The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[Turkeytruff]

EWWW! I found this in one of my nesting boxes and thought it was a poop. Nope, just a shiny gnome-shaped pepper shaker that my aunt & mother thought would be a funny joke.

You have an evil aunt and mother!!!

She is still doing humongous poops! I am keeping her in the crate most of the time because we have storms here and I am scared the little guys are going to drown! So everytime I let her out she makes an enormous deposit.

 

[armorfirelady]

Kass & Delisha your pics are adorable

While trying to put Nustock on Stella's head I got it to close to her eye. I wiped away what I could. Hopefully it didn't irritate it to much :/

 

[RedRidge]

I am getting the Maremma tomorrow. Joe is picking her up on his way home from work. It is a long drive. I told him to put her in a box and ignore her cries..I just know he is going to drive with her on his lap..He is in my Mercedes. I told him that dog better not touch my seats so I hope that helps keep that dog in a box.

OK..so all the Meramma people..

I am keeping her in the coop..I am just making a small area in the back of one of the coops. I can close her off from the chickens..advise please.

Oh boy I have a ton of questions...
How old is she? Has she been with poultry to those point? Who did you get her from? Is that person the breeder? Have they included in the purchase price life time support? If I know who the breeder was I may be able to tell you what you are getting. Where you go from here is totally dependent on how the pup has been raised to this point and what her age is. If she's an older dog, great. If it's a pup? Don't take accept any pup from a breeder prior to that pup being at least 10-12 weeks old. This is critical for lgd's as they learn the most at this critical time and the best teacher is their mother and siblings. Any breeder who sells pups prior to that age? Run!
Don't hesitate to pm me with any questions.

 

[ki4got]

Quote:
this goes for ANY breed IMO. dogs get the majority of their socialization training from the adult dogs in their life at this point. any breeder that sells pups at 6 or 8 weeks, IMO is in it for the money and not breeding quality dogs. also, a reputable breeder should have a contract saying that if you can't keep the dog for any reason they will take it back and rehome it...

 

[ChickChickChicky]

this goes for ANY breed IMO. dogs get the majority of their socialization training from the adult dogs in their life at this point. any breeder that sells pups at 6 or 8 weeks, IMO is in it for the money and not breeding quality dogs. also, a reputable breeder should have a contract saying that if you can't keep the dog for any reason they will take it back and rehome it...

Can't tell for certain by the photo of the puppy that was posted, but it looks AWFULLY young, just barely weaned, I'd guess maybe 6 weeks. I really hope it works out for Delisha.

 

[TeaChick]

There was an article quoted yesterday, but at work I can not post on byc just read. Anyway the article stated that hand feeding or giving the roos treats from people will make them less people aggressive. I can only go by my personal experience. Our first roo we hand fed treats from hatch (well as soon as we got him from the hatchery), we (the chickens and me) would garden together and I would call him over by name (he knew his name and responded to it) and give him bugs I dug up to either eat or give to his girls, most of the time he would give them away. I raised feeder insects I would feed by hand. This is the roo that became very people aggressive. Every roo since then has been raised much more hands off. They get treats but not directly from me, the hens garden w/ me still but the boys are not allowed. Anyway we have not had an aggressive roo since adopting the more hands off approach.

My experience base is small, and could just be a fluke or aberration, but I will keep up the hands off approach until it no longer works.

This is the experience I've seen other ppl mention, that treating roos like pets gives them the impression that you're submitting to them. The hands off approach, I have hear/read/experienced, is the way for them to learn that they are to submit to the humans.
I don't baby or coddle my roosters at all in any way, and my roos are good with their girls and leave the ppl alone. We walk by, they say something, some of us say something back and some don't, but the roosters are not aggressive and won't eat from our hands, but I can carry them around under my arm as necessary.

 

[delisha]

The puppy is home and huge..I can't even carry her for very far. She is set up in the chicken coop for the night.

 

[HollyDuckFarmer]

@delisha Absolutely adorable

 

[Leahs Mom]

I am wondering if the radio thing out on the range somewhere (protected from the weather, of course) would have any effect on hawks?

 

[jockeyeba]

Help I found my favorite game hen (total freeranger) with an egg half broken held by an egg shell looking stream coming out her butt 3 days ago, I couldn't catch her but saw the bottom part of the broken egg come off, I didn't find her until yesterday afternoon, netted her & pulled the 4" x 1/4" shell looking stream off of her & put her in a coop. Today she obviously doesn't feel well, can I give her a shot of pencillin-the only thing I have around for horses-how much would i give?