The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[lazy gardener]

An interesting note on that point...

Leigh (@Bulldogma who started this thread) sells hatching eggs for sfh and ships all over the country. SFH shipped eggs are notorious for having a very poor hatch rate...sometimes 1 out of 12 the hatch rate is so bad on the shipped eggs.

Leigh's eggs - from a ff fed flock that is fed regular bagged feed off the shelf - have an incredible hatch rate. So much so that folks seek out her hatching eggs since they have such a poor hatch rate from other's eggs.

She attributes that to husbandry and ff.

Now...would it stand to reason that if the yolk is taking up more of the insides of the shell, that it may not get as "scrambled" in a shipping situation as an egg that has a smaller yolk?



Edited to fix a spell error.

I don't think that yolk size should have much to do with the "scrambling" effect of shipping. My thought is that the overall structure of the egg is better. The cell structure is better, the membranes and choryzae are stronger. No matter what the reason, it "seems" as though eggs from flocks who receive FF have better hatchability. I'm not willing to take my girls off of their FF for the sake of an experiment, but, if I do hatch this spring, and am able to get eggs from a neighboring flock with similar husbandry practices barring the difference of FF, I'd do a side by side incubation. I encourage other folks who are hatching to undertake the same study. Do a comparison of similar sized eggs: FF vs standard feed. Of course, that's not a complete study. To be a perfect study, you'd have to take sibling groups, and put one on FF while keeping the other on standard feed. If anyone does experiment with FF vs standard feed hatchability, please set up a dedicated thread. Thanks.

 

[armorfirelady]

Girls enjoying the leaf & grass clipping I tossed in the coop this morning

One of the big girls allowing the peepers enjoy some yogurt, garlic & red pepper snack this morning

The other hens enjoying their plate full. Apparently yogurt keeps them occupied enough that Stella will share with others

 

[Leahs Mom]

I love seeing that beautiful litter in there!

 

[LindaB220]

I believe that if you check with Bee now, she'll tell you that she LOVES her white rocks, and if i'm not reading her wrong, she's headed towards having a flock completely made of WR's.

I think her last BA died recently. She loved them a lot and had broodies. Yeah, Bee and I are on the same page with WR's. We have the same breeder and am looking for some great results. I have only one Blosl pullet and 2 XW pullets and XW cockerel. Good start for a breeding program. Like Fred said, raise them and they become my breed. I want to populate the La area with good WR's without breaking their pocket.

Ditto on the good Marraduna Basques. Best for heat tolerant, and friendliness.

 

[armorfirelady]

I love seeing that beautiful litter in there!

Thank you. It smells so nice in there. It did look prettier in there when I dumped several container fulls of dried leaves in there a couple weeks ago. Nice fall colors in the coop.

The hens.......well they just wanted to see if there were any good bugs in those leaves

 

[CoopChick719]

I ordered some chicks a few years ago that got screwed up by the post office..BIG SHOCK...Anyhow they were two extra days getting there and a few of the chicks were either sacrificed or died on their own but the rest were well fed when I finally got them.

Surprising you don't hear about that more often!

Yah...especially Australorps.  My experience w/BAs is that I'd never get any on purpose.  Mean scrappy troublemakers from my experience!

Interesting on the BA's. I have 2 pullets this year. So far they are very sweet. 1 of my PR's has a little attitude!

 

[Turk Raphael]

Surprising you don't hear about that more often!
Interesting on the BA's. I have 2 pullets this year. So far they are very sweet. 1 of my PR's has a little attitude!

I'm sure it happens quite often, having nothing to do with the breed. Chicks can only go so long in transit before some fade and the stronger chicks take advantage of them. It's a simple law of nature. Thinking back, they were three days longer in shipment than they should have been. I was fully compensated.

Most people don't want to look too closely at the dead chicks and think they have been trampled....not noticing that large parts of the dead ones have been consumed. If one were to kill a chicken and throw it out in the field, the rest of the flock would be picking away at in by the time it got cold. Again, it's nature's way.


Turk

 

[Turk Raphael]

I think her last BA died recently. She loved them a lot and had broodies. Yeah, Bee and I are on the same page with WR's. We have the same breeder and am looking for some great results. I have only one Blosl pullet and 2 XW pullets and XW cockerel. Good start for a breeding program. Like Fred said, raise them and they become my breed. I want to populate the La area with good WR's without breaking their pocket.

Ditto on the good Marraduna Basques. Best for heat tolerant, and friendliness.

Naked Necks/Turkens are hard to beat in in hot humid weather (as well as very cold climes).

Linda, I talked to Jason today...he said please don't despair...you are being pushed to the front burner!!!

 

[armorfirelady]

Peepers enjoying the leaves I put in the compost this morning. Big girls have been in the coop all day digging thru the leaves and wood shaving I dumped in there. The best part was the dozen bags of leaves I scored down the street. Going to stop and pick up the rest on my way to work. Girls should have a ton of leaves this winter for the coop and old run

 

[Leahs Mom]

Love seeing them enjoying the leaves! If I could get motivated I'd go rake some of the ones in this yard for the winter....