The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[FloppyEaredFarm]

Hi everyone! I love reading this thread! I hope that some day in the future I will have learned enough to give advice to a newbie like myself as you all have helped me! I have a question about garlic. I have garlic pills for my dogs. Would I be able to cruah them and give them to my chickens to help with preventing pests? They are the Springtime Bug-off Garlic. Ingredients: air-dried garlic granules, desiccated beef liver, nutritional yeast culture, dextrose, microcrystalline cellulose, and stearic acid. Would these be safe/helpful for the chickens?

 

[SandBsmom]

Ok, let me get us back on track then. I have a deep litter question. I may have been very confused about this. Do you use DL IN the coop or in both the coop and yard? I have a 6x8 shed coop with a vinyl tile floor so deep litter doesn't work there but I also have a 16x23 half covered fenced run that the chickens are in most of the day. I have just dirt and bark out there and I rake poop up every day but I have started laying down alfalfa for them to pick through and am starting to get quite a thick floor of hay stalks. Should I leave it???? Does deep littler work outside? I do live in the Seattle area so it's wet, wet, wet. I'm afraid I would just have a rotten primordial goo but maybe not? Advise?

 

[SandBsmom]

aoxa, I'm so sorry!!! What a nightmare night. I'm sending warm thoughts to your poor little lone chick!

 

[Mumsy]

Hi everyone! I love reading this thread! I hope that some day in the future I will have learned enough to give advice to a newbie like myself as you all have helped me! I have a question about garlic. I have garlic pills for my dogs. Would I be able to cruah them and give them to my chickens to help with preventing pests? They are the Springtime Bug-off Garlic. Ingredients: air-dried garlic granules, desiccated beef liver, nutritional yeast culture, dextrose, microcrystalline cellulose, and stearic acid. Would these be safe/helpful for the chickens?

I liberally sprinkle garlic powder over the top of the FF in every dish. 100% garlic. Chicks, breeders, and layers. It's cheap. Easily obtained and easily delivered. I put a few drops of garlic oil in the chick waterers. Also cheap and easy to dole out. Morning feeding in my barn smells like the local pizzeria! The garlic with the oregano and FF is a heady mix. One that I love. No sick chicks or chickens since I started doing this.
I have never used the pills you describe. I imagine they are safe if none of those ingrediants are a salt. Maybe someone knows more. Are they cheaper than plain garlic powder?

 

[off-grid hen]

Did you mean CRD and not GRD?

I was wondering the same thing, after I thought about it for a while. :slap forehead smiley:

But no, I can't look at his lungs as my husband has disposed of him already. I will keep an eye out on everyone else.

 

[Mumsy]

Ok, let me get us back on track then. I have a deep litter question. I may have been very confused about this. Do you use DL IN the coop or in both the coop and yard? I have a 6x8 shed coop with a vinyl tile floor so deep litter doesn't work there but I also have a 16x23 half covered fenced run that the chickens are in most of the day. I have just dirt and bark out there and I rake poop up every day but I have started laying down alfalfa for them to pick through and am starting to get quite a thick floor of hay stalks. Should I leave it???? Does deep littler work outside? I do live in the Seattle area so it's wet, wet, wet. I'm afraid I would just have a rotten primordial goo but maybe not? Advise?

You and I are very nearly neighbors.

I have started the DL in one of my outside uncovered runs starting with a layer fir needles and fir cones, then a layer of rotting hay. The chickens have started digging in it and picking out small worms and insects. I'm starting slow with the DL outside and adding layers thinly so as not to get a big sodden packed down mass.

I'm working on finishing the outside run the turkeys will be growing out in and will start DL in it as well. I look at the outside DL as very beneficial for adding a good place for worms, slugs, and insects to live in to add to the chickens natural protein diet but also I like to have this stuff to put in my gardens. It also will keep the dirt in the exposed runs from souring, getting sterile, and hard packed. I don't like to clean pens and this is my plan.

 

[Mumsy]

I'm having a terrible chicken night..

Yikes! Sorry aoxa. Truly. Weird stuff happens in the barn yard sometimes. Thinking about you. Tomorrow will be a better day.

 

[countrygirl74]

I'm having a terrible chicken night.. My turkeys nearly killed my cochin rooster. They ate up a lot of his comb, and he has lost a whole lot of blood. He's eating like a champ right now and I have him all cleaned up and in the basement in a big dog kennel until he can regain some composure. He is very weak from the blood loss.

Also one of my Ameraucana bantam chicks in the outside brooder was FREEZING. Brought her in as well. I think Carlton will be okay. Once I get my breeding pens built this weekend, he can have one of those to recover in. *sigh*

Oh and one of my broodies chicks died. Not sure what happened there. So she has one lonely chick. What a day...

So sorry!!

 

[delisha]

It says that this thread is OT welcome I like it - it makes me feel more welcome, then some of the other threads where I'm just the dumb hobbiest newbie!

awww

you are always welcome

 

[delisha]

Hi everyone! I love reading this thread! I hope that some day in the future I will have learned enough to give advice to a newbie like myself as you all have helped me! I have a question about garlic. I have garlic pills for my dogs. Would I be able to cruah them and give them to my chickens to help with preventing pests? They are the Springtime Bug-off Garlic. Ingredients: air-dried garlic granules, desiccated beef liver, nutritional yeast culture, dextrose, microcrystalline cellulose, and stearic acid. Would these be safe/helpful for the chickens?

Sounds great!
Let us know how they are looking after a few doses!!