The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[Ashdoes]

The fish I am holding is..... a big one..... If that's bait Pigeon Toe, I don;t want anything to do with THAT water.....

It is a Blue Catfish.

Very cool. Thanks!

 

[pigeonguy]

The fish I am holding is..... a big one..... If that's bait Pigeon Toe, I don;t want anything to do with THAT water.....

It is a Blue Catfish.

Just joshing a little there wiz you know I sometimes p*ss around like that.
What is he about 40. Catch him hook and line?
I go catching all the time catfish only. Some call that fishing I call it catching because some guys go fishing and don't catch anything. When I go I catch fish so it has to be catching.

 

[Bulldogma]

Pigeon toes and Loin - y'all crack me up!

LW - did you "hand-fish" that big one?

 

[Arkansas81]

I might have a sick hen.....noticed today that one of my hens wattles are HUGE. Her wattles look like my roos. I know its a hen....been laying for months. And ive noticed that one of my ees eggs has blood on it.

Neither are acting off ...neither look injured. They eat /drink /poop just fine. I'm going to try and seperate my roos with certain hens tomorrow. My roos for whatever reason dnt get along anymore. So could the stress from the roos be causing this. When i say blood on egg, its a good smear. Ive looked at butts...dnt see any dried blood....

Sooooo whatcha think

 

[delisha]

Quote: I have them locked up now..all the hens are laying..and that male wants to keep breeding. He killed the first ducklings that hatched so he could breed her. Grrrrr got right on top of her while she was nesting..squished them. poor things.

I might have a sick hen.....noticed today that one of my hens wattles are HUGE. Her wattles look like my roos. I know its a hen....been laying for months. And ive noticed that one of my ees eggs has blood on it.

Neither are acting off ...neither look injured. They eat /drink /poop just fine. I'm going to try and seperate my roos with certain hens tomorrow. My roos for whatever reason dnt get along anymore. So could the stress from the roos be causing this. When i say blood on egg, its a good smear. Ive looked at butts...dnt see any dried blood....

Sooooo whatcha think

take a picture of the waddles and post..lets see how huge
Sometimes eggs have a smear of blood..its normal as long as it does not hemorrhage and as long as you do not see blood on the vent.

 

[gevshiba]

I have a few questions.

The first was in my original post last week, but I asked a LOT of questions so it got lost in the shuffle... it was about whether or not to cull hens who get bare backs. I only have 2 roosters with my 30+ hens, and I have more than I care to admit who have bare backs. Do I need to cull all of them? And I need a WHY if the answer is yes, thanks

Also, in reading the last several pages of posts, I see a lot of people are amending their FF with herbs and garlic and stuff. While strangely I had thought about adding some chickweed or some other herb a few days ago, I didn't look more into it and didn't realize it was something people were doing regularly. What do you add (other than feed/grains) to your FF, and is there a list of things to add and their reasoning?

And lastly, I have some questions about natural care for turkeys. I've asked over at the turkey forum, but I'm getting some very NOT natural answers and my gut is saying NOOOOOO!

1) I haven't found any info on FF for turkeys, but I transitioned them when I transitioned the broilers yesterday. They were a lot harder to get started- the broilers figured out it was food in just a few hours, but with the turkey poults I kept having to sprinkle crumbles on top of the FF... then they'd pick all the crumbles off and ignore the FF. FINALLY after a whole day of this they got it and are absolutely wolfing down the FF, so that's good! I'm hoping all the little buggies (as my kids and I call them) in both the FF and the raw ACV in their water will help innoculate them against all the awful diseases they're prone to... Anyone have experience FF turkeys? Or ducks, because I'm also thinking about getting ducks later this spring...

2) Everyone on the turkey forum says they keep their Turkey poults 100% inside until they are 8 weeks old. 1) I just can't, the only way it would even be plausible would be if I set up a makeshift pen in the shed, and there is no way in h*#% you can convince me that is healthier than being outside, since the shed is dark and musty and dusty. And the vaccines... lots of turkey people give their birds the fowl pox vaccine at 8 weeks (before they can get outside...). Is that like 100% necessary or my birds WILL die? My plan, unless someone can present me with a convincing argument otherwise, is to move them outside around 3 weeks (with a heat lamp still if it's super cold outside, as it well could be, although they're pretty darn feathered out already, and if they're fully feathered by then they don't need heat, right?) to the smaller of my two tractors. They will tractor/free range with my chickens, and when the broilers head off the the processor I'll move the turkeys to the bigger tractor for the duration of their time on this earth. If they contract blackhead/fowl pox and die then, well, I guess I've learned my lesson and I won't try turkeys again. But from what I can tell it's not a huge issue in my area, and my chickens, to the best of my limited knowledge, have never shown any symptoms. Anyway... to that end I'll take any natural tips I can get! For what it's worth, other than not taking to the FF right away my poults have done awesome (knocking on wood) this first week, but my friend split the order with me and one of hers is having issues. Surprisingly she seems to have managed to save it (when she texted me Saturday night... of course during the new Doctor Who episode... she was sure he was near death, but she gave it some scrambled egg and some infant vites and it seems to have recovered... she's not the most thorough person, it may have just not been eating before that, I don't know if she realized that was a possibility with poults). Anyway... Thanks in advance for any info! I love this thread!

Keep in mind, this is only my second year with turkeys, and my first ones were 7 weeks old when I got them. They went straight from the breeder's brooder to a tractor as soon as I picked them up. They did get pox (dry) and all recovered and did fine. All my opinions here are my opinions, with no experience at all. I read the turkey threads to, but I come here to get my advise. But, as I've already proved, I tend to go my own way. I have 15 BBB's that are 2 weeks today. I started them on FF (my first experience with it) right away and they took right to it. I use H & H, non GMO, no soy feed. I add fairly large amounts of cayenne, red pepper flakes, garlic powder and oregano. I've read that cayenne can treat blackhead and some are using it as a preventative. I figure it can't hurt. I've started adding small amounts of olive leaf extract and lemon balm. I rotate between feeding eggs, raw meat and my dog's pureed veggie/fish mix to up the protein, since I can't get a no soy turkey feed. I'm feeding chick starter. I'll add pumpkin seeds once I find some. I'm sure I'll add as I go. I also catch them bugs. Right now they are in the house, but my neighbor helped me get my pen started today. He's letting me keep the poults in his barn until they don't need the heat lamp anymore. I did put a wire bottom on the pen, but it will be on the ground. I'll put shavings in it. There has never been poultry on the place, but we have a large flock of wild birds that come through. We are also on a lake, so lots of birds and critters. My poults will go out as soon as I think they can handle it or whenever I get the coop built. As for vaccinations, I'm very much a reduced schedule vaccination person with my dogs, so I won't be vaccinating something I'm going to eat. I'm willing to take my chances and trust that, by feeding them right and taking the best care I can of them, they'll stay healthy.

Now, this will eventually bite me in the butt, but, I don't really understand how turkeys have survived all these years by being as delicate as everyone says they are. How can they develop an immune system if you never challenge the immune system? If they were raised by a hen, she'd have them out pecking and scratching in the dirt right away. I think the problem is over demestication and lack of knowledge. By lack of knowledge, I mean we aren't a turkey hen and don't really know what she knows. So this is only my .02 on turkeys. I sure wouldn't tell you to follow my example. I'm just learning too.

 

[delisha]

I know nothing about turkeys other than they can and do drowned with they are young. They are not chickens and need to be reminded more about food and water, looked at more, and are more delicate than baby chicks. I had them once. I killed them all by not understanding they are not chickens. They all drowned.

That was 30 years ago. I refused to use more poults for my experiments. Poor things.

I have not had any of my poultry inoculated for anything. I think it has merit. If you live in an area where certain diseases are prevalent and you can give your birds a shot to help them build immunity against that disease it makes sense. In WI we have not had a disease in two years. I think it is cold enough here that if and when it is brought here, it dies pretty quickly. I will be testing my whole flock soon so i can take my birds over State lines to show. I am a bit afraid about it. I will be implementing strict bio security for 30 days after I return. I am making stacking show pens on one side of the double decker. I hate that my birds will have to be confined for 30 days after every show, however, I am not willing to risk my flock not to do it.

 

[amberr]

I'm WAY behind today.. so I'll start slowly.... I very much enjoyed this post. Yes go by your gut feeling. We can not see your birds behaviour first hand. I'm sure people would have suggested I put Margaret down when she first had frost bite, and boy am I glad I didn't! Reminds me of this sign: I think I just may make one myself.

LMAO! Love it

 

[AussieHens96]

At the moment our chooks are young and on crumble. Not sure if it's organic, though, but they sure enjoy only fresh organic vegetables and fruit

 

[Sally8]

Interesting.

There is no reason NOT to avoid GMO, so why risk it?

But.. for those of you living in remote areas in Canada like me, what else are you supposed to do? Mix your own feed.. that's about it. I'm going to be locating organic chicken farmers here and seeing what they do.

I never noticed any issues with my chickens' health due to GMO, but my birds free ranged. A lot of their diet was foraged (and is foraged as of Monday for the new ones!) Almost all of our snow is gone too. This week has been fabulous.

On Friday it is supposed to be 64!! I can not believe it! Not a speck of snow by the weekend guaranteed! And we had a snow storm last weekend

I'm not sure if anyone else commented on this, usually I read to the end and then comment but then forget. At this time I can't mix my own due to not being able to afford it. I'd have to buy each in such large quantities. Thankfully mine like to forage also. I let them out of their own fencing but try to keep them in the big dog fence when I'm not at home. They tried to decimate my strawberry bed last week end. There are all kinds of goodies behind the house but before the creek.