of the woods. Ran out on the porch and yelled, and they all got away safe. We've tried trapping, put the game cam out to see if he has a regular route that we can shoot him on, let the dog pee around the perimiter of the property, nothing has worked so far. We're installing a piece of fence to see if we can discourage the chickens from foraging in the section of woods that he frequents. I told my husband if that doesn't work I may give up on keeping layers at all, and only keep the meat birds who are safe in their tractors from pretty much everything. I can't take either the emotional or financial strain of constantly losing hens. Hatching has been a bust too. I've lost two incubators of a dozen + eggs to power outtages. So when I got my second round of cream legbar eggs I decided to put them under my broody who was sitting for the second time this year. She was great with the first round, sat super tight and has been an awesome mom. Well, after sitting tight for a week something drove her off the nest. I noticed she was out in the yard and went to check on the nest, eggs all disturbed, everything literally covered in poop, several eggs missing, and egg shells scattered about. Rescued the (now cold) eggs and put them in the incubator with the three that had loose air cells. I cleaned them off the best I could but didn't want to really wash them. so far one has exploded.

Between being dirty and blue I am having trouble effectively candling, so I'm just hoping for the best. I don't hold out much hope. Months like this make me want to declare the whole thing a bad idea and give up in disgust.

In better news, my meaties have done great. we'll be butchering them this weekend. Not thrilled about the butchering process, but thrilled that the raising of them has gone so smoothly, and about the prospect of good healthy meat that was raised humanely being available for my family. We'll see how the butchering goes. We've read up on it, and gotten a little equipment, a set of boning knives, and an outside propane burner to heat the scalding water with. I'm actually excited to have the propane burner, it will make canning so much more pleasant this fall with the boiling water bath OUTSIDE.

 

[RedRidge]

Wow... I've switched to digest twice now on this thread, and both times I just quit receiving messages all together and have to spend a week catching up... ugh!
Just too many messages to get each one individually.
Is anyone else having this problem?
I am on digest on a few other threads and have no problems... so... not sure what to do.

 

[MumsyII]

Twenty one days today. Judy the Broody brought four to hatch. I think those two eggs are dead in shell. I'm going to do a float test on them tonight. No pips, no sound. They have weight like a chick is inside.



I'm beginning to see down color on the Silkie chicks is different with each of the three hens I collected eggs from. One vaulted and three not in this set.

 

[TurtlePowerTrav]

Well my Silkie chick that hatched last week is MIA. The bantam Favs are with momma. No sign of the Silkie. At least if there was a body I could possibly figure out what happened. Oh well, such is life. Survival of the fittest/smartest here

 

[aoxa]

Twenty one days today. Judy the Broody brought four to hatch. I think those two eggs are dead in shell. I'm going to do a float test on them tonight. No pips, no sound. They have weight like a chick is inside.



I'm beginning to see down color on the Silkie chicks is different with each of the three hens I collected eggs from. One vaulted and three not in this set.

I have the same thing. One pen produces more gold based down, and the other is silver.

 

[mlowen]

Wow... I've switched to digest twice now on this thread, and both times I just quit receiving messages all together and have to spend a week catching up... ugh!
Just too many messages to get each one individually.
Is anyone else having this problem?
I am on digest on a few other threads and have no problems... so... not sure what to do.

I just have it on the site, not mailed to me. I go online when I have some time to read; usually a few minutes before work and longer after supper. When it's slow at work, I look then, but don't tell anybody.

 

[mlowen]

I "whirred" some grass fed lamb liver and gave the pullets a dollop. It took them awhile to figure out it was food, but when they did--woo hoo, the games began! I think these girls didn't have a mama hen to teach them that lots of things are food. They have not touched a piece of watermelon I gave them this morning and I'm not sure they've eaten all of the cantaloupe seeds I threw in there on the weekend. (The leaf litter is pretty deep and getting thrown around pretty enthusiastically.) They recognize grasshoppers. I have a catch & release program going with them.

 

[armorfirelady]

They are fine - it's only the raw green skin that is not good for them. However, they usually will not eat raw potatoes anyway. Cooked is fine.

Potatoes are fine for the chickens to eat, however potato LEAVES are not, they are same as peppers and tomatoes from the nightshade family all night shades plants (not the fruit of the plants) are poisonous.

While I don't doubt you Kausandra my 4 pullets happily munched on the leaves they could reach through the fencing when I first got them. They never had a problem with them. And yes I kept trying to move them out of their reach but those stinkers can get their necks very long when they want a tasty treat lol

Wow... I've switched to digest twice now on this thread, and both times I just quit receiving messages all together and have to spend a week catching up... ugh! Just too many messages to get each one individually. Is anyone else having this problem? I am on digest on a few other threads and have no problems... so... not sure what to do.

I don't get email notifications either. I subscribe to the forums I want to follow and get only on site notifications then click on the little doohickey to take me to the last reply I read. (Sorry been up since 2am & tired can't remember the real word for what I click on lol)!