The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[chicalot]

My fat Cornish Rock chicken died this week also, close to 1 year . She had never laid an egg but looked like maybe she was going to and it was the death of her. Her 2 sister chickens aren't quite as fat but one has never laid either and we'll cull her. I really want chics out of the one that's laying but no luck so far. I'm hoping she stays healthy until I get a full size rooster. That rooster will have to come from the chics I have now..so that may not happen.

 

[misbhaven]

I kind of figured that might be the case..like I said it seems to be helping that I soon as I got 2 of the chicks I placed them in with a different breed they behave more like their brooder mates than the piggies in the next cage they don't even jump on the food etc. For those who haven't had the plesure meaties poop worse than my ducklings ever thought of which have great entertainment value when you let swin in the kitchen sink for a few minutes every day even my almost 9 year old boy finds them more amusing than video games. Anyone have any tips for keeping my little cochin and silkies bantams from getting their feet caked with poop the seemd to poop and step on it every time. Maybe some vaseline would help after I wash their feet ? Never had featherlegged before and while cute those 3 week old bantams seen to never stop moving and always are poopy I clean their brooder 2 to 3 times a day.

 

[Shan30]

I need help identifying these tracks. I have seen them around in the snow but not always consistently... There were a lot of rabbit tracks in our dusting of snow last night and then these.... before I just chalked them up to a cat but honestly cats are few and far between in our area.... and I am not sure why a cat would be so interested in my fenced in back yard. Anyhow another thing that I found curious is that I would imagine that the stride and such would be different for a cat. These actually had some prints from each leg very close together and at times right on top of one another. In these next photos the prints are right next to / on top of one another.... that doesn't seem like a trait of a cat.... Any help is greatly appreciated....

This looks just like the mink track we see sometimes. They do that funny little hopping run and leave their tracks in pairs.

 

[Mrs Hutcherson]

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Can anyone help me out identifying what this little guy is?

 

[Mrs Hutcherson]

 

[Kassaundra]

Is this the thread that had the automatic door opener w/ water buckets????


My husband and I were brainstorming on that idea, and if you made the system closed (hoses connecting the buckets and lids on the buckets) added one more bucket and one pump and timer using pet friendly antifreeze it would be usable in the winter too. When the liquid makes it to the bottom bucket have a pump to pump it up to a holding bucket on top to start the process all over in the morning.

 

[misbhaven]

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Can anyone help me out identifying what this little guy is?

might be an icelandic the woman I got my dorking from had a roo that looked just like that pretty much a bantam sized chicken

 

[Leahs Mom]

Is this the thread that had the automatic door opener w/ water buckets????


My husband and I were brainstorming on that idea, and if you made the system closed (hoses connecting the buckets and lids on the buckets) added one more bucket and one pump and timer using pet friendly antifreeze it would be usable in the winter too. When the liquid makes it to the bottom bucket have a pump to pump it up to a holding bucket on top to start the process all over in the morning.

@Kassaundra

Not this thread, but here it is. (I couldn't do this because it sure wouldn't work in the winter! )

ETA: I should have read what you said about the pump through and antifreeze first. Sigh.

But I still like my auto door and don't want to go to all the trouble to do one of these

 

[armorfirelady]

I can not use that either because of winter but I have to say that is a really cool idea. I like how he is going to put the chicken waterer under it. I wonder if I put a timer on the rain barrel if it would work to fill the waterers everyday? Hmmmmmmm

(ok I do not need any more things on my to do list........

)

 

[Kassaundra]

@Kassaundra

Not this thread, but here it is. (I couldn't do this because it sure wouldn't work in the winter! )

ETA: I should have read what you said about the pump through and antifreeze first. Sigh.

But I still like my auto door and don't want to go to all the trouble to do one of these

We have working auto doors too, but if/ when we need to replace them I am thinking this w/ the modifecations to make it winter friendly is what we will do.