The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[armorfirelady]

PS: I got a memo from all the older birds. It said they all wanted their own personal roost to themselves...at least 8 ft long each.

That's not ONE for the 6 older girls. That's 6 roosts...each one 8 ft. long. They started picketing and the next step is to go on strike from laying eggs.

 

[MargaretYakoda]

I am a visual person - big time - can you please post a picture so I understand exactly how you do this?

If I took a picture it would look like a big blob. So I'll try and describe it really well.

I built mine out of hardware cloth and old woolen sweaters. I like wool because it holds heat well even if it gets wet.

Are you familiar with latch hook rugs? Think of the hardware cloth like a big latch hook canvas.
I made a frame out of the hardware cloth that was about a foot square, with an open bottom and three sides. I made this frame about six or seven inches tall, because that's how much hardware cloth I had. I used bailing wire to fasten the sides to the roof. Zip ties or pretty much anything would work as long as it holds together. The frame is going to be covered in wool so it doesn't matter what it looks like at all.

Cut a bunch of 1 inch wide strips from the wool. Make sure they're long enough to hang down nearly to the bottom of the frame. Tie them to the inside of the roof of the frame. Keep tying so the entire top is covered in these strips. Perfection isn't needed, just make a super sized shag rug sort of thing hanging down from the top of the hardware cloth frame. This takes a long time so settle in some place comfortable.

When the top of the frame is covered in long strands that hang down, it's time to cover the outside of the frame with more wool. I had an old cardigan sweater that I used for this. I just put the neckline of the sweater at the entrance to the wool hen and used more bailing wire to fasten it to the frame. Then I laid the back of the sweater over the top of the frame and folded the arms of the sweater around the sides. I fastened it in a few places with more bailing wire so the sweater would stay in place.
That's it.

 

[amenfarm]

Update on Miss Gray...






To "recap" - she is the little skittish girl that I thought needed a "pet chicken" home. She's a "runner" and seems to run away even from the other chickens. She won't stand up for herself like the other lower birds in my flock will. The others will "take it like a man" and continue with their business. Miss Gray runs even if a chicken is just walking her direction.



She was apparently hit by a hawk on May 6 and has done well in recovery. Continued to lay regularly with no break even through the trauma of the hawk attack an some pretty bad wounds.

She went to a new home on Sunday to one of the young ladies on the Indiana thread. She has a good plan with many back-ups if necessary. Met her and her mom on Sunday where they met "Miss Gray" (who will likely soon have a "real name") and took her to her new home for a period of quarantine before trying various options to integrate her into their possible housing situations.



It's really strange to just give away this chicken...even though I look at mine as farm animals (at least I try to really hard) the flock is so small that I know them all. And this girl in particular since she would come like a puppy and want to be protected from the other birds.

So...now she has a new home and I hope it will work well for her.

Just to clarify, I did not give her away because of the hawk attack. I felt that she was not fitting into the flock and housing options here in the present. I just don't have the facilities or the time (I work full time) to have an individual that isn't fitting into the flock.

Leah's mom, I thought i would tell you about my "miss Grey". When we bought my first chickens we went with POL and found a neat lady that had hatched out some beautiful birds and after 8 months of keeping them had decided on which breeds she wanted to keep. So, i went to buy 2 black English orps, and talked her into a buff orp and a EE. The buff orpington was always picked on as the lowest in pecking order and never really fit in. But, she came to my house broody, woke up the next morning not broody and has been the Queen of the coop ever since. Over time, after we added a very friendly buckeye, she even started to follow her lead and fly up on the dutch door to be petted. Buffy the vampire slayer, yes they named her, has been a great bird.
I was reading about probotics people use and thought i would add, we give buttermilk( for probodics as needed) sprinkled with a little food, and use ground red pepper every day--great souce of vitamin E, wormer, and keeps the mice out of my hopper. I sprinkle about 2 teas. sprinkled over the feed-just enough to coat everything.

 

[SallyinIndiana]

@Leahs Mom If you wanted to deal with the people you might be able to sell your laying hens on CL with the stipulation that 2 would be the max for one person to buy. Then they would be going to a new area but have a known mate. The new area might be enough to make them adjust and be a bit friendlier. I'm thinking your hens would sell fast at $25 for a pair, given their age.

 

[hoosiercheetah]

PS: I got a memo from all the older birds. It said they all wanted their own personal roost to themselves...at least 8 ft long each.



That's not ONE for the 6 older girls. That's 6 roosts...each one 8 ft. long. They started picketing and the next step is to go on strike from laying eggs.

I could see them developing a habit like this over winter, if they spent a lot of time indoors. Without as much to occupy themselves, they may have taken to fussing and fighting over roosts.


There's a really good correlation with human behavior. If a group of people live in a subsistence agrarian culture, the things they'll fuss each other over will have to do with the demands of that lifestyle - land ownership, pasturing rights, fair prices for seed and grain at market, horse trading and the like. If a group of people live in suburban America where appearances are paramount, the value structure radically changes. People fuss their neighbors about the length of their grass, and whose tree branches are overhanging whose fence. People today will kill each other for shoes. A hundred and fifty years ago a lot of people didn't bother with shoes.


So if the analogy holds true - and it might not; I could be totally wrong about all this - then when chickens are outside a lot, they may try to snatch bugs away from each other, or chase each other off of patches of tasty weeds, or whatever they think is important outside. When they're confined to being indoors, all they have to fight over is the roost. So the top chicken is by God going to have the best roost! And there may be no difference at all between one spot and another, except that the chickens arbitrarily decided it is so.


Actually, it's a lot like American Politics.


Anyway, now that they've got the habit of fighting for roost space, they may be carrying on with it, even thought they can get out more, just because it's habit. I suggest three possible courses of treatment.


1 - Re-arrange the roosts. Move it/them to a totally different location and height. Ideally, install several at different heights and multiple corners. I have no idea how feasible that is in your coop.


2 - Lots of enrichment outdoors. Put some cat toys out there, add a new dust bath. Give them something to think about besides the roost. Do this in addition to #1 if possible.


3 - Lock them out of the coop at about an hour before they usually start fighting. Keep the door closed until they're just about to sleep on the ground, then open the door and let them go inside. They may be too tired to fight, and will just pick a spot to go to sleep.


Keep in mind that all of my advice is totally baseless and there's a better than fair chance that I'm completely wrong. But hey, even if I am, doing some of this stuff will give you a false sense of control over your life, which most people find quite uplifting, while it lasts. ;-)

 

[heartsizedfarm]

These are out of the box ( or should I say out of the coop) good ideas. Who knows? Worth a try!

 

[Leahs Mom]

I'm thinking #3 would work pretty well. I may just try that one tonight!

 

[Mr MKK FARMS]

I'm thinking #3 would work pretty well. I may just try that one tonight!

Yeah that sounds like the best idea. Good luck!

 

[Leahs Mom]

Leah's mom, I thought i would tell you about my "miss Grey". When we bought my first chickens we went with POL and found a neat lady that had hatched out some beautiful birds and after 8 months of keeping them had decided on which breeds she wanted to keep. So, i went to buy 2 black English orps, and talked her into a buff orp and a EE. The buff orpington was always picked on as the lowest in pecking order and never really fit in. But, she came to my house broody, woke up the next morning not broody and has been the Queen of the coop ever since. Over time, after we added a very friendly buckeye, she even started to follow her lead and fly up on the dutch door to be petted. Buffy the vampire slayer, yes they named her, has been a great bird.
I was reading about probotics people use and thought i would add, we give buttermilk( for probodics as needed) sprinkled with a little food, and use ground red pepper every day--great souce of vitamin E, wormer, and keeps the mice out of my hopper. I sprinkle about 2 teas. sprinkled over the feed-just enough to coat everything.

That's a good thing! I wonder if she was just hiding in the nests from the other birds rather than broody and just got the courage to come out? My Miss Gray would get in the nests to hide and puff up and make growling noises if the other birds came around. But she wasn't really broody. Just finding a place of safety to hide.

 

[Sally8]

Since they've started logging up back, things are stirred up around here. We've been seeing at least 2 hawks. It's purely amazing to watch chickens scatter, duck and hide when a hawk soars overhead. First time I've witnessed it. A young red fox was killed a hundred yards or so down the road last night, I'm sure he's not the only one. I've lost 2 hens in 2 months but when I saw blood all over Edie's Sister's head I was thinking a predator but I think Edie's Sister is also the egg eater and there was a fight. I've seen Edie's Sister covered with yolk before but didn't think. Watching all these Criminal Minds, NCIS, Law and Order Shows is really paying off.