The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[delisha]

Aoxa,

Starlings are the only bird that fly into the pigeon traps. We leave them in for a full day and they seem to reduce in number after that. I also have a plastic Owl. I used to have Owls who nested right by the coop, and since the plastic Owl was put up, the Owls have chose a different nest site through the years.

To discourage starlings you can purchase cheap plastic deer fencing. It is really light and catches birds quie well. Only problem wih them is you have to check it often to remove the birds so they do not die.You just drape it above the rest of the birds reach at your barn entrances.Most of your birds will walk in on ground level, the starlings will fly in.

I think I paid $9.00 for 100 feet for the deer fence.

 

[aoxa]

Aoxa,

Starlings are the only bird that fly into the pigeon traps. We leave them in for a full day and they seem to reduce in number after that. I also have a plastic Owl. I used to have Owls who nested right by the coop, and since the plastic Owl was put up, the Owls have chose a different nest site through the years.

To discourage starlings you can purchase cheap plastic deer fencing. It is really light and catches birds quie well. Only problem wih them is you have to check it often to remove the birds so they do not die.You just drape it above the rest of the birds reach at your barn entrances.Most of your birds will walk in on ground level, the starlings will fly in.

I think I paid $9.00 for 100 feet for the deer fence.

Okay so they won't fly under it?

I haven't been opening my barn door all the way, just enough for a big fat goose to get out. I can use some green fencing I already have on hand, and fence just the top, leaving enough room for the birds to get out the bottom.. but would they not just fly under?

I have never ever seen an owl in real life. Never heard one either.

Everything here is so much more expensive. 100 feet of deer fencing is $36.99.

 

[delisha]

Mumsy

I am so glad I asked. It never occured to me to play a radio. I would never have thought to bring electrolites either. Do you bring any other herbs to help the birds be less sressed? Lavender perhaps?

I do not feed the day of the show. But glad I heard from someone who does. I was always told not to feed. 4H was such a long time ago. I am glad I am asking this stuff.

 

[SandBsmom]

That was my incubator.


The water weasel (water weenie made me laugh) is full of water and doubled on itself. I put my probe thermometer inside it 24/7. It gives me an accurate inner egg temp reading. The probe thermometer is purchased in the food gadget aisle at the hard ware store.
I use five separate thermometers in each corner of the bator. Three at egg level and one on the floor. They are calibrated and give me fairly accurate temp readings. My thermometer/hygrometer was purchased in the reptile cage section at the pet store. I rely on it the most. I'm doing a dry hatch. This means I have added no water at all into the incubator. My indoor/bator humidity reading is holding steady at 32% Bless our Pacific Northwest weather! Hah! I will bump it to around 55%/60% using sterile sponges dampened with warm distilled water at lockdown.
When I turn my eggs, I change which cup they rest in every time. That moves the eggs around so none sits in the same place more than six hours at a time.
I am hatching eggs from two pullets covered by Johnny. At lock down I will insert the hardware cloth cage I made and put just Edith's eggs in it to hatch. This way I can keep the chicks separate from each other for progeny testing. I'm going to be breeding and hatching pure breed colored silkies and Heritage RIR. I'm practicing my technique's on Johnny and his girls to see what needs tweaking later on.

Candled the fourteen eggs this morning. 100% fertility! They are viable!

Thanks for all the info Mumsy! I love that it looks like a mad scientists lab in there.

I need a way to book mark this and so many other of these great posts. We need a pintrest for BYC!

That's amazing fertility. Way to go Johnny! Not bad for a rescued Renaissance fair chicken!

 

[stonykill]

Stoney, This post has my question....

Originally Posted by Melabella

Morning everyone....

So in constantly assessing Duke and trying to learn here, read what qualities a good roo is about, I am always watching. I imagine the most important thing a roo can do for his flock is of course, keeping watch and protection. In this respect, Duke seems to be quite proficient, he is always on the lookout. On another front, I have noticed as Duke climbs aboard his ladies, he is using biting their necks seemingly to help in him getting them to submit, and also for balance. I notice a few times that some feathers come along with it, and a few of the girls have started this bare spot thing to the right of their combs, starting down their necks. One of my BA's Dahlia has really been getting a horrible bares spot, that in this weather, has been very cracked and red, and dry. I have been worried that blood would come, and then we'd have a real problem.
Here is not the greatest picture but it's the best I could do holding her and the camera at the same time.

I was able to get her away from Duke yesterday, and cleaned it up a bit, then covered the entire area with some NuStock.


I really tried to massage it on to the bare, dry cracked skin. I now noticed smaller similar spots starting on two other girls.

Question being, do all roosters do this kind of stuff when mounting hens. I remember discussion on the GB thread about a roo that does damage to his hens being a cullable offense. I have learned a lot since discovering that I had a missexed roo from my hatchery order, and now see a lot of the good points to having a roo, but in trying to figure out if Duke is indeed one I want to have around, if this keeps happening, should it be something I don't want to have around the girls?

Any thoughts are appreciated...off for another cup of joe...
MB

I asked a question... would love your thoughts on the post above yours.... Thanks!

MB

if I culled /killed every rooster that did what you described I would only have hens.

 

[delisha]

I bet it would work if you used the greeen fencing. They would no get stuck in it. They migh fly under eventually. Birds do not like change, wild birds more than yard birds. Your birds are not going to like the fencing over there heads for a while either. I would make sure to chase out all the birds and tack it up to see. Chasing the birds out will be a hardest part. You need to do something about them because they are going to put tons of mites in your barn.

 

[SandBsmom]

aoxa, I clicked that link, and after reading the other responses, it seems one still has to do a lot to figure out how to adjust humidity and such. It would be a fantasy of mine to try to hatch some chicks one day in the future, but reading all the variables with checking humidity and such, it doesn't seem as simple as plugging it in and go! I would be so nervous after spending some real money on desired hatching eggs, I would somehow mess it all up!

MB

MB it's not as complicated as it seems. All the knowledge we can get from this site really I think just makes us worry more. (I know at least for me) Last spring we babysat an incubator for a friend who was going out of town. She loaded the incubator in the car at day 15ish and brought it to our house where we were left with this incubator and we knew NOTHING!!!!!! Had never had chickens, had no desire to have them and certainly didn't know anything about hatching chicks. We didn't have a hydrometer so knew nothing about humidity. I just knew to add extra water on day 19. That was it.. I have young kids so we were lifting that lid a ton. IT got jostled and jolted. It sat on the counter of our family room right between three doors to the outside and the fireplace. We did it ALL wrong. Yet on day 21 we started to hear peeps! and on day 22 we got to watch our first two chick struggle out of their eggs. The whole family sat around for hours mesmerized. Out of 12 eggs shipped from My Pet Chicken 5 RIRs hatched. The other eggs were duds and never developed. WE ended up keeping the first two that hatched. By that time we had fallen in love and the rest, as they say, is history.
You can do it. If we could knowing nothing then you certainly can!

 

[Mumsy]

Mumsy

I am so glad I asked. It never occured to me to play a radio. I would never have thought to bring electrolites either. Do you bring any other herbs to help the birds be less sressed? Lavender perhaps?

I do not feed the day of the show. But glad I heard from someone who does. I was always told not to feed. 4H was such a long time ago. I am glad I am asking this stuff.

Some people say don't feed because it messes up the silhouette of the bird with that full bulging crop. I don't know what is the best answer but I do know what I've seen at big shows. It can be hours and hours before your bird variety will be judged. I don't see how a little feed in the morning could hurt. When I go to shows lately it seems there are few birds that are really stressed out. There are some but for the most part I've seen birds mostly pretty laid back about the whole thing. People now! They might need the lavender! Some people get much too worked up at shows!
It's been many many years since I've done this but remember a lot of it. People show poultry for many different reasons. This is why I want to try again. Breeding pure strains and varieties of animals is challenging and can be personally rewarding by itself. If you want to know whether your efforts are going in the right direction aka following the SOP then you show your birds against the best efforts of your peers. If you are marketing your birds you sure can't sell them as show quality if you've never shown your breeders. You can sell them as pet quality, breeder quality, and plain old layers. But... When someone labels their birds with the show quality label for me personally that begs the question, "Prove it".
I saw a show quality white Call duck sell in the sale pens for $150. recently. I've seen show quality chickens sell for that much and more. For people serious about breeding and marketing their livestock, showing it is a way to futher that effort. Well..That's one way to look at showing chickens. I also just like the conditioning challenge and all the fun of it.

It's getting light out. Time to get my camera and take some pictures for you.

 

[Melabella]

Thank you to everyone who chimed in on my roo question. So I will just chalk it up to normal teenage Roo enthusiasm.

It's still ducking freezing out.. I look forward to tomorrows predicted 22 degrees.

MB

 

[aoxa]

Mumsy

I am so glad I asked. It never occured to me to play a radio. I would never have thought to bring electrolites either. Do you bring any other herbs to help the birds be less sressed? Lavender perhaps?

I do not feed the day of the show. But glad I heard from someone who does. I was always told not to feed. 4H was such a long time ago. I am glad I am asking this stuff.

Okay so I can describe what I do for a show now... I took way too many birds last time, so they did not all get washed.

For the silkies...
I bathe day before the show. I like doing it inside the house, but last time I was not allowed to.

so we had a bunch of large pans and washed out on the deck.


We had taken this pullet to a show a month prior, and she had a very thorough bath at that time. I did not wash her crest here. It was fine. I blew it out a bit. We use all natural people shampoo and conditioner.. We had them on hand, and I hated them for myself.. Just didn't like the way they sudded up. It wasn't enough suds.

We then fluff em up with a blow dryer really good. You can have them under a heat lamp and let them dry that way, but I prefer blow dryers. The birds just love it. I have them all in their individual travelling kennels after they are all bathed and ready to go. I never have more than 2 per kennel, and they have enough room.

What I bring to the show:
Nail Clippers
Some hair shine stuff I stole from my mother (hehee... it's a citrus oil spray stuff.. it make stheir feathers SHINE!)
Baby wipes
Vaseline
Spray bottle of Oxine (superior to bleach) I use this to spray down the cages they are in.
I bring their little food cups and water cups as well. I do not bring food. They usually have scratch on hand, and the birds are not there for long - so they get scratch and water.
I also use electrolytes in their water.

I clip all their nails after the bath usually, but for the ones I don't bathe I do it at the show.

I should get some bleed stop stuff.. I had a slip up and the pullet's cage looked like a murder scene!


Here is where our Canadian nationals will be held next fall. It's our local show ring for poultry.


Here's that silkie in the first picture. She got BV. There were 38 silkies shown. A white one. Of course

I bet it would work if you used the greeen fencing. They would no get stuck in it. They migh fly under eventually. Birds do not like change, wild birds more than yard birds. Your birds are not going to like the fencing over there heads for a while either. I would make sure to chase out all the birds and tack it up to see. Chasing the birds out will be a hardest part. You need to do something about them because they are going to put tons of mites in your barn.

Oh great. Mites.. My birds are good with change. I change things frequently and they never mind.

I'll be doing that this weekend.