The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[Mumsy]

Made an interesting observation on my roo Johnny's leg coloring. I'm curious if any others have noticed this on their own birds.

When I got my rescue, he had pale yellow legs. They looked better for a while after I had him on All purpose crumble. Then he was mite infested and they got pale again. Then I switched over to FF feed three months back. I add a bit of Scratch cracked corn to the ferment. Not a lot. I don't throw scratch out for my flock any longer either because they are fatties. (getting slimmer). Any hoo. I started putting Cayenne over their FF after I ladle it out each morning. Sometimes when I'm out of Cayenne, I'll sprinkle red pepper flakes with seeds. Everybody gets this on their FF when I have it.

I noticed Johnny getting blood red coloring flecked over the bright yellow of his legs. Really red freckling. When I first saw it I thought he was raw and sore or bloody. Nope. Just brilliant coloring coming into his leg coloring and between his toes. My gut tells me it started with the Cayenne and Red pepper flakes. Just an observation out of the ordinary. I haven't noticed any red in the hens legs. Anyone else see this?

 

[Elliemae 77]

Ok, thank-you for advice about Cocci. I cleqn the brooder out completely every other day and add fresh shavings so they aren't walking around in an over abundance of poo. Everything is frozen up here. Maybe add some shavings from the big coop? What about adding DE?

 

[Elliemae 77]

Mumsy, why do you add pepper?

 

[Arkansas81]

Made an interesting observation on my roo Johnny's leg coloring. I'm curious if any others have noticed this on their own birds.

When I got my rescue, he had pale yellow legs. They looked better for a while after I had him on All purpose crumble. Then he was mite infested and they got pale again. Then I switched over to FF feed three months back. I add a bit of Scratch cracked corn to the ferment. Not a lot. I don't throw scratch out for my flock any longer either because they are fatties. (getting slimmer). Any hoo. I started putting Cayenne over their FF after I ladle it out each morning. Sometimes when I'm out of Cayenne, I'll sprinkle red pepper flakes with seeds. Everybody gets this on their FF when I have it.

I noticed Johnny getting blood red coloring flecked over the bright yellow of his legs. Really red freckling. When I first saw it I thought he was raw and sore or bloody. Nope. Just brilliant coloring coming into his leg coloring and between his toes. My gut tells me it started with the Cayenne and Red pepper flakes. Just an observation out of the ordinary. I haven't noticed any red in the hens legs.  Anyone else see this?

Hmm very interesting. Ive just started ff, 2nd day. I also add cyanne pepper plus other things to my ff. I will look and watch the legs of the few birds that I have and will let you know. I only have a couple of birds that have light / yellow legs, ill be watching.

They are loving it by the way. Ive gotten an increase in eggs this past week, noticed that they still have lots of food left in their food pan. Water was still in the bowl in the coop. So I am loving ff too. Thanks for all the wonderful info on ff!

 

[delisha]

I do not know about Johnny..however during higher sexual activity and sexual maturity I have noticed a bit more red almost like a broken blush to legs and feet, sometimes under feet too. Johnnys might be from the pepper..I have added pepper when it is in the garden, however it has been a three months since I closed the garden. I have never payed that much attention to foods..I just assumed it was hormonal based. Would be interesting to know..you have my curiosity up.

 

[delisha]

Ok, thank-you for advice about Cocci. I cleqn the brooder out completely every other day and add fresh shavings so they aren't walking around in an over abundance of poo. Everything is frozen up here. Maybe add some shavings from the big coop? What about adding DE?

I do not use DE..perhaps someone else can tell you about it.. it would not help cocci from what I have read.
Shaving from the coop would help..how old are your chicks? Every thing is frozen here too..I live in WI..frozen tundra here.
My chicks are a month old and I deep litter them too. They are in the basement. With feeding them FF they do not stink up the house..all though I can smell them now,..and want them out. As soon as I insulate the new brooder I am making, they are going out!..it is the dust that is getting to me. I am never hatching out and having chicks in the house for over a month ever again..

 

[Leahs Mom]

Loving all the ideas for using litter after it's taken out of the coops. The idea of a berm is very creative! I think I may try that if I ever have a lot of excess!

Regarding cocci and built up litter - I was surprised to find in the 1949 article about deep litter that they thought that the small amount of AMMONIA in deep litter is one of the things they think may help with preventing cocci. We always hear so much about being afraid of ammonia that this quote was a surprise to me to hear something positive about it. What's referred to here IS NOT A LARGE AMOUNT OF AMMONIA! They state earlier in the article that if you can smell ammonia it's too much since it's a toxic gas.


Here's a quote:
Quote:
http://www.plamondon.com/faq_deep_litter.html (Bold emphasis added by LM)

Read the rest of the article to see more.


Sally...that's amazing on those hens sharing mother duties. I'd love to have that happen at my place sometime!!!!!

 

[Mumsy]

I do not know about Johnny..however during higher sexual activity and sexual maturity I have noticed a bit more red almost like a broken blush to legs and feet, sometimes under feet too. Johnnys might be from the pepper..I have added pepper when it is in the garden, however it has been a three months since I closed the garden. I have never payed that much attention to foods..I just assumed it was hormonal based. Would be interesting to know..you have my curiosity up.

You know what del? You are an amazing well of information! It very well could be Johnny's extracurricular duties of late could have brought on that red blush! I had not known about that. He is getting busy with three pullets around the same time as I started going strong with the cayenne and Red pepper flakes.

I have known for decades that feeding corn brings out strong yellow in the legs of chickens with yellow legs. For showing purposes this can be a bad thing if your breed should have pearl legs. Also, a lot of corn in the diet will put yellowing in the feathers of white birds. Not a good thing if you are showing stay white birds. So I'm curious about the possibility of Red Pepper flakes or Cayenne affecting a birds coloring. I will never show Johnny of course. He's a Production Red. But I do plan on breeding and showing Heritage RIR. I sure don't want to feed those birds and mess up coloring before a show.

I feed cayenne because it along with garlic makes an inhospitable place in the gut and blood of a chicken. Worms and some other nasty things don't like to live in a body that reeks and tastes of garlic and pepper. My chickens and even the chicks could care less. They gobble it all down like their starving and it's their last meal on earth. I eat the eggs every day. There is no difference in taste or smell.

I have recently been researching the use of Cayenne in feeding chickens and turkeys that are raised together to decrease the risk or severity of Black Head disease. Still learning.

Delish is my #1 go to person for explaining things in English about the details of all this stuff. I have it in my head and know how to put it into practice. I have a hard time explaining it sometimes.

 

[midnightroo]

Made an interesting observation on my roo Johnny's leg coloring. I'm curious if any others have noticed this on their own birds.

When I got my rescue, he had pale yellow legs. They looked better for a while after I had him on All purpose crumble. Then he was mite infested and they got pale again. Then I switched over to FF feed three months back. I add a bit of Scratch cracked corn to the ferment. Not a lot. I don't throw scratch out for my flock any longer either because they are fatties. (getting slimmer). Any hoo. I started putting Cayenne over their FF after I ladle it out each morning. Sometimes when I'm out of Cayenne, I'll sprinkle red pepper flakes with seeds. Everybody gets this on their FF when I have it.

I noticed Johnny getting blood red coloring flecked over the bright yellow of his legs. Really red freckling. When I first saw it I thought he was raw and sore or bloody. Nope. Just brilliant coloring coming into his leg coloring and between his toes. My gut tells me it started with the Cayenne and Red pepper flakes. Just an observation out of the ordinary. I haven't noticed any red in the hens legs.  Anyone else see this?

I don't do ff yet so I don't add cayenne to their feed, but my roo has red feet also. At first I thought it was due to mites, but since I have been trying him with a salve I made they have seemed to have gotten a little redder. Someone on here did tell me that the redness was hormones and he is less than a year, so that makes sense. If you are interested in comparing, I can try and take some photos tomorrow to see if the coloring is similar.

 

[Ashdoes]

I think this thread is good because we have some where to ask our questions, when we want a natural approach. I don't think there is any way every post can be an information packet, thats a blog not a thread.

I hope this thread continues as is.

I've also been wondering what do do with all the litter. Once you've filled flower beds and all the other things, the poo never stops. I've got a compost tumbler, a compost pile and the litter under the coop. Eventually I need to find something to do with it all. I guess it's good we have just one tree, I've got plenty of compost for all the trees I want to plant.

I was curious Ashdoes. How often are you cleaning out your DL? I only clean my barn completely out every four or five months. But then I only have a small flock of chickens and chicks.

I did think about another use for it. Take a good hard look at your property. Is there an area that could use a berm? You could use a long hose and lay it out in the area you want to build it and drive small sticks to mark it then slowly start dumping and building your berm. Eventually it will grow grass and weeds the chickens would forage on or  you could seed it with a winter rye or something like that. Berms are popular for cutting down noise from busy streets.

I'm not cleaning out any DL. I had PDZ under my roosts, and had to scoop the poop every other day. After a while I got sick of that and emptied out the whole thing, which is how I started the big compost pile outside the chicken run. Now I have shavings under the coop, so I'm kind of starting the DL there. In my compost tumbler is kitchen scraps, and just the shavings I cleaned out from our brooder over the summer.
Right now I have no where to put it all because our lot here is basically dirt. I'm sure once I start planting I'll be complaining that I don't have enough, but right now there's so much.