The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[delisha]

Whoops forgot another question.

Would I have to keep them totally separate from the chickens?

Most do not keep them separate. I no longer do turkeys because of the chickens. If I did turkeys again it would be away from my birds. (I doubt i will ever do them again). I used to have ducks, geese, turkeys, chickens, sheep, horses, cows, pigs, goats, dogs, cats, kids, hamsters, fish, cockatoos (Sulfur crested), snakes, mice, gerbils, Guinea pigs, and I am sure 10 more. They were all together and I was always crabby from lack of sleep. I also worked a full time job.Turkeys were the first to go after the horses. If I ever considered doing them again I would do midgets.

 

[delisha]

I finally took pictures of my Gold laced Chicks and my batch of all male Orps









Shanana feeding first tomato's

 

[lazy gardener]

Newbie question here.... I actually don't have chickens yet. I've been planning and scheming to get DH on board for a LONG time and now we are at the planning stage of putting in a garden AND a chicken coop.... I want the chickens to be able to forage in our yard while protecting the main garden, so they will free range in a smaller area (which can also be better protected from hawks/owls). So they'll have an area larger than a run but not full range of the whole yard.

My question is, how much space does each chicken need for forage each day/week? I know that if they're let loose in the garden there won't be anything left for us, so they'll have their own garden. But obviously, I'll need to block of sections of new growth so they don't mow down the seedlings before they become plants. How much room do they need each day or week to forage (assuming I don't buy feed or only supplement a bit with FF and whatever food scraps from our family of 4)? I'm trying to figure out how many sections of what size I can get away with. I'll be planting veggies and greens in addition to cover crops, and as I said, they will have access to our compost pile for house scraps and probably some fermented feed (this thread inspired me -- if I can make yogurt for my kids, I can make feed for the chickens!).

Ultimately, the goal is to not have to buy any feed except what I'm fermenting and supplementing and want to keep that at a minimum. I can also set aside space in the main garden to grow extra veggies and greens to toss in to them if need be, but frankly I have no idea how much a chicken eats in a day so that makes it difficult...

I finally took pictures of my Gold laced Chicks and my batch of all male Orps









Shanana feeding first tomato's

 

[armorfirelady]

Delisha your chicks are beautiful. I love the gold colored one.

 

[armorfirelady]

Here's the better pics I promised:

Here is a pic looking at the coop from my deck on the back of the house. If you look at front Of the coop to the right you will see a wooden door. That's where the pop up door will be moved to for winter.

And this is their winter run aka veggie garden. You can just see the far post past the green hose. I believe it's about 50x30 plus the area in front of the coop. This end of coop faces north but has protection from garage, house and new giant compost pile.


Def enough room for the hens. Last winter the old girls only had the smaller veggie garden to roam in and were fine.

ETA the small coop and run with red roofing is now being used for storage of garden items, bedding, leaves, etc for the hens. So much nicer not to have to drag it from the garage when we have 4 ft of snow

 

[armorfirelady]

Ok so I was out raking the coop this morning & picked some kale to put in the hens treat ball. It's tied to their roost with old twine. I had to untie it to lower it & much to my surprise there was a spider and tiny little red bugs. I'm hoping baby spiders and not mites?? I've never seen anything on my girls and I do check periodically. I sprayed the roost down with the eucalyptus oil/water mix I keep in the coop to spray down the wood items. But I never even thought to spray the bottom of the roost before :/ I want to spray the wood stuff down with neem oil this weekend. What I have is a small bottle of neem oil from the store. Anyone know how much I delete the essential oil down to water for a spray bottle full?

Oh and I put wood ashes in the plastic dog crate outside for them to dust bath in to. They don't use it to hide under so I put it back together so hopefully the ashes stay dry in the rain.

Thanks !

 

[aoxa]

Picture time...

Pennies waiting for me on the deck after work.


Fall colours starting to appear.


Hello?


SPPR & BPR


I like this boy's yellow legs


SPPR female


One of my best young Barred Rock pullets


Mottled Houdan pullet


The naked neck girls


Easter Egger (no beard), but I love her pattern so she stays.


Our Champion goose


SPPR female


another SPPR


My favourite BPR young cockerel

 

[lalaland]

aoxa, what is an SPPR? they are absolutely gorgeous!

 

[aoxa]

aoxa, what is an SPPR? they are absolutely gorgeous!

Silver Pencilled Plymouth Rock.

Thank you!

 

[Leahs Mom]

I was just going to ask you (Aoxa) when we were going to get some photos!


AFL - How tall is the hoop coop in the center where you walk in? How tall is the door?