The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

I am not married so I do most of it myself. We get logs dropped at my house then between my best friend & I we cut, split it, then stack it. My mom helps to stack when she can.
Then in September I toss about 10-12 cords into the garage to stack again. I like dry fire wood for the winter. When I get my dream house I am building a lean to onto the house where the wood can be stacked once & have doors into house so its accessible without going outside
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But around here you can get people to drop off cut & split wood & they would probably stack it for a price as well. But around here thats between $70 & $80 a cord. I spend about $200 for between 20-25 cords of wood when we are done. Usually enough left for the following year & we heat 2 houses with the wood.
While its nice of you to share you can have it back
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On the National news this morning they were in Minneapolis,MN showing how a raw egg froze in 3 seconds outside. I guess they were running out of news lol I know I rather be inside the outside seeing if an egg freezes. I already know they do
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When you design your dream house, you should consider building a masonry heater in it. I bet you would love it! Here's a good website to get you started learning about them:

http://www.mha-net.org/

Even if that's not what you want, I highly recommend building a "wood room" in your house so you don't have to go outside at all. We made a little 5' x 6' room off the living room to store stacks of wood in. I lined it with cement backerboard instead of drywall - walls, floor, ceiling - and caulked the seams with cement caulk. Then I put an exterior steel door on it between the wood room and the living room, all so bugs would stay in that room and not be able to get in the rest of the house. There is a door to the outside as well, so we load up the wood from the outside on a warmish day, and close up that door. Then we use the wood from the inside door. It's nice to have warmish dry wood to burn. I think it catches better and burns hotter.

On the other hand, we do have to refill the wood room several times a winter, so maybe your lean-to idea is better. I like the stacking once idea! I just did a wood room because my mom did one in her house, and it seemed so much better than trudging out in the snow every day to get more wood for the fire.

On the subject of eggs freezing, what happens if I don't gather the eggs before they freeze? Can I just bring them in the house, let them thaw, and use them as usual? Or are they pretty much wasted once they freeze (and I should feed them back to the chickens)?
 
I am not married so I do most of it myself. We get logs dropped at my house then between my best friend & I we cut, split it, then stack it. My mom helps to stack when she can.
Then in September I toss about 10-12 cords into the garage to stack again. I like dry fire wood for the winter. When I get my dream house I am building a lean to onto the house where the wood can be stacked once & have doors into house so its accessible without going outside
yesss.gif


But around here you can get people to drop off cut & split wood & they would probably stack it for a price as well. But around here thats between $70 & $80 a cord. I spend about $200 for between 20-25 cords of wood when we are done. Usually enough left for the following year & we heat 2 houses with the wood.
While its nice of you to share you can have it back
tongue.png
On the National news this morning they were in Minneapolis,MN showing how a raw egg froze in 3 seconds outside. I guess they were running out of news lol I know I rather be inside the outside seeing if an egg freezes. I already know they do
ep.gif

Good for you! I did a lot of stacking in the spring after the fire. It wasn't a huge deal when I didn't have so much else to do. A lot of our heating is during tax season, and I am working long hours as it is.. + farm chores.. I can't for the life of me do kindling....

We had it split last year. We had it dropped off in front of the old barn and Susan's dad stacked it inside the barn, and would bring it up to the house as needed.



That can't be F, right? You're talking 18C in your house? Otherwise I can't see how you'd have running water! Or pumping blood (I would freeze solid if I had to live in those temps in F)!

18C is about what our bedroom is at (on the second floor, so the masonry heater, which is on the first floor, doesn't heat it - we have electric cove heaters in the upstairs rooms and basement).
Yes Celsius. I must have gotten lazy and didn't covert it.
 
We heat exclusively with wood and love it. Although we only use about 3 cords a year... Our Jotul has a re burner and is very efficient.
On the subject of freezing eggs... I gather eggs at dusk instead of dawn this time if year.
 
-38.2F with windchill this morning. -18.4F without.

In the big barn: can't be any colder than 20F in there. The water was not frozen all the way through.

Hallway pens: very cold. The heated dog dishes froze 1/2 an inch on top. I took that inch off by pressing on one side and it pops up on the other. Nice and unfrozen under that.

We are in for a little cold snap. By Monday we are going up to 43.
Ugh! I don't envy you!!!
Reading all this really makes me thankful for the weather we have (even though it's way too cold "up here" for my Miami-self).

I would not treat for prolaps Sally. Ones the uterious is out it has touched the ground and bacteria. it is almost impossible to sanitize the prolaps and push it back in with out secondary issues. Prolaps happen for several reasons and all of them are reasons to cull. Most of them have to do with the actual bird and how she is constructed. Wry tail, pinched tail, over load of hormones, and incorrectly developed ova and oviducts. You did nothing wrong.

x2
x2..

and after infection sets in the bird is no good to eat....

Sally you did the best for the bird..I just read you already culled..thanks for sharing your story and you helped the next person..
+1

LOL big guy's comment is more 'booga booga booga" always in 3's. I say it back to him most days and he realizes i'm not feeding anyone and goes about his routine. every one of my roos has a similar 'saying' they use in greeting me, but most stay out of my way. big guy and big red are the only 2 who REALLY hang near me and talk to me. then again they're also the 2 I most often have to step over to get in the house. LOL the dog jumps over them and they just duck.

Good to know. Thanks!
He seems like a friendly sort, but always in "work mode" looking after the girls and such.
Glad it's just a friendly greeting type thing. =)
 
Good for you! I did a lot of stacking in the spring after the fire. It wasn't a huge deal when I didn't have so much else to do. A lot of our heating is during tax season, and I am working long hours as it is.. + farm chores.. I can't for the life of me do kindling....

We had it split last year. We had it dropped off in front of the old barn and Susan's dad stacked it inside the barn, and would bring it up to the house as needed.

For the kindling, maybe get a free load of tree trimmings in the summer so they have time to dry out. Then move those to a large bin with a tarp over it.
 
Was wondering why everyone thought 18 was so cold heehee! :)

We use wood for our primary heat source only turning on the heat pump when we will be gone overnight and can't maintain a fire.
If we had to buy wood it would probably be a bit more expensive than using the heat pump. A cord here is $150-$200, even when you cut your own we need to buy a permit which is $30 and only good for a specific area and 1 load only.
:/

My husband really likes to get it going tho, some nights I'm trying to fall asleep in a 30 degree (c) bedroom. Now I can't get warm anywhere else!

On the plus side we have tons of ash for the coop.
 
Thanks chaos on the info about the masonry stove. I am def going to keep the info for reference. My wood stove was with the house when I bought it so I am sure it's not so energy efficient anymore but I live in a ranch so it heats it's just fine.

For frozen eggs I just bring them in the house. If it's cracked I feed them back to the girls (cooked) if not cracked it goes in the egg carton. People freeze eggs to save them for later use so I don't see a problem using one that froze outside.

Girls didn't venture out and my mom said their ff was rock solid in their heated dog bowl. :( she fed them a little while she was here and I made it home just as they started roosting so they ate some more. I'm headed out to put a bowl of water in the heated bowl to see if it freezes overnight. The bottom was warm to touch so I am thinking maybe because I had a big Corning wear container inside the bowl it couldn't keep the ff warm? If the water freezes I will try just pouring it in the dog bowl itself and see if that works. The frigid low temps are probably not helping the dog bowl lol

Been snowing all day have about 18 inches of snow so far and it's light so blowing all over. And temps are suppose to get below zero starting tomorrow. I might have to switch the girls over to dry food if the dog bowl can't keep it unfrozen till the temps get in the 20s
 

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