The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[flyladyrocks]

Okay, so I spent much of today trying to read and catch up! I wanted to do that Thursday and then life happened. I forgot how crazy busy summer gets.

You all are really such a wealth of info! I am learning so much. My biggest problem is now there are way too many things I want to do and a limited amount of time, energy, ability and money. I really want to do the black soldier fly composter, but there is so much else we need to do, that may have to be filed under next years projects.

Leahs mom – you mentioned you have a good source for grass fed beef – is it from Amish? Just curious. My best friends lives close to Amish and that is where she gets her wonderfull inexpensive beef. We often end up getting venison from her too, but I think the livers all go to her chickens.
And I agree, it has to be more emotional to cull one from your own small flock. It would break my dd’s heart!
Your SFHs have grown so much since your last pictures. I just can’t get over how quickly these chickens grow! My babies are growing up – they are 10 weeks tomorrow.

General comment – fat gets such a hugely bad rap. Cutting out the fat just made us here int he US all the more obese! Yet so many people are not figuring it out. Lard, butter, coconut oil – so good for you as long as you are not consumming large amoutns of sugars and carbohydrates you are not goign to get fat. Fat does not make you fat. Off my soapbox now.

General Comment #2 (kinda random but a few of you were talking about blue eggs) - I want some blue and/or green egg layers so bad!

Cowgirlboots – I make something similar to your coconut oil chocolate. It’s called skinny chocolate. But I don’t do artificial sweeteners so I use Stevia or Monk Fruit to sweeten it. I use it to make peanut butter and almond butter cups, and I am trying to come up with a peppermint patty recipe cause we have not been fond of the recipes we find online. I also make an incredible deoderant with coconut oil. My kids say it smells so good they want to eat it - I put peppermint oil in it which is what led to wanting to make peppermint patties!

Lalaland – sorry about your rooster. You said hot and windy today, and it seems to be blowing our direction here in Indiana as I look at the forecast!

Armorfirelady – nice little routine your mama hens have figured out – I’ll be to it would be fun to watch! I hope Stella is okay!

Turkeytruff – your grandma hen sounds so sweet!

What is new here: Here we started lacto-fermenting feed when we got back from ou trip 2 1/2 weeks ago. The girls love it. They know when I am about to feed them and come on the porch and beg and cry. Right now I have the feed fermenting in glass, but I just bought food grade plastic buckets from Tractor Supply. I'd rather stay with glass, but when I am gone for a week or more later this summer, I need to make it as simple as possible for DH when it comes to feeding. I need as much fermented feed as possible available where he does not have to do anything put stir it and feed it to them! The girls are much perkier in the heat when getting the fermented feed.

We also started free-ranging them a week ago today. I put pine pellets in their run b/c they had demolished all the green stuff and I did not want it to get all muddy. But now that they are out of the run most of the day the green stuff is poking back up thru the pine pellets. I was hoping I would have some wood chips for the run but the tree trimmers never came with the chips - so sad. Almost got some this weekend from someone but we got there and he said there was cedar in the pile.

Yesterday, after being confident that the coop is now watertight, I finally did my deep litter. The girls seem to be trying to dig to the bottom of it. Question: How deep to I rake into the litter each day? I almost did not do it, we found a nice big wood playhouse for free on Craiglist, and we will be transitioning to that (when we get it here), but I just decided to go ahead start in our little tikes coop.

Okay, I have a sink full of dishes and am working VBS at our church this week, so they need to get done now b/c I won't have time in the morning so I better go. I also seem to sleep better when the dishes are done!

 

[armorfirelady]

Are you still giving free-feed calcium?  One thing I've read just recently is that high acid items like ACV can lower absorbtion of calcium and it seems to be more noticeable in the summer than other seasons.  For that reason, if folks put acv in the water it would be smart to offer plain water in one waterer and ACV in another so they can take it free-choice as they desire.  (That's always my preferred way of giving those types of things anyhow unless there is an illness and something needs to be forced.)

Knowing that properly lacto-fermented feed would also be high acid, I have decided to offer the same feed I ferment dry as a choice for them as well.  I just started doing that about 2 weeks ago and I was quite surprised to see that they really love the dry feed.  This is similar to what you are feeding if you're still making your own mix.  They eat both, but they seem to take a lot more of the dry than I thought they would. 


As an interesting side-note ...  My BR has had quite light-weight shells since starting up again this spring.  I had originally thought they were all that texture but this morning I cracked eggs from each of the birds while making breakfast and realized that hers it the only thin one.  Not sure if that means she has a greater need for calcium, or if it's her breed/age, etc.  She was 2 yo in March of this year.  They are not soft-shelled like you describe - just very thin and lightweight. 

One good thing w/your girl is that she IS laying them and they aren't staying inside.  And if she isn't taking the "upright penguin" stance...and is acting quite normal...it may pass. 

Yes she still has calcium free choice. I never see her eating it but that doesn't mean much. I never see any of them eat it but it disappears lol I'm still fermenting the grains with the stuff you sent me. I'll try some dry feed tomorrow, they certainly are not going to eat those peas tho lol maybe if we fpget rain Tuesday I'll work on grinding up the grains some. It just makes such a mess as it grinds them.

As for Stella she had her bottom trimmed over a month ago. All the hens seem to not wipe well and when they have those fuzzy butts from winter it get kinds of gross. She seems to have a couple bare spots. Her skin in really pink there but she has no bugs and it's dry and clean so I haven't really worried about it. Her brown feathers are still there but I really think she is trying to molt. All her feathers look horrible.

As for the fart eggs. I agree i would rather have her pass them then not. She is sitting, walking, standing normal. Just those few strange things. But as long as she appears healthy I'm not going to change anything. Her personality is still the same. I was pulling weeds from around the apple trees and apparently they taste better after they are pulled. Her and Edie had a good time scratching threw them. When I explained they could of eaten them before I pulled them they just looked at me and kept scratching.

Fly lady rocks : my girls tend to try to dig to china also in their DL. I Just rake it into the center of the coop & the girls enjoy scratching it back out. From spring to fall I rarely add anything to it, maybe some grass clippings from time to time. I was actually thinking today I should pull out the few inches in there and put around my veggies. I didn't get around to it tho. I add to the DL once the temps drop because it tend to hold more moisture. Right now it's dry. The sides of my coop are open so there is always a breeze blowing thru. It does get damp around the edges with heavy rain but it will just help it break down more.

I also put bedding down in their enclosures that cover the pop door openings. Sure it gets wet with the rain but it dries in the sun. It's much better than hard packed dirt or mud when it rains. Even during the winter I do itmsincemi enclose them with plastic. Just gives them a little more space to be when it snows and no frozen toes.

 

[armorfirelady]

And because my
Cloud won't upload pics from my devices I had to switch to my phone to post this pic from tonight

 

[ki4got]

I wanted some cream legbars until I saw they were crested. So if you have some experience.... are they all crested? Do they have the issue of breeding huge crests with crest to crest breeding?

I had come to the conclusion that I didn't want any more crests at all.


On the SFH kiddos -
They are all the same size - not much variation. Legs are about the same diameter on all of them. I can often tell by looking at leg sizes but there isn't much variation.

ccl are all crested, yes, but their crests tend to be minimal, as that's what they were selected for. unlike sfh, they don't have the problems of breeding crest to crest as vaulted skulls seem to have been eliminated from the breed as well (which enhances the appearance of huge crests).

 

[Leahs Mom]

Pretty interesting post and reminder about being careful with wet bedding. Very sad loss of chicks to aspergillosis.

 

[armorfirelady]

Pretty interesting post and reminder about being careful with wet bedding.  Very sad loss of chicks to aspergillosis.

I was wondering if ventilation was also a problem. Of course it depends on how many chicks and duck were in there as well. May have been overcrowded so the bedding would of never been able to dry. So many factors could cause it.

 

[aoxa]

I was wondering if ventilation was also a problem. Of course it depends on how many chicks and duck were in there as well. May have been overcrowded so the bedding would of never been able to dry. So many factors could cause it.

This is a good reason I won't brood ducks and refuse to have water in the coop in the summer.

I did have a case of this with what I think may have been bedding that was moved to the compost pile, saturated with rainwater and then dried. I treated it with Oxine 3 years ago. He was in rough shape, but was the only one - and came out of it after a week of Oxine in a humidifier.

 

[Leahs Mom]

@aoxa

Can you tell the story of your chicken that had the fungus? What age? How did you know that was what it was? How do you think he/she got it? How long did it take the Oxine to work? How did you administer the Oxine? What is your mothers' maiden name?

 

[lalaland]

just came home from fishing and smuggled the leftover minnows to the flock (not supposed to take them off the lake in case you contaminate another lake with invasive acquatic species in the minnow water - but not a threat on dry ground)

chickens loved them, even the 9 week old chicks.

AFL, love the chick and mom pics.

 

[flyladyrocks]

Pretty interesting post and reminder about being careful with wet bedding. Very sad loss of chicks to aspergillosis.