The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[texasmomma]

Did you have other SFH? Was she the only one that behaved that way?

I had one other, her brother. He was a very docile rooster. He had curled toes when he was hatched, that seemed to be ok after I put a splint on them. But when he hit his "teen" period, they curled again. I enjoyed my SFH's but prefer autosexing breeds so I don't have to wait as long to figure out how they are going to fit into my flock. lol

Though I am thinking about getting some pet silkies for my little girlies. ))

 

[texasmomma]

Thanks for posting that! Very helpful!

Based on what he is saying there I would definitely not use it. There are elements in the mix that I wouldn't want in my gardens or around my animals for several reasons. Probably not a huge deal if contained to a small area that doesn't get into the litter or their outdoor run, or in the compost/garden...but I wouldn't want to take that chance myself.

I read the dirt dr. article and it made me feel better about using PDZ...:-\

See, that is the nice thing about this thread. We can all read info and made educated decisions for ourselves, our chickens, etc.

Love that!

 

[Jewelwing]

I just read that most honey at the stores is really a corn sryup concotion.

I didn't know that, but I went to a talk by the entomologist May Berenbaum last fall on the causes for the honeybee colony collapse disorder (she is a leading researcher on that, and is at the U of I - very close to us!). According to her, one of the potential causes of this disorder is beekeepers replacing the honey in the hive with corn syrup (because honey is more expensive than corn syrup), but corn syrup is not nutritionally good for bees either, it seems! Here is an interview that touches on some of the points she made in the talk I saw:

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/interview-may-berenbaum-154052613/

But that still doesn't guarantee that they don't feed them sugar-water or corn syrup. Some bee keepers take too much of the honey and don't leave enough for the hive to feed itself over the winter then feed them back "junk food". And that's just one of the indiscretions.

Exactly!

I have noticed that I can find GMO free feed for a few dollars a bag less than organic. I'm thinking I might just go with the GMO free.

Wondering what everyone's thoughts are on GMO free vs organic feed.

Well, my take on it would be that there would be more pesticide residue in GMO-free vs organic feed (which is also GMO free), but less than in standard GMO-containing feed. If I couldn't get organic, or if the price were significantly different, I would go with GMO-free.

I buy Countryside Organic feed. With the shipping, it's pretty darn expensive, but there's no place around me that I can find even GMO-free feed. The people at the feed stores near me are convinced that when the bag says "natural" on it, it must be organic, and I can't get any of them to find
& order me actual organic feed. Nor can I find organic or non-GMO grains anywhere near me, so I can't make my own feed either. I'm just hoping for warmer weather so the chickens can forage for most of their food and I won't have to buy as much!!

Thanks for posting that! Very helpful!

Based on what he is saying there I would definitely not use it. There are elements in the mix that I wouldn't want in my gardens or around my animals for several reasons. Probably not a huge deal if contained to a small area that doesn't get into the litter or their outdoor run, or in the compost/garden...but I wouldn't want to take that chance myself.

What did you see in the article that makes you say that? I'm sure it's just because I'm missing something, but I didn't see anything to make me worry. Enlighten me - I always want to learn more about stuff like that! I'm not going to use PDZ, just because the DL system I have is working fine for me, but I want to know what you saw.

 

[Jewelwing]

The past couple of days have been above freezing, so there's been steady dripping from everywhere, but before that happened, I got some cool pictures of the snow slowly settling through the hardware cloth on top of my run.

Picture taken from the deck inside the run:


A closer look:


Here's a close-up of some acorn caps that got stuck before it started snowing:


This one reminds me of Minecraft! The darker "pixels" are ice instead of snow (the really dark ones are acorns!):


A different view:



Poor chickens - now that it's warmer, the run roof has been "raining" on them constantly as the snow melts! The leaves/compost underneath is a soggy mess.

 

[Ms Jellybean]

The past couple of days have been above freezing, so there's been steady dripping from everywhere, but before that happened, I got some cool pictures of the snow slowly settling through the hardware cloth on top of my run.

Picture taken from the deck inside the run:


A closer look:


Here's a close-up of some acorn caps that got stuck before it started snowing:


This one reminds me of Minecraft! The darker "pixels" are ice instead of snow (the really dark ones are acorns!):


A different view:



Poor chickens - now that it's warmer, the run roof has been "raining" on them constantly as the snow melts! The leaves/compost underneath is a soggy mess.

Neat pictures

 

[Jewelwing]

Here are some pictures of the ice "bead curtain" on the sides of my chicken run. They're all melted now - these pictures are from a few days ago:







Here's my artistic chicken shot:


A little chicken haven in the cold, white world. It wasn't until I was looking at this picture that I noticed that I missed one of the screw/washers to hold on the hardware cloth when I put it up last fall. I'll have to go fix that!


Hey, Food Lady, when are you going to get rid of all this white stuff so we can go out again? We really loved pecking holes in the foam insulation you put around the outside of your basement (<won't they be surprised that I've put up a little wire garden fence all around the house so they can't do that anymore>).

 

[Eggcessive]

That was my problem yesterday. I didn't have any blunt tipped scissors. They were very pointy and sharp and it was very nerve wracking. I think I'm going to purchase some blunt ones for my kit. Any idea where to get them? I'm thinking they still sell the ones for cutting baby fingernails that are blunt like you're talking about.

I use the little dollar ones for school kids from WalMart. They are actually pretty sharp, and also good for trimming caked-on poo around fuzzy butts.

 

[RedRidge]

 
That was my problem yesterday.  I didn't have any blunt tipped scissors.  They were very pointy and sharp and it was very nerve wracking.  I think I'm going to purchase some blunt ones for my kit.  Any idea where to get them?  I'm thinking they still sell the ones for cutting baby fingernails that are blunt like you're talking about.

I use the little dollar ones for school kids from WalMart.  They are actually pretty sharp, and also good for trimming caked-on poo around fuzzy butts.

I like the small cuticle scissors... Any drug store carries them.

 

[lalaland]

Here are some pictures of the ice "bead curtain" on the sides of my chicken run. They're all melted now - these pictures are from a few days ago:







Here's my artistic chicken shot:

great pics! isn't it amazing what happens with snow and ice and water?

 

[TeaChick]

It's that time of year... had 12 of the 16 of these HRIR hatch night... another is pipping.
I so LOVE the babies.




In this second pic the bottom 2 are HRIR (they are fresh out of the bator)...
Top chick with chipmunk stripes is an F1 who is a few days old - part of my Rhodebar improvement breeding (an Rhodebar cock over HRIR hens).



Brooders are getting full... at least the temperatures are improving... spring is on the way...

What is the pink on the top chick's (in the bottom pic) leg?
I wanted to tag the chicks I thought were pullets to see how good I was at feather sexing (I know it's inaccurate, this was before I knew that), but they basically walked out of the zip ties I used.
What do you use at this stage?

Hi all,

I haven't been here for a long while, and decided to catch up on reading from where I left off, so it took me a while. I'm down to just four hens from our 12 last summer. We put the house on the market and the realtor thought we would have better luck selling if the unsightly coop was not in the yard. So I gave 8 of my hens, including my favorite sfh, to a dear friend, who has doted on them ever since. Then, we ended up deciding not to sell the house, so I have hatching eggs on the way.

I really wish I had purchased a bigger incubator.

I'll try to keep up for a while. My three eldest have two more speech and debate tournaments in the next couple of weeks, and then life will get back to normal. I hope.

Hubby is going to have to work on the coop before the new chicks need it. Otherwise, I may have to put the unsightly coop back up. He hates that coop, so I'm guessing he finishes the other one. We figured out where we want to put the ventilation over the weekend. It an old greenhouse, turned garage, so should be enough room for a few chickens.

Welcome back.
It's good you were able to give your chickens to a good home! =)
Life is "never" normal at my house. "Normal" is what we call the current craziness. lol
My DH thinks my coop is "unsightly" too. lol It's functional and the chickens like it, so that's all that really matters (even to him). I hope you're able to get things situated the way you want them.
=)