The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[AlmaB]

Thank you !

I forgot to include Thumper or beloved 3 year old Rabbit.

 

[delisha]

Hello Alma,

Thanks for posting pictures.

Cute set up. Cute chickens and ducks.

Do you get all of your birds in that coop?

 

[AlmaB]

Hello Alma,

Thanks for posting pictures.

Cute set up. Cute chickens and ducks.

Do you get all of your birds in that coop?

Thank you.
Yes, their coop is 4'x6 and they only go in to sleep. I have a total of 12 birds, the chickens roost and the ducks sleep on the bottom. Their run is 10' by 15', all thought they mostly free range, I do put them in during the day if I'm leaving the house. I

 

[aoxa]

Pictures from Yesterday...


Suitcase watching his matching Mottled Houdan run around.


The fluffy butt crew


One of the female rabbits who I call Baby Bunny. I call all of them Baby Bunny.. Daisy Mae is the only one with a name. :S Maybe I should? Lol




Sniffing flowers!


Silkie chick - 8 weeks


More silkies with the apple (and Sweet Brown - the duck)


Apples be good!


Naked Neck male.


Sweet Brown.


I love the overgrown brush.


It makes great cover!


Silkie - 8 weeks


Silkie 6 weeks


Silkie 6 weeks again


The meaties getting an afternoon snack. The Pennies too. There are electrolytes in the water. The temperatures are out of control this weekend. I have heat stroke, and feel sick. I think we humans could use some electrolytes as well.


Mmm water is good.


One of the 7 week old Easter Eggers hanging out with the 2 week old meaties. I was surprised. No issues letting them together. A few pecks from the Naked Neck chicks, and the Juvenile HRIRs, but the adults and younger chicks got along wonderfully! The goats tick me off though. I am terrified they are going to get under their feet and get killed.. Deep breath.. This is why I made the shelter..



Which they used A LOT today. I did not have to entice them out this morning. They came swarming out. They still didn't stray further than 20-30 feet, but it's a start.

Today I gave a small bit of feed in the morning under the cover above. They had food inside that lasted them an hour. I fed them again at four and they didn't seem too starving, so must be eating some forage.

 

[cluckcluckluke]

Sorry if this post isn't really on Natural keeping.

EVERYONE, in my signature is a link for a STAY OF DESTRUCTION OF RARE BREED POULTRY, please can you help me out by signing a petition.

The link will give you all the info you need to know!
Thanks!

 

[chooks4life]

Once they hatch, they live.

Good show silkies are hard to hatch. Probably due to the very large vaulted skulls. My silkies lay really well, and are very thrifty - but to hatch a SQ silkie is not as easy as a non-SQ silkie.

The silkies you keep where you are in Australia are a totally different bird.

Yes, I made that geographic/genetic allowance in my post, however they do look identical.

The american ones sound surprisingly degraded. Generally I assume the Aussie ones are less high quality due to isolation, small population and inbreeding, but if anything our Aussie silkies seem better than American ones. Not much luck with the other breeds though. I'm sure in other places in Oz there are great breeders with great lines. I guess American silkies might be a casualty/example of the impact a few breeders can have on a breed in general.

Also, yes I meant DP as in eggs and meat. I can not stomach a DP bird that is not slow cooked. It tastes like tough leather.

What breed do you have? A true DP is never as tough as leather, but some people keep a bad strain that's been let to lose its DP qualities, and keep selling it as being 'DP' when in all truth it is no longer actually DP any more than any bird of any breed is.

To each their own. Almost everyone I read from in the meat bird section describes how much better conversion ratio meat bids are.

I also made the same geographic/genetic allowance for that too.

Instead of clicking 'quote' and repeating my whole post to address a few points, you could have cut and pasted them into the quick reply editor.

 

[delisha]

Sorry if this post isn't really on Natural keeping.

EVERYONE, in my signature is a link for a STAY OF DESTRUCTION OF RARE BREED POULTRY, please can you help me out by signing a petition.

The link will give you all the info you need to know!
Thanks!

I will take a look

 

[TurtlePowerTrav]

Here are some pics from today

"Blue Grey" Silkie

Splash Laced Red Bantam Wyandotte

Salmon Faverolles and BCM

Blue cockerel

Buff/Split Lav pullet and Porcelain cockerel

Light Blue pullet

Black pullet

 

[aoxa]

Yes, I made that geographic/genetic allowance in my post, however they do look identical.

The american ones sound surprisingly degraded. Generally I assume the Aussie ones are less high quality due to isolation, small population and inbreeding, but if anything our Aussie silkies seem better than American ones. Not much luck with the other breeds though. I'm sure in other places in Oz there are great breeders with great lines. I guess American silkies might be a casualty/example of the impact a few breeders can have on a breed in general.

I don't find they look anywhere close to the same.

If you check out http://www.freewebs.com/silkieclubofaustralia/apps/photos/ - you will see the silkie type in Australia is much different than that in the USA: http://www.americansilkiebantamclub.org (just watch the slideshow).

Not saying yours have any less of a value than ours.

Instead of clicking 'quote' and repeating my whole post to address a few points, you could have cut and pasted them into the quick reply editor.

When you do that without quoting the original post, it is hard to see who you are replying to without deleting each part and continuously copying and pasting.

What breed do you have? A true DP is never as tough as leather, but some people keep a bad strain that's been let to lose its DP qualities, and keep selling it as being 'DP' when in all truth it is no longer actually DP any more than any bird of any breed is.

I've tried Cochin, Barred Rock, Naked Neck, Cochin x Barred Rock and some barnyard mixes I have no idea what they were. All were tough. The legs were inedible pretty much. The breast was okay (what there was on there).

I've tried Brining, but that just seemed to add more flavour and didn't really make it much more tender for quickly cooking.

Slow cooking really did make it fall off the bone and awesome flavour, but in a rush we couldn't cook our DP birds.

 

[aoxa]

Here are some pics from today



Light Blue pullet

I really like this one Trav!