The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[Leahs Mom]

A million chickens look like a breeding ground for disease.

 

[jtn42248]

A million chickens would look something like this (and this is probably not even close to a million). These are classified as "free range" chickens so they can sell their eggs as "free range eggs". Otherwise they would be in cages, several to a cage, without the ability to fully stand up. Laying eggs until they could no longer when they would be destroyed and probably become either your dogs food or feed for cattle and pigs...and other chickens. You can see how something like avian flu would spread rapidly in this environment.

 

[potagergirl]

Hi, so I will take a small little stab at a part of this. I have book called The Complete Herbal Handbook For Farm And Stable by Juliette de Bairacli Levy. Here is what is says about Coccidiosis and the use of garlic for treatment and as a preventative,

"Garlic, either one flaked clove (clove is a small section of the compound root) per chick....continue treatment for an average of ten days."

Now I cannot offer anything more than that, I am sure Leah or someone will jump in on the use of garlic for this.

Also about the vitamins, something else you can do is to give a few drops of warmed honey, as it is an immediate resorative.

GARLIC!!!! Oh my gosh thank you so much. I don't know how many times I've put garlic in my adults pen quite a regular thing there but for some reason I never thought to add it to the chick water containers =(. I was thinking today, I have 2 pumpkins left over from fall that are still good. I was going to make pumpkin soup but with the chicks having problems I am going to give them the pumpkins all cut up with the seeds. Is this a good idea to do right now with the cocci problem? I will absolutely add garlic to the water in the morning. thank you so much for the reminder.

 

[COChix]

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A million chickens would look something like this (and this is probably not even close to a million). These are classified as "free range" chickens so they can sell their eggs as "free range eggs". Otherwise they would be in cages, several to a cage, without the ability to fully stand up. Laying eggs until they could no longer when they would be destroyed and probably become either your dogs food or feed for cattle and pigs...and other chickens. You can see how something like avian flu would spread rapidly in this environment.

I believe it was Iowa who declared a state of emergency due to the AI outbreak yesterday. Another commercial poultry "farm". It is rather scary to see, this will raise chicken and eggs prices across the nation. As well as possibly wipe out a majority of the large scale poultry operations across the nation. There will be an already bigger demand for us little guys to provide. It is time for us to wake up as a nation and make changes to our food and farming industries. I told my BF we would be smart of us to process any hens that are not laying and fill our freezer so we don't have to buy any chicken from the store.

GARLIC!!!! Oh my gosh thank you so much. I don't know how many times I've put garlic in my adults pen quite a regular thing there but for some reason I never thought to add it to the chick water containers =(. I was thinking today, I have 2 pumpkins left over from fall that are still good. I was going to make pumpkin soup but with the chicks having problems I am going to give them the pumpkins all cut up with the seeds. Is this a good idea to do right now with the cocci problem? I will absolutely add garlic to the water in the morning. thank you so much for the reminder.

You welcome, I have no experience with this subject, just trying to learn more. Hope it helps. PS - just read a blurb that in Iowa they are preparing to deal with 16.5 MILLION carcasses! The governer of Iowa stated they believe it is in at least 1/4 of the laying hens in Iowa. Very scary stuff!

 

[slordaz]

Just saying that picture makes me cringe

Greed would be the cause I'd say, there is no way that is free range and keeping that clean enough to prevent disease would be impossible.

Meat chicks are still pretty cheap (1.39- 1.50 here in Idaho) we are planning on building another coop and run and adding some in as this is for our families, most people can't or don't wanna raise their own, especially from chicks. wonder how hard it would be to get the meat chicks breeding. as I have never done other than egg layers.

I think I am gonna be super glad that we did the circle garden we saw at the food summit, the chicks were watching us plant and were like oh new treats for us( spoiled rotten already), it will be a lot easier to try and protect from it from the chicks.


I have a big area for my chicks,10 chicks and 2 ducklings have the coop and a 25 x 25 ft run and still thinking of expanding it more even though in near future they will be free ranging. then they have about 2 acres of yard and 5 acres of pasture but that makes me nervous as there's 3 steers on it right now

 

[jtn42248]

This site has a very good article with map about the current avian flu outbreak in the United States. It helps to put in into perspective and see that, even though it is catastrophic for those large farms impacted and with Iowa declaring a State of Emergency, it is still a very small percentage of poultry in the Continental United States...something in the neighborhood of <6%. So, do what you can to keep your flocks safe and healthy and don't panic.

http://onpasture.com/2015/05/04/avian-flu-coming-to-a-hen-house-near-you/

 

[COChix]

This site has a very good article with map about the current avian flu outbreak in the United States. It helps to put in into perspective and see that, even though it is catastrophic for those large farms impacted and with Iowa declaring a State of Emergency, it is still a very small percentage of poultry in the Continental United States...something in the neighborhood of <6%. So, do what you can to keep your flocks safe and healthy and don't panic.

http://onpasture.com/2015/05/04/avian-flu-coming-to-a-hen-house-near-you/

Thanks for the link and not panicking, just trying to spread the word for others to be aware of the issue.

 

[threescompany]

This site has a very good article with map about the current avian flu outbreak in the United States. It helps to put in into perspective and see that, even though it is catastrophic for those large farms impacted and with Iowa declaring a State of Emergency, it is still a very small percentage of poultry in the Continental United States...something in the neighborhood of <6%. So, do what you can to keep your flocks safe and healthy and don't panic.

http://onpasture.com/2015/05/04/avian-flu-coming-to-a-hen-house-near-you/

 

[COChix]

I wanted to share this link to this thread as it is a good thread and great idea. It eliminates the need for a heat lamp in the brooder. Thought I would pass it along. I will be moving our babies out to the small coop in about a 1 1/2 weeks using this method.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/956958/mama-heating-pad-in-the-brooder-picture-heavy-update

 

[jtn42248]

Thanks for the link and not panicking, just trying to spread the word for others to be aware of the issue.

And we all should be spreading the word if for no other reason to assure that people know what to look for and what to do to increase the protection of our own birds. I have sent this article link to just about everyone I know that keeps poultry of one kind or another. Where I live we are not on a waterfowl migratory route so Texas if relatively o.k. so far. But we are on the migratory route of a number of other birds. My concerns are what if a raptor gets the virus when attacking and/or eating infected birds then migrates to/over my farm and poops? Silly as that may sound it is a possibility that we need to be aware of. While my flock is "safe" they are not immune and it is up to me to do what I can to protect them. So, we have some rules, new and old ones:

1. Absolutely no one goes into our pens except us for any reason.
2. Pens and runs are checked and cleaned daily if needed
3. Runs are raked daily to remove any droppings from our birds and/or wild birds

Just those three little things (though they increase the amount of work involved) I hope will do a lot to protect my flocks.