The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[lalaland]

sigh. another bad chicken keeper day.

just got home to frozen water in the coop. based on what I can see, I think the water was frozen almost all day long. left fresh water at 4am. I've been taking the water out at night to keep the moisture out of the coop when they aren't drinking so didn't know the heated dog bowl had stopped working.

its a wonder these chickens survive me. will go spend $$ on another stupid bowl. wonder if those immersion heaters last any longer?


Delisha, I've been looking at chicken feathers for a month or so during these molts moults and haven't seen a single stress line. wish someone would check my feathers, sure I have a zillion.

 

[Scott H]

Boy, I've been using heated dog bowls for years....never had one go bad. Got two going now to replace the one I forgot to plug in and broke...not the bowls fault.

 

[Inconcheepable]

sigh. another bad chicken keeper day.

just got home to frozen water in the coop. based on what I can see, I think the water was frozen almost all day long. left fresh water at 4am. I've been taking the water out at night to keep the moisture out of the coop when they aren't drinking so didn't know the heated dog bowl had stopped working.

its a wonder these chickens survive me. will go spend $$ on another stupid bowl. wonder if those immersion heaters last any longer?


Delisha, I've been looking at chicken feathers for a month or so during these molts moults and haven't seen a single stress line. wish someone would check my feathers, sure I have a zillion.

We've been using a submersible fish tank heater for our waterer (5 gallon bucket with chicken nipples). Works great. You can pick them up on Craigslist for pretty cheap, or catch them on sale in stores. It's not like it needs to be high powered, just enough to keep the water from freezing.

 

[Gramma Chick]

Well I can say raccoon is the only carcass we had to get rid of as nothing touched it when we left it out.

I don't think I would try one, there are certain things cooking doesn't kill and well ... it's a raccoon! Eww! Plus with the rabbit population here we won't ever starve.

We used our poor beheaded broody to bait the trap and this morning at 4 am caught a mink. Can't believe it set off a raccoon trap with how light it looked.
That thing was evil! Took a video of it screaming at us on my phone but not sure I can figure out how to post it.

Tanning the hides would be an interesting thing to learn, it does feel like a total waste.

Email the picture to your email address on your computer . then you can upload it to the site

 

[chicalot]

I agee with yall on the 2 bucket system for FF being a pain. I do one but not during freezing weather. I can't keep it in the laundry room cause my dog is sleeping there and has a thing for FF chic feed.

Icey cold today. My fat WR couldn't climb the Icey ramp to get back in and couldn't jump up to roost in the smalk bantie coop either. Fat chics can't jump. DH packed her in to the coop and I'm pretty sure she thanked him. Get to see how they like snow tomorrow. I'm already looking forward to Spring.

 

[delisha]

I assume that the reduction in eggs could be compensated for by breed choice and by increasing one's laying flock before winter, then culling and hatching next winter's laying flock in the spring time.
I'm new, so is this correct? If not, please help me understand.

This is what i do..
I have leghorns (2) they are an older breed and not hatchery birds ..however I breed these birds and hatch out chicks..I raise them to sexual maturity, keep two pullets and butchery out the rest. I hatch early in the year so i have new birds to lay all winter long. New pullets lay the first full year with out moulting. If they stop laying the first year I butcher them in March or April .I do not want that in my flock. That work for early hatches only. late hatches might light molt and full moult in October/November so you end up with less eggs the first year from late hatches. So hatch early!!
Keeping a few leghorns every year will make sure you have eggs all winter. Hatching early will make sure you have winter eggs.
I hope this helps.
I would soup out all hens not producing by March. I would soup out all hens taking longer than two months to molt. You save the hen before health issues kills them and you get to use them for your family or feed them back into the flock if you are a vegan.

Quote:

I took a grain based organic food that they were wasting horribly (so nothing lost), added water and fermented. Pretty simple...

I was thinking of taking pellets and adding a little of my nasty FF to get it going and some 3 grain scratch. Whatcha think?

You got a written recipe?

Try this tomorrow..
1 cup of scratch 1/2 cup of the ferment. See what happens.
..just mix it together

sigh. another bad chicken keeper day.

just got home to frozen water in the coop. based on what I can see, I think the water was frozen almost all day long. left fresh water at 4am. I've been taking the water out at night to keep the moisture out of the coop when they aren't drinking so didn't know the heated dog bowl had stopped working.

its a wonder these chickens survive me. will go spend $$ on another stupid bowl. wonder if those immersion heaters last any longer?


Delisha, I've been looking at chicken feathers for a month or so during these molts moults and haven't seen a single stress line. wish someone would check my feathers, sure I have a zillion.

take several good pictures..I will take a look..

 

[Jewelwing]

I'm curious to know how many people are feeding the following ... (fermented, sprouted or "as is")

Nothing (they forage)

Traditional poultry rations (layer or all purpose)

Organic commercial rations

Soy free rations

Corn free rations

Home-mixed rations (details please)

Some combination of the above

What am I forgetting.

I ask because I sell eggs and my biggest customer has just found a source for eggs from chickens fed "organic" and "Corn & Soy Free" feed (I have no other details about what the feed DOES contain, just what it doesn't). I'm sure my customer will be switching away from my eggs in a dizzying hurry.

I currently feed traditional poultry rations, with some supplements. I've looked into something more "special," but it seems that replacing corn and soy in a ration introduces various problems that need to be solved with nutritional counter-measures. I'd LOVE to avoid soy for various reasons related to MY health, but not if it compromises the health of the birds or the flavor of the poultry products. Also, the feed experts I've spoken to tell me there simply is no such thing as truly organic feed choices, especially with the GMO ingredients. So I'm reluctant to pay a premium for those products until I can find one I can "trust."

It's a big topic, too big for me to include every nuance in this one post, but I am interested in knowing what this group thinks about the "corn and soy free" movement in particular.

I feed fermented organic GMO-free grower food from Countryside Organics. Crushed egg shells in a pile on the dirt. Plus kitchen scraps (they LOVE my daughter's leftover turkey & cheese sandwiches!) & free range every day the weather is not horrible. I don't know how much they're getting from free ranging this time of year, but they sure seem to love it!! I think they're still finding stuff to eat, because they go through a lot more ff on the days they're confined to the run.

But it occurred to me the other day that the food I'm feeding was formulated to be fed dry, when a lot of the vitamin powder would not get eaten. So by fermenting it, maybe they're getting too high a percentage of powder. Maybe I should add some scratch grains to even everything out. Just thinking out loud (so to speak).

tonight I'm dreaming of having a game camera inside the coop. Would love to be able to see the dynamics of all 19 hanging out in the coop while it is so cold outside. got to be a bit crazy.

I did put a game camera inside the coop about a week ago, because I want to see if anyone's even remotely interested in the nest boxes, plus I thought it would be fun to see what goes on on the roost in the middle of the night.

But I've been having two problems. One is that the infra-red flash is way to bright for such close shots, so all my night pictures are so completely washed out you can't even make out the shapes of the birds. The other is that it only gets a small portion of the coop (another problem of trying to take close pictures). I'm not sure what to do about those problems. I put the camera as high as I could on the wall opposite the nest boxes, but I haven't looked at the pictures taken since I readjusted the camera to aim at all three nest boxes (hopefully) instead of just one.

I was thinking maybe I could tape some paper or something over the infra-red flash so it wouldn't be so bright. Haven't tried that, though.

Maybe it's too cold for the camera to work anyway. Down to 9F tonight (-13C to our Canadian friends). I've been trying to give them their ff more often in this cold, since it freezes so fast. I was thinking it might take longer to freeze if I warmed up the glass pans I feed them in, so maybe I'll try that tomorrow.

 

[armorfirelady]

sigh.   another bad chicken keeper day.

 just got home to frozen water in the coop.  based on what I can see, I think the water was frozen almost all day long.  left  fresh water at 4am. I've been taking the water out at night to keep the moisture out of the coop  when they aren't drinking so didn't know the heated dog bowl had stopped working. 

its a wonder these chickens survive me.  will go spend $$ on another stupid bowl.  wonder if those immersion heaters last any longer?


Delisha, I've been looking at chicken feathers for a month or so during these molts moults and haven't seen a single stress line.  wish someone would check my feathers, sure I have a zillion. 

We have all had something like that happen to us before, they are fine I am sure. If they went outside I am sure they ate some snow. My girls seem to prefer Snow and dirty mud puddles to their clean water. Chickens are weird

I've never had a bowl go bad. Hopefully it was just a fluke for you and the next ones will last for generations.

Enjoy your day today, don't sweat the small stuff, chickens are hardier than most of us think Plus I bet if you gave them some treats today they would be happy to forgive you

Also if your worried about the water issue leave them some fruits high in water content for them at night. Watermelon and grapes are two that come to mind. Mine will peck at frozen fruit and veggies. And the DL in coop might keep them from freezing.,

 

[Leahs Mom]

We've been using a submersible fish tank heater for our waterer (5 gallon bucket with chicken nipples). Works great. You can pick them up on Craigslist for pretty cheap, or catch them on sale in stores. It's not like it needs to be high powered, just enough to keep the water from freezing.

Last year I used a 50 watt and it worked great! Used a bag of marbles as a weight to keep it under the water.

 

[Leahs Mom]

This is what i do..
I have leghorns (2) they are an older breed and not hatchery birds ..however I breed these birds and hatch out chicks..I raise them to sexual maturity, keep two pullets and butchery out the rest. I hatch early in the year so i have new birds to lay all winter long. New pullets lay the first full year with out moulting. If they stop laying the first year I butcher them in March or April .I do not want that in my flock. That work for early hatches only. late hatches might light molt and full moult in October/November so you end up with less eggs the first year from late hatches. So hatch early!!
Keeping a few leghorns every year will make sure you have eggs all winter. Hatching early will make sure you have winter eggs.
I hope this helps.
I would soup out all hens not producing by March. I would soup out all hens taking longer than two months to molt. You save the hen before health issues kills them and you get to use them for your family or feed them back into the flock if you are a vegan.

Please define: "early in the year"

What month specifically? Do you brood outdoors in the coops?