The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[CoopChick719]

I feed back all egg shells to my flock and they free range fourteen hours a day or more. I do not supplement calcium. Oyster shells are indeed on my beaches here but not naturally in my yard. The eggs are all firm and hard shelled on all that are laying. Even the Silkie eggs are tough little things.


The two light colored hens in the middle are out of project pens meant to be broilers. I bought them at a show last year. I think they are Orpington crossed. The black hen with the Silkie chick is Judy the Broody. The two red production pullets are daughters of Phoebe. Those two buff hens lay large eggs nearly everyday but both have pinched tails. A bad confirmation trait for layers no matter what the breed. I knew from those pinched tails these girls will eventually have problems. Phoebe's problems have been escalating since day one.

Hi Mumsy, I feed my shells back too. That's too bad about Phoebe! I hope she does okay. What did you mean by pinched tails? Do you have a picture of this?

Thanks for this! I'm electronically challenged and can't really figure out how to post but now I'll keep trying!!!

You're welcome kpchick! I work with a lot of older gentleman who have to use a computer for work but aren't always comfortable with technology. We hire a lot of retirees. I'm always creating instructions like these. Glad you found it helpful!!

 

[bluebirdnanny]

Helloo, resident lurker here.

Please would one of you more experienced chicken keepers answer a question for me? I have a red sex link, just on 1 year old that has laid for me every single day since she went into lay except for the past 10 days where she has laid about 5 eggs in total. Approximately 3 weeks ago, I had a fox that got into my run and coop and killed 5 of my 6 chickens - she was the sole survivor - she is looking a bit worse for wear and it appears that she has lost some feathers around the tops of her legs. Could she have gone into a semi moult due to stress? She has not moulted yet.

I have reinforced the run against predators and for a time did not let her free range until I could try to do some more predator proofing of my garden. I bought 5 new POL girls for company and although she is very hard on them and puttintg them in their place, they are starting to range as a flock when I turn them out to run free. I feed a organic feed as well as fresh greens, meal worms (not too often). I have tried FF so many times and the they simply stop eating it so I feed them pellets and free range as much as possible.

2nd Question. One of the new POL girls is laying tenny tiny eggs, look like banty eggs but she is a hybrid large fowl. They have egg shells for extra calcium, I have been giving them spinach for iron and other greens, is there anything else I can give her to help her lay normal sized eggs?

Thank you for all help

Give it time answer was already given for this too.

Got a closer look at his birds today.... they have IB

I decided to treat them while he's gone since it's such a contagious disease, Hopefully I'll have some extra medicine, just in case my birds get it, will be giving inject able Tylan 50, for five days, hope that clears it up. Any other advice? Probably wouldn't be treating if it wasn't for the fact that we are so close together, and I don't want it spreading.

Never mind someone else asked the question and you gave the meaning for IB already. I sure hope it doesn't spread!!! Good luck getting them healthy again.

Mumsy- thanks for sharing the pictures. It helps me learn. My 4 big girls all have pinched tails and I get eggs with bumps & one soft shelled egg. I know from you all on here pinched tails mean problems laying. Until then they get FF, herbs and foraging in the yard.

Ash- those babies are BEAUTIFUL. Enjoy them

I also use vinegar to clean in my house. With so many critters I didn't want cleaner residue to get on them.

My mom brought the hens & tots the turkey carcass over. Big girls had those bones picked clean in an hour. I chopped up the liver & heart & put it on top of the tots FF. they tried a piece or two but there was still some left when they roosted. I have found that the tots don't eat/like meat. I've tried chicken, turkey, liver and fish. They usually just leave it if served separately. I'm hoping by putting it on top of their FF they will eat it, has anyone else had that problem with chicks/tots? Any suggestions? They are trying new fruits and love greens.

Picture Friday? I grabbed a couple of cute ones today. The tots enjoyed a romp in the veggie garden while I tried to weed since today was first day in almost a month it didn't rain.

Stella having her favorite snack. Potato plant leaves. Apparently good stuff in the mulch covering the plants

Of course then Edie had to have a snack

I do give the tots credit, they are getting braver. They walk up to the gate where the big girls are on the other side to watch them. I think when I get home from vacation in 2 weeks they will be big enough to not fit thru the electric netting. And a sea gull was circling while they were in the veggie garden (it saw the turkey carcass) and Edie & Stella took off for the coop and the 2 BCMs hid under the tree. Guess they have their eyes to the skies for predators. Not that the sea gull was but it was good practice

!

Mine seem to be good at ducking for cover too! Not always a legitimate threat but they do react well. They did see a hawk the other day before I did.
And you mean I don't have to debone or chop the chicken meat before I give it to them? Bones won't get eaten and stuck?


Now my concern:'
Eggs are consistently down by one sometimes two from my three chickens. They are 3. One that is still laying is giving eggs with warty like bumps. They get plenty of protein as they get leftover meat and follow me around anywhere I pull weeds or turn a little trowel full of dirt in beds/garden grabbing worms or anything else I uncover. They get all eggshells and every couple days I cook extra eggs for them. They are on fermented organic grains. They get Greek yogurt but only about a tablespoon each. They eat my strawberries and blueberries.
So first what causes the wart like bumps? Second the suspected nonlayer is the best colored and the stockiest. I have only heard her 'I laid one" announcement once in three weeks the day after I gave her an epsom and olive oil leg and butt warm wash in a pan. She did go in the nest part of the coop and squeal like she was trying after I put her on the porch part of coop to dry. No egg or call when she came out. But when she gave the announcement call the next day, I went to search, because she came out of the woods edge! Nothing.

 

[delisha]

Helloo, resident lurker here.

Please would one of you more experienced chicken keepers answer a question for me? I have a red sex link, just on 1 year old that has laid for me every single day since she went into lay except for the past 10 days where she has laid about 5 eggs in total. Approximately 3 weeks ago, I had a fox that got into my run and coop and killed 5 of my 6 chickens - she was the sole survivor - she is looking a bit worse for wear and it appears that she has lost some feathers around the tops of her legs. Could she have gone into a semi moult due to stress? She has not moulted yet.

I have reinforced the run against predators and for a time did not let her free range until I could try to do some more predator proofing of my garden. I bought 5 new POL girls for company and although she is very hard on them and puttintg them in their place, they are starting to range as a flock when I turn them out to run free. I feed a organic feed as well as fresh greens, meal worms (not too often). I have tried FF so many times and the they simply stop eating it so I feed them pellets and free range as much as possible.

2nd Question. One of the new POL girls is laying tenny tiny eggs, look like banty eggs but she is a hybrid large fowl. They have egg shells for extra calcium, I have been giving them spinach for iron and other greens, is there anything else I can give her to help her lay normal sized eggs?

Thank you for all help

This is the time of moult for many hens. Stress can also bring on moult. When a hen is under stress and egg laying slows, do not worry, it is normal behavior. They instinctively will stop laying in some cases so they do not attract predators.

Hi, Karyn here from SW Austin. We are on 5ac. and have a little (our first!) flock of 9 --- 8 girls and a "surprise" -- Samantha, a Delaware, turned out to be Sam.

they were born the 1st of Feb. and are doing great, in spite of the lack of experience from their "chicken Mama" - me! They free range all day and go into the coop and run my DH built for them at night. My question is this -- we have often left them overnight, and once for a day and night when we had to be gone. Now, in a few weeks we will need to be gone for 3 1/2 days and I am freaking out over leaving them in their coop and run for that long. Do I need to get a sitter? Or try to find someone to let them out in the am and close the door at night? (Expensive --2 trips!) need advice from all you experienced ones, PLEASE!

Your chickens will be fine as long as you are prepared. Make the coop safe. Make sure vents and windows are open and protected by hard wire. Hang activity items like cabbage. Make sure they have two water resources. Some times one gets plugged or dumped. They will be fine with out food but not water, so that is the most important. Put a gallon of water up on a block to keep it clean. You can also fill a water container with ice. it will melt slower and give water gradually. Toss in seeds for them to hunt to keep busy.

Quote:

1/2 brown sugar
2 heads garlic, halved through the equator
1/4 cup black peppercorns
2 cups kosher salt
2 gallons water

boil and cool completly

place the chickens in a large bucket or cooler covered in ice for 12 hours. Drain off the water and leave any ice, pour the brine on and make sure the chickens are completely covered. Keep them cold in the brine for 12 hours by adding ice in the cooler.
roast or grill

Delisha, regarding your recipe. My husband and I have yet to process our chickens. (We have processed turkeys, but not chickens) Except for the new chicks, the hen are between 3-4 years old. I know at this age they are headed for the crock pot. Would you recommend this brine for them or is it just for young ones?

Lisa
I brine all of my birds regardless of age. For older chickens I use vinegar, or apple juice in the recipe or beer instead of all the water to help break down the meat.

Delisha, thanks for the info on the really bad feathers. I looked at the label of the mash I've been using to ferment and sure enough, all vegetable protein. Looks like these are going to start getting tuna and eggs, hmm makes me hungry for tuna fish salad on rye lol.

good job! Chicken liver is good too.

Got a closer look at his birds today.... they have IB

I decided to treat them while he's gone since it's such a contagious disease, Hopefully I'll have some extra medicine, just in case my birds get it, will be giving inject able Tylan 50, for five days, hope that clears it up. Any other advice? Probably wouldn't be treating if it wasn't for the fact that we are so close

Has it been confirmed by a vet or testing? IB is nothing to monkey around with. How many dead birds? 50% is average deaths in 12 hours.

Sodium salicylate 1gm/litre (acute phase) where permitted - antibiotics to control secondary colibacillosis (q.v.).

Hi all, I'm back with my 2 OE pullets (I hope).

They are about 5 weeks old.

Unfortunately the conditions they were kept in was, um, different than I'm used to but I brought them home anyways. Immediately took off the shoes and disinfected them prior to coming in the house. Then I got some warm soapy water and gave them a bath outside to wash off the "sticky stuff" and mud so I could check them all over. No wounds, redness or raw patches, vents are pink and clean, eyes bright, feathers ratty. Scales smooth on the legs, but some areas on the little one are missing feathers altogether. (She has no tail feathers and was probably really low on the pecking order.)

They are in the front courtyard in a plastic dog kennel drying off, drinking their water with ACV, fresh dandelion greens and alyssum flowers, brand-new pine shavings. Poop looks good to my inexperienced eyes, but it seems smelly. (Stress??) They are now on organic grower crumbles, and hopefully they will eat some of my liver/cilantro/garlic/cayenne "treats" but right now they are scared to death of me.

Threw clothes in the washer on sanitize and took a shower.

Seems like they have been eating like little piggies all the way home. Just checked, and they are fluffing up nicely and taking a nap!

Now to keep up the quarantine as long as possible and get them in better condition.

Nice job!

Oh, I also wiped all doorknobs, washer door, sink handles, etc. with Sani-Wipes.

From now on, it's going to be harder to keep any germs from the front yard away from the backyard - I'm not going to change clothes multiple times a day. Definitely will be washing my hands a ton! (LOL)

Should I take some shavings from my existing coop and put them in with the newbies so the new kids can acclimate to the new surroundings and future flockmates???

shoes and hands are the most important
I would put some shaving in to help build immunities.

 

[FridayYet]

Nice job!
shoes and hands are the most important
I would put some shaving in to help build immunities.

Thanks! I'll do that tomorrow.

 

[Leahs Mom]

Quote:
How does one know that birds have IB?

And... what causes it?

 

[chooks4life]

Quote: Since you checked for mites and lice and didn't find any, the next bet would probably be to get their endocrinal systems functioning better, since that controls moulting. Kelp's the easiest, safest and cheapest endocrinal regulator. It can start non-layers going again and ought to correct the hormonal imbalance or lack of function if that is the cause of the feather holding.

Quote: That's because garlic and ACV encourage and feed good bacteria. Not all bacteria are equal, some are bad, some are good. That's one reason man made antibiotics are so harmful, they kill the good bacteria as well as the bad and guess which one repopulates quickest... lol. We are reliant on good bacteria to live.

Quote: Yes, it is funny. Until you're dealing with an egg thief, lol. Funny that the dog didn't get into the egg though, looking at those tiny marks it must be a tiny dog! Recently I was helping my landlord with his Pilgrim geese on their first clutch, his first geese to boot. Eggs kept vanishing. Found his cattledog cross was wating till people were busy, then sneaking under the house to the geese nests and stealing from the nicest goose. Not so funny when eagerly awaited hatchlings are being devoured...

Quote: This website would have the information somewhere. Females can have neck feathers like males too, pointed and fringed and shiny and basically identical, the better bet to tell them apart is the sickles and saddle and shoulder feathers. I believe it's a hormonal reaction that triggers males to grow the male type feathers, they grow into them as they're growing out of their baby feathers. It might be at the end of the juvenile moult from what some people say but I haven't seen any such clearly defined moult, only a continual replacing of baby feathers with bigger proper feathers until the bird hits adult size.

Quote: One of my turkey hens liked to get into scuffles with the roosters whenever she had mated with the tom. So I ended up having to separate her as 10 out of 15 eggs on average were 'starred' badly. Most you couldn't see without 'torching' them (lol, candling)... But they'd break if she tried to brood them. She did this for three clutches in a row though, most of her eggs were cracked and resealed internally.

Quote: I agree about fresh water being good to have available as a choice, and respect it's just your two cent's worth, but I have a few questions concerning your statements that continual large amounts of garlic/ ACV/ oregano/ cayenne prevent you from digesting certain things and have potential to cause malnutrition. What do you mean by 'large amounts?' Did that information by any chance come from a scientific study where it was all the animals were fed, or around 50% or more of their total feed? I don't think anyone giving these items continually has ever given it as more than 10%, average maximum, and nobody I know has had any problems with them impeding feed uptake/ synthesizing/ digestion. If it was the majority of what you ate or what you fed your birds, that'd be an unbalanced diet, it goes without saying. But who does that?

I've fed an average of a clove of garlic per chook per day in their feed for all their lives, over hundreds of chooks, over years of chook keeping, without any problems. Often the chooks prefer to have an average of five whole cloves each, which would be over 30% of their daily feed ration. I don't know about cayenne or oregano as I don't use either often as they're potent, but garlic's never given me any issues, in fact it's dealt with the majority of issues that commonly crop up seasonally with my neighbour's and friend's chooks. Or I assume it's dealt with them as I never see them despite practicing quite lax bio-security and bringing in birds with those issues without trouble.

(Not recommending lax biosecurity, I'm going to tighten up my quarantine rules just in case, but generally garlic knocks everything I bring in on the head without me treating specially). I don't believe garlic (or oregano or cayenne or ACV) given long term (in as large an amount as the birds want to consume) causes malnutrition, but I'm open to any new information that seems well founded. I can imagine if you feed cayenne continuously and a chicken gets an injury internally the cayenne could kill it but many people feed it nonstop without problems, same with oregano, same with ACV, same with garlic.

 

[salt and pepper]

This is the time of moult for many hens. Stress can also bring on moult. When a hen is under stress and egg laying slows, do not worry, it is normal behavior. They instinctively will stop laying in some cases so they do not attract predators.
Your chickens will be fine as long as you are prepared. Make the coop safe. Make sure vents and windows are open and protected by hard wire. Hang activity items like cabbage. Make sure they have two water resources. Some times one gets plugged or dumped. They will be fine with out food but not water, so that is the most important. Put a gallon of water up on a block to keep it clean. You can also fill a water container with ice. it will melt slower and give water gradually. Toss in seeds for them to hunt to keep busy.
I brine all of my birds regardless of age. For older chickens I use vinegar, or apple juice in the recipe or beer instead of all the water to help break down the meat.

good job! Chicken liver is good too.
Has it been confirmed by a vet or testing? IB is nothing to monkey around with. How many dead birds? 50% is average deaths in 12 hours.

Sodium salicylate 1gm/litre (acute phase) where permitted - antibiotics to control secondary colibacillosis (q.v.).
Nice job!
shoes and hands are the most important
I would put some shaving in to help build immunities.

I have done research on the different respritory diseases, and it's the only one that matches. They are gasping, and their faces are swollen around their eyes, and nose, they are also skinny, and small. My birds did have something, but it was just sneezing, and runny nose, and cleared up quickly. I'll be treating anyway, just to protect my own flock.

 

[Leahs Mom]

Quote:

I don't believe garlic (or oregano or cayenne or ACV) given long term (in as large an amount as the birds want to consume) causes malnutrition, but I'm open to any new information that seems well founded. I can imagine if you feed cayenne continuously and a chicken gets an injury internally the cayenne could kill it but many people feed it nonstop without problems, same with oregano, same with ACV, same with garlic.

"(in as large an amount as the birds want to consume)"

That is exactly my point. In general, if they are not sick or needing specific treatment of some kind, free-fed in as large an amount as they want to consume. I want them to have a choice rather than me forcing it (meaning they eat it or they don't get to eat because it's in their only source of food or water.)

From what I understand, I'd probably have the same view of garlic as you - that it would not likely be an issue in the amounts you describe.

 

[salt and pepper]

How does one know that birds have IB?

And... what causes it?

I am simply guessing, as they have a lot of the same symptoms as IB causes, but they haven't dropped dead either, it could be something chronic that's just gotten out of control, but I don't think so. It is caused by a virus that get's into the air tract, it has a fairly high mortality rate, so that's whats throwing me off.... Treating either way.

 

[stonykill]