The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[lalaland]

beautiful!

Leah's Mom, have a goood week, hope your absence is due to fun stuff.

 

[Scott H]

Quail and chickens were scratching around under the Cedar trees together..... do wild quail transmit nasty things to chickens?
Guess it's best not to worry cause what can I do about it?

 

[delisha]

I think I'm going to be gone for a week. Not sure if I'll read everything to catch up.... If anyone wants to try to catch me for anything you can try PM.

Hope it is just for R&R..if you need me for anything PM..

Quote: X2..that is very odd..we have yotes..and they are skiddish as all get out. I see tails if I open my back door. They just come for feeding when the geese come to nest for the year. Since I got rid of my ducks they have not come here.

Recycling all our pumpkins! Does anyone know if you can cut them up and freeze some sections for the winter? Someone just offered us a freezer so I'll have room to put extra things away.

Yes you can and don't for get to freeze the seeds too...If you have freezing temps all winter you can just leave them outdoors like I do..I have apples, pears, squash, and pumpkin.

We just had a herd of quail come through the yard to clean all the leftover BOSS and 3 grain scratch the chickens hadn't gotten to yet.

I posted this on the Indiana thread but I thought you all might like to see my heritage RIR first egg I got close to noon.

wow that is a super nice first egg..congrats!!

Quail and chickens were scratching around under the Cedar trees together..... do wild quail transmit nasty things to chickens?
Guess it's best not to worry cause what can I do about it?

do not borrow trouble or stress..your birds are healthy..have confidence in your great animal husbandry practices.

 

[aoxa]

um... is that what caused your fire? if so, I didn't know that... I had a coop fire last year but it was due to a cfl failure... just lost the house end to one pen.

Everything was so destroyed they couldn't tell, but if I had to guess, Yes... It had to be.. We were way overloaded on our extension cords.. none were heavy duty either.. I won't ever use an extension cord again... We put 30 outlets in the barn because I refuse to use them.

But if they are done right, like you said - it can be safe. Just make sure they are not laying on the ground where they can get wet or dusty.

 

[armorfirelady]

We have high winds here and I out hay bales on the sat & west side of coop. Walked in a little while go and no breezes in the coop and thats with half the north end open (no covering) and the screen in the door open on north end also woohoo I think they will be draft free this winter.

And for those collecting pumpkins. My friend brought me one that was painted. I tried to scrub the paint off but wasn't going to spend all night doing it. So I cut it in half and pulled the seeds out. They are drying on the stove now. I'm going to chop them up to store them for later use either in suet cakes or just in their feed. I have to say i felt bad throwing the pumpkin meat out. But with the paint on it I didn't want to chance it in the compost :/

 

[Scott H]

Thank you, she has been doing fabulously. It happened monday, I think her stitches will be ready to take out tomorrow.

She lets me clean out without fuss. shes a champ! And an egg everyday through it all!

Good to hear!  Hope the re-integration goes well

 

Scott I love the 2nd picture of your dog.

He tries to catch it out of the snowblower.....

That's got to be funny.  I had a Sheltie that we'd take to Lake MI and she'd try to bite the waves coming in to the shore.  She would run and bark at them and try to bite them like they were some kind of intruder.

If I didn't rein her in she would have done it all down the beach until she exhausted herself.  Craziest thing to watch.

Our dog, when I'm done snow blowing and shoveling, goes around the neighborhood to the houses and cabins that have metal roofs to wait for them to shed the snow. ... I've seen him almost swallowed up by the Avalanche but he's relentless. ..

Chickens seem have forgiven me for letting it snow. .. they wouldn't come when I called for a day and a half, even for treats. ... that changed this afternoon.

 

[jockeyeba]

Girls got out today finally but seemed out of sorts with the snow. I think Juanita, Silver Laced is molting.Her head is looking really ragged. From left to right....Oprah (Blue Laced Red Black), Juanita (Silver Laced) and Tina (Partridge) Appetites were a bit off as well. Right now they are just standing in a bare spot out of the snow looking sorta miserable. In the top photo notice the lack of re in Juanita's comb and wattles. She has yet to lay and she was hatched the end of last January! Slacker. Really noticeable in the bottom picture, too. The other two have been laying since July. Same age.

Pretty girls I've got to add a Partridge & a SL to my Dotte collection now

 

[Jewelwing]

We just had the house resided as we built the house with rotten LP siding so that's why our coop is the same colors. Left over stain.
Now the deck needs stained....uggghhh.




A winter pic my wife took last year from the front deck....



It's a small house on a small lot but it's just us, a cat, dog and 3 chickens.

Gorgeous! I love all the windows, and the interesting roof line. Did you design it? Is that a chimney - do you heat with wood?

What a magnificent view, too! Looks like a lake. Do you sit out on your deck to eat dinner in the summers? We have a deck too, that overlooks our meadow, and we often eat lunch there in good weather. Also sometimes when it's raining, since part of it is covered.

 

[Scott H]

I did not design it except for the day light basement.... is out of one of those books you can buy at the grocery store. Only one we could find that would fit on our narrow lot. Yes that's a lake... look at my location.
Here's one where it's not frozen and one of my favorites. ..

 

[lazy gardener]

I am deeply sinning right now with an open act of covetousness!!!