The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[pcappy2]

RE: "Which makes me think of another FF question- for anyone who does FF and lives anywhere with HARD freezes (I live in zone 4... -20), do you keep your fermenting feed in the house? And does anyone ferment feed for other species, like turkeys or ducks?

And lastly, does anyone else do the thing with the pumpkins? Yeah, it was really early in the other thread, so I'll explain- Beekissed said she kept pumpkins in her barn to freeze/thaw over the winter and then fed them in February/March. So I'm going to totally do that, but I was wondering if there are any other gems out there of ways to get more fresh, nutritious, and easy-ish (like not complex sprouting systems) foods to our birds in the winter. I'm talking things old timers did- like can you do the same thing with turnips to make them appetizing for chickens (mine love the greens but won't touch the roots)? Any other garden goodies I can grow to store? "
........

Yes it gets very frozen here. I keep mine in the mud room by the back door. If it is too cold out I believe it slows the fermenting...at least mine appears to.

Mine went after and threw around the pumpkin seeds I saved from past years. More like playing with them. I suspect they were having trouble cracking them open. I broke a few and left them in the kennel I use for unsupervised outside time. I didn't see them eat them but they were gone bye evening. Perhaps they 'planted' them with their scratching. They do tear into cantaloupe halves though. Going to try growing pumpkins and see what they do with them. Snowed since then and icy rain, sleet and snow again. They haven't spent more than 5 minutes outside in the last few days, but they did have an open coop to the kennel after insisting I leave it open when I fed them. Just chose not to I guess, like a dog.... I want out but when you open the door they turn right around and go back in.

I keep mine by the back door in the basement. Easy to grab a scoop when I'm going out to the chickens. Mine werent very excitied about the pumkin I threw in the coop. then I found some pumkin shells and they would all get in line if I was willing to stand there and cracked the shell open for them.....Now I have pumkin seeds in the FF, or I sprinkle the seeds over the top of the FF with some oregano.

 

[aoxa]

Henry is growing way too fast! Slow down so I can enjoy you small Henry!

 

[Leahs Mom]

Wait till you have kids!

 

[aoxa]

Wait till you have kids!

I know right! I'm going to cry at every milestone I know it

Did I mention I'm going to be an aunt again? A little girl this time. FINALLY!

 

[brandislee]

Thanks veryone for your hints on the cornish crosses... i feel alot better about them now.

Just a question on the feed. I normally supplement with Fremented Feed once a day - in the morning i bring a big bucket out, and then they have thier crumbles mixed with rye, oats or whatever else I have all day. They also are let out of the coop for a couple hours during the day to free range.

I want to reitrerate your suggestions to make sure I am understanding....

1. dont let them free feed. -
2. start out feedeing three times a day, for how long? then nmove to two and them 1
3. I think i saw let them eat for 15 min at a time and then take away thier food, is that rght? even if only feeding once a day? Keep in mind they only free range 2- 3 hours a day....

and one last question.... what are you feeding them? is it still the high protein or standard grower? I assume I can also feed the FF.

My FF has mostly layer crumbles, (1/3or so); then a mixture of wheat, oats, rye and chooped up "whatever we had for dinner that night" stuff in it.

Should I change the food I am feeding to the cornish and use a higher protien?

Absolutely to #1- don't free feed them, they will eat until they explode! Well, in reality they could eat you out of house and home and then die of heart attacks at 6 weeks. Here's exactly what I do-

-when I get them home, they go in the brooder (pre-heated the lamp being on the night before, water and food filled) with free choice unmedicated chick feed. I'm sure you could just start them on FF, but I always forget to start the feed fermenting soon enough, so I usually start it the day I get the chicks.
-when the first batch of FF is ready I start giving them small amounts in a plastic trough in addition to their crumbles. When I notice that most of the chicks are eating it, I remove the dry crumbles. During the first two weeks I keep the feeder as full as I can- not terribly hard, since I check on them several times a day, I just add a few more scoops as they need it, but I guess this would be the same as feeding 3x a day- I pretty much make sure they have enough to eat free choice at least during the day.
-at two weeks, which is also when I usually move them outside (with a heat lamp still), I feed them twice a day, about as much as they can finish in a few hours, and I start getting them used to free ranging.
-and I pretty much continue to feed them twice a day up to processing time, but as they get older I lessen the time it takes them to finish (kwim, I didn't say that very clearly??). Like, by the time they're 4-5 weeks I give them as much as they can finish in like 15 minutes.

I feed them soaked unmedicated chick starter at first, and then I start adding a little scratch to the mix around the time they go outside. Each time I do it I add more scratch grains until the mixture is about 1/2 and 1/2. I may use less scratch this year- I was doing it last year as a cost saving measure, but now that I'm actively avoiding GMO feed the scratch I have to buy is more expensive than the broiler feed. You should NOT feed them any layer feed- it's bad for chicks as the extra calcium can adversly affect their development, and broilers are even more sensitive to nutrient issues. I strongly suggest only feeding them FF (it makes the feed MUCH more efficient because they're using more of it and pooping less out), and mixing it separate from what you mix for your layers... I use unmedicated chick starter because the protein and mineral content is similar to broiler feed and it is otherwise impossible to find unmedicated broiler feed around here. If you use unmedicated chick starter in your FF, as long as they also have free choice layer and free choice oyster shell in their coop, you could feed the fermented chick starter to your layers.

Ugh, have I confused you yet? Because I have confused myself. I'm having a hard time explaining things today...

 

[bluebirdnanny]

I know right! I'm going to cry at every milestone I know it

Did I mention I'm going to be an aunt again? A little girl this time. FINALLY!

ok. NOW I know you are female.. and congrats!!!

Absolutely to #1- don't free feed them, they will eat until they explode! Well, in reality they could eat you out of house and home and then die of heart attacks at 6 weeks. Here's exactly what I do-

-when I get them home, they go in the brooder (pre-heated the lamp being on the night before, water and food filled) with free choice unmedicated chick feed. I'm sure you could just start them on FF, but I always forget to start the feed fermenting soon enough, so I usually start it the day I get the chicks.
-when the first batch of FF is ready I start giving them small amounts in a plastic trough in addition to their crumbles. When I notice that most of the chicks are eating it, I remove the dry crumbles. During the first two weeks I keep the feeder as full as I can- not terribly hard, since I check on them several times a day, I just add a few more scoops as they need it, but I guess this would be the same as feeding 3x a day- I pretty much make sure they have enough to eat free choice at least during the day.
-at two weeks, which is also when I usually move them outside (with a heat lamp still), I feed them twice a day, about as much as they can finish in a few hours, and I start getting them used to free ranging.
-and I pretty much continue to feed them twice a day up to processing time, but as they get older I lessen the time it takes them to finish (kwim, I didn't say that very clearly??). Like, by the time they're 4-5 weeks I give them as much as they can finish in like 15 minutes.

I feed them soaked unmedicated chick starter at first, and then I start adding a little scratch to the mix around the time they go outside. Each time I do it I add more scratch grains until the mixture is about 1/2 and 1/2. I may use less scratch this year- I was doing it last year as a cost saving measure, but now that I'm actively avoiding GMO feed the scratch I have to buy is more expensive than the broiler feed. You should NOT feed them any layer feed- it's bad for chicks as the extra calcium can adversly affect their development, and broilers are even more sensitive to nutrient issues. I strongly suggest only feeding them FF (it makes the feed MUCH more efficient because they're using more of it and pooping less out), and mixing it separate from what you mix for your layers... I use unmedicated chick starter because the protein and mineral content is similar to broiler feed and it is otherwise impossible to find unmedicated broiler feed around here. If you use unmedicated chick starter in your FF, as long as they also have free choice layer and free choice oyster shell in their coop, you could feed the fermented chick starter to your layers.

Ugh, have I confused you yet? Because I have confused myself. I'm having a hard time explaining things today...

Ugh, YES but then I don't have chicks and wasn't the one who asked. So if they aren't then perfect! lol No doubt by next year or after I will be the one asking you to give this answer again.

 

[brandislee]

I keep mine by the back door in the basement. Easy to grab a scoop when I'm going out to the chickens. Mine werent very excitied about the pumkin I threw in the coop. then I found some pumkin shells and they would all get in line if I was willing to stand there and cracked the shell open for them.....Now I have pumkin seeds in the FF, or I sprinkle the seeds over the top of the FF with some oregano.

I don't have a good indoor place to keep FF- our front door comes straight into the kitchen. No porch, no basement with outdoor access I may FF over the winter and just dry feed with small amounts of FF as a supplement (so I can just keep it in a smaller bucket in the house) in the winter. I wonder if its a bad idea to go back and forth like that...

On an unrelated note, I am sick about something I just found... I just found a chicken leg in my driveway. And then I found a rib cage (with no helpful skin or feathers attatched). And then I almost murdered my puppy, but then reason set in- my chickens haven't been out of their pen in almost a week because of the snow (boo snow). And even before that, since the puppy is still, well, a puppy (worse actually, he's 1.5 and going through a defiant teenager phase) he isn't allowed outside without my direct supervision. AND THEN I went into the coop and counted, and so far as I can tell everyone is there (okay, so I can't remember if I had 4 or 5 Buckeye hens... so sue me! I stopped counting my hens daily a long time ago, I guess I've been lulled into complacency!). BUT I'm pretty sure it wasn't a buckeye leg, because 1) the leg was white, not yellow (and I don't think I even have any white legged chickens) AND the rib cage I found was too small. So either my dogs got someone else's chicken (which would be terrible, but extremely unlikely because I don't know of anyone within their roaming range who has chickens) OR (and this is what I hope the answer is...) they dug an already dead carcass out of the woods that had been frozen in the snow. I know late last summer, when we were on vacation, we had two red stars dissappear get out of the run and the guy who was watching them found one (who a dog had gotten, so it was alive when he found it but died soon after) but the other never showed up... and he threw the one that died out into the woods (not what I do, but whatever I wasn't going to criticize him). So they could have dug either of those chickens up out in the woods, right? The leg looked fresh(ish), but it was past rigor.... I'm sick because I don't know what happened, and that just kills me. Plus this particular dog is on probation until he's 3, so one strike and he is out of here, so I kind of need to know it wasn't him.

 

[aoxa]

ok. NOW I know you are female.. and congrats!!!
Ugh, YES but then I don't have chicks and wasn't the one who asked. So if they aren't then perfect! lol No doubt by next year or after I will be the one asking you to give this answer again.

Bahaha Yes I am female.

Almost everyone in here is. Only a few guys. We girls outnumber them 10 to 1!

 

[armorfirelady]

The water is terrible here too. It's holding up the rebuild. Trucks can't get down to the build site without getting stuck.

Last year we did not have the puddles we have this year. I'd be seriously afraid to have broodies with chicks.. I have had drowned chicks before, and no doubt the water level we have right now, they would drown.

You're doing good with what you have to work with!

I am just very frustrated......I thought I had built a coop that would be weather proof......so now I need to rethink a few things to try & get it that way. Luckily my girls are hardy & they actually like being out in the rain lol They actually spent more time outside then inside even when I got the coop dried out lol

I am off tomorrow and I think I will wander around home depot or lowes & see what I can find.......

 

[Mumsy]

The weather here is cold for April. 30's and 40's with rain and wind. Snowing in some areas. *Blet!* Doesn't slow me down much. Busy busy in the garden and barn. 38 chicks are keeping me very much on the go. Got half the barn cleaned out of DL and starting to haul it out onto the pathways and beds in the potager garden. Husband is turning it into the soil.



Last batch of chicks moved to the barn into the cabinet brooder. Husband and I like to frequent second hand and antique stores looking for useful things. I found a few old glass drawer pulls and he put them on the doors of the cabinet brooder for me. I love them!


These kids are four days old and like to roost on a brick under the heat.


The HRIR chicks are growing fast. I can already tell boys in the shipped chick batch. Lots of chest bumping going on with five of them.


All the HRIR chicks now have pop door access to outside runs. Waiting for the weather to dry out a bit before turning them out into the orchard. They have roosts but still prefer to warm up in the shavings under heat. They are about a month old.