The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[Leahs Mom]

I want to buy a window exhaust fan to put in a small window in my hen house.

Does anyone have any suggestions? Would love to find one for barns so that it can take the extra dust. Solar would be great but not mandatory.

I can't seem to find anything barn quality.

 

[delisha]

my meat birds I kept back to gain more weight started laying five today well maybe four and a half.


my neighbor called this a wind egg no shell

That is normal for pullets in heavy birds. It will get better as her body matures.

We will be processing our first chickens this weekend. Anyone have a synopsis on process and recipe for brining?
Thanks!

I see some posting on this after I poked the message.
For one I have not posted
You can also add a can of frozen lemonaid and 4 lemons if you like lemon chicken.

Rosemary sprigs and garlic for the brine also work great.

(You always need the salt and water)

If you remember I lost two chickens and had another looking unwell, shaking/twitching her head. I suspect it's mites although I still haven't seen any evidence on them.
Yesterday I dusted them all with wood ash/DE and sprayed neem oil on all the wood in their coop. I also put some DE in the litter.

Unfortunately more are shaking their heads and looking pale today.

I know I have to repeat treatment at least every 7 days. But should I step up treatment in some way since it seems like more are showing being affected?

How do you tell and treat if it's ear mites?

Can you make a small movie?


To tell if your birds have ear mites...
use a q tip and wipe it across the ear and edge of canal. Than take the q tip and wipe it on white paper. You will be able to see them crawling.

Quote: To remove mites in a coop you need to empty it out, burn all the litter.. than treat the coop. Treat the birds the same day. Yu will get them back after a short recovery time with out cleaning out the coop. They are hardy lil buggers and hard to get rid of.

Ok I have question for those of you with wooden sheds as coops. My friends son loves my chickens. They just bought a new house that has an old shed that housed pigeons. I know it has to be cleaned before letting a chicken step foot in there. Any suggestions on how to clean it? I was thinking vacuuming up all the dried stuff in it & then whitewashing it. But he is 13 and I kind of hesitant on him using the white wash. Any other suggestions on a natural cleaning product a teen can use?

He wont be getting hens till the spring. He knows it needs to be cleaned out thoroughly and fencing up etc, before he can get hens. I am his go to person because I have chickens already & he has chicken sat for me when I am gone. But only feeding them. But I do believe he will do fine with the other chicken work. He is quite mature for his age.

I want to buy a window exhaust fan to put in a small window in my hen house.

Does anyone have any suggestions? Would love to find one for barns so that it can take the extra dust. Solar would be great but not mandatory.

I can't seem to find anything barn quality.

I have old barn exhauste fans..they are wind driven..no electric..I also have electric exhaust fans for really hot days.

You can find these if you call a local junk dealer or an auction place that does farms and farm equipment.

 

[aoxa]

aoxa, didn't you brine yours or at least let them rest? I think I understood they should rest in a cooler of ice for 2 days. Is that when you add other ingredients than just ice water for them to bring in?

I did an ice bath for roughly 2-4 hours last time to bring down body temperature. Once the ice melted in the cooler, we put them in the fridge for 48 hours to rest. You can brine. I haven't found the need in the meat birds. With the tougher older birds, the brine didn't make it any better when I attempted to quickly cook it (2-4 hours in the oven) it was still tough.

 

[Kassaundra]

I did an ice bath for roughly 2-4 hours last time to bring down body temperature. Once the ice melted in the cooler, we put them in the fridge for 48 hours to rest. You can brine. I haven't found the need in the meat birds. With the tougher older birds, the brine didn't make it any better when I attempted to quickly cook it (2-4 hours in the oven) it was still tough.

I always thought the brine was to "pull" any missed blood from the carcass?

I just let mine rest in the fridge in salt water for 1 day then wrapped in plastic until rigor releases. But I have only done young ones.

 

[aoxa]

I always thought the brine was to "pull" any missed blood from the carcass?

I just let mine rest in the fridge in salt water for 1 day then wrapped in plastic until rigor releases. But I have only done young ones.

I have no idea what it is for. I thought it was to make meat more tender...

I can see doing maybe one or two in a brine, but we are doing so many this Saturday, it's not really an option.

 

[mlowen]

Hooray for Bulldogma's Coop of the Week feature!! (Still miss her.)

 

[aoxa]

Who was it that raises Buckeyes here?

Apparently I mistook my reds for RIRs. All along one of the males was a Buckeye. Totally makes sense why his comb was so small for so long now...



but wondering if my female is also Buckeye...

I hatched them for Camille. I got the eggs from a good breeder named Hallus. He kept RIR, Buckeye, Barred Rock and Chantecler. So it's a possibility he collected eggs from the wrong pen. That happened with the Chantecler and Camille ended up with three of those.

 

[lalaland]

Aoxa, how old are they in the pics?

 

[delisha]

Justine,

They look like rose comb rir..
Buckeye have a black ring in the middle of the feather is you look right above the tail..you will know for sure than

 

[Leahs Mom]

Hooray for Bulldogma's Coop of the Week feature!! (Still miss her.)

Wow!!! 2 Coops of the week now for bdm. They muse LOVE her at BYC