The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[aaggjg]

You just put the biggest old grin on my mug!

My Silkies give me so much joy everyday. Those Catdance kids are dripping with type.

I just set a dozen more eggs in the Genesis from the White pen. I switched out cocks. I had 100% fertility with the Catdance roo with all eggs. Unbelievable with Silkies. I credit the Fermented feed I mix up for them using Turkey/Gamebird grower as the base. And diligently trimming bums.

I'm using the Sheryl Butler cockerel now. He has better over all type than the Catdance boy but he is young and inexperienced. I have only seen him cover one hen of five. The dozen eggs just set will be an indicator if he is getting the job done with all the girls. Not just his favorite. I have one more White cockerel in reserve for progeny testing. Mr. Nasty, the Catdance biter. He gets switched out in the next three months. He has settled down a lot since he was boxed separately and handled every day. He still is lacking in manners. But he is dripping in type and I can't wait to use him. He looks the best of the three White cockerels so far.

The little Blue Split girl in the picture isn't squatting yet. When she and her brooder sisters are close to point of lay, I have a nice Lavender/Porcelain male to put with them.

Thanks for the sweet post. Truly.

Mumsy I am 100% with you on the daily joy I get from my silkies! My Catdance lavender Spook is the most perfect Silkie ever and she loves to pose ... She is always standing or perched in the garden somewhere looking perfect... I have no idea how she does it!! I am always amazed. She looks fake ... I of course have no clue about SOP but she is seriously silly looking in a good way... Well she did have a run in with a sprinkler the other day

I'll have to post some pictures of her so you can tell me what you think.

Can't wait to see how your new boy's eggs fair!

 

[mlowen]

Blocking can make some threads a touch harder to follow for the user doing the blocking and maybe the one being blocked.  Say the blocked one asks a question and people start answering, unless they quote the blocker might be thinking what why is this being discussed.  And if the poster answering the question does quote like many of us here do, then well the block did little other than cause a slight delay.   Now you might might be the kind of person that wants to keep it a secret from so and so that you blocked them.  Well it won't be long before someone quotes you and the cat is out of the bag when so and so can't see your posts.

I have found skimming works as well as a block for most stuff on here and other public forums.  The kind of people I would block are the ones that are trying to bypass the family friendly rules by misspelling bad words in every one of their posts.  And that is clearly a preference thing and I have not blocked anyone on this site.  Of course that just means I have not come across enough people yet, as I'm sure there is a poster out there that I don't like.


Now in all honesty, some of this stuff is really really petty.  First I remind myself that tone and facial expressions are missing here.  Next I know that I'm more likely to read the entire post if it is nice and polite but manners and speech can vary by location.  And if a post is a touch bit mean, I might skim it or I might even skip it.  Even if someone comes right out and says, Hey what you want to do is so stupid and lame and here are 25 better ways to raise your chickens or dog or whatever.  Who cares. I'm going to do what I want with my chickens, animal mis-treatment aside. Now that might mean I don't get the most out of my chickens, my loss.  Ultimately one needs to pick what methods one likes and proceed how they want.  And if you choose to leave the thread, by all means it is a free world.  Even though I do wish some of the more experienced chicken people would come back on here like Stonykill.


And finally for the best part ~ if a poster does intentionally insult you, by all means report the user, that is what the tiny flag is for.  Just keep in mind that the tone is missing from the post and perhaps a nice polite friendly message would solve the whole misunderstanding.

SUCH a good post!!

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

Yes Golden Laced Wyandotte She was just hatchery stock but the most beautiful girl ... I have no idea what SOP is for the breed but when I went to the few poultry shows I've been to they were no where near as pretty as my girl.  Every since my hen was a chick she would always come over and jump on my knee ... she was super friendly and very curious.  She did not like to be held BUT LOVED to jump up and perch on you.  She was a great bird and I will miss her a lot ..... 

Awwww! That's sweet.

I don't know about SOP, either. I just observe which breeds flourish here and which don't, and not to sound canabalisyic, but I'm also observing which have the best potential as freezer birds for cockerel culling purposes.

Our Silver Laced Wyandotte hens are scrawny and have fragile feathers, so have had bare backs for ages. The GLW are huge and glossy! The rooster is so round we call him Basketball, but he is nice and heavy. One of the hens went through a phase of displaying like a tom turkey and chasing off any rooster who came near her, which was kind of scary it was so awesome, and then she went broody and has been a fierce mother. We set up our brodies in twin broody boxes, with clutches set at the same time, so they co-parent. We had four broodies hatch clutches on the same day, and that GLW was definitely the lead mother, even taking care of her broodymate. I'm very impressed with the GLW for hatchery birds. Until I settle on a heritage breed of dual purpose birds and reorganize everything, I've decided to keep the GLW rooster ... I think he'll help improve our muttstock ... it was a really hard decision about which roosters to keep, but we just had too many for the well being of the hens and I had to be a grow up about it. The GLW are just so nice all around. It is good to know someone else has also had luck with hatchery chicks of this breed.

Again, I'm sorry your girl didn't make it.

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

Mumsy I am 100% with you on the daily joy I get from my silkies!  My Catdance lavender Spook is the most perfect Silkie ever and she loves to pose ... She is always standing or perched in the garden somewhere looking perfect... I have no idea how she does it!!  I am always amazed. She looks fake ... I of course have no clue about SOP but she is seriously silly looking in a good way... Well she did have a run in with a sprinkler the other day   I'll have to post some pictures of her so you can tell me what you think.

Can't wait to see how your new boy's eggs fair!

Don't rush with the photos. Every time one of you guys post silky photos I start to get IDEAS. I really don't need any more IDEAS!

 

[nicole63021]

So....the the little Fav pullet didn't make it through the night, DH buried her this morning. Could not get a stool sample, and DH did not want me to cut her open. Sending stools for the rest to a friend in Vet tech work to look at, just to make sure nobody has anything (I couldn't see anything, but a second opinion is always good). The others are all eating like mad and growing like weeds though. This little one was very close to the one killed, since she kept the Fav from getting picked on too much. Thank you again to everyone who offered help.

 

[Leahs Mom]

So....the the little Fav pullet didn't make it through the night, DH buried her this morning. Could not get a stool sample, and DH did not want me to cut her open. Sending stools for the rest to a friend in Vet tech work to look at, just to make sure nobody has anything (I couldn't see anything, but a second opinion is always good). The others are all eating like mad and growing like weeds though. This little one was very close to the one killed, since she kept the Fav from getting picked on too much. Thank you again to everyone who offered help.

Sorry to hear that. Please do let us know if they find anything on the samples.

 

[Kassaundra]

So sorry for the losses today

It's so much harder when it is one of the special favorites.

 

[SallyinIndiana]

So I have sad news ...

I'm sorry for your loss. Please keep us updated with any findings.

 

[BlueMouse]

I sprouted Rye for a while because I have access to plenty of rye for free. There are a lot of kinds of rye (grass and grain), and I read that there are issues with many/most of them. Rye is one of the things that attracts toxic smut, so that is one issue, even with rye grass pasture. The grain does have some anti-nutrients so can retard growth in poultry so is not recommended for younger birds and is not recommended to be over a certain percentage of their diet. I asked a local feed mill about including rye in a custom poultry ration, and they advised against it because locally there are better choices. The flock did enjoy it quite a bit, but I stopped growing it because it seemed to give them the dirty butt syndrome the literature warns about and I hypothesized that the sprouting wasn't taking care of enough of the anti-nutrients.

Soaking the grain in a mild bleach solution is one way to control mold (and washing the grain is one of the ways to get rid of the toxic smut). That and really scrubbing and bleaching the trays between batches seemed necessary to me. Bleach is allowed in various stages of organic food processing (even as a final rinse), but there are also other options. I did a lot of reading about bleach during my sprouting experiment.

People sure have strong feelings about it.

Here we have two dormant seasons: winter because of the light/cold; and summer because it is so dry. Growing fodder would be a great way to make sure the flock has plenty of fresh greens year round. I'm not giving up entirely on the idea.

Now I know what it is about the rye. Thanks. And people sure do have strong feelings about bleach, huh? I like hyrdogen peroxide a bit better because it just goes to water as it sits out, but I'm pretty sure bleach in such low concentrations is probably not going to hurt the chickens. I had great luck with pre-soaking with the hydrogen peroxide until the weather got so hot. I really think that my trays simply were not draining enough. I don't have a problem with watering them three times a day, I'm a stay at home mom and I'm in the kitchen an aweful lot. I just dumped them in the sink, sprayed, and got on with whatever else I was doing (MORE TEA. Lol. Mothers of toddlers have to have some way to get a caffiene fix!) he I really am looking forward to doing the automated thing though. That will be super easy. All I will have to do is soak seeds for the first day flats, and move the flats around.

It seems to have lost my quote but: Tiphilowladies, congrats on the homestead! Hopefully someday it will be more than a pipe dream for us here.

So sorry for those of you with losses today. It's so hard when it's one of the more or less "pet" chickens....

 

[MEMama3]

Do any of you make compost tea? I've read a lot regarding how long to let it "steep", but how soon after making the tea can you use it? How long will it stay good? Do you think it will aid in growing grass where I recently seeded.

Sorry to bombard with questions, but I have a bucket of poop ready to go.