The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[Lacy Blues]

My girls also prefer the sprouts more. I kept reading people saying the longer you let it grow it can be dangerous or a choking hazard. No clue if that's true, but since they love the sprouts I just grow them about 3/4 days and give it to them here they are going crazy over them

Actually, the fodder can grow long and the danger here is that it very well may roll up into a ball in their crop and cause them to become crop bound.

What I do with my sprouts that are a few days older is cut the blades of "grass" into one inch lengths (roughly). If my fodder has made it to 4 or 5 inches, I mow it with the scissors, then I'll untangle the mass of roots/sprouts and mix all that into their feed for the day. They love it and I don't worry about them getting crop bound.

 

[lalaland]

ok, a friend just asked if any of my chickens needed one of these:

chicken sweaters! apparently on etsy there are several women knitting sweaters for chickens, varied sizes, from $14 bucks to $40 bucks or so. Even some with turtlenecks for for turkens with the naked necks

 

[islandgirl82]

lol I have a friend who sent me the link to those. Way off topic from chickens but not entirely off topic

PONIES! IN SWEATERS!!






Um...YES!!!

*Not my photos but I do wish*

 

[vpatt]

I watched that video and love the idea! I am going to start my compost soon......well I actually have started some in the the small tumbler and have some under a tarp. But I will probably just add that to a compost heap on the ground. The only thing better would be if we could just pile everything on the garden in the winter....but the garden is too close to the road to do that. I am going to make leaf mold too.

Do you think I can do this with just the two of us? What I mean is do you think we will have enough scraps to make it work? We live in the woods with unlimited leaves and of course there is chicken poop and kitchen scraps. But I don't want to have to travel around looking for scraps.....what do you think? I'm going to try it and see but I wonder.... I was thinking if I get a good layer of 'stuff'.....maybe cover it until it accumates more.....and then throw some treats and maybe ff into the heap that they will go for it? The store near us MIGHT give us scraps but they would not be separated.....whatever food stuff they throw out would be in it and they may have someone else collecting it now. My FIL used to get it for his pigs.

 

[COChix]

A barn cat will work IF he can get everywhere.  If he is locked out of the chicken area then the mice will hide there.  After all the food and water are in the chicken area and the cat is not. 

I now try to lock a cat in the chicken area at night at least once a week.  I have 3 cats so it is just a matter of getting one into the coop or run before dark and latching the gate.

Yes I figured a cat would have to be put in the run everynight for it to work. We have a second smaller coop that it could have access to for shelter if needed. Do your cats every try and kill any of your chickens? Or is a chicken too big for the cat?

Have you tried the 5 gal bucket/water trap?  You'd have to put it somewhere the chickens couldn't access it.  

no havent tried that yet and that was a good reminder about those.

My girls also prefer the sprouts more. I kept reading people saying the longer you let it grow it can be dangerous or a choking hazard. No clue if that's true, but since they love the sprouts I just grow them about 3/4 days and give it to them here they are going crazy over them

Nice, when I feed sprouts I feed them after 3-4 days just like you. I have read the same thing about if too long they can get compacted crops.

Actually, the fodder can grow long and the danger here is that it very well may roll up into a ball in their crop and cause them to become crop bound.

What I do with my sprouts that are a few days older is cut the blades of "grass" into one inch lengths (roughly).  If my fodder has made it to 4 or 5 inches, I mow it with the scissors, then I'll untangle the mass of roots/sprouts and mix all that into their feed for the day.  They love it and I don't worry about them getting crop bound.

Nice suggestions!

ok, a friend just asked if any of my chickens needed one of these:

chicken sweaters!  apparently on etsy there are several women knitting sweaters for chickens, varied sizes, from $14 bucks to $40 bucks or so.  Even some with turtlenecks for for turkens with the naked necks

Lol, is that one of your chickens?

Do you think I can do this with just the two of us? What I mean is do you think we will have enough scraps to make it work? We live in the woods with unlimited leaves and of course there is chicken poop and kitchen scraps. But I don't want to have to travel around looking for scraps.....what do you think? I'm going to try it and see but I wonder.... I was thinking if I get a good layer of 'stuff'.....maybe cover it until it accumates more.....and then throw some treats and maybe ff into the heap that they will go for it? The store near us MIGHT give us scraps but they would not be separated.....whatever food stuff they throw out would be in it and they may have someone else collecting it now. My FIL used to get it for his pigs.

Yes you can do it, just compost all your scraps. It is just myself and my boyfriend and that is how we started building our piles. We compost alot as we have no garbage disposal, I often take the house compost out directly to the run and dump it. They scratch through it pretty quick.

 

[COChix]

lol I have a friend who sent me the link to those. Way off topic from chickens but not entirely off topic PONIES! IN SWEATERS!! Um...YES!!! *Not my photos but I do wish*

Lol are you wishing for the pony or the sweater? or both?

 

[SallyinIndiana]

my cat will kill a chick if it is smaller than a softball and it prances in front of the cat. We keep those small chicks away from the cat. Hens will peck the cats. Roosters will scare the cat once or twice by sneaking up on it.
But the cat will steal treats from the chickens too. So if tossing liver to the chickens the cat will come from hiding and get some too.

 

[islandgirl82]

Lol are you wishing for the pony or the sweater? or both?

Both! I've always had horses/ponies and currently have a mini donkey...I'm thinking she needs one of those Scandinavian sweaters ...and her own pony friend. She had a Shetland but he passed several years ago.

 

[hoosiercheetah]

People shouldn't put clothes on animals.

It isn't Natural.

 

[NanaLynn]

Nice, I like what your doing. Never thought about seeing if we can get wood chips delivered and that is cheap. Funny everyone is so freaked about what to feed their chickens and if they should feed this or that. I can tell you from watching them, they do select items out of the compost pile that they like and can eat. They don't eat things like orange rinds and other such things. I am less and less concerned about that aspect of chickens.

It seems to be working out great so far.I am a lot more relaxed about what they eat then I was in the beginning. The only thing I have eliminated from my compost now is coffee grounds. I wasn't sure if I should still add those since I compost in the run. I put citrus rinds in too. Chickens really know what they like and do not like, much better then I do.

Well the wood chips are 10$ a pickup truck load, but that's with us using our pickup and having them dump it in. We then have to unload the truck ourselves. It's a good workout!

In our area we can get wood chips free. If you call around to tree services, some of them are thrilled to drop chips at your yard if they are working in your area. It saves them from having to haul them back to their property - especially if they have several loads and their workplace is way on the other side of town.

Try calling around and then you just have to wait till they're in your area.

Been using them in my run for at least 2 years and they keep the ground healthy for the birds too. No slick, compacted, unhealthy ground.... and we dug some out for 2 of my daughter's gardens last year - 2 pickup truck loads full of the most beautiful dirt under the top chips.

That's a great idea! We'll keep an eye out! Thanks!
I love how the wood chips have helped in our run too, so more muddy mess in there. We used to have tons of muddy puddles all over the run, now we have no puddles at all since the rain just seeps down through the chips.

Can I spread my old deep litter pine shaving bedding from the coop out in the run? I know it sounds like a silly question, but with all the poo in there is that just going to spread more poo in the run and make a mess? Should I just compost the pine shavings instead? The temp is going to actually crack 30 degrees on Saturday (gasp!) and I figured it would be a nice warm day to clean out the poopy coop. I got chickens in July and I have never cleaned out the bedding, but for some reason my deep litter doesn't actually break down. Maybe because I have a plastic screen/pallet floor in the coop instead of a dirt floor? In the summer/fall I had a poop board that I scraped every morning, but in the winter I have just been turning the bedding since the poo is frozen anyway. It's starting to get a little thick in there now, though.

That's what I do all the time. I put any removed coop bedding into the run. We're having sunny days this weekend too and that's one of the chores I plan on doing. It's gotten pretty stinky in the coop from having to shut all the doors and windows in this cold weather.