The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[aoxa]

I have a silkie with wry neck

I'm not sure if I should cull or treat with something. Advice anyone? When she gets worked up she has her head tucked way under her belly. She can eat and focus enough to keep her head the right way during that time.

 

[Leahs Mom]

If I were going to try something, it would be Riboflavin and Niacin. Either by feeding liver, brewers yeast, or bottled vitamins. Then I'd observe for 24 hours with as much of those items available as she'd eat and see if there is a difference.

 

[aoxa]

If I were going to try something, it would be Riboflavin and Niacin. Either by feeding liver, brewers yeast, or bottled vitamins. Then I'd observe for 24 hours with as much of those items available as she'd eat and see if there is a difference.

I have frozen liver I can try. I'll bring her in the house for the night and try to perk her up.

Fingers crossed...

 

[lalaland]

Aoxa, here she talks about silkies and wry neck

http://dlhunicorn.conforums.com/index.cgi?board=emergencies&action=display&num=1160928615

keeping my fingers crossed for you and the silkie

 

[lalaland]

here
http://www.browneggblueegg.com/Article.html

something about silkies and their head shapes leading to wry neck....

I am not saying this is a good thing or not, just some info that is out there.

 

[Jewelwing]

C.R. -
I only have the pop door open during the day and nothing else. I do have 2 tiny vents at roof height (probably 3x7" each) on opposite ends of the shed and one roof vent which is covered by snow currently. Nothing but these are open at night as they stay open all the time.

Of course I open the people door several times a day when I go out to them, but I close it behind me while I'm in or I'd have a wind tunnel going on.

The pop door is on the east side which is to the left on this photo; doors and window are on the north side.


There is the tiny vent at the peak and the roof vent.



I have found that I don't have any issue with needing more ventilation open for any of the normally stated reasons. However my roof is higher and the overall floor inside is 8x12 which may make a difference from yours.

I've just decided to go by my nose, and the wind blowing inside. If I was smelling anything that is an issue, or feeling any problem of too high humidity then I'd adjust things. (Of course, remembering that you can't have any lower humidity inside than the outside humidity...)

So my thought is that if things are okay (as in "not broken") I don't worry about fixing them. But I do think you have a good idea on using the windows that are on the same side as the door IF YOU NEED THE WINDOWS OPEN AT ALL. That makes sense to me and fits with the "Fresh Air" poultry house designs...no matter how large or small they were.

I wish mine was set in such a way that the pop door and people door and windows were all on the same side. So far, however, I still wouldn't feel it necessary to keep a window open at all in my situation.

K. I'll put some plastic up over all the windows & openings except for two triangles up at the roof peak on the door side.

Oh...CR... would you post a photo of your coop?

Yes, I know I should have a coop page!


Here in the first picture you can see the windows that are boarded up and the windows that are open. In the second picture, all the windows on the near wall are covered, either by wood or plastic.


This is the inside, with the roost on the right (and the decoy eggs in the nest boxes!). I think I'll put plastic over all those open windows, so the three sides of the coop that you can see in this picture will be (more or less) airtight and insulated. The roof is pretty well insulated, since it has about 5" of dirt on top, plus snow on top of that!


This is the the inside of the coop looking out. I think I'll leave that far right window covered in plastic and undo the plastic on the little triangle window (the wildlife camera is in that one, aimed at the nest boxes). If that's not enough ventilation, I can uncover part of the plastic-covered window. I built that little structure over the pop door opening so that air coming in around the edges wouldn't blow right on the chickens on the roost above it. Hopefully the air gets deflected so the girls don't get their feathers ruffled! A bonus is that I can easily scrape off all the poop that gets on there overnight, and toss it out into the run. When it's frozen, the poop just pops right off the vinyl!

Just for fun, here's a side view. The windows on the door side are under the "porch" roof, so they're more protected anyway, so probably better to have them open to air than the ones on the other side (which are open now). Luckily last night, even though it got to 5F, there was no wind, so I think the girls were fine. They still haven't come out yet today, though! But good little Dina did lay me an egg (ninth day in a row!).

Same issue going on here in far northern NH. VERY high outside humidity with temps tonight -10 or lower and tomorrow supposed to be -28 real temps...can't imagine what the windchill will be! Our humidity, even in this cold, has been 100% or higher, so there is more moisture in the outside air than the inside of the coop! I do have a poop board, and scrape that every am. Even the frozen stuff will give off moisture. I use a putty knife, to scrape the poop up. It does help. A warm breakfast and warm water during the day helps them too. My DIY water heater does not keep the water from freezing when we get this cold! I have not used added heat yet...very scared of fires! I have considered it though, on these really frigid nights.

I have read a ton on the Alaskan thread and got some great ideas, although they have very dry cold, as opposed to the very wet cold we have here on the east coast.

I have only the high vents open also. I tried opening up more ventilation, and my coop flash froze in a minute or two. I ended up with 1/4th inch of frost on the entire inside of my coop. Talk about a mess!!!!

I am still planning and trying to adjust for the outside humidity and frigid cold, so have no definite answers either, except that, in my case, less ventilation, during these frigid temps with outside humidity 100% or higher, has been working better than more ventilation for my birds. My cockerel got some frostbite on his comb and wattles with more ventilation during these frigid temps and high outside humidity.

I also started giving the flock a warm water mushy pellet and crushed up egg breakfast and keeping their water warm often. In these temps. even the day time temps are below 0, even the heated water freezes, so I do fill them up with as warm water as they will drink, as often as I can...atleast 3 times a day, more often if real temps are -7 to -10 during the day.

I also try to keep their bedding as dry as I can. I add scratch in the afternoon, so the girls get the bedding all turned nice, and that helps keep it a tad dryer and add new as needed.

Gonna be a very long winter this year, so stay warm all and best to you and your flocks!

OK, I'm gonna try just having a little triangle open up near the roof on one side and see what happens. Maybe I'll lay down some more wood chips too.

We had a ton more snow until that weird couple day 35 degree days of rain??? The temp swing was about 80 degrees.

I took this pic, during the few moments of sun we had, Jan 1st 2014. We have been in deep winter since the first of Nov 2013!

Tomorrow's real night time temp is supposed to be -28 F.

Glad we built the coop so close!

Are those your nest boxes hanging off the side? Are they insulated? I guess the girls don't mind if they're not? Mine are inside the coop, but the doors that open to the outside aren't insulated, so I'm guessing it's not very toasty in the nest boxes. Plus, there's probably some air leaking in around the edges of the doors on the back of the boxes.

That's ridiculously low, in my book. And an 80 degree swing is also unreal.

 

[armorfirelady]

Bought the girls a bale of hay & put it in the coop, old run & under the A frame for them. They are happily digging thru it. Seems warmer in the coop then OUTISDE which is a balmy 10

Anyone with feathered feet breeds? I noticed this on Lucy today

I have seen it before on her a few weeks ago but there is no swelling in her feet or injuries. Just the blood at the shafts of her feathers. Could it be from freezing? She tends to walk thru ff and water when she takes off from others. It doesn't seem painful to her. She walks & runs just fine. I don't plan on putting anything in it with the temps. The bloods frozen so it should keep stuff out of it, in fact is not caked with anything.

Girls decided to come out & enjoy the sun

Stella seems to love snow slushies as you can see lol

 

[Jewelwing]

Here's a junco that I rescued yesterday after it banged into our window and fell into the snow. A hawk must have been around the bird feeders because three birds (two juncos and a goldfinch) all hit the window and landed dazed in the snow at the same time. I ran out and picked up all three, sheltering them from the wind and snow, but two of them recovered and flew away before the picture. This one stayed for a long time - I think it liked the warmth of my coat! I had it more covered up and had my hands inside my coat & just opened up for the picture. It seemed so tiny after holding my chickens!




AFL - I do see my feather-footed ones run through the ff too, and have wondered about their feathers getting wet, but haven't noticed any blood. Then again, I haven't examined their feet close up either. I'll have to look!

 

[TeaChick]

We had water freeze on our hose, which was dripping so it made a cool looking "icicle" along the end of the hose. Also, the water froze and clogged it, so when DD turned it on, it sprayed for a moment, then a little more, then the ice that was blocking it shot out and the water spouted out. lol Plus, there was a thin layer of ice on the surface of the dog's water dish.

 

[TeaChick]

So I had to share something unusual.....I just went out to check heated dog bowl and decided I would take bird seed out with me and spread all over the DL so the girls can eat it in the morning when they get up.

The girls have been roosted for a couple hours now but Stella and Sophie jumped down from the roost to start eating the bird seed I threw down. Makes me wonder if their really hungry? They have never done that before........they were fed small portions of ff twice today so they shouldn't be that hungry I wouldn't think? Perhaps the frigid temps are making them want more food? They were busy making craters in the DL today so I'm sure they were eating things they found in it all day? Think tomorrow I'll dump in some more shavings for them then throw more bird seed in. Thinking a bowl of seed in the coop wouldn't be such a bad idea either till the temps get higher.

Thoughts?

(Oh and after you put your fingers in the water bowl don't touch the metal latches to the gate......eh gads some days I am so blonde

)

Yeah, I was putting corn down in the DL when I was serving that. Now they just look at the FF in the sour cream cup and smart balance tub like yeah, right. IDK why they don't eat that.
Anyway, I think bird seed in the DL is a great idea; and scratching helps them in so many ways!!!

Oh, I do stuff like that all the time; it's good I don't live where it's really cold. lol

I'm cracking up!!!
Stacked wood in the furnace, red-neck thermostat...