The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[Bulldogma]

Mumsy - sorry to hear about your trials with the white Silkie boy. My white Silkie hen bit me today too... but it was because I was reaching under her to get her chicks for a daily check. Good mamma! I don't mind broody bites, but naughty roos are another thing.

Keep us updated with his progress. Hormones do crazy things to guys, and maybe he'll settle down when the hormonal rush subsides a bit.

 

[lalaland]

Mumsy- sorry to hear about your mean slkie. He is beautiful & poofy

But if anyone can get him to calm down it would be you

I was puttering in the yard all day today. I was very pleased to see that finally the tots are allowing Lucy to stay with them. They were all laying in the shade today together with no problems. And the big girls are finally giving in as well. They dont spend most of their day chasing the tots. But they still let them know they are the top girls



And today was a 100 days since I planted my potatoes so I decided to see if they were growing. I tried 2 plants in laundry baskets. These 2 potatoes came from one plant. There were tiny ones also. Hopefully that means my big plants in the veggie garden will have more & bigger potatoes

(and the eggs are in the pic to make it chicken related

)

Does anyone know when I can harvest the potatoes? They are 100 day ones but the plants in the veggie garden are still green. Most have already flowered but a couple just started. I think I am suppose to wait till the plants die back? I have looked on the net but get several different answers

If you want full grown potatoes, wait til the plants die down. If you want to, you can gently harvest a few and keep the plant growing - looks like that is what you did.

 

[flagirl]

Having aproblem here is south central fla--way too much rain. The run started filling with water and thought the coop was on high ground and I am thinking of getting some pallets tomorrow so they will not be wading in water. I have not been able to free range them because a bob cat was coming by every week and taking a chicken dinner. i have had them confined to the coop and run, but that is not feasible now. last chick dinner was a week ago thur nite, and have seen the cat a few times around the coop, but not since tuesday. hopefully he does not like water. Will be forced to let them out tomorrw so I can put the palets down and hopefully their best odds are 1 a week as opposed to more if the water does not go down. Any other sugestions are welcome. We have not had this much water in over 7 years and it was not this bad.

 

[countrygirl74]

I have 5 roosters. 2 adults. The dominant one crows all the time. I have another that crows occasionally. The other 3 used to until I moved them in with the adults. I think it's all about the pecking order.

I wonder if it makes a difference if they grow up together or not??? With my first set of roos that all were raised together, they all crowed incessantly like they were in some competition as to who could crow the most times in one day.
Now, I have one silkie roo and the new cochin cockerel has not tried to crow even though he is just over 20 weeks old. The silkie roo has definitely established at this point that he is the boss so I am interested to see if my cochin will get into the competitive crowing or just not crow much as he is not the dominant one.

 

[onederchick]

40lb? Do you mean 40kg? I have never seen a bag of chicken feed any less than 50# except maybe a small thing of chick feed.

If it is 40 kg: Wow, I'd get it at that price too! It is $38 for a 50lb bag here. Only one store carries it :/

 

[onederchick]

I
The price is for a 40lbs bag of organic chick starter and its almost the same for regular organic chicken feed. Go to azure standards web site and check it out. You will have an easy time comparing prices that way. You have to sign up for free and all that. You can pm me if you want and I'll walk you through it. It's the only place I've found on line so far with a decent price.

 

[MumsyII]

@Midnightroo: I sent you a pm.

I've had Silkie cocks in the distant past that would get a little aggressive with the dropped wing and dance aimed in my direction and I nip that in the bud quickly. I simply have no tolerance for any cock bird that thinks he is alpha over me. Not going to happen on my property.

This little four month old cockerel is not acting aggressive in the hormone way aggressive. He reminds me of a dog that is a fear biter. He acts outrageously because of his fear. When chickens get frightened, their sense gets over run with the panic button. They act in unexpected ways. I believe he is biting, scratching, and acting panic stricken because well....Because he is panic stricken. His brooder mates are not like this although there is one Paint cockerel that I think may be this way once it is his turn to get bathed and handled.
I take some of the blame for this cockerel behavior because they have been free ranged and cooped in the barn as a group. I have not handled the cockerels as much as the pullets. The pullets are friendly little things and get under foot and want to be where I am. The cockerels not so much.

I will be keeping little Mr. Nasty in the separate pen and show cage train him. I have no plans to show him but cage training gets them used to handling, being put in and removed from the cage, posing, and moving around with prompting from the stick. I will give him some time to become the awesome Silkie he can become or he will not be allowed to add his DNA to my flock and he will cease to be. It is not in the best interest of my breeding plans to propagate bad genes or damage my reputation as a breeder to pass along faulty birds to unsuspecting future owners.

He has a good chance at being an awesome addition to my gene pool in the White flock. I'm going to give him that opportunity.

 

[delisha]

@Midnightroo: I sent you a pm.

I've had Silkie cocks in the distant past that would get a little aggressive with the dropped wing and dance aimed in my direction and I nip that in the bud quickly. I simply have no tolerance for any cock bird that thinks he is alpha over me. Not going to happen on my property.

This little four month old cockerel is not acting aggressive in the hormone way aggressive. He reminds me of a dog that is a fear biter. He acts outrageously because of his fear. When chickens get frightened, their sense gets over run with the panic button. They act in unexpected ways. I believe he is biting, scratching, and acting panic stricken because well....Because he is panic stricken. His brooder mates are not like this although there is one Paint cockerel that I think may be this way once it is his turn to get bathed and handled.
I take some of the blame for this cockerel behavior because they have been free ranged and cooped in the barn as a group. I have not handled the cockerels as much as the pullets. The pullets are friendly little things and get under foot and want to be where I am. The cockerels not so much.

I will be keeping little Mr. Nasty in the separate pen and show cage train him. I have no plans to show him but cage training gets them used to handling, being put in and removed from the cage, posing, and moving around with prompting from the stick. I will give him some time to become the awesome Silkie he can become or he will not be allowed to add his DNA to my flock and he will cease to be. It is not in the best interest of my breeding plans to propagate bad genes or damage my reputation as a breeder to pass along faulty birds to unsuspecting future owners.

He has a good chance at being an awesome addition to my gene pool in the White flock. I'm going to give him that opportunity.

Good plans and well said.

 

[midnightroo]

Thanks Mumsy. I know just the spot to start. Will take photos this afternoon. Have to take my daughter to gymnastics and a few other things this morning.

Sally8 congrats on the three babies. I can't wait to see the three chicks with mama.

Sorry flagirl with your bobcat and water issues. Pallets sound good to me. I wouldn't mind some of your rain up here, but not that much. It truly has been a crazy summer weather wise.

Armor, lala answered already, but I just wanted to add that if you pull them out of the plant as new potatoes before the plants die back, to eat them ASAP. I pulled a plant the other night and ate them within the hour. They were so creamy and yummy. Nothing compared to what you get in the store, but you need to eat them quickly after picking I am told. Best to wait until the flowers die back to harvest a few from. I understand flowers mean the plant is producing the tubers underground .

Things are quiet here on the chicken front. My blue EE is still having issues, but I am just going to leave her until it seems she is having quality of life issues, then cull her.

 

[echosrevenge]

Hello, lurker emerging...

Mumsy, would you be willing to post your general "how not to get overwhelmed by your garden and also have it be pretty/productive 101" tips? It seems like there are many here who admire your garden (myself included, I grew up just south of Port Townsend and know Whidbey very well, spent two years studying its geology, but now I live in Maine). You're obviously doing many, many things right and there are lots of us who would love to learn from you!

In chicken related things, I am building a bachelor pen using wattle fencing, which is free if your land is covered in saplings and you have lots of time on your hands. I made a wee fence the same way to keep the ducks out of the garden, and even though it's only knee-high, the chickens are deterred by it as well - maybe because it's almost solid and hard for them to see the nommy Brussels sprouts and peas on the other side. There are many levels of complexity possible with wattle fences, I opted for the ultra simple method of cutting straight-ish sticks to a uniform length, sharpening one end, pounding them into the ground about 9"-12" apart (making a pilot hole with a mattock or Hori Hori helps a lot), and weaving branches and brush through them in a simple over-under basket pattern. The bachelor oen will be the same, except using wrist-thick poles for the uprights, thumb-thick weavers, and spacing the uprights around 2.5'-3' apart. We'll also be charring the sharpened ends of the poles in the firepit this time, to extend their life in the ground. If your land is overrun with small trees and you need a fence, this is definitely the way to go. Free, no clumsy tools (im using a pruning saw to take down the saplings, a small hand axe to sharpen the ends, loppers to remove extra branches, and a Japanese Hori Hori garden knife to make the pilot holes for the uprights - all fairly easy work for me, 90lbs soaking wet with rocks in my pockets and boots on). If my husband isn't careful, we'll have a wattle wall around the whole property! They're very easy and enjoyable to make, I hate the noise of power tools so I'm loving the quiet work on this fence! With the size of poles I'm using and the tightness I'm putting them together with, it should be pretty predator-proof as well.