The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[NanaKat]

Quote: X2...The firefighter family is as strong as the police family. Each offer their lives to protect us here at home,

I have a question, Today I got my first strange egg. I t was under the rooster, and had broken. It didn't have a shell, instead it had a thin, leathery covering. What could have caused this? All of my layers free range all day, and always have rock hard shells. I do have one batch of 18 week old, but haven't gotten any eggs from them as of yet. Could this be one of the pullet's first eggs? Or does one of my older hens have a problem? Any help is appreciated.
So sorry about the fire....

Salt and Pepper A leather egg can be a pullet's first egg or like a fart (extremely small) egg, the beginning or end of a layer's clutch. Nothing to be alarmed about. Most you will not find because they break easily and are devoured by the other chickens. One you find intact, it is safe to eat...just do it quickly since the leather shell lets evaporation happen faster.

Mumsy great photos of the grandsons with your birds. Love the garden in the background too.

 

[salt and pepper]

A leather egg can be a pullet's first egg or like a fart (extremely small) egg, the beginning or end of a layer's clutch. Nothing to be alarmed about. Most you will not find because they break easily and are devoured by the other chickens. One you find intact, it is safe to eat...just do it quickly since the leather shell lets evaporation happen faster.

It was full sized, actually pretty large. Thanks for the help =) This one had broke, but the other birds ignored it.

 

[stonykill]

My daughter is four. My sons are one and two. I find the epic drama more tiring than the excess energy of wiggly little boys!

X2!

and I forgot to quote Stony about the rain, but good golly, we sure don't need any more. A week of dry would be just the thing for us. We've had mudslides, flash floods, you name it. Standing water everywhere every time it rains. It's raining right now and all the hikens are huddled on my front porch.

being the northeast, when it stops raining, it won't again for 6 to 8 weeks. Seems to be our pattern.

I found our daughter so easy to raise, especially as a toddler. My son, now 20 needed CONSTANT entertainment from me.

 

[SallyinIndiana]

Stony nice coop tractor. one of the eggs I got from you is just past the zipped stage and almost out. It its taking its sweet time though. The other 2 that made it to lockdown are not external pipped yet. I'm still hopeful for them so I'll give them another 2 days.

For those of you that have had exploding eggs, typically how many days old were they?

 

[aoxa]

My girlfriend saw how frightened the chicks were this morning, and decided she would spend the day helping me make a way for them to get out to the pen and back to their portion of the coop! Rivers were too high for us to kayak...so, perfect day for a project.

what we thought would be relatively simple took about 5 hours.

It is kind of the chunnel idea Bulldogma suggested, but I didn't see that post til now. Basically made a tube of chicken wire (lord that stuff is a pain to work with!) that was 18 feet long, fastened on one end to the temporary pen, and including a wood ramp up to the deck that is off the coop trailer. Then, figured out a door barrier, with netting on the top and a wood bottom half of the door with a hole cut through it to the tunnel. So the exterior door to the trailer coop stays bungeed open all day, with the netting keeping the chicks in except for the tunnel, and the wild birds out.

Don't worry, the coop is inside a big run, which is pretty safe (electric fence which isn't always on, wire fence, fence on the ground to keep from digging under - so nothing should be able to get to the door except possibly a hawk or owl, but the netting should deter them. The temporary chick pen is under the hawk pavilion ( a 12x12 area covered wtih wire fencing for a roof, and chicken wire down the sides.

The chicks during this long afternoon were pretty much hiding in one corner of the coop, chirping hysterically.

I opened up their smaller brooder area on the floor to include the whole half of the trailer so they would have access to the doorway with the tunnel - and they were so freaked out, we figured they wouldn't come out. Left it out, went in, ate supper ----came out....and they had figured it out!

It was so cool to see them - they were coming up the ramp but getting a little confused and going back - needed a little herding to get all the way up and in, but I think they would have done it on their own.

Unfortunately, it will be 50 or colder tonight, I leave for work at 3:30 am so I won't leave the door open that many hours while it is so cold. Justine, I know you said your chicks were fine, but I have 3 that are still not feathered out, just wing feathers.

Thanks to everyone for the suggestions - if I had read the idea about the wire/plastic pipe herding method I might have tried that instead!

My chicks are Canadian, so they are hardier lol

Yeah there are some with still just wing feathers and little tails, but not much else. Ugly at this stage!

 

[Alibabe]

Hi all
Sorry to hear about the fire; how devastating for the families that lost loved ones.

Quick question please if somebody can advise me.
I have managed to hatch 17 new babies and I was wondering when I should introduce them to the outside world and when should I introduce a sod of earth and grass to the brooder? They are currently in a brooder box which is 1.2m long by 0.8m wide by 0.6 high. They started to hatch on Thursday last week and the last one hatched on Saturday. So the oldest is 4 days and the youngest is 2 days old.

I was planning to reducing their heat after every week so hopefully by 3/4 weeks, they will be heat free - is this correct? The brooder is inside and our home is not cold and the weather is finally starting to heat up so I am hoping that they won't need heat for too long as I would like to get them outside as soon as possible so they acclimatise themselves to the weather. Am I on the right track here?

All help appreciated, thanks.

 

[NanaLynn]

So sorry to hear about the firefighters, that is so sad.

Mumsy - Love the garden, chickens and adorable grandson's.

Congrats to all or the hatches!

I agree with everyone about the rain. In NC we have so much more then we need, there is mud everywhere. My garden is producing well, lost of squash, but I would take less squash for some sunny days!

-Lynn

 

[NanaLynn]

Pros and cons of vaccinating for Marek's when getting new chicks? What do you guys think?

Also, the same for medicated feed?

I'm going to take the plunge again and order more chicks for the end of the month, since that dog wiped out most of the flock.

Thank you, Lynn

 

[Mumsy]

Thank you all, for the kind words about my pictures. It was a glorious day in the sunshine with three Grandsons and chickens in the garden. Doesn't get much better than that for me.




The sweetest, gentlest, most pettable birds in the yard are the bantam RIR pullets. They are laying and love to be loved on by people. Remember that Hello Kitty chick I used a bandaid with same name to straighten toes? Same little chick all grown up in my three year old Grandson's lap.


The twelve year old spent most of the day up in that tree house fixing it up. Built by my husband and youngest daughter when she was twelve.

I often think of turning it into a split level chicken coop. If I had Sumatra's or let the turkeys out, they might like it up there! Hah! Problem though. I couldn't manage that ladder to go up and get eggs!


The boys like to pelt grown ups with fir cones from up there. A rope tied to a bucket lets them haul up supplies.

Now days, I have my clothes line tied to the supports.


My daughter in law tells me he is still talking about the blue eggs.

 

[SallyinIndiana]

Hi all
Sorry to hear about the fire; how devastating for the families that lost loved ones.

Quick question please if somebody can advise me.
I have managed to hatch 17 new babies and I was wondering when I should introduce them to the outside world and when should I introduce a sod of earth and grass to the brooder? They are currently in a brooder box which is 1.2m long by 0.8m wide by 0.6 high. They started to hatch on Thursday last week and the last one hatched on Saturday. So the oldest is 4 days and the youngest is 2 days old.

I was planning to reducing their heat after every week so hopefully by 3/4 weeks, they will be heat free - is this correct? The brooder is inside and our home is not cold and the weather is finally starting to heat up so I am hoping that they won't need heat for too long as I would like to get them outside as soon as possible so they acclimatise themselves to the weather. Am I on the right track here?

All help appreciated, thanks.

If you have a corner or spot that does not show, you can did a small plug now for the brooder box.

I reduce the heat gradually every other day or so. I watch the chicks, if they have huddled for heat then I have reduced it too much and have to increase the heat. Typically chicks that I have hatched do better for me than chicks I order in the mail. I think I have A PO between me and east OH that is hard on both chicks and eggs. I average about a 12F degree reduction in a week with the chicks starting at 95F. So after 3 weeks they are happy with 60F and my the end of 4 weeks they are out of the brooder and only offered heat during a chilly night.