The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[MEMama3]

I've done an oat mat. It only grows enough over the mesh for the little veloseraptors (sp?) To get a small morning snack. I might do as you said and try another grain soon.

 

[HollyDuckFarmer]

Aleta-- I planted forage plot of oats back in the Spring. It didn't go well at all. I think perhaps I should have passed back over the broadcast seed with a 2nd till, I am seriously considering Alfalfa again. Do chickens eat alfalfa?

 

[Leahs Mom]

The question about broodies and hawks, we had a broody that lost all of her chicks to hawk, even w/ my roo Oreo getting his pound of hawk flesh (a bloody hawk feather). It just took the one time for us, we have a covered run specifially for broody moms and chicks.

Sigh.
Well, now I guess I have to think this through. I didn't see so many hawks last year but there are TONS this year. With my current set-up, I'm not sure how I could make that work unless I cut another pop door on the other side of the hen house and routed them that direction.

How hard is it for them to integrate into the flock when you do it this way?
At what age do you allow them to go out with the rest?

 

[Leahs Mom]

I do some sprouting and so does Kassaundra. I haven't done oats because of the problems you are having. Not sure if Kass had done them?

I do BOSS all the time but only sprout...I don't grow them to the "grass"/mat stage. I always have some of those on the counter and only go the the tiny root stage.

I've also sprouted wheat and spelt. The wheat makes a nice "grass/mat".

 

[Leahs Mom]

Questions about Snakes.

Just read a blog post about snakes getting into coops and either eating eggs or almost killing a duck by wrapping around it's bill so it couldn't eat the snake. The post was telling about how this snake had gone into the coop and stole eggs right out from under a brooding duck. This snake came right in the pop door and took up residence so it wasn't a matter of trying to patch a hole.

Of course this gets me thinking, so I wanted to ask:

Has anyone reading here had any problems with snakes coming in your coop/hen houses?
If so, how did you find them? Did they try to hide in the litter, etc?
How did you stop the problem?

 

[BlueMouse]

there's a growing fodder for chickens thread. very useful source of information. You'll do well with wheat, it sprouts beautifully, as does buckwheat, lentils, and barley. be careful with rye, some kinds I believe the seeds are poisonous to poultry. I've done the fodder very sucessfully in the cool months, but had trouble in the hot humid weather with mold. I'm going to get myself a system set up that drains more efficiently and try again over the fall/winter. I really like the idea of having something green for them to have during the cold months where there's no real forage. It's also a test run. A lot of people use this for their large animals, reducing their dependance on grains and hay during months where pasture is not a vailable. In our climate we have several months where things are either under two feet of snow, or the ground is too soft for anyone to be out in pasture. We don't have enough land for me to grow grain or cut hay, but, if I can get the fodder system working well, it might become feasible for me to eventually have some larger animals, sheep for wool, maybe a couple goats or a cow for milk. We grew up drinking raw milk, but the place where we used to (illegally) purchase it is no longer around. I would really like to have raw milk for my children. First we have to fix the place where a tree went through the garage (very big hole) then maybe next year I can bully my husband into clearing some land and letting me build a tiny barn.

 

[Leahs Mom]

Bluem - how much property do you have there?

I'm very blessed to have raw milk from some friends of ours. I'm always tossing the idea around of getting a cow but always come back to the question of being tied down. We may take the plunge some day!

Are you planning on doing a "Fodder-tek" kind of system or just rigging a do-it-yourself version? Kassaundra's burlap system is pretty sweet if you're doing it for the chickens. But I was always drawn to the idea of fresh winter feed for cattle, etc. if I ever end up keeping any. I just don't have a heated place to grow it in the winter at that kind of volume.

 

[Kassaundra]

I do some sprouting and so does Kassaundra. I haven't done oats because of the problems you are having. Not sure if Kass had done them?

I do BOSS all the time but only sprout...I don't grow them to the "grass"/mat stage. I always have some of those on the counter and only go the the tiny root stage.

I've also sprouted wheat and spelt. The wheat makes a nice "grass/mat".

Yes, I do sprout, but don't grow to fodder stage yet. For the chickens I find sprouting easier and they love to eat it. When I get meat rabbits I will actually grow fodder. I only sprout in the winter, they get fermented grains in the growing season. They have plenty of green w/o me putzing w/ sprouts. I do mostly wheat and oat, since those are the two grains I have access to. I don't like adding the boss since it almost always makes mold for me. I do a burlap bag method that works awesome for sprouting, but wouldn't easily work for fodder. I have heard others having trouble w/ oats, I have only ever done it in the burlap sacks and they always sprout for me, they are slower then the wheat though. I feed out 4 day sprouts.


I have a pretty laid back flock I believe reading integration stories here. I have never had any intergration problems. I use my own judgement for when to let them intergrate. The hawks in my area are mostly smaller, so I just try and get them big enough that cats are no longer interested in them, they have lots of cover to hide under too. I also caponize so don't allow intergration until after recovery from the caponizing event.

 

[BlueMouse]

I'm planning on doing it in the basement at this point, it's a relatively stable temp and cool down there year round. Fodder likes cool temperatures. I want to make a pvc rack that will hold nursery flats with a timed irregation system. We'll see how that works....

We have 3.5 acres here, but a fair chunk of that is straight up and down or heavily wooded. We would like to buy the two acres behind us. that is flat and has road acess. Then I could probably browbeat DH into clearing the upper portion of our property the rest of the way and letting me build a small barn. I'd have to climb up the hill twice a day to do chores, but that woudl probably be good for me, lol. but then I could bring hay/grain/stock in via truck instead of trying to figure out how to get THEM up the hill. It's just a dream now.

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

there's a growing fodder for chickens thread. very useful source of information. You'll do well with wheat, it sprouts beautifully, as does buckwheat, lentils, and barley. be careful with rye, some kinds I believe the seeds are poisonous to poultry.

I sprouted Rye for a while because I have access to plenty of rye for free. There are a lot of kinds of rye (grass and grain), and I read that there are issues with many/most of them. Rye is one of the things that attracts toxic smut, so that is one issue, even with rye grass pasture. The grain does have some anti-nutrients so can retard growth in poultry so is not recommended for younger birds and is not recommended to be over a certain percentage of their diet. I asked a local feed mill about including rye in a custom poultry ration, and they advised against it because locally there are better choices. The flock did enjoy it quite a bit, but I stopped growing it because it seemed to give them the dirty butt syndrome the literature warns about and I hypothesized that the sprouting wasn't taking care of enough of the anti-nutrients.

Soaking the grain in a mild bleach solution is one way to control mold (and washing the grain is one of the ways to get rid of the toxic smut). That and really scrubbing and bleaching the trays between batches seemed necessary to me. Bleach is allowed in various stages of organic food processing (even as a final rinse), but there are also other options. I did a lot of reading about bleach during my sprouting experiment.

People sure have strong feelings about it.

Here we have two dormant seasons: winter because of the light/cold; and summer because it is so dry. Growing fodder would be a great way to make sure the flock has plenty of fresh greens year round. I'm not giving up entirely on the idea.