The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[Molpet]

on another topic, related to why some of us are so fervent about non-chemical means of treating our flocks whenever possible: try reading this (long) article about toxins in your blood (yup, yours) from Dow Chemical.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/10/m...=Full&region=Marginalia&src=me&pgtype=article

It will help you when you are thinking that perhaps you are taking this natural approach too seriously. Because, you can't take it seriously enough.

thank you for the link ...very scary

 

[lalaland]

Thanks lalaland, scary stuff, it is crazy what goes on in our world, where making money is more important than caring for the earth and its treatment. I have always tried to live as clean as possible, but I still went through 2 kinds of cancers and am trying more than ever to try to clean up my environment, we have given rid of Teflon pans and their poison and am working on ridding ourselves of as much plastic as possible, but that has become hard, I miss the days of glass jars. Most everything can be done in a natural way.

Yeah, I love mason jars. THey work great for storing lots of kinds of leftovers, make a great way to bring your lunch, etc.

 

[slordaz]

well I found some old perserving books will be interesting to see if that works better for me. We are bombarded by so much stuff in everything just so they can make it last longer or look prettier, can't tolerate any of the artificial colorings and most of the perservatives they use now. just the natural stuff.

the only thing science proves is if it can be proved it can be disproved, corperations aren't interested in safety they are interested in money and skew the results to make science a laughing stalk.

 

[Leahs Mom]

@lalaland Thanks!

That's one of the main reasons I want to raise my own chickens - and perhaps beef some day. If I purchase any meat I buy direct from farmer now and I know their husbandry methods.


@oldhenlikesdogs I also rid all coated cookware and only use glass or stainless at this point.

BTW...I am the "glass queen" for those of you new to the thread.

(At one point it was kind-of a joke.... there's Leahs Mom again talking about glass...)

I try to do everything for the chickens with no plastic or pottery (unless certified lead-free). In winter I'm stuck using one of the plastic water bases but the water container itself is glass. During the summer they get glass pans outside to drink or stand in to cool off. (Tried several all-glass alternatives for winter water and none of them worked well to keep thawed unfortunately.)

Even my feeders are glass.


2 pyrex bread pans that happened to fit conveniently into a wood flower box I got at Menards. I have several of these feeding stations. You can often get the glass bread pans at yard sales, goodwill and the like.


Pyrex pans also easy to find at resale.

 

[Leahs Mom]

OH... and those glass pans keep them from being able to dump feed out because they're just deep enough to prevent it. No wasted feed.

 

[Bridebeliever]

Nice idea! I'm following along on this thread now. Sounds like lots of great ideas flow through here!

 

[Leahs Mom]

Nice idea! I'm following along on this thread now. Sounds like lots of great ideas flow through here!

Good to have you!

 

[armorfirelady]

OH... and those glass pans keep them from being able to dump feed out because they're just deep enough to prevent it. No wasted feed.

When they are out in their grass area I just dump their FF on the ground. Once it gets muddier I use one of the rubber pans from TSC then for winter they have one of my cereal bowls in their heated bowl.


I finally remembered to take a pic of the homemade waterer I made. Temps today are 16 with a windchill below zero. It had a crust of ice around the edge.

The black tape you can see on the top is heavy duty duct tape to protect my hand from the sharp edges from when I cut the bottom off the pail The black tape on the bottom you can see is the heavy duty-high heat electrical tape that cover the heat tape I wrapped around the metal waterer. If you look closely at the right side of the milk crate you can see my small pic hammer I use to break the ice. Its high enough on the milk crate it stays clean.

 

[Leahs Mom]

Thanks @armorfirelady

 

[Leahs Mom]

Interesting article on "organic" eggs/chicken....

Exposing the Fraud of Grocery Store Organic Eggs

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/a...n=20160112Z1&et_cid=DM94850&et_rid=1309050755