The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[Leahs Mom]

Quote:
@h2oratt

These should work... Don't try to blow it up...just click on the image one at a time and they will enlarge to a view you should be able to read.



Quote:
Pastured Poultry Profits
Author: Joel Salatin
Chapter 26 In It's Entirety
For Educational Purposes Only. No copyright infringement intended

 

[h2oratt]

@h2oratt These should work... Don't try to blow it up...just click on the image one at a time and they will enlarge to a view you should be able to read. Quote: Pastured Poultry Profits Author: Joel Salatin Chapter 26 In It's Entirety For Educational Purposes Only. No copyright infringement intended Thank you very informative. I love reading old animal husbandry books. I found a really cool one looking for a homeopathic book to cure my one chick of failure to eat.

 

[curious chickee]

Curious chickie sounds like you have necrotic enteritis which will cause the birds to look lethargic and there legs out front. Almost always deadly and contagious. A simple fix is a powder citruc acid at about 3 ppm for several days

Haven't heard that one thanks. With this rainy then hot season definitely a possibility. Sounds the closest to what I have seen.

The EE did not make it through the night.

I am going to spend the day deep cleaning the coop, scrubbing all waterers and troughs to try and nip thus in the bud and give the rest of the birds a fighting chance. Also picking up yogurt to give a jump start

 

[2reds]

Hopefully all goes well for you. I came from a commercial operation with over 125000 birds in my care now I am happy with my 2 girls

 

[JulesChicks]

@h2oratt

These should work... Don't try to blow it up...just click on the image one at a time and they will enlarge to a view you should be able to read.



Quote:
Pastured Poultry Profits
Author: Joel Salatin
Chapter 26 In It's Entirety
For Educational Purposes Only. No copyright infringement intended

Excellent!! Thanks so much for posting this! I checked his book out from the library last year but I want to buy it for my own reference library. Joel Salatin is a wealth of wisdom.

 

[h2oratt]

https://archive.org/details/poultrydoctorinc00boerrich

This is the link to the book I was researching when I had a chick that wouldn't eat or drink.

 

[Leahs Mom]

https://archive.org/details/poultrydoctorinc00boerrich

This is the link to the book I was researching when I had a chick that wouldn't eat or drink.

Thanks! I'd like to take a look at that.

I'm pretty big on "prevention" rather than treatment... But I also try to keep well-read on issues in case I need to do some troubleshooting!

 

[Leahs Mom]

A question for free-rangers that don't have an outdoor pen.

For the first time since moving the birds to the pole barn I'm going to be integrating new chicks. The barn doesn't have an outdoor confinement pen so they are either in or out on range.

At my hen shed there is an outdoor pen that can be divided so the adults could go out to range and the kiddos could stay in a covered kennel pen until older and "safer" from hawks.


So...
How do those of you that don't have an outdoor pen work on integrating the kiddos into the flock? I don't like mine out in the "big world" until they're pretty large and it pains me to think of having these kiddos inside with no outdoor time for that long. How do others handle that?

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

A question for free-rangers that don't have an outdoor pen.

For the first time since moving the birds to the pole barn I'm going to be integrating new chicks.  The barn doesn't have an outdoor confinement pen so they are either in or out on range.

At my hen shed there is an outdoor pen that can be divided so the adults could go out to range and the kiddos could stay in a covered kennel pen until older and "safer" from hawks. 


So...
How do those of you that don't have an outdoor pen work on integrating the kiddos into the flock?  I don't like mine out in the "big world" until they're pretty large and it pains me to think of having these kiddos inside with no outdoor time for that long.  How do others handle that?

It takes a while until the kids will range very far, I integrated at 8 weeks, and they have free choice of what they do with their days after about 2 weeks, mine don't go too far out to pasture for a good month or two, and they are skiddish about it.

We have a pair of old trucks about 40 feet behind the shed that have become the chicken clubhouse, many hang out under there during the day. I have lots of hawks but haven't had them ever take a chicken. I do have multiple roosters for look outs too. There's also goats and donkeys and hay feeders and wagon, so plenty of cover helps a lot.

 

[lazy gardener]

Last year, I had heavy hawk predation, and it looks like it will be the same this year, and probably every year now. So, I kept the babies under cover for most of the season. I let Mama and babies (6) out to range with the flock when I could be directly with them. Otherwise, Mama and babies got transported to a 3 x 6 tractor every morning, and back to the coop every evening. Eventually, they were so well trained that I could open the tractor, and they would RUN to the coop to go to bed at night! In the morning, they would run to the tractor b/c they knew that they got fed there. I did have to be a bit more pro-active with Mama. Continued tractoring babies after Mama kicked them to the curb.