The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[Mumsy]

LOVE your coop and the lights, Mumsy! I'm no 'chicken diapering fool' - I treat my chickens like chickens - but I love a bit of whimsy in my coop.

It isn't for my chickens - it is for me. I also spend quite a bit of time in the coop, it is my 'happy place' in the rat race that life can be. And the Mr. and I are both retired - he goes to his shop, I go to my coop for that 'alone' time we both still need after working full time for so many years.

Thank you. You've got it exactly right. Whimsy. It's what I put a little of in everything I do. The vegetable garden, the orchard, my sewing, and the chicken coop. It doesn't hurt or take away from anything and puts a smile on my face. I want the gardens and orchard, and chickens to provide food for the table, freezer, root cellar, and pantry. That doesn't mean it has to be all work and drudgery. Whimsy makes my life just a little sweeter. My hubby and I are empty nesters and love our time together outside. He has his shop and he likes to burn a little brush pile on the weekends. I like to sit watching the chickens in the coop or out in the gardens. Simple pleasures but not hobby farming. $ spent in these areas need to feed us. I am definitely one of those people that likes to embellish the effort and enjoy the process.
When I took this picture tonight it was starting to snow.


Going to my coop to do chicken chores is no chore.

 

[Melabella]

Sure wish I knew someone nearby that would let me borrow one to do some experimenting. I don't want to spend that much to do an experiment that may fail!

I actually put out an ad on Craigslist sometime last month to see if anyone had one for sale...that and the incubator. No bites but I did get some response from just nice folks trying to help me learn how to brood.

Leahs M,

There was a thread a bit ago, I'll try to locate it from a woman who did a lot of customer service talk with Brinsea about this very topic. If I rembmer right, the brinsea mimics mama broody with ambient heat, as in contact, not heating the air underneath it. The adjustment of the height of the unit is what is important so as the chicks can have contact with it. If it is set too high they won't be able to lay sit when they sleep. I swear, they were huge, and do see them do the limbo and crawl under that thing was too cute. It is supposed to be warm to the touch, but not burning. I bought one when I got my day olds as I knew I would be setting up my brooder in my barn, and didn't want any part of heat lamps on during the night.

Wish we lived closer I would lend you mine! Good luck in finding one..I'll look for that link as well.

MB

 

[Leahs Mom]

Leahs M,

There was a thread a bit ago, I'll try to locate it from a woman who did a lot of customer service talk with Brinsea about this very topic. If I rembmer right, the brinsea mimics mama broody with ambient heat, as in contact, not heating the air underneath it. The adjustment of the height of the unit is what is important so as the chicks can have contact with it. If it is set too high they won't be able to lay sit when they sleep. I swear, they were huge, and do see them do the limbo and crawl under that thing was too cute. It is supposed to be warm to the touch, but not burning. I bought one when I got my day olds as I knew I would be setting up my brooder in my barn, and didn't want any part of heat lamps on during the night.

Wish we lived closer I would lend you mine! Good luck in finding one..I'll look for that link as well.

MB

So you DID use yours in the barn! Do you remember how cold it was outside when you had it running?

 

[Bulldogma]

You are more than welcome to any pictures I ever post, you don't have to ever ask again

- but please do remember that she is a hatchery "RIR" and NOTHING like what a REAL RIR should look like according to the SOP.

But she is purdy, isn't she?

Gotta love that FF!

She certainly is purdy! Thank you for the permission. It will be nice to have lots of different RIRs pictured throughout the post

I am painting my building next year, and I will post pictures in the next few days. I would like some suggestions on colors from everyone.

At some point you should share a picture of your building - it will give us all a better idea of what color might look nice... and we all like pictures - LOL!

I am definitely one of those people that likes to embellish the effort and enjoy the process.
When I took this picture tonight it was starting to snow.

Going to my coop to do chicken chores is no chore.

What a beautiful picture!!! Thank you so much for sharing it with us!

 

[Bulldogma]

And speaking of photos...


My daughter and one of our chickens dancing together.


Bad hair day!


My daughter has named her "Dorthy."


And look! I made suet cakes using Mumsy's recipe! The only trays I had that made cakes the right size for the suet cage were some heart shaped ones I had used for my middle daughter's birthday a number of years ago. Perfect size... and cuter than anything I'd normally put together. <3 <3. LOL!!

Thank you, Mumsy, for sharing how to do this! The closest town to us has a chain supermarket, but since its in a really tiny town, they had no problem with selling me a huge thing of suet for nothing. The birds LOVE the suet cakes, and I like how hanging them keeps my daughter's quarantined Silkies busy all day.

 

[aoxa]

Wow.. a good 70 posts I missed in 5 hours. Craziness!!!!

Love seeing you around again Mumsy! Your coop is beautiful! I love it!!!

Also wanted to say that a few OTs do use FF. All are girls though.

I have a picture of our barn in the 35 cm of snow we were gifted with today.

 

[aoxa]

 

[delisha]

Yes, Ma'am! I think so too. At least he didn't have to cull her to get his "samples". I was proud of that. But, I'm still not getting my hopes up. I try not to count my chicks before they hatch...so to speak!

My DH also talked with the previous owner and he said that he didn't have any problems with them. And that they were around 4 or 5 years old. My DH also talked with his Uncle (who got some birds from this same guy) and he said he hasn't had any problems with his. He said it might be the stress of moving them, with them being that old. He was with us when we got them and he said he never would have thought that they were that old.

They do a lot of swabbing now.
Are you getting any eggs?

 

[Leahs Mom]

WATERER ADDENDUM:
I have a broody that is by herself in a separate part of the hen house so I wanted to make a waterer for her to use. I didn't have a small bucket at the time so I decided to try one of the cups on a pretty thin-walled container that I had laying around. I wasn't sure this would work since the plastic sides are much thinner and more pliable than the large buckets. The rigidity of the wall of the bucket is pretty important to keep it from leaking.

I have been using this for about 3 weeks now and it's doing great. I just have to be careful when handling the cup at all due to the thin, flexible plastic. I'm going to replace it with a little heavier bucket sometime soon, but wanted to share this just so you can see how it's working.
On whatever container you use, YOU HAVE TO BE SURE YOU HAVE A GOOD AMOUNT OF WATER ABOVE THE CUP WATERER INTAKE! These work by the pressure of gravity.

Here is a cc of the original post on this with some edits:
*************************************

This is a waterer post AND a Broody post - but mostly a waterer post.

I needed to rig something to keep water from freezing on the broody side of the hen house. I gave it a good deal of thought and decided to try a new experiment with the cup waterers.

First, I needed to be able to heat the waterer for winter. I first thought about making a "cookie tin heater" but decided not to do that as I feel that they may pose a fire risk for various reasons. Instead, I decided to use the heating element from a heated dog bowl. That way, if my experiment doesn't work - or when I'm done using it - I still have a heated dog bowl to use! Double duty and these heat elements are designed to do the job already and wired correctly to handle the job...I feel the risk of fire is much lower using these elements. They also have the thermostatic control built right in so I don't have to purchase another item!

So...here we go.

Here's the water bowl right from the farm store. $14.99






Here's the bowl after I removed the heating element.



Here's the heating element. I believe the part in the center is the thermostatic heat sensor. It will only heat when the temperature drops below a certain degrees. I think it upper 30's on these. Under the heat element is Styrofoam for insulation and the plastic base that normally sits under the dog bowl.



Here is a cookie tin I picked up at Good Will $0.75. Notice that the top has a rim that will catch water if I have a leak. It was just the right size for the heater base....this is VERY COOL as I purchased it the day before I picked up the dog bowl and had no real idea that it would fit. I think that was Providential...just sayin'

I used Duct tape to attach the cookie tin lid to the heater base. Here you see the plastic bottom-side of the heater base which is normally under the dog bowl.



When completely taped down, the duct tape is fully covering the edges so that no water or shavings can get in there.



Now for the second part of the experiment. I wanted to give her a water cup like she has on the other side so it would be familiar. I tried attaching one to a plastic "margarine-tub type" container that someone sent home some Thanksgiving leftovers home for me in. (I don't use margarine so I didn't have one -but they did- so another "godsend"... Free!) This tub is about 7-8" tall and probably holds about 1/2 Gal. of water.

The only prob. is that the plastic on these tubs is softer and more pliable than on a regular bucket. I'm not sure it will be rigid enough to keep the cup waterer from leaking. We'll see. I wrapped the threaded part of the waterer with a good amount of plumbing tape and also tried putting an "O-Ring" on the threaded part where it screws onto the bucket on the outside (between cup waterer and bucket).

Then...I set it on top of the heater base. Not sure this will warm the water enough to keep it from freezing the cup waterer. It IS an experiment after all! If not, I'll just set a dish of water on top of the heater.





Looks like our temperatures are going to drop over the weekend so I'll get to test it for freeze. I KNOW it's warming the water very well. Just don't know if the mechanism will freeze. Looking forward to finding that out.

 

[Leahs Mom]

And speaking of photos...


My daughter and one of our chickens dancing together.

This one bears re-posting. Priceless!

Aoxa - what a beautiful scene!