The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[midnightroo]

talking about wind-well let me tell ya it's been blowing about 100+ here and at times with gusts nearly 70+. I seriously thought I was going to loose my whole flock. We had a mini tornadoe blow through, man made a mess of everything! No major damage other than it blew up the tarp i have on my coop, so i had to go out and repair that. Actually just had to reattach it to my coop, coop was soaked, near freezing.

so next day went and bought about 10 bags of pine shavings, 5 square bales of hay. Put about half and half in the coop to help with the sogginess. as i was reattaching the tarp i saw that the lid to the food bucket was blown off, food completely soaked. so now i am fermenting the feed, planned on doing that all along but wasn't quite ready yet.

so yesterday had to go get new food, etc to put in the other bucket. but i did find out that my local co-op sells boss at .70 a pound! so i got some and man do the birds love it. checked on my worm farm, doing really good! i'm telling ya just as i get everything situated then this horrible weather messes everything up! so back to the start with fixing everything-again. i'm soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ready to have summer here! i let my birds free range today, the outside run is damaged so at some point today or tomorrow i will have to repair that too! UGH soooooooooooooooooooooooooooo annoyed!!!

See now I feel bad about complaining! And I thought the 40 mph we had the other night was bad. I know I would have lost my chickens in 100mph. I hope your day gets better!

 

[Mumsy]

Mumsy,

Are you familiar with Contorted Filbert? Grows beautifully in your neck of the woods, and is a very interesting plant all year round. It's sometimes called Harry Lauder's Walking Stick.

Yes I am familiar with that variety. It's choice as a specimen in a deck pot. I believe it is sterile and doesn't grow nuts. Also takes a very long time to grow any height. I prefer a robust grower that can compete with the rest of the shrubbery. And... I'm all about the nuts.

 

[loanwizard]

I'm kind of excited.... not that kind....

I know this is a chicken thread, but my eggs introduced me to people that liked my story of pasture raising animals enough to buy hogs. Just got a call from Baltic Meats that my Pigs are ready. I have 4 new customers that are going to get to taste some awfully good pork (in my opinion) and I will have fresh pork for my larder as well.

Yes, you can see I am over the poor me's for hauling them off to the death chamber......

 

[Sally8]

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Just came on to 300 posts in 3 days to read. I'm jumping ahead...

I'm sorry if I'm re asking but how does one be-head a rooster, by them selves,with an ax, if you are only 5 ft tall, and not long arms? To me that is the most humane way and hubby likes the roo "Bruce". So, while he's gone, Bruce is going also.

Stony, still no rats, no sign of rats. Still going to wait.

My incubation experiment didn't go well. Only 2 eggs hatched, one had to be culled. "Bob" lives in the bath tub. I have to peck the food and water dish for him to eat and drink. (With my finger). (I'm not sure if it's a Bob or Bobbi, but the way things go for me....). Some of the eggs were older, I only collected 2x daily and it's been very cold. Most all were fertile but I had a temp spike that I only recently learned about. DH vows he hates chickens but was worried that the incubator only read 99, so he adjusted the knob. 108!!!!!!!. We had a little talk.

With very high winds yesterday, the turkey cage door came open. I got a phone call that Chuck and Rosie were in the road. DH went home to put them back in their cage. The neighbors came out to tell DH that the big turkey was standing on the little white chicken. ( Chuck and Rosie are mating). No white chicken, only Rosie.

Also, a car stopped and people got out to pictures. I told my neighbors they should be charging. Just when I think I've heard everything.

 

[aoxa]

With so many bodies to keep track of in that extreme of weather, you still manage to take great care of your animals. I have deep respect for you.

That's so nice of you to say. I got lucky. I was there to witness it. She is one of my very rare Ameraucana Bantams. I have so few of them that I check them over often. They are with the large fowl for the winter, so I try to make sure they aren't getting bullied around (doing really well!) Poor girl was having a really hard time walking, and as soon as I lanced her - she felt better. The swelling continued though for a few days. Yesterday she was at least 50% less swelling in the worse foot 75% in the other. I could not find any corns or whatever they call the infection in bumble foot. It was just like painful blisters.

Have you ever seen anything like that? Chris09 told me to put coconut oil on her feet. I have pure organic coconut oil already - so I did. Maybe it's doing the trick?

I'm awake now...

Congrats on the eggs, kian! Two of the chickens I raised from chicks have been laying for a couple weeks now, and today I got my first shell-less, yolk-less egg... probably from the 3rd of the same age. It was just an albumen filled membrane that she likely laid while she was on the roost. She's been checking out the nest boxes over the past weeks... guess she just didn't put two and two together - LOL.

My new Dark Cornish have been laying like they've been here forever... average of 2 DC eggs a day from 4 hens since the first full day they were here! I'm impressed!!! And here I just thought they were meat birds - LOL! Tanker is still hanging out in the house. She looks tons better this morning, but I don't see suddenly tossing her out into some of the coldest temperatures we've had so far... I'll wait until it get a little warmer.

Aoxa - poor little bantam. Keep us updated on what happens with her feet! I'm really curious about this - - it's certainly not something we have to deal with around here. I know how frostbite affects the combs, but have wondered about feet.

Will do! I'll have to take some pictures.

I was wondering if a chicken would stay inside the coop, where there is no food or water, and make herself ill rather then come out into the wind? These last two days have been so windy and I don't see this particular one come out so I am worried about her not getting enough food or water. The other two will poke their heads out and sometimes I see them scratching, but not the other one. This morning they all came out to free range for five minutes, but then the wind made such a noise they all went running back to the coop. I did put some food in the coop yesterday that I had added some water to, so she did eat some yesterday.

I feel like such the nervous nelly with the chickens!

Aoxa, sorry to hear about your chicken. Glad she seems to be on the mend. I feel bad complaining about the weather after hearing how cold it is other places, just seems like this winter is wacky.

It's all about what your used to. I bet your weather feels just as cold to you as my weather does to me.

I'm kind of excited.... not that kind....

I know this is a chicken thread, but my eggs introduced me to people that liked my story of pasture raising animals enough to buy hogs. Just got a call from Baltic Meats that my Pigs are ready. I have 4 new customers that are going to get to taste some awfully good pork (in my opinion) and I will have fresh pork for my larder as well.

Yes, you can see I am over the poor me's for hauling them off to the death chamber......

I'd love to try your pork. I'm going to be getting some pigs eventually. I don't want anything huge... Something manageable.

I'd like to start out with a pair and breed and use said piglets to grow and use for meat.

I want something smart, friendly and easy to handle for a first timer. Any suggestions?

I don't think this thread should be all about chickens. I think it should be all about raising animals naturally. For meat and food (eggs). Great.. now I'm hungry.

 

[Bulldogma]

With very high winds yesterday, the turkey cage door came open. I got a phone call that Chuck and Rosie were in the road. DH went home to put them back in their cage. The neighbors came out to tell DH that the big turkey was standing on the little white chicken. ( Chuck and Rosie are mating). No white chicken, only Rosie.

Also, a car stopped and people got out to pictures. I told my neighbors they should be charging. Just when I think I've heard everything.

As for using a hatchet (or in our case, a machete) to behead a roo yourself, if you have a big old stump, you can put two nails in rather close together. Put the roo's head between the nails and then pull his feet the opposite direction to stretch his neck to allow you to do your thing.

Sorry about your hatch! Mine all died in lockdown. I had a spike to 105 and then couldn't get the humidity regulated. Check out the new article up on the thing today. It's for you and me and anyone else who has gone through crappy hatches.

 

[JeffOeuf]

Yes I am familiar with that variety. It's choice as a specimen in a deck pot. I believe it is sterile and doesn't grow nuts. Also takes a very long time to grow any height. I prefer a robust grower that can compete with the rest of the shrubbery. And... I'm all about the nuts.

I had one in my previous yard. I thought I didn't get any nuts because I only had one.

 

[aoxa]

​

With very high winds yesterday, the turkey cage door came open. I got a phone call that Chuck and Rosie were in the road. DH went home to put them back in their cage. The neighbors came out to tell DH that the big turkey was standing on the little white chicken. ( Chuck and Rosie are mating). No white chicken, only Rosie.

Also, a car stopped and people got out to pictures. I told my neighbors they should be charging. Just when I think I've heard everything.

The EXACT same thing happened to me. Except no door blew open.. just turkeys in the road, neighbours calling and people taking pictures... like we were harbouring some rare and exotic animal.

 

[Leahs Mom]

In this day and age ANY farm animal is rare and exotic. Folks think food comes from the grocery store.

 

[Mumsy]

I had one in my previous yard. I thought I didn't get any nuts because I only had one.

Nope. It's a purely ornamental variety.
Squirrels buried a nut in my hedge years ago and it grew a shrubby tree. It bore nuts for the first time this past year. That surprised me because there isn't another Filbert tree any where close to where I live. So I planted a named dwarf variety this past Fall. I think Filbert nuts may be too big for the chickens to swallow whole. Not sure yet. The trick is harvesting them when they fall ripe on the ground before the squirrels get them. I would want the chickens to get them first but I'll find out this coming Fall how that works out. The newly planted little Butler Filbert tree is covered in catkins.