The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[Mrs. K]

About the fodder - truthfully I was rather surprised, as mine in the spring will chase green grass, so I thought it would be a big treat to have the greens, but while they eat the greens, they go for the sprout and seed first.

I am using wheat - I soak 1/2 cup for 24 hours and use pie plates, I have a dessert stand that four plates will fit on, and the water drains down through all of them, and I generally water morning and night. With the right set up, it is minimal work, and it takes about 5-7 days to be ready. I grow it without additional grow lights and it is about 2-3 inches tall when I serve it. I do line each pieplate with a used coffee filter, to keep things damp. I have not had any trouble with mold.

It is just supplemental feed for mine, and as I bough 25 pounds, I will use that up and it will be spring.

Mrs K

 

[COChix]

About the fodder - truthfully I was rather surprised, as mine in the spring will chase green grass, so I thought it would be a big treat to have the greens, but while they eat the greens, they go for the sprout and seed first.

I am using wheat - I soak 1/2 cup for 24 hours and use pie plates, I have a dessert stand that four plates will fit on, and the water drains down through all of them, and I generally water morning and night. With the right set up, it is minimal work, and it takes about 5-7 days to be ready. I grow it without additional grow lights and it is about 2-3 inches tall when I serve it. I do line each pieplate with a used coffee filter, to keep things damp. I have not had any trouble with mold. 

It is just supplemental feed for mine, and as I bough 25 pounds, I will use that up and it will be spring.  

Mrs K

Mrs. K thank you so much for the details and I love your pie plate/desert stand set up, how smart! So do you measure a 1/2 cup in each pie plate? Or a half cup total for all the pie plates? We have 25 chickens and I am just trying to figure out how much grain to start with for soaking. I have a 50# bag of Barley to use up. I will be using my 5 gallon buckets that I ferment in that already have the holes in the bottom so I will be using that for my soaking method. They will sit in another 5 gallon bucket that doesn't have holes and that way I can drain easy. After that they will go into seed trays and under the grow lights, I am getting excited. My BF will make me a hydroponic set up for me if the gang is favorable to it. I am pretty excited to get started. Will keep ha posted on the results....I have see videos where people have offered barley & wheat fodder to their chickens at the same time and the chickens preferred the wheat. We will see......

 

[COChix]

I gave them chick waterers this afternoon.  Those they can drink out of and still keep their wattles dry.

How are your boys doing today?

 

[armorfirelady]

It must be the week for pullet eggs. One of the peepers laid her first egg today

It looks so tiny next to Stella's giant egg. I'll have to check vents in a few days & see who is laying,

 

[COChix]

It must be the week for pullet eggs. One of the peepers laid her first egg today

It looks so tiny next to Stella's giant egg. I'll have to check vents in a few days & see who is laying,

So cute, how much did it weigh?

 

[Mrs. K]

I use half a cup per small pie plate. I do not use grow lights, and the other articles I read said you did not have to.

I have 6 full size birds and 4 chicks, but I use this as supplemental feed.

Mrs K

 

[Lacy Blues]

How are your boys doing today?

They seem to be doing fairly well.

I have kept the lights in their spaces and inside, the temps aren't too bad.

Today we have a temperature of 27 degrees. The expected high is 31 but here's the kicker... we have a wind out of the northeast that is blowing about 25-35 mph and that is bringing our temperature down to 2 and below. It is really cold out there. No chickens are out in their yards today. They don't like the wind anyway and one that is that cold is just not going to get the chance to bring chills.

I'm wolfing down a quick breakfast right now because I need to go and gather up boys in a nice warm coat so I can bring them in to eat.

 

[Amberjem]

 

[COChix]

They seem to be doing fairly well.

I have kept the lights in their spaces and inside, the temps aren't too bad.

Today we have a temperature  of 27 degrees.  The expected  high is 31 but here's the kicker... we have a wind out of the northeast that is blowing about 25-35 mph and that is bringing our temperature down to 2 and below.  It is really cold out there.  No chickens are out in their yards today.  They don't like the wind anyway and one that is that cold is just not going to get the chance to bring chills.

I'm wolfing down a quick breakfast right now because I need to go and gather up boys in a nice warm coat so I can bring them in to eat.

Glad they are doing better, we have the cold here now. Last night was predicted to be -10 to -20 with winds chill. At morning roll call it was -2 outside, coop didn't dio below 18 and humidity didn't get higher than 34%. Did have a girl with frostbite in tip of waddle from heated water bowl! I have a bag of sand to fill the bowl with but the bag was frozen as it was outside. Have it in front of our wood burning stove to defrost. Once defrosted will fill up the heated bowl and out their steel waterer on top. Treated girl with Blu Kote and she seems fine.

 

[Leahs Mom]

Oh, meant to address my local relative humidity too. I live in the high desert and it is extremely dry out there so I haven't really paid much attention in the past to relative humidity; I mean, how high could it be, right? I checked this morning. The temperature at the time was 21, I think, but I'm positive that the relative humidity was 80% and I was quite shocked by that. I figured it had to be raining cats and dogs to have humidity that high here. I will be paying closer attention to that.

Wow!!!! That's really amazing humidity. I'm guessing the snow melt and freeze is probably adding to it.

I gave them chick waterers this afternoon. Those they can drink out of and still keep their wattles dry.

That's what I used and mostly what I'm using this year...the chick sized waterers. I have several of them depending on how large the flock is.

I put them in heated dog bowls to keep them thawed. But I put grit in the dog bowl to make a stable base for the waterer to set on then I fill the grit with water to conduct the heat. So far they've stayed thawed very well if not out in the windy area. I use honey jars (5 lb) which are close to 1/2 gallon of water for each.

Here's a current photo. I put the funnel on there because I had one rather large pullet that wanted to stand on it.

You can see some ice forming at the top in this photo. If it gets really cold, it will start to freeze the drops that are left on the empty part of the glass then down a little into the water. But I've never had the ice go much below where you see it right now...and only when it is partially empty as the part at the top can get cold since there's no water on it.... as, of course, the heat is coming from the bottom.

If I used a shorter vessel on top it probably wouldn't do that at all.