The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[lalaland]

Happy wedding day to Justine and Susan!

 

[MEMama3]

Most of the time in the Amish communities they have rules on what can be in the house but not the barn! The barn has electricity running water computers Internet and radios where the family spends most of their time they even have forced air heat in some that I've seen...

That just seem me contradictory to me, but hey, I'm not Amish.

 

[Pozees]

X2 Lala - here to wish Justine and Susan a very happy day and all the best for a lifetime together!

 

[uglychickens]

That just seem me contradictory to me, but hey, I'm not Amish.

Yeah that's why when the two Amish boys got thrown out of prison because they were worried it would expose them to an unamish culture. It caused an uproar!

 

[Sally8]

I hope you do some more research to see if your hens have anything. My hens occasionally have black spots on their combs but they don't have any symptoms just those spots. They seem to come & go? I have had the big girls for over a year & the tots since May. They are all very healthy & happy. I kind of think of the spots as something like freckles. I have even seen them at fairs on the hens in the poultry barns. Here's a pic of Lucy my EE/BCM mix who has a few. Its not a good pic but you can see them (she was busy eating yogurt & trying to get as much as she could before the big girls pushed her away )

Lucy's comb looks like George's brother's. We sent him to freezer camp as I felt that was a flaw. BUT seeing that that has now happened with 2 birds that I thought was pure BCM, it appears that either Wrinkles is carrying the comb or one of the hens. I have 8 chicks that are supposed to be all BCM. It will be interesting to see what shows. All my BCM nt 25 to 30 weeks before they started laying.

 

[armorfirelady]

Well the baggy over the gauze then covered with vet wrap then duct tape seems to be working. Mrs greens foot pad is clean now when I remove the bandages and her bumblefoot is def shrinking. I only change the bandages every other day now and the foot pads are still clean even after her walking thru wet grass and mud from the rain.
Here are the feet today. That small one should be healed up in a week or so I am figuring.

Now here's a question for those of you who have treated bumblefoot. Do you keep treating it until there are no scabs left at all?

 

[armorfirelady]

Sally8- Sophie my BCM isn't laying and I figured it would be October or November before she does. Even Stella the BR as red as her comb has been is not laying yet either. I keep checking her vent but its still small & dry. I figure she will lay later as well even tho she is as big as my big girls.

On the bumblefoot for those who have treated it do you think I should try removing the yellowish scab to get the coconut oil in the wound directly? I've been picking of what's raised when I do bandage changes but its not much.

 

[Jewelwing]

I just saw this thread, and it's right up my ally. I didn't read all 2000 pages of it, though, so maybe my question has been discussed already - if so, sorry!

I've been fermenting organic feed (wow, is that expensive!) for my 9 little chicks (7-1/2 weeks old now). I've been giving it to them in a plastic trough, but I really don't like the idea of using plastic. We use very little plastic in our kitchen, and I worry that the acidity of the fermented food will increase the leaching of endocrine disrupters and/or other chemicals into the food. It probably doesn't pose much of a problem to the chickens, with their short life spans, but I worry about us eating the eggs.

So I was looking into glass or stainless steel containers, but it seems ridiculous to spend over $50 on a food trough for chickens! I worry about galvanized or coated metals, too.

I haven't figured out a solution. What do you guys do if you feed fermented food?

 

[jockeyeba]

RIP Cibolo

Our 30+ lb. Maine Coon died last night at 11 years old

 

[Alibabe]

X2 Lala - here to wish Justine and Susan a very happy day and all the best for a lifetime together!

x3 hope you have a wonderful day.