The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[Bulldogma]

Yummy on the dark cornish..good eating birds.

Yup - that's the plan! With 4 hens already laying, hopefully we can get the Silkies to brood a lot of those eggs for us and put the rest in the incubator - keep hatching them out and have some yummy meat. I'll probably also sell hatching eggs on the side as we won't have room to hatch 'em all - LOL!

 

[Sally8]

Ok all you experienced egg peeps.....

Daughter home from school sick... asked for scrambled eggs and toast.....let her crack an egg open....and she gets this...
I've had blood spots before,, but this one is a bit ridunculous. Other thing, she picked this egg because it comes from my red sex link pullets. Both of them lay the largest yolks of all my girls.. they are twice the size of the other girls yolks, and take up most of the whole egg.... a lot less white part....

Thoughts?... of course I didn't feed it to her, I'm going to scramble it for the girls. Would it have been safe for us to eat.. I'm thinking yes.. but what do you all think?

MB

We just had one very similar to this. I blamed ours on the fact that I have a broody hen and maybe I didn't get the egg soon enough. I've had them bloody before but not like this. I was almost grossed out!

We didn't eat it either!

 

[aoxa]

Ok all you experienced egg peeps.....

Daughter home from school sick... asked for scrambled eggs and toast.....let her crack an egg open....and she gets this...
I've had blood spots before,, but this one is a bit ridunculous. Other thing, she picked this egg because it comes from my red sex link pullets. Both of them lay the largest yolks of all my girls.. they are twice the size of the other girls yolks, and take up most of the whole egg.... a lot less white part....

Thoughts?... of course I didn't feed it to her, I'm going to scramble it for the girls. Would it have been safe for us to eat.. I'm thinking yes.. but what do you all think?

MB

Never had a blood spot that big, but I am guessing that is just what it is - a blood spot. Just bigger than normal. Completely safe to eat, though I have to admit - I wouldn't. It would gross me out. I'd feed it back to the birds. I imagine that much blood may make scrambled eggs look pinkish.

I was told 14 days.

I was thinking about you lately Miss Lydia! Missed you here. Haven't seen you post as often.

 

[aoxa]

Yup - that's the plan! With 4 hens already laying, hopefully we can get the Silkies to brood a lot of those eggs for us and put the rest in the incubator - keep hatching them out and have some yummy meat. I'll probably also sell hatching eggs on the side as we won't have room to hatch 'em all - LOL!

Your day has been very eventful! We've been planning out our breeding pens, and I'm exhausted. Between that, and bookkeeping for 2012 (our farm) after work, it's been enough to keep me working until bed time.

I'm on June 2012 now. I will never let it get this behind again!

I can't wait to see pictures of your new finds/builds!

 

[Sally8]

how long do you wait to eat the eggs after a frontline treatment?

We didn't wait at all. My research came up that Frontline was topical. (We use it for our dogs and cats too). *Just what we did, not advising you to.*
Google info.
By the way, I haven't been itching much. lol

 

[delisha]

Quote: that will learn ya..yuck

 

[Bulldogma]

We didn't wait at all. My research came up that Frontline was topical. (We use it for our dogs and cats too). *Just what we did, not advising you to.*
Google info.
By the way, I haven't been itching much. lol

And Sally8 is now free of ticks and fleas!

 

[rowerjen]

Hi all,

Frequent lurker on this thread and its predecessors. Does cold weather affect egg production? I live in New Hampshire, so by cold I mean sustained lows below zero and day time high temps in single digits to mid teens. I had 4 pullets laying before Christmas, then it got cold. One still lays like a champ and with the brief warm spell last week, one or two of the others produced, but by and large, nothing.

Who ever used the words -2 and "only" in the same sentence earlier - I salute you. I was born in NYC. When I started saying things like that I knew I'd gone native. I'm still amazed at how warm 10 degrees can feel under the right circumstances.

 

[Bulldogma]

Just ran across this and had to share the giggle!

 

[armorfirelady]

We were talking earlier about too much calcium in roosters and hens not in lay. Here's a study on that. http://www.hyline.com/redbook/Health/Gout.html [quote url="[URL]http://www.hyline.com/redbook/Health/Gout.html#Nutritional[/URL]"]
Causes of Gout

The cause of gout is often difficult to determine. The original kidney damage may occur long before the onset of gout mortality. Possible factors that can cause or contribute to gout are [COLOR=52788C]nutritional, [COLOR=52788C]infectious[/COLOR], and [COLOR=52788C]toxic[/COLOR].[/COLOR]
Nutritional

Nutritional or metabolic factors known to affect the kidneys are:

• Excess dietary calcium fed to immature pullets over a period of time will result in kidney damage that may lead to gout. This could result from a feed milling error, accidental delivery of layer feed to a growing house, or excessively early use of pre-lay diet (i.e., before 15-16 weeks of age).
• Grower diets that contain large particle-size CaCO[SUB]3[/SUB] (i.e., greater than 1-2 mm mean diameter) that allows individuals to selectively pick out and consume these particles, in turn resulting in excessive intake of calcium. To ensure correct calcium intake, grower diets should contain CaCO[SUB]3[/SUB] only in a fine-powder form (i.e, 1 mm mean diameter or less). Larger particle size CaCO[SUB]3[/SUB] may be used beginning with the pre-lay diet, after 15-16 weeks of age.
• Phosphorus has been shown to partially protect the kidney against calcium-induced damage. Phosphorus acts as a urinary acidifier and helps prevent kidney stones from forming. Marginally low available-phosphorus contents in grower diets has been associated with higher gout incidence.
• Sodium bicarbonate is sometimes used to improve egg shell quality or combat the effects of heat stress. Sodium bicarbonate can contribute to gout by making the urine more alkaline, which, with high levels of calcium, is an ideal medium for formation of kidney stones.
• Water deprivation, due to mechanical malfunction, may affect kidney function, but research has not demonstrated a direct result in gout.
• Vitamin A deficiency over a long period of time can cause damage to the lining of the ureters, but should be rare with modern vitamin formulation.

[/quote] Thanks AOXA- When I got my hens they were about 12 weeks old & the lady I bought them from already had them on layer pellets so that's what I kept them on. I guess I really lucked out there hasn't been any health problems yet. When I get new pulleys in a month or 2 they won't be on layer feed till POL. Even tho the temps were in the single digits I got some of the supplies for my hoop coop so when it warms up I can start assembling it. Soon as its up I can get new hens . Stony I know u don't like them because of predators but because of where I live anything like a shed or building is considered permament structure and requires a permit. And I want to be able to move it around my property so this works best for me. But I've kept your thoughts & opinions in my building of this new coop. I'm thinking smaller gauge wire fencing around the bottom about 5-6 ft high till where the tarp covers it should help. Price shopping for hardware cloth to out over the cattle panels