The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[Alibabe]

Thank you Alibabe. I don't have a mobile phone. At least I can still read this forum and post comments. But it feels like I am the unloved ugly step child right now. Not as much fun as it was two days ago.

you are NOT unloved, quite the opposite.

I read another thread and it appears that the issue is that the new software update is conflicting with IE version 10. Could you try downloading and installing Google Chrome and or Firefox as some people are finding Chrome works and some Firefox.

Worth a try.

The only other alternative is to find a way to roll back to IE9 but not sure how to do this. Maybe somebody on here would know or alternatively, I will look and see if I can find instructions on the web - I don't want you to disappear and I love your photo's.

 

[Bulldogma]

WERE BUYING A TRUCK!! 2003 Dodge Ram 103499 km on it.

Congrats! Once you get used to it, you'll love having a truck! SO useful on the farm you'll wonder what you ever did without one.

Thanks! I'm kind of excited. Its my first vehicle. I got to sit in it. My friend unlocked the passenger door then went to the drivers as if to get in and I yelled out HEY! And he looked at me and went What? and I called out WRONG SEAT! he laughed and went and sat in the passengers seat while I sat in the drivers seat to see how comfortable it was. Its comfy. Nice size. It'll need getting used to backing up such a big vehicle but Ill get used to it! I cant wait to take it home! I'm going to put my first payment on it tomorrow when We bring back the trailer(Were borrowing the owners trailer to go pick up some hay for the horses as my boarder seems to have dropped off the face of the earth and she owes me either first months rent or 300$ worth of hay as per our agreement(She only dropped off twenty bales unless that was hay made out of gold I don't think that met our bargain XD She was also supposed to get someone to come over and do their feet after I messaged her telling her that and also that I needed either the hay she promised or first months board she never logged in and its been three weeks. I'm going to get their feet done as soon as my Hoof trimmer(I don't really know what to call her as shes a natural horse advocate not a farrier) comes back from Calgary shes gonna come over and do their feet and give my horses a one over. Poor horses have split hooves. I thought Spirits hooves were bad when she first came home!(Hadnt been done ALL winter long and her bars were overgrown over her sole and she had thrush all in there. )

Ug... hope your boarder shapes up.

As for your horses, my sister is a "natural hoof specialist." The FIRST thing to look at with horses with bad hooves is the diet. She says too many carbs are awful for horses who in the wild live on a diet of greens and not grains. I mean, they might come across a random wheat stalk or oat stalk, but they don't have access to a field of oats, corn, etc. They have grass.
Sweet feed is the #1 culprit. If you'd like more information, I can put you in touch with her. She can tell you exactly what to feed your babies. I takes about a year to grow an entirely new hoof, but once they are on the right path, no more quarter cracks, etc. And if you already have access to a natural hoof specialist in your area to trim, your horses will be set!

Whatever.

Maybe I'm a little touchy since I'm waiting for my husband to get home. I want to try to save some artwork and family items and pictures from our cabin that is threatened by a wildfire. Not sure if they will let us in the evacuation zone.
BDM - nice idea for the footbath/poultry spa.

Edited for spelling - just can't type tonight

Hope all goes well with the cabin! I lost my first house to a flood, and almost lost my 2nd house to a fire. We were so far out in the country we didn't call the fire department... we called the neighbors! Wrote the whole story down a few years ago. (Click spoiler for entire story.)
Meeting the Neighbors


As I went out to check on the horses one last time one windy evening in March of 1994, I noticed a reddish glow coming over the hill to the north of the house. It was 10:30 at night and I reasoned with myself that due to both the time and direction, it probably was NOT the rising sun. I wandered up the hill to investigate, and came about as close to experiencing heart failure as I ever have. A large wall of fire fueled by the 40 mile an hour wind, was racing across the dried grass land directly toward me. It was still about 500 yards from our property line, but was wasting no time in getting there.

“D……………!” I yelled as I ran toward the house. “D…!”
An irritated voice replied from within the house “Whaaaaaat?”
“D…, there’s a FIIIIIIRE!”
“Where?”
“It’s (pant) almost (pant) here!” I managed to say as I reached the house.
We had been warned that the fire department was all but useless out where we were. There were no fire hydrants – just a small stock pond on the eastern portion of the property which would likely be serving up boiled bass by the time any fire trucks arrived. Frantically searching through a mess of letters and scrap paper on the kitchen counter, I finally found the scrap of paper the last home-owners had left for me that simply read, “If you have any problems, call the F.s at the following phone number.” The F.s were our new “next-door” neighbors who lived three miles to our east. We had yet to meet them, but this seemed as good a time as any.

I dialed the number as quickly as I could, and after a few rings, a motherly female voice answered. Doing my best to be polite and introduce myself, I quickly filled M. in on the details.

“Honey, I’ll git the boys and we’ll be right down.”

We then stood anxiously on the front porch to await the arrival of M. and “the boys.” Reminiscent of some lost scene from The Beverly Hillbillies, an ancient, red pick-up truck came racing over the winding gravel road, kicking up a long trail of dust .There were a number of shaggy looking men standing in the back yelling “Yeeeeee-Haaaawww!” and clearly enjoying the thrill of the ride. As they grew closer it became apparent they were armed with shovels, pitch-forks and wide, excitement-filled smiles that showed various missing teeth. Ah, The Boys were here, and apparently ready to do battle with ogres!

The mostly rusted-out truck, which seemed to be held together by duct-tape and bailing wire, slid to a halt in our driveway with billows of dust emanating from muffler-less underbelly. “The boys” hopped out and introduced themselves as B., K. and H. Then M. stepped out of the cab and shook my hand.
“Here we are!” she exclaimed.

Once the introductions had been made, someone noticed that the fire was cresting the hill and starting it’s short decent toward the house.
“Oh, BOY! Y’all got a REAL fire here!” called B. from his new vantage point on the hill, where he stood precariously close to the offending flames.
Buckets were passed about and filled with water. Worn-out, denim Wranglers were submerged in the buckets. My husband was handed a jeans-and-water filled bucket and instructed to beat out the fire with the wet jeans. Shovels were slung over shoulders and the pyro-posse launched its attack.

M. took me by the arm and led me toward the house, calmly asking how we liked our new place and wondering if we had any “little-uns” yet. Before I could answer or break down in tears from the stress, she went into a long explanation of which of The Boys had kids, how many, what ages and how many had already ridden a sheep in the mutton-bustin’ contest at the state fair rodeo.

If it had been up to me, I would have been outside beating flames into submission with wearable, wet weaponry, but M. would have none of that. According to her, women shouldn’t do that sort of thing because they never knew if they might have a “bun in the oven.”

“It don’t do no good to burn your oven while you’re cookin’ your bun.” she stated wisely.
I must say her freely given insights and advice worked quite well to take my mind off my burning property. They didn’t make complete sense to me, but just trying to sort them out in my mind made the time pass quickly.

After finishing her lecture on prenatal health, she asked, “You wanna go out on the porch for a cigarette?”

I was sure it would have been very wrong to start laughing just then. I held my tongue as I accompanied her out onto the front porch where we could see a number of dark, smoky figures moving about, silhouetted by huge red and yellow flames. The acrid smell of burning hay and trees was oddly soothing, bringing back memories of campfires and ghost stories.

“Where are you going, hon?” M. asked as I opened the front door to go back inside.
“I know I’ve got some marshmallows in here somewhere!” I called back as I ran toward the kitchen.

Not long after, another neighbor who had seen the flames showed up unannounced from the west bearing more shovels and jeans. For the next five hours the men fought the fire, keeping it away from the house and barn. M. and I swapped stories as we took cold beer and more marshmallows out to The Boys. By three-o-clock in the morning we were all covered from head to toe with black soot and grime.

The men had back-burned the property and kept the fire from spreading any further to the south or west. According to H., there were rocky ravines to the east which would stop the flames soon enough. House and barn saved, the tail-gates came down on the trucks and everyone took a seat with a cold beer in hand. In the moon light, all that could be seen of our soot-covered guests and saviors were the reflections of the moon’s glow off a random tooth when someone laughed or the twinkle in a friendly eye. The party finally split up around 4:30 in the morning when M. told The Boys to “round up all those old Wranglers” so she could get them into the wash. I have always wondered if they were planning on wearing them again, or if they just needed to be clean for the next fire?

Through our adventure we became fast friends with the F.s. Sometimes new neighbors knock on your door bearing cookies or casseroles, and others show up Hillbilly style in the back of a beat up pick-up truck to help save your homestead. It seems these days it’s just nice to have neighbors that care either way.

• Names have been modified to protect the identities of the toothless.

Ahhh... soak before the pedicure.....
Hey.. lady...time for a pedicure.... Lady? (Where is Leah's Mom when you need her anyway?)

(These are old photos y'all have seen before but wanted to show again that it doesn't take much to make a cool-off. I have 2 of these out and the BR is the ONLY ONE that stands in it. All the others drink.)

Love those photos!

I tried the bricks in water, they only drank out of it also. They seem to be adjusting to the heat some, they do forage even in the hot part of the day. Some one mentioned sunbathing with the chickens in the heat. I have seen mine do it also. Why?! If I see it I try to move them to cooler areas, but does anyone know why they might sunbath?

Vitamin D. Chicken legs are solar cells.

 

[Leahs Mom]

We built a frame for two of the sides of our shed so we could have two open sides for ventilation. We used 2x4's. The bottom is covered with wood and the top with hardware cloth. Our door on a 3rd side of the coop is also made of wood and hardware cloth for 3 sided ventilation. The coop is actually cooler then the outside at times, but the shed is under trees too. If you add more supports and attach the existing shed to them as you add large windows that would help with the overall structure.

Did we see photos of this? Even if we did...could you post again?

Also - do you have any fears of raccoons or whatever tearing open the hardware cloth? I've been leaving the outer doors open the last few nights but have hardware cloth on inner framing inside. It still makes me a little nervous even though it's all nailed to framing.

You can see the interior hardware cloth framing in these photos... Still worry about creatures pulling them off since we've heard so much especially about raccoons ripping open wire.

 

[delisha]

Hello all my BYC peeps,

For the last couple days, I have been unable to post pictures. Been having increasing troubles ever since BYC changed their software. I'm not the only one.

I did all the troubleshooting suggestions. When I changed my default setting to Google Chrome, I had to re-login. So of course I couldn't remember my password. No problem I thought. I requested a new one. Well, now it seems BYC is unable to send me email. In fact this has become so messed up, any request I make for support is not answered. I keep getting the same message. "Check your email for new password instructions". I get no email. I've done this so many times now, I'm sick of the whole thing.

Last night I thought I would try and start over with a new profile. Thus the MumsyII. Same thing. I can't even upload images on my new profile! The only image I could get on was a new avatar. And still no email from Support of BYC. Something is seriously wrong with my connection to BYC now and before they changed the soft ware, everything was fine. So I doubt I'll be here much if I can't get help with getting this fixed. Sorry everyone. I really enjoyed this forum and especially this thread.

Mumsy/MumsyII

With your new profile you are limited on what you can do. They make you post a spacific number of post before you can have access to all the systems. Hopefully they will change your original password soon.

Please do not give up on us here. I understand the frustration of working hard to get somewhere and not having results. You will succeed. Feeling like an unloved stepchild is pretty painful. I am sorry you feel that way.

You are loved and appreciated more than you can ever know.

Quote: lol..now this is a different language to me. I admire people with computer knowledge. We did not have computer when I was in school. I purchased my first one a few years ago.

 

[delisha]

LM, If you are afraid of coons entering threw the open door. Place an ammonia soaked tennis ball right at the entrance on the ground or even a small bowl of ammonia. They will not cross it or approach it.

 

[delisha]

A note about Marans.
They are one of my sweetest breeds I have. They are a bit more cautious with new people and are one of the first birds to greet me in the morning. I love there disposition. They are not pesty and I do not trip over them when I am working, but they seem to want to at least watch me and are very curious as young birds. My DH is building a new coop, the Orpingtons and the Marans are the ones who seem to be with him. The Orpingtons pick up stuff he is working on and dig where he is working, or make his job a bit more challenging. The Marans simple talk and watch.

 

[Leahs Mom]

LM, If you are afraid of coons entering threw the open door. Place an ammonia soaked tennis ball right at the entrance on the ground or even a small bowl of ammonia. They will not cross it or approach it.

Never thought of that!

When you talked about the ammonia and the tennis balls I actually got some ammonia (and have tennis balls) and was going to try them some day so I have them laying around here somewhere.

Only think I'd worry about is the fumes disturbing the birds who would be "upwind" of the doors.

 

[Leahs Mom]

So...how likely is it that a coon could rip 1/2' hardware cloth off frames that have relatively small expanses? Is it possible? Has anyone experienced that before?

Most of what I've read has been about chicken wire.

 

[aoxa]

Never thought of that!

When you talked about the ammonia and the tennis balls I actually got some ammonia (and have tennis balls) and was going to try them some day so I have them laying around here somewhere.

Only think I'd worry about is the fumes disturbing the birds who would be "upwind" of the doors.

You are all set up for leaving those doors open. Raccoons can't get through properly installed hardware cloth.

 

[aoxa]

OK everyone - lets chalk this little divergence up to the phase of the moon and move along.



It was HOT today, but luckily my older birds are figuring out that the pond will help them cool down a little. Fan in the coop, pond in the yard and electrolytes in the water. I may melt, but hopefully my chickens will survive.
LOL!

Look you have a Penny!!