The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[countrygirl74]

Such news today!!

Mumsy - I am sooo glad to hear about your silkie - sounds like she is on the mend!!

Bulldogma - Love the pics - so cute when the roos do that!

Aoxa - I LOVE Margaret's story, so sweet. I'm glad you kept her!

Delisha - LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the little face on that cochin!!


So, thought I would share that I got my first egg from my EE today! Then, funny story about my silkie - thought she was going to give us another egg but it was a fake-out. She went into the coop and into her little nest, stayed there for quite some time, even had visits from 2 roosters who cracked me up the way they sit facing her and give her a pep talk. When she finally came out, she gave the loudest egg song and everyone else joined in. Pretty funny to watch your roosters sing the egg song too! All this for an imaginary egg... my daughter got a kick out of it. Sorry about the crazy photo.... had the camera set to manual for something else and everything happened so fast, I forgot to change my settings for that lighting. Thanks goodness for black & white saving me on that one.







"I'm just pretending to lay an egg - haha, I just like to lead everyone in singing the egg song"

 

[Mumsy]

So cute! That reminds me of the scratching motion with her bad foot. She hardly moved the bedding around at all, but tried - so I threw her more treats. I felt like she deserved it.

It could be much worse. Much much worse. She could have been in the barn.. she could have lost BOTH feet. She is lucky.

I raised a silkie with a foot like Dumplings, but a little less crippled. He now has a pet home with a lovely friend that takes any of my disabled birds (that could otherwise live a happy, healthy life - but should just not be bred). He had one good foot though, so got around better than you say dumpling does. The one foot was curled and looked like a club foot.

Can she dust bathe?

I think it was amorfirelady that asked about a boot of vet wrap to help straighten her toes? Karen of Catdance told me this little hen was hatched this way in the incubator. She told me she usually catches these chicks and straightens them on day one. This pullet was missed in the crowd by accident. She told me this was not hereditary. I've had it happen to chicks too. One of my bantam RIR chicks was hatched with curled toes. I fixed them with Hello Kitty band-aids. It can happen in chicks that take too long to break out of the shell in a draggy hatch.

I have seen her try to dust herself side by side with her pen mate Bonney. She benefits from group dusting.
Karen treated the three birds with Frontline before I picked them up. She vaccinates day old chicks for Mareks and her farm is NPIP acreditated.
I want this little pullet to have as stress free and as chicken-y existence with me as possible. I would love to see her hatch out and raise chicks. In a protective enviroment of course.

I'm going to pick up some builders sand tomorrow and redo the trio pen. I think it will work out ok. Won't be any more or less dusty than my barn is already.

 

[jlynnet]

I put sand in my outdoor run last year. It really helped with the rain. I've thinking about putting pine wood chips in there too. Would wood chips be a safe choice? I can have them delivered pretty cheap and I need my flower beds mulched anyway.

I sell eggs to coworkers. Mine are so much cheaper than the farmers markets around here. My sister in law pays $5 a dz!

Mumsy, glad to hear Dumpling is doing better.

 

[Sally8]

I may just stop raising chickens and go to turkeys. My 4th poultry just hatched. Rosie being her first attempt has been on and off her nest so I would steal her cold eggs. FOUR! I was once told that turkeys imprint. Does anyone know this to be true? It might prove why Rosie is such a pain. lol

Thor had me up at 3 am. I just can't keep him in the pen. I finally moved him back with the babies and he was not happy. He needs to learn who's running the show around here. (Even the dogs were restless all night)

Unbelievably there is snow on the ground and it's still snowing.

 

[Pozees]

We had snow lots of it then rain then mud to our knees then it froze now they say more snow.

... and pigeonguy too, wow, it's like a reunion

Sounds like a good old fashioned winter to me - grew up in upstate NY - we used to commiserate about having two seasons, slush and road construction

 

[delisha]

My chicks are on the way..I should have 25 BLRW tomorrow morning. I also ordered SLW and more BLRW from others and they will be here at the end of April. Going to be a busy few weeks. Show season starts.

CG- your EE is cute!! Funny egg song story..thanks for sharing


Sue? was it you who said you are getting rid of your SLW? Can I ask why?

 

[aoxa]

I think it was amorfirelady that asked about a boot of vet wrap to help straighten her toes? Karen of Catdance told me this little hen was hatched this way in the incubator. She told me she usually catches these chicks and straightens them on day one. This pullet was missed in the crowd by accident. She told me this was not hereditary. I've had it happen to chicks too. One of my bantam RIR chicks was hatched with curled toes. I fixed them with Hello Kitty band-aids. It can happen in chicks that take too long to break out of the shell in a draggy hatch.

I have seen her try to dust herself side by side with her pen mate Bonney. She benefits from group dusting.
Karen treated the three birds with Frontline before I picked them up. She vaccinates day old chicks for Mareks and her farm is NPIP acreditated.
I want this little pullet to have as stress free and as chicken-y existence with me as possible. I would love to see her hatch out and raise chicks. In a protective enviroment of course.

I'm going to pick up some builders sand tomorrow and redo the trio pen. I think it will work out ok. Won't be any more or less dusty than my barn is already.

Yes vet wrap for curled toes is a good idea. It is less likely to cause pain while removing.

I had a lot more curled toes with the silkies than I would care to admit. Only in the incubated chicks.. Also had a few with splay leg. All broody hatched silkies were perfect in that respect, so it must have been something to do with the incubation. Maybe it's the dry incubation that did it?

One of my bantam Ameraucana roosters had a really terrible curled toe. Just one toe. It looked broken. He passed that toe on to 50% of his chicks. The one blue I have left has a mild crooked toe. Nothing at all like her father, but I don't have a rooster to breed them to anyway, so they will just be kept as pets.

I may just stop raising chickens and go to turkeys. My 4th poultry just hatched. Rosie being her first attempt has been on and off her nest so I would steal her cold eggs. FOUR! I was once told that turkeys imprint. Does anyone know this to be true? It might prove why Rosie is such a pain. lol

Thor had me up at 3 am. I just can't keep him in the pen. I finally moved him back with the babies and he was not happy. He needs to learn who's running the show around here. (Even the dogs were restless all night)

Unbelievably there is snow on the ground and it's still snowing.

Yes they imprint. Betty was very much in love with us. Bruce was in love with Betty (both girls) and both would follow us around like puppies as poults. Flying to roost on our head/shoulder.

My chicks are on the way..I should have 25 BLRW tomorrow morning. I also ordered SLW and more BLRW from others and they will be here at the end of April. Going to be a busy few weeks. Show season starts.

CG- your EE is cute!! Funny egg song story..thanks for sharing


Sue? was it you who said you are getting rid of your SLW? Can I ask why?

I think a lot of us here had terrible luck with the SLW.

I did not like mine. Well I liked one out of 3... She was my first cull, and I culled the other two - one I did quickly, she was struggling to breathe. It was clear she would die without me, but I needed to get it done fast. The other I culled for failure to thrive.. The first broke her hip I believe.. she was then nearly killed by the flock and I ended her suffering. She was very sweet, but a terrible layer.

 

[Adenium]

I'm a little removed from the discussion timing-wise (this thread is just way too active and I often read on my phone which isn't great for posting). But, I have to say I'm both dismayed and relieved to hear about others' issues with Silkies and eating-of-shavings.

We raised our 4 hatchery silkies on paper towels for several days as recommended...so they could learn what food was. They ate fine, but they still would go after shavings on a somewhat regular basis once they had access. It wasn't because of big crests - they did it from early chickhood and continued on. They're 9 months old now and they still do it - a couple do it much more than I'd like and they're the nonbearded ones with less poofy crests. They see fine, but they like the look of those shavings! They also eat the PDZ that falls down from our poop board. Like it's sunflower seeds.....

No impaction troubles yet, but I worry.

We just added a cockerel and pullet from a breeder who also keeps birds on shavings. And the pullet just wolfs down shavings!!! Kicked them into her food bowl and picked them out like treats! And then bent down to the floor to eat more. It's hopeless.

Something special about silkies. Hearing about them on this thread I keep imagining practical Bee just rolling her eyes. We don't have room to allow our broodies to hatch eggs, but even if we did I worry they'd just teach the chicks how to be stupid. They eat crap, they stray from the flock when outside, they don't understand they need to go in when it rains, we had one walk into a firepit and stand on the hot embers......ridiculous. Our two large fowl birds don't have these issues.

So thanks for letting me know it's not just MY birds. If anyone has thoughts on how to increase the smarts on these girls, let me know.

 

[aoxa]

I'm a little removed from the discussion timing-wise (this thread is just way too active and I often read on my phone which isn't great for posting). But, I have to say I'm both dismayed and relieved to hear about others' issues with Silkies and eating-of-shavings.

We raised our 4 hatchery silkies on paper towels for several days as recommended...so they could learn what food was. They ate fine, but they still would go after shavings on a somewhat regular basis once they had access. It wasn't because of big crests - they did it from early chickhood and continued on. They're 9 months old now and they still do it - a couple do it much more than I'd like and they're the nonbearded ones with less poofy crests. They see fine, but they like the look of those shavings! They also eat the PDZ that falls down from our poop board. Like it's sunflower seeds.....

No impaction troubles yet, but I worry.

We just added a cockerel and pullet from a breeder who also keeps birds on shavings. And the pullet just wolfs down shavings!!! Kicked them into her food bowl and picked them out like treats! And then bent down to the floor to eat more. It's hopeless.

Something special about silkies. Hearing about them on this thread I keep imagining practical Bee just rolling her eyes. We don't have room to allow our broodies to hatch eggs, but even if we did I worry they'd just teach the chicks how to be stupid. They eat crap, they stray from the flock when outside, they don't understand they need to go in when it rains, we had one walk into a firepit and stand on the hot embers......ridiculous. Our two large fowl birds don't have these issues.

So thanks for letting me know it's not just MY birds. If anyone has thoughts on how to increase the smarts on these girls, let me know.

Your post made me LOL.

Yes silkies are dumb. I have never said they were anything BUT that. But they are endearing, and great mothers.. and adorable.

Mine did all the same things as you say, except the shaving eating. They didn't all eat shavings, and the ones that did ended up dying early on, as they only did it as chicks... I lost 3 to impacted gizzard the first time around.
Silkie chicks seem more sensitive and are harder to raise. At least mine were.. Especially the ones from my fall hatch. Only one out of 8 lived. Many issues and accidents with that group, from drowning, to being trampled, to freezing (escaped pen), to splay leg needing to be culled and a few died after hatching because they would flip over under the heat lamp and overheat.

Silkies are better raised by a mom... I rarely lose any when raised that way...

 

[Bulldogma]

Hi bruceh

Glad to see you here.
I always think of you as the meatie-bird man, from reading a lot of your posts on other threads... you're my main inspiration to order a batch of cornish or cornish-X to raise for my family's freezers

(I'm still workin' up to that endeavor tho, lol).

Let me know if you need eggs. I have Dark Cornish hatching eggs. Girls are a little slow right now, but I can't hatch what they do lay because we're going on vacation in a couple weeks.