The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[aoxa]

Thanks for the clarification. It was hard for me to get. Green Fire birds....NOT birds from Green Fire Farm. Got it.

*Gah!* I'm glad you got there when you did del. Those birds lacking water was a death sentence. There are some people that are brain damaged. Like the people that have puppy mills. They don't see the damage and pain they are creating. They have a sickness to collect and hoard animals.

I have a cat rescued from an animal hoarder. She is one off cat because of it. Thankfully chickens can overcome that kind of damage..

I came across a documentary the other day about a farm that had stopped feeding and watering their birds for two weeks. They were caged birds.. like the factory farmed egg birds.. I cried for the first part, it was so awful. Many had died and then the other birds were laying on top of those bodies.. There was a rescue that saved 4,000 hens.. out of 50,000 in the facility. It makes me sick..

Anyway.. Off topic for sure.

Not natural to raise chickens like that....

 

[Bulldogma]

One thing that is good with this Easter hatch..i will have these silkie eggs in lock down the day before we set for Easter..I have a whole week to get some Orpington Eggs..i hope she gets busy soon...nothing like waiting till the last minute.

A friend lives pretty far away and she asked me to pick up some adult foul for her. A trio of Basque from Green Fire. They are pretty birds and very sweet. I have them in the garage away from all of my birds. I was hoping they were laying so I could put some of those eggs in..but..no luck. They man had them in a heated shed..a bunch of birds..locked up..no runs open..I sort of yelled at him..he had no water for them either. These poor birds drank like a quart of water when I brought them home. He has like 30 birds housed with 20 Cornish X's. No ventilation. I tried suggesting things..i tried to buy all of his birds..I told him he was way over his head. Nice birds with a huge investment going down hill..it was a shame.

How sad!

 

[tadpole98]

Basque Hen

Not sure what is going on with this comb..I think it is just injury



Roo


Chick

They seem better today. They have not stopped eating. I am not sure if I should free feed or not.
The last three days they have eaten more than 10 birds would eat. Drank too
I think they are afraid they are not going to get another meal.

wow they are beautiful!

 

[Bulldogma]

Delisha - so, so sad you had to leave the rest of the birds in those conditions, but you did what you could by saying something to the guy. Beyond that, it's out of your hands (if you stay within the law... )

If anyone wants happy news, my coop is almost done! Only things left to do are putting perches in the main area and... well... you can read about it and see pictures Here.

 

[Mumsy]

Holy Carp! My Fogle line HRIR eggs will be shipped Monday and I will get a tracking #.

If they arrive by Wednesday they can be entered in the E hatch a long? Right?

Judy the Broody is still on her three eggs. Wednesday is the day before the test Johnny eggs would go into lock down. I did a quick-y candle of two and they are right where they should be in development. If the Fogle eggs are to go into the LG Wednesday night, I can take the Johnny eggs out of the LG, put them under Judy. I need to do a quick sanitize wipe of the LG between sets and then it's GO time with the Fogle eggs. *sheesh!* This isn't stressful but it is a bit nutty! Hah! As long as I get some gorgeous HRIR in the process, it's all GOOD.

 

[Leahs Mom]

Had an interesting thing happen today.

I have been putting out calcarb free feed since "the 6" were laying age. Never really noticed them eating tons of it but kept it out all the time anyway.

Occasionally I would stir crushed eggshells into their feed. All the shells go back to feed, just put them in from time to time. I have not done that since the babies hatched because they all eat from each other's bowls interchangeably.

So today I decided to put a bunch of the crushed eggshells into the pan with the calcarb. I've never done that before. All the adults went nuts trying to get those shells. Now the shells are a different color than the calcarb so they may have been attractive for their color - a mix of blue, light brown and medium-dark brown little chips.

Anyhow...they pretty much picked all the eggshells out and there were about 1.5 C of them...and this is 6 adults!

I have no idea of this is a desire for calcium or if they just like the look and taste.

 

[Leahs Mom]

Wow, Mumsy! Sounds like you're going to have your hands full! And getting to enter the hatch with those great eggs!

 

[Mumsy]

Wow, Mumsy! Sounds like you're going to have your hands full! And getting to enter the hatch with those great eggs!

HAH! Story of my life.

Seriously...The hatch a long kind of freaks me out. Contests and dead lines and the like are not really my cup a tea. I do like camaraderie though. I like the whole 'misery loves company' kind of vibe in a twisted sort of way.

Part of the idea for my participation is to give Ron Fogle's birds and the Heritage Rhode Island Red preservation movement more coverage. The hatch a long is good business sense.

 

[aoxa]

Margaret is making friends! Or not.. Lol she is going to be head hen if she has anything to say about it. She's SO tiny. I just adore her.



She only holds her tail up like this when she's in bossy mode.. Her daughter is to the right. The blue pullet there.


Don't mess with me face.

 

[Leahs Mom]

Quote: I think that's a great idea (marketing, I mean). And the misery loves company makes great sense to me also