The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[armorfirelady]

I did withhold food until her crop went down.  

She is better, more alert, interested in her regular food but not so much with the yogurt/etc.  I leave at 4 am tomorrow so I put her in the brooder in the big coop - turned on the brinsea brooder in case she got chilled, got her food and water set up,.....when the two sibling chicks came in the coop for the night, she saw them and started distress calling.  THey called back, screeching - oh the commotion - I finally let her siblings in the brooder with her.  
When I leave, I will take the sibling chicks out, but I think I will leave her in for another day.  

She is still a little puffed out, but her  posture has improved.  I've had false hopes before, though....

I found that the 2nd time I put her in a crate that waiting the five days before having real food worked the best to clear her crop. The first 2 times I only had her on it for a couple days.,

 

[armorfirelady]

The babies piled in a corner in the nesting box. They are getting huge & today when I picked them up to put them on the roost realized they had good weight to them also. They only get fed at night when I feed the big girls. They are out from sun up to sun down foraging in the yard. Even today in the heavy rain they were out. Guess even tho the moms want nothing to do with them now they did teach them well

 

[Leahs Mom]

@lalaland
How is that kiddo this morning?

 

[armorfirelady]

A short video of the hens and babies today enjoying a turkey carcass.

 

[Leahs Mom]

A short video of the hens and babies today enjoying a turkey carcass.

AFL..putting it here so it's easier to watch

 

[PlaidBattleAxe]

The babies piled in a corner in the nesting box. They are getting huge & today when I picked them up to put them on the roost realized they had good weight to them also. They only get fed at night when I feed the big girls. They are out from sun up to sun down foraging in the yard. Even today in the heavy rain they were out. Guess even tho the moms want nothing to do with them now they did teach them well

What breed of chicken are they? I love the variations of black in them.

 

[PlaidBattleAxe]

Wondering if anyone has had any experience good / bad / or indifferent to using a thickly planted thorny vine to cover a fence for some preditor protection?

I had intended to do my whole front yard with Robin Hood hedge roses, and have a 50+foot row of them, planted last year.. They almost all died with the blasted polar vortex nonsense this past winter. I had to cut my 2+ foot of growth down to nubs in May and they're now close to a foot high (4 of the plants were obliterated completely). (They would've easily been my 3-4 foot beautiful hedgerow of doom, had I not had to cut them down) I believe if this winter does not harm them again, I'll have a very effective and beautiful fence for my front yard. These bushes would be like climbing through a wall of razor wire (my mother's single Robin Hood rose is 8 feet tall and 6 feet wide, and she has to prune it annually to keep it contained to those dimensions-----I've been snagged on the pant leg and knocked flat on my arse multiple times, and once you're hooked by the thorny snare you have to be really ginger about working free.

 

[flyladyrocks]

PS: What I'd REALLY like to do is hire someone else to take care of it.

 

[flyladyrocks]

I know this is going to sound crazy and I'm not recommending it but my dad, brother, sister and I eat a small bite of 'poison' plant as soon as we can find it, regardless of type, oak, ivy ...whatever. None of us are bothered by it all season.

I started doing this when I was a very young boy and that's a good thing because it someone suggested I do something like that at my current age and level of knowledge, I'd laugh in their face.

My sister was badly disabled due to a car crash a few years back and she really loves to get out into her garden in Old Louisville throughout the summer. The place is covered with 'poison' and if she were forced to stay inside, her life would be not worth living. (That's pretty much a direct quote from her).

Turk

 

[LindaB220]

Yes I bet I have the same "tools" on hand that you do

I am never w/o them


Yes the hot water thing works. When you first do it you will think, Oh my got whose bright idea was this crap" it will itch INTENSLEY like nothing else ever. But then it will feel better when you take the hot water away,.

Here's the cream I was talking about. It's like an exfoliate, sandy. Wet itching area and apply to hands and scrub for up to 2 minutes. Stop when the itching stops. I promise my poison ivy dried up and went away in 2 days. I still have the container about half full but it cost $20. Best I've ever spent. Buy it at the pharmacy.

http://www.zanfel.com/help/