The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[MumsyII]

I have a question for those of you that have broodies. Do you feed them in the nest? Feed them anything special? Provide water somehow? With it being so hot, I've been picking them up off the nests and carry them outside near the food and water. Some will eat or drink, others won't. Recently, I've been mixing yogurt and a little food and place the dish near them after they come back in. They wolf the cold yogurt down. Water is a little hard without them dumping the water in the nest. Thanks. sue

Judy the Broody is pretty good about routinely coming off the nest to eat, drink, and roll in the dust wallow once or twice a day. I will provide little dishes of food and water when the chicks hatch. She won't come off the nest for three days once they start pipping. I have a Silkie hen that I pick up once a day and she remains in a trance for a few minutes until she smells the water and feed. She goes back to the nest without assistance. I think she will learn to do it herself when she is more experienced.

Judy hasn't spilt food or water yet. I just use any old dish that's small. She is so ferocious on the nest, no other bird dares come near.

 

[Italia]

Hello all Natural Chicken Keepers,

I started reading this thread and got to around 70 pages and jumped ahead to say hello. When I originally found this thread I recognized the founder of the thread from their really great website. Just to say thanks for all the info you guys are trying to put out there!

When ever I had chicken questions the answers were of the chemical kind and I have been on a quest every since I started to find a better and safer truth for me and my feathered friends. I have had some life changing moments that taught me not everything out there is the truth. It all started with my diet(sorry guys wheat and carbs will kill me, not just a fad for some)
After I was forced to see through different lenses, I realized that most books and what not, are just as flawed for animal care as the corporate greed driven drivel that is put out for human health.

Anywho, it's always great to see people trying to do things without the use of all the chemical abuse.

 

[Bulldogma]

Welcome, Italia!!

 

[midnightroo]

I remember now. Solar cells, gotcha, I guess it doesn't matter if the sun is at it's height and burning them up.

I do the beetles. My chickens love them. They will eat them if they are freshly dead. I think they might not have recognized them as food the first time I gave them the dead beetles. Let me know if yu find anything out about the lures. I don't use them, but might. I like to put mine in water so they don't fly away right away. Also you might want to dump them out for the chickens as often as you can depending on your schedule.

I don't know what is worse, a 7 yo singing " I knew you were trouble" over and over or this heat. Good thing I guess is that they both shall pass.

Hi Italia!

 

[mlowen]

I do the beetles. My chickens love them. They will eat them if they are freshly dead. I think they might not have recognized them as food the first time I gave them the dead beetles. Let me know if yu find anything out about the lures. I don't use them, but might. I like to put mine in water so they don't fly away right away. Also you might want to dump them out for the chickens as often as you can depending on your schedule.

I googled "what's in Japanese beetle traps" and "how to lure JB's to chicken run" and found an old thread on BYC. I was worried about insecticide and will read the package first, if I decide to buy one. The thread talked about putting a pipe (metal, so the bugs make noise sliding down to alert the chickens to food coming) with a pan of water under it, so they don't land & fly away. I also found a recipe for attracting the bugs without chemicals. I might try something. If I do, I'll post pictures & results.

 

[wlhtx]

I don't know what is worse, a 7 yo singing " I knew you were trouble" over and over or this heat. Good thing I guess is that they both shall pass.

Hi Italia!

This made me laugh! This is my 3 yr old's favorite song. I have video of her singing the chorus over and over and over. Cute stuff, but she gets the words all jumbled up.

 

[midnightroo]

This made me laugh! This is my 3 yr old's favorite song. I have video of her singing the chorus over and over and over. Cute stuff, but she gets the words all jumbled up.

I printed the words up for her so she sings them without the music at times, but extremely fast.

Mlowen, I look forward to seeing how it works for you. Sounds interesting.

 

[camilleathome]

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.

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!

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.

Love those photos!

Vitamin D. Chicken legs are solar cells.

My horses personally dont get any grain. I give them beet pulp to mix supplements in but thats it and hay. I cant wait for them to get their feet done

 

[chooks4life]

Originally Posted by midnightroo View Post

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.

In humans vitamin D receptors have recently been found in every structure and tissue. Animals receive vit D though feathers as well as fur. Our understanding of vit D is still developing. My white and pale chooks never liked the sun much but the blacker they are, the more likely I am to see them in the sun bathing during the hottest part of the day. Same with all black or dark animals I've got, they cope far better with the sun than my paler ones do. Kinda like Africans compared to Europeans, I'd guess.

Regarding bricks in the water: I don't know if it's different where you guys are, but over here, we don't use bricks because they leach toxins. We use rocks. I have seen chooks go downhill healthwise soon after someone adding bricks to their water. Older bricks are probably safer. Some of my relatives do a lot of concreting and brick work and they were the most alarmed of all when hearing people put bricks in animal's water to cool it down etc.

This thread's a lot to skim through... (lol, yes, I'm skimming now, too much of it is irrelevant)... But someone posted a pic of a pair of grey chooks and the male sported obviously bad leg scaling. Whoever has him should breed carefully or better yet cull him, because that scaling often leads to deformed chickens. They end up spraddling outwards or inwards. It breeds true more often than not. I've now eradicated it from my flocks for that exact reason. I'm planning to cut out the part of that photo that shows the legs and use it as a reference for bad genes. If the photo owner minds, well, I guess I'd do a line drawing of those legs. I'm not going to use the whole pic. I'm collecting samples to show some other people what to cull for or be wary of. Those legs aren't severe but they're definitely leading into trouble. If the photo owner objects, PM me, I don't know when I'll next go through this thread.

Best wishes all, too busy lately. Too much stuff on this thread which seems to not pertain to the subject matter, it's a bit of a friends hangout group; while there's nothing wrong with that, just makes it a bit too time consuming for me and some others to visit.

Thanks to Bulldogma for starting the thread, I'm sure it's helped many people.

 

[aoxa]

OK, I need people to give me a slap around the earhole.

I have this dream of starting a chicken business; selling chickens, hatching eggs, chicken necessities like coops, feeders and waterers, feed, bedding etc via an internet business as well as drop in and collect.

Due to past mistakes regarding finances, I am really scared to commit myself but lately I think I am getting more and more signs that what I want to do is the right thing.

I wanted to sell eggs to pay for my girls feed and bedding and now I have more orders for eggs than I can fulfil.

I had somebody stop at my house tonight asking if I had any 1 day old chicks to sell as her broody only hatched 1 chick and she promised her kids that they could have chicks to raise. She is returning on Monday to buy 4 chicks (pullets) to give her chick some friends and also to increase her laying flock that are getting to the end of their laying life.

One of my colleagues at work asked when my chicks would be ready as POL pullets as her sister is looking for chickens.

My job is looking more insecure each day so I know that I need to be prepared in case the worst happens and my position is made redundant.

When I wanted to purchase some POL pullets, there was only 1 person within a 10 mile radius of my home that had stock. So I am thinking there is a space in the market for somebody like me who can offer what I plan to offer.

All these signs tell me that I should just go for it and set up my business but I am so nervous that I am holding back.

Am I just seeing things or do I need a good slap to get on with it.?

You won't get rich, and you probably won't even break even for a few years. It is a big investment, and so many things can happen, but it is so much fun. I hope one day I can at least only work part time on the side.. Right now I am working full time, and it takes a lot out of my paycheque to start up again.

It's very worthwhile. It will take quite a lot of startup costs though. Fencing, feeders, waterers, incubators, brooders, breeding pens, etc... All very expensive once added up.

My horses personally dont get any grain. I give them beet pulp to mix supplements in but thats it and hay. I cant wait for them to get their feet done

Camille, who is going to drive the truck?