The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[jlynnet]

I came home tonight to 3 EE and 2 leghorns. Darn farm store sucked my DH in this time!

 

[Pullet Surprise]

Worming with soap:
I have been keeping Dr. Bronner's in the waterers for over a week now and have noticed NO worms in poop. That having been said, doesn't mean anything conclusive, because I have not seen every poop. It has not harmed them, they are fat, sassy, and laying like crazy, including my one girl that was on the possible cull list if she didn't get with it. Well, she did and lays the most beautiful LARGE brown eggs and regularly at that. Glad I decided to wait until spring to decide on her. She has come through with flying colors.

Has anyone been trying the Basic H?

One nice thing about the Dr. Bronners is that they all have nice peppermint breath, like they have been eating Altoids for chickens ...just kidding

 

[lalaland]

perfect timing! How much soap did you add to the water? Glad to hear your hen is laying.

 

[Pullet Surprise]

perfect timing! How much soap did you add to the water? Glad to hear your hen is laying.

I used a half of a teaspoon in a gallon of water. I have no idea if it is not enough, too much or just right.???

 

[Leahs Mom]

I purchased the basic H but have never use it. I'm taking the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" stance on this.

But sometimes I wonder if I should use it maybe a couple times a year for prevention. Not sure what I think about that at this point.

Lala - refresh my memory - were you seeing worms regularly before?

 

[Sally8]

I remember on the other thread a discussion on whether suet would go bad. I always freeze mine too. I can rarely get it here unless I know someone butchering a cow.

Did anyone watch "how is it made" (I'm home I'll)? They did a segment on eggs. They said:

Chickens start laying at 19 weeks
Have 15 hours of light
Have a measured amount of food that moves along in front of them 3x daily
Watered like a guinea pig (my interpretation)
(You only see the chickens head). The rest is in tiered galvanized cells. So very sad
Life over at 72 weeks as eggs are no longer consumable
The eggs they produced have a store life of 35 days.

The middle 2 lines are mine but the rest was in the documentation.

Wow there are a lot of eggs in that video. It shows how the chickens were fed and watered but it skipped the part about waste. They must try to sell it off to fertilizer companies right?

The only mention of waste was that it fell down the holes in the wire they were on. The thing that stuck out the most to me was that they said that after 72 weeks, eggs were no longer consumable.

 

[aoxa]

Parker my nephew is over today. Kid has so much energy.. He loves Margaret! See her feet? The one on the left still has a scab, but she is finally walking all over and not laying down for the most part.

 

[Pullet Surprise]

I purchased the basic H but have never use it. I'm taking the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" stance on this.

But sometimes I wonder if I should use it maybe a couple times a year for prevention. Not sure what I think about that at this point.

Lala - refresh my memory - were you seeing worms regularly before?

That's about where I am with this. I had no indications of worms, but I had been reading where chicken keepers were using soap in water on a regular basis just for general purposes.So I thought why not give it a try. I won't do it any more now unless I find worm overload indications or suspect there might be worm over load.

 

[Pullet Surprise]

Parker my nephew is over today. Kid has so much energy.. He loves Margaret! See her feet? The one on the left still has a scab, but she is finally walking all over and not laying down for the most part.

Absolutely precious! Lucky Margaret!!!

 

[delisha]

I love the Parker and Margret picture! Thank you for sharing.

I have pips..and now my silkies are in lock down. I have 10 eggs in lock down.