The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[subhanalah]

Yep....I don't think I've sat still for so long in a long time.  And I didn't sit very still I have to admit.

I drove out there so I didn't have to walk the full back and forth and sat in the car with a magazine, a broom, and a loaded pellet gun.  Felt like a real "hillbilly".  The broom was just in case I needed to "herd" some birds.  The pellet gun is my new toy so I had to carry it...but I didn't do any target shooting because I couldn't keep walking over to the target to check my shots!

you need a clothes line pulley!

 

[Leahs Mom]

Quote:
My mom was excited because she got to watch her Stella lay an egg. She has never seen any of the hens do it before.

Ok back out to work

Go Stella!

 

[Leahs Mom]

Quote:
ingenious

 

[subhanalah]

Hey guys...If I wanna make a thread about giving baby chick's hide boxes, would that go in raising baby chick's or managing your flock?

 

[Leahs Mom]

Hey guys...If I wanna make a thread about giving baby chick's hide boxes, would that go in raising baby chick's or managing your flock?

Hmmmm...it could go in either I think.

Or you could show them here too. The NCK thread is very broad about covering all kinds of things like that. @armorfirelady posted some nice hidey shelters for hawk hides she made last year. Maybe she'll show them again

 

[subhanalah]

Well, I don't really have pictures, but I said to myself, "well they have so much in common with reptiles, I'm sure the babies would feel safer and more secure with a shelter. Maybe that's one reason so many people have trouble with their babes? I just use small cardboard boxes, oatmeal containers.

It also provides a microclimate inside the shade.

 

[Leahs Mom]

I know they love getting into small dark places. Your boxes sound like a great idea! I think it must remind them of being under a hen and give them extra security from being in a wide open space. Did you ever see @Kassaundra 's feather dusters she puts in the brooders. She always has such great ideas

The last time I had chicks they were w/a broody. But they'd still go into the holes in cement blocks and other secure feeling places like that.

 

[subhanalah]

Feather dusters are a great idea, but I don't have any of those! Lol.

 

[Kassaundra]

I know they love getting into small dark places. Your boxes sound like a great idea! I think it must remind them of being under a hen and give them extra security from being in a wide open space. Did you ever see @Kassaundra 's feather dusters she puts in the brooders. She always has such great ideas

The last time I had chicks they were w/a broody. But they'd still go into the holes in cement blocks and other secure feeling places like that.

Both the chicks and I LOVE the feather dusters.

When I put the 3 weekers outside and it was overnight lows in the 40's and high 30's, I didn't want to put heat out w/ them so I took a 5 gallon bucket laid it on it's side drilled holes (like about 40 or 50) about the diameter of a pencil and then cut strips of fleece and pulled them through the holes and dangled the ends in the bucket, put that in the big outside brooder and they all sleep contentedly in the bucket side w/ the fleece strips hanging all around them, all toasty and warm.

 

[subhanalah]

Both the chicks and I LOVE the feather dusters. When I put the 3 weekers outside and it was overnight lows in the 40's and high 30's, I didn't want to put heat out w/ them so I took a 5 gallon bucket laid it on it's side drilled holes (like about 40 or 50) about the diameter of a pencil and then cut strips of fleece and pulled them through the holes and dangled the ends in the bucket, put that in the big outside brooder and they all sleep contentedly in the bucket side w/ the fleece strips hanging all around them, all toasty and warm.

wow....that just blew my mind!