The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[lalaland]

that's very cool. I read the transcript - it goes faster than the video for me. This guy, he started Peace Coffee!!! That's a fairly well known coffee roaster in Minneapolis, very big in all the co-ops.

He has some interesting ideas - I wish there was more about the reality of how he does it.

Really liked his thinking about knowing lots of CSA's (community support agriculture - that's where a farmer takes subscriptions - you pay a certain amount and you get weekly shares of the harvests. If a crop over produces, you get more. If there is a flood, or drought, or infestation of something, you get less. You take the risk with the farmer basically. Now they have CSA where it isn't just veggies, it might also be meat, or eggs, or bread, or flowers....very popular for folks who don't have garden space or time for gardening but want to eat well and to support farmers.

Anyway, he says he saw what they were doing and to be honest he didnt want to work that hard, he grew up working that hard....wanted to make a better system. Not where you create tractors and move the chickens around every day because that is labor intensive.

Thanks for posting it!

 

[Leahs Mom]

Samuel John Jamieson &
Myrtle Elizabeth Jamieson Revocable Trust

Anyway, he says he saw what they were doing and to be honest he didnt want to work that hard, he grew up working that hard....wanted to make a better system. Not where you create tractors and move the chickens around every day because that is labor intensive.

Thanks for posting it!

@lalaland
Yes...the whole thing of doing it with less work is very appealing! And it makes it seem attainable for someone that works a regular job away. I finally watched (really listened while I was doing other stuff) and there were some interesting ideas for thought that could be brought down to the small holding if you thought about it.

I really like the idea of the hazelnuts. For a couple reasons.
1. Food for people that is a perennial...little work for a (non-legume...yay!) protein food that can feed you or your animals. I've been trying to figure out some nut trees that I could plant for just that purpose.

2. I really know nothing about hazel nuts, but when I looked them up, they look like they'd be manageable as a hedge-row sized plant rather than a full size tree. I like that idea. And I had just been thinking about figuring out what nut trees I could plant last week so this was timely for me. For folks with a relatively small area to work with, it seems like hazel nuts could work really well - and perhaps be pruned into a nice hedgerow if they wanted it more "landscaped" looking. Not sure if that's okay as I haven't read enough about them yet to see if they could be trimmed like that.

Anyhow...lots of goof "food for thought".

 

[slordaz]

ok anyone got much experience with rooster? I need help

The rooster is about a month older than my pullets but he is gonna drive me insane at this rate, he's trying to get all the pullets, told my friend to hide the dog and the calves after he tried to breed the duck hen and drake.

Put him in chicken jail over night
we tethered him for a day a way from them\
went and got some older hens that were laying already

about at witts end with him

 

[mlowen]

This young man did a Kickstarter for the funds to make his film. Has Joel Salatin & some other sustainable focused folks working with him. Film's coming soon, his website is interesting.

http://abundantpermaculture.com/film-permaculture-chickens/

 

[Leahs Mom]

ok anyone got much experience with rooster? I need help

The rooster is about a month older than my pullets but he is gonna drive me insane at this rate, he's trying to get all the pullets, told my friend to hide the dog and the calves after he tried to breed the duck hen and drake.

Put him in chicken jail over night
we tethered him for a day a way from them\
went and got some older hens that were laying already

about at witts end with him

Do you have any place - like an outdoor kennel - that you could put him in for part of the day - or even as a separate housing for awhile? We had a roo that was a good boy, but we needed to give the ladies a break for some of the same reasons. We got on Craigslist and found a 10x6 kennel and put it out next to the hen house, gave him a dog house for night shelter, and he lived there for several weeks (in summer). It worked well and we didn't have to get rid of him.

 

[Leahs Mom]

This young man did a Kickstarter for the funds to make his film. Has Joel Salatin & some other sustainable focused folks working with him. Film's coming soon, his website is interesting.

http://abundantpermaculture.com/film-permaculture-chickens/

I want to take a look at this when I'm not at work

 

[slordaz]

Leah we tried tethering him and putting him in the old run by himself and that didn't work only made him worse to the hens and ducks, he wouldn't dare come after a human he's to scared of the broom. We went more drastic route last night with him, we went and bough 6 older hens, 2 each of brown leghorn, white leghorn and 2 buff Orpingtons..Then locked him in chicken jail in the middle of the coop. This morning we tried letting him out and he was still having issues so tossed him back in the jail in center of coop and proceeded to give the other roosters and the hens and pullets their morning treat, today was bell pepper and a litlle bit of watermelon, both his favorites. he watched and was squawking mad, after we let the pullets , other 2 cockrels and the ducks out for the day we let him out with the 6 new hens and took a few times but they schooled him on how to treat a hen and peace finally returned to the flock.

PW we used the ring of chicken wire we had used to free range the younger chicks with the flock just put a heavy top on it so he couldn't get out.

 

[JulesChicks]

For us "Natural Chicken Keepers"....

Just read a really interesting article re using chickens in [COLOR=B22222]regenerative farming[/COLOR].  I thought some of you would enjoy it so I'm going to post the link.   The article is very encouraging.  There is also a video which I haven't watched yet.


If you read through the article, he talks about using this kind of system on as small as 1/2 acre and on up.

Thought it was interesting that they mentioned 7" of rain and that their healthy paddocks took it all in....  A topic that is of interest to  a lot of the US this year with the excessive rain a lot of us have experienced.  But it starts looking at areas that weren't getting much rain at all. 



Here are a few quotes...









http://articles.mercola.com/sites/a...n=20150719Z1&et_cid=DM80204&et_rid=1041955871

Thanks for this- looking forward to reading/viewing it soon.

 

[JulesChicks]

Leah we tried tethering him and putting him in the old run by himself and that didn't work only made him worse to the hens and ducks, he wouldn't dare come after a human he's to scared of the broom. We went more drastic route last night with him, we went and bough 6 older hens, 2 each of brown leghorn, white leghorn and 2 buff Orpingtons..Then locked him in chicken jail in the middle of the coop. This morning we tried letting him out and he was still having issues so tossed him back in the jail in center of coop and proceeded to give the other roosters and the hens and pullets their morning treat, today was bell pepper and a litlle bit of watermelon, both his favorites. he watched and was squawking mad, after we let the pullets , other 2 cockrels and the ducks out for the day we let him out with the 6 new hens and took a few times but they schooled him on how to treat a hen and peace finally returned to the flock.

PW we used the ring of chicken wire we had used to free range the younger chicks with the flock  just put a heavy top on it so he couldn't get out.

Sounds like a good solution- keep us posted on how this works out!

 

[Leahs Mom]

This young man did a Kickstarter for the funds to make his film. Has Joel Salatin & some other sustainable focused folks working with him. Film's coming soon, his website is interesting.

http://abundantpermaculture.com/film-permaculture-chickens/

@mlowen
Did you get the DVD... not sure it's even out yet but the preview looks fun!