The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[Leahs Mom]

I just want to say that I am living in terror because will be gone ice fishing this weekend and will be away from this thread for 3 WHOLE DAYS and I keep thinking of I love lucy and lucy and ethel at the chocolate factory with the choclates piling up and I know when I get back what this thread will look like!

Yep...that's about how it feels in just ONE DAY...LET ALONE 3!!

!


Also wanted to weigh in on the feed - I have always offered at least a little dry feed free-choice the whole time I've fed the FF. Sometimes they take the dry and sometimes not. I do the ff like most - just put some out and if they need more add. I also do what Mumsy said about scooping out any old ff onto the ground outside.

 

[TurtlePowerTrav]

Quote:
I leave for Hawaii on Tuesday for 8 days(won a trip to the Pro Bowl) and am scared to think how many posts I will have to wade through. Gonna try and keep up as much as I can on my phone, but seriously, it is Hawaii.

 

[aoxa]

Delisha, for you. Haven't read the 3 pages I missed, I'll get back to it:

PA is Paint. B/S 2 is blue/splash pen 2. L2 lavender pen 2. Por Porcelain. Bu buff. I couldn't read most of them.

POR = porcelain
L = lavender
W = white
BU = buff
P = partridge
PA = paint
B/S = blue/splash
The number 2 means pen 2, I think. So if you have W and W2, you have two white eggs from two different white breeding pens.
BLK I think was black if you have any.

I wish I got all those porcelain and lavender eggs with my order.

I had one porcelain which turned out to be infertile. Two lavender; one infertile and the other never hatched.

Some day I'll have one of each color!

 

[Sally8]

That was my most favorite episode of I Love Lucy!

 

[aoxa]

Does anyone have photos (that you took) of an "average" case of splay-leg in a chick? I need photos for a thing I'm working on...

Let me see what I've got.. I have pictures of splints on them..


Here's an EE chick with splay leg. I corrected it easily with some green electrical tape. Silkies are much harder to work with.

I just want to say that I am living in terror because will be gone ice fishing this weekend and will be away from this thread for 3 WHOLE DAYS and I keep thinking of I love lucy and lucy and ethel at the chocolate factory with the choclates piling up and I know when I get back what this thread will look like!

Thanks for all the replies on what you are feeding and when - was great to see all the dfferent ways we all do it!

The fencing info was great and I want to save my pennies so I can get one - Leahsmom great to see how well the green fence blends in.

armorfirelady: one lone chick will be a trick! lots of work and how long will it take before it can be added to your other chickens? would be hard to say yes to it, at least for me.

Also, this weekend is heading back into 20 below zeros...good time to ice fish

Oh no! The horror!!

 

[pigeonguy]

I do have short legs LOL

I have a one sided fence that was put up to keep the birds from going to the neighbours, but it doesn't work. I want to fence off the entire yard. I think the one side is 250 feet. I made it far back in the woods. So if I double that and add two sides..(even though the ends are not as long as the length) that's 1,000 feet of fencing. Though I could be totally wrong.

Will one energizer handle that many feet?

I need to keep the turkeys and the sheep in. The chickens are allowed to go in the neighbours yard and whereever. I'm not even sure I need the poultry size, but it needs to keep the turkeys in. Any suggestion? The cheaper the better.

1,000 feet is pretty close because a.Square acre is: 208.71 feet on a side on all side (approx.)
Edited because I was wrong about something

 

[atmaclean]

Thank you all so much for the welcome! We do have guineas for the bugs. We had a terrible time with ticks last year and the guineas really helped with them! They are worth all the noise they make (for us, anyway). We were pulling so many ticks off the horses and we think it is due to the high population of deer out here. The guineas have really gotten the ticks under control.

As far as the flies, we have not had a really cold winter in the past few years to kill off many bugs, unfortunately. We don't stall our horses so we have never really had a problem with flies. I have seen flies around the chicken coup, however. If they find some wet food, they just go nuts. Yes, the chickens would probably eat the maggots but, personally, I find that disgusting - especially if I am going to be eating the eggs. I guess its no worse than the time I saw one hen eat a little mouse, but I wouldn't eat the eggs for several days after she did that! Probably no different than eating grubs or whatever else they eat out in the woods, yard and pastures but it just makes me sick thinking about them eating maggots.

So, what you are saying is that I should only feed enough wet food for them to eat in a day? I guess that would just be trial and error until I figure the amount.

Anyone want to venture to respond to the baby chick question? Can they eat fermented grains or fermented chick starter? If so, when can it be started and how do you transition them to wet food?

Thanks for any info, and, again, thank you so much for the warm welcome! I look forward to learning a lot about feeding my flock in the healthiest way possible.

Angela MacLean
www.naturallyequine.org

 

[aoxa]

1,000 feet is pretty close because an acre can be any dimension equaling 43,560 square feet. some examples.
Square: 208.71 feet on a side (approx.)
Rectangles:
9' x 4840'
10' x 4356'
12' x 3630'
20' x 2178'
24' x 1815'
40' x 1089'
60' x 726'
72' x 605'
120' x 363'
121' x 360'
180' x 242'
It does not matter the shape it takes the same amount of fence. To add another half acre add divide 4,3560 by 2 that is 2,1780 add 43560 back to it and that is 65,430 square feet. 255.79 times 255.79 = 65,429 rounded up. So 255.79 rounded 256 that times 4 sides equals 1024 feet of fence to fence in an acre and a half.

Sorry thinking out loud again.

That is very helpful, and proves that I kind of got it even though I didn't get into that much detail

 

[aoxa]

Thank you all so much for the welcome! We do have guineas for the bugs. We had a terrible time with ticks last year and the guineas really helped with them! They are worth all the noise they make (for us, anyway). We were pulling so many ticks off the horses and we think it is due to the high population of deer out here. The guineas have really gotten the ticks under control.

As far as the flies, we have not had a really cold winter in the past few years to kill off many bugs, unfortunately. We don't stall our horses so we have never really had a problem with flies. I have seen flies around the chicken coup, however. If they find some wet food, they just go nuts. Yes, the chickens would probably eat the maggots but, personally, I find that disgusting - especially if I am going to be eating the eggs. I guess its no worse than the time I saw one hen eat a little mouse, but I wouldn't eat the eggs for several days after she did that! Probably no different than eating grubs or whatever else they eat out in the woods, yard and pastures but it just makes me sick thinking about them eating maggots.

So, what you are saying is that I should only feed enough wet food for them to eat in a day? I guess that would just be trial and error until I figure the amount.

Anyone want to venture to respond to the baby chick question? Can they eat fermented grains or fermented chick starter? If so, when can it be started and how do you transition them to wet food?

Thanks for any info, and, again, thank you so much for the warm welcome! I look forward to learning a lot about feeding my flock in the healthiest way possible.

Angela MacLean
www.naturallyequine.org

Right away Angela!

Here's a video of my chicks chowing down on the FF. They just love it!

I use chick starter or grower, bird feed and scratch grains all mixed up. Majority of their feed consists of starter/grower. The other bits are whole grains.

 

[Melabella]

So, today I got 6 eggs! I was finally able to identify 3 girls lay which eggs. I am pretty sure it is my red sex links that lay the darkest eggs. My barred rock lays the lightest eggs so far. I also finally caught one of my RIR's finally in the nest box. Before this though, my DH left for work, he told me he thought he saw a broken egg in the corner of the coop. When I went out sure enough, there was some evidence of a yolk, and what looked like a deflated balloon. Heck I thought, that must be a first egg from someone that I have heard about sometimes on here where the egg appears to just be a thin membrane, and shell less. I was convinced this morning, it was a first time layer, and looked forward to the day. Well, jump forward to me seeing the RIR in the box. After I saw her out of the coop and in the run, I went to see what her egg looked like, reached in and went to pick up.....
another soft balloon egg! It was like a paper egg, filled with water! And the coloring was so odd,, darker brown on top and bottom, and pale in between.. like a stripped Easter egg. Here is a picture of it.
The indent is my thumb print. I tore it open, and there was a perfect egg yolk and white inside.
So, I give plenty of oyster shell, and have given back every single shell back to the girls from all of their eggs. I am hoping this is just new layer anomaly and not a chronic thing. I will watch closely tomorrow.


Can anyone weigh on this. Are there hens that always lay shell less eggs? I feel it is just new layer getting it right. Any body have experience with this happening?

So, this means I have 6 laying hens,, maybe more, as I am sure not all the hens lay every day. I think 2 are still a bit behind judging from their combs waddles and behavior. They still run from Duke, but he gets to them any way.

Thanks for listening... or I guess reading..

MB