The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[ki4got]

Quote: nope. the horses have eaten it all. LOL all that's left are pokeweed, brambles, burdock, other assorted weeds and more pokeweed.

 

[Myrth]

Pokeweed is toxic so hope they won't eat it.

 

[CedarAcres]

Ok seriously...sigh... Hubby (new to the actual caring part of chickens) is now arguing with me over what we can and cannot feed the girls. I've been studying the BYC since March of this year. He's only JUST started researching other websites. Like this one: http://www.poultryhelp.com/toxicplants.html#A
Now a lot of what is listed under "toxic" I've read numerous occasions that people on here feed all the time! Things like cabbage, garlic (not that I would), chard... Now I have feed the girls cabbage,tomatoes,and chard, and they love it! I've not seen any ill effects what-so-ever. And they eat clover out of the yard all the time.
Opinions...anyone?

That list made me roll my eyes. I didn't even scroll all the way through. I think that anything in huge amounts can be "toxic". If all you ate was cabbage for your entire diet, you'd probably get sick and so would a chicken. I did notice that a few of my girls favorite weeds are on there. So I don't agree with the list.

 

[iwanaplae2]

When I read that list, I thought it was funny. People have been feeding that toxic stuff to chickens for at least my Grandparents generation that I personally know of. I am sure even before than too. I do not force feed my chickens anything. They have nutritional balanced diet available. I think they are talking about a starving chicken having access to those items.You can't feed a chicken garlic for a diet or cabbage for a diet etc.

1. Depending of size of your girls and nutritional needs, about 3/4 th cup per bird.
2. Kelp would help with this recipie
3. Too much of anything it not good. I do not use it and if used in moderation I see no reason to be afraid of it. It has benefits.

Try this out with your birds and let us know how it goes..

Thank you everyone. So hard to get DH to realize that, sometimes, I know what I'm talking about. lol
As for my experiment with making my own feed, I will definitely yet ya know how it goes. By the way my girls are all standard size. One Red Star, 23wks old and laying. Three EE's, 14wks old, not laying yet. One BR, 14wks old, not laying yet.

 

[delisha]

Quote: I have a suggestion for you..I know you want to do the very best for your birds..since you are doing grain. Please consider trying Fermenting it. They will get more nutrition and honestly it is not much more work after you get used to doing it.

I even have a way for you to see if it is worth the extra effort.

For two months tally your feed bill and take pictures of your birds weekly..keep good records. Make notes of health

Than the next two months ferment the feed. Just put about 10 cups of grain in a bucket and cover it in water..check it and make sure it stays under water. Start feeding after 4 days. Again take pictures and make note of feed bill.

It is a fun experiment and no one can tell you something that you yourself have not experienced and seen with your own eyes.
You will save money and the birds will look and feel better.

If after trying it you do not like doing it.....nothing lost..the birds can go back on grain.

 

[ki4got]

I have a suggestion for you..I know you want to do the very best for your birds..since you are doing grain. Please consider trying Fermenting it. They will get more nutrition and honestly it is not much more work after you get used to doing it.

I even have a way for you to see if it is worth the extra effort.

For two months tally your feed bill and take pictures of your birds weekly..keep good records. Make notes of health

Than the next two months ferment the feed. Just put about 10 cups of grain in a bucket and cover it in water..check it and make sure it stays under water. Start feeding after 4 days. Again take pictures and make note of feed bill.

It is a fun experiment and no one can tell you something that you yourself have not experienced and seen with your own eyes.
You will save money and the birds will look and feel better.

If after trying it you do not like doing it.....nothing lost..the birds can go back on grain.

honestly, I was hesitant too... sounded like too much work for too little reward. then I got a little girl who was near starvation, wouldn't eat grains or pellets, but apparently somewhere in her life she had soaked or fermented feed... at 3-4 months old, she went from 7 ounces (yes, she WAS nothing but bone and feather) up to 12 ounces in one week! weighed her again today at 16 ounces. she's been with me 2 weeks now. eating FF for about 10 days.

I put one chick in with her for company. THAT little girl is half again bigger than her brother/hatchmate and has better feather quality than any 7 week old chick I've ever had (and weighs in at 12 ounces). all my chicks are now on it, growing like weeds never did. I started a second bucket of mixed grain/pellets a few days ago for some of the outside birds to start on...

 

[Jewelwing]

How much weeding do you have to do in those? If you don't weed, is there a ground cover of some kind?

Well, I never do any weeding!!

But DH would tell people (he's asleep now or I'd ask him) that you could spend as little or as much time out there "puttering" as you wanted. No ground cover, but so many plants that it would be hard for other stuff to grow. It's all perennial, so once the plants are established, if you mulch before the weeds come up, most of them never have a chance. Of course there are some, but it depends what you call a weed and how much you can live with. DH would spend maybe a couple hours a week puttering around, clipping dead flowers, pulling weeds, etc, but that was mostly because he just liked to be out among the plants.

When we were overrun with Japanese beetles several years ago, the kids and I used to spend hours every day (well, ok, me mostly) knocking them off leaves into jars of soapy water. Drown, horrible things, drown! At least they didn't bite.

We moved out to the country a couple years ago, so now he's trying to establish new plants here so it can be somewhat like what we had in town, but on a bigger scale. Might be a challenge with free-ranging chickens, though!

 

[Jewelwing]

Happy Fall Back, everyone!

Oh, I guess not everyone. But I get an extra hour of sleep tonight!

 

[MargaretYakoda]

Thank you everyone. So hard to get DH to realize that, sometimes, I know what I'm talking about. lol
As for my experiment with making my own feed, I will definitely yet ya know how it goes. By the way my girls are all standard size. One Red Star, 23wks old and laying. Three EE's, 14wks old, not laying yet. One BR, 14wks old, not laying yet.

That list is ridiculous!
Just tell your DH all about the dangers of DHMO. Dihydrogen Monoxide. http://dhmo.org/
Once he gets all spun up about the dangers of this chemical (it's in almost everything!) you can go ahead and let him know it's just another name for H2O. Water.
There, a simple lesson in critical thinking and not letting fear remove all his common sense.

 

[lalaland]

Buster showed two of the pullets a place to lay eggs - I have put some hay bales down on the ground under the edge of the coop to make a windbreak for the girls in the winter - it makes a nice protected corner where they tend to snooze during the day or hang out when it is blizzarding . the bales break down over time and I just add new ones. There is a gap between two bales, which I stuffed with hay, and Buster pulled it out and made a nice nesting spot!

Now, he doesn't understand that this is on the outside, north side and not a great spot, he apparently thinks it is better than the nest boxes. He backed himself into it, made little cooing sounds and lured the girls over to look. So funny - he would go in, play like he was a laying hen, even tossing some hay on his back, then back out and urge the pullets to try it. They were clueless, so he repeated this several times.

But....maybe I'll get surprised by an egg! No one is laying with molting and shorter daylight. I had to actually buy eggs yesterday.

time to start fermenting again - with some chaos, I stopped, but time to get back on track.