The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[Lauravonsmurf]

Has anyone ever heard of using Black Pepper as a pesticide? In researching in an old book I stumbled across using Pepper (I am assuming Black, based on cultural source and age of text) to kill lice in poultry?

 

[Bantambird]

Culling- It doesn't have to be like this. If you get a rooster give it to the shelter or get it a new home, and don't cull them along with Hens that you wanted just for laying eggs. Be responsible, if your cat stopped having babies would you chop off it's head!?!?! Chickens are so segregated. Also that's not how meat chickens even work if you give that one to meat keepers they would devour it.

Yes, you do have to be responsible for extra roosters. Nowhere around here do people take them for pets. There are free rooster ads on Craigslist every day, and shelters only take dogs and cats. I can only house a few roosters, so during breeding season, I grow out the extra cockerels and eat them. At least they get a chance to eat bugs and scratch in the dirt. If I don't, and the ratio of roosters is too high, they will hurt/ kill each other, over breed hens(sometimes injuring them in their zealotry) and cause much barnyard chaos. The people who buy my birds want girls, because males aren't allowed inside town and I am marketing to townies.

 

[Molpet]

Yes, you do have to be responsible for extra roosters. Nowhere around here do people take them for pets. There are free rooster ads on Craigslist every day, and shelters only take dogs and cats. I can only house a few roosters, so during breeding season, I grow out the extra cockerels and eat them. At least they get a chance to eat bugs and scratch in the dirt. If I don't, and the ratio of roosters is too high, they will hurt/ kill each other, over breed hens(sometimes injuring them in their zealotry) and cause much barnyard chaos. The people who buy my birds want girls, because males aren't allowed inside town and I am marketing to townies.

people I have sold barnyard mix hatching eggs to, they have broodys and just want any fert egg....I tell them if they can't sell or find home for the roos, I will take them back, free , and that they will be used for food.

 

[Amanita]

Hi, does anyone mind if I join this discussion? (Is it still going?) I've read over 2 and a half thousand pages but it's going to take me a while yet to finish!
I don't have any chickens yet but I'm trying to learn as much as I can before we get them; hoping to build the coop this weekend, and I'm very excited about the whole project

 

[Leahs Mom]

Please do! The discussion continues whenever anyone wants

 

[Amanita]

Fantastic! Nice to get a welcome from what seems like a familiar face after all my reading
I have a couple of questions if you don't mind? Hopefully not too obvious but I'm sure they're still very newbie level!

So the plan is to start out with a small number of chickens to give ourselves time to get the hang of things and make sure it's a good fit. That being said, I'd like to have a rooster, from the point of view of having a more natual environment for the chickens, and for the 'full experience' for ourselves. I see that chickens near us tend to be sold as breeding trios or quads - is it reasonable to expect that one such set would be ok, or would you normally get extra hens in addition so that there's a better male/female ratio?

Also about coop design - we were able to get a large disassembled garden shed for free which I want to repurpose since I learned that the pre-made coops they sell are probably much too small for the chickens to live naturally. I'm thinking of rebuilding it more or less in the same shed shape, but elevated about a food and a half off the ground and filling in the gap at the bottom with wire mesh. The idea being that it would give plenty of ventilation but the draft would be low down so not blowing on them while they're roosting. We're in Ireland so the temperatures are very moderate, does that sound like a workable idea?

And last question (for now! ) we have a lot of different kinds of weeds in the field where we would plan to let them free range. I get that in general they should be smart enough to not eat dangerous things as long as they have other options, but some of the weeds are quite a high proportion of the greenery in that area, such as horsetail and buttercups. There is also a decent amount of grass and clover, but I'm wondering if we should be thinking about clearing and re-planting the area, or am I just overthinking this?

To anyone who made it this far through my post, thanks, and I appreciate any tips you can give!

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

You should keep a minimum of 10 hens per rooster, more is better, unless you plan to breed specific birds or free range in a high predator area, than sometimes extra roosters are an asset. Roosters not raised together or those not raised in the flock will fight with the other roosters generally.

I never worry about what's in my fields, and expect the animals to know better. Most poisonous plants don't taste good.

 

[Amanita]

You should keep a minimum of 10 hens per rooster, more is better, unless you plan to breed specific birds or free range in a high predator area, than sometimes extra roosters are an asset. Roosters not raised together or those not raised in the flock will fight with the other roosters generally.

I never worry about what's in my fields, and expect the animals to know better. Most poisonous plants don't taste good.

Thanks! That was the answer I was hoping for on the field

So numbers wise I'm looking at minimum 11 birds if I want to include a rooster. That might be a hard sell with the husband... But I was hoping to get what we needed to start of with and then maybe hatch some if we wanted to increase, so we wouldn't have to worry about quarantine and integration and all that fun stuff you guys talk about...

 

[Leahs Mom]

If you want a rooster just to be more "natural" in your approach, I wouldn't worry about that and just keep hens when you're first getting started. Especially in a small setting, the hens will likely be happier without a roo unless he's a good one.

But if you're wanting a roo just because you want one, then disregard what I just said!

I started out with 6 female chicks which was a nice little flock. When one of my original 6 went broody, I got some fertilized eggs and let her brood them - from which we hatched our first boy. He was able to fit right in since he was raised by the mamma and those older girls really put him in his place!

I've had a few other roos around here since and have never found one with a good disposition that we kept. Last year we had 6 cockerels out of 12 new chicks. I intended on keeping at least one of them and none of them was suitable in disposition. One of my boys went to another family while he was still young (and before disposition was determined) and he has been an "angel", even interacting with her 3 year old.

It's always hard to tell how they're going to work out. I guess you just have to be willing to try it and also willing to either process for meat or re-home if he's not working out well with your flock.

 

[Amanita]

If you want a rooster just to be more "natural" in your approach, I wouldn't worry about that and just keep hens when you're first getting started. Especially in a small setting, the hens will likely be happier without a roo unless he's a good one.

But if you're wanting a roo just because you want one, then disregard what I just said!

I guess I do kind of want one for a couple of 'selfish' reasons, like I think they look great and sound awesome but I would also appreciate some extra awareness of predators and such... But as you point out there no guarantee we'd get a good one
At the end of the day I want to do what's in their best interests anyway, not what I think is fun... You make an interesting point about getting a set of eggs after they settle in, I guess I was thinking that we'd need to use our own eggs but we could just source some of the same bed and it would be good. I'm interested in the concept of heritage breeds and I'd rather stick to one rather than having a wide variety.