The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[potagergirl]

Hmmmm,,,,,
I am doing a search and it has caused confusion for me.
Hubby has decided he wants me to keep Ameraucana chickens. I have two other pure breeds the Cochin and the WCBP. He's planning on building a new pen for these.
The question I have is what are they? When I look them up I get everything from easter eggers to Araucana. This can not be correct. When I am doing my search can you
tell me some specifics to look for to make sure I am reading on real Ameraucana's and not those offering or discussing the mixed?? (I assume).

One of the things I am looking for is if it is better to get hatching eggs or try to buy chicks. If there is anyone you know on the board that works with the Ameraucana's it would
be most helpful.
thank you and have a great day =)

 

[ronott1]

Hmmmm,,,,,
I am doing a search and it has caused confusion for me.
Hubby has decided he wants me to keep Ameraucana chickens. I have two other pure breeds the Cochin and the WCBP. He's planning on building a new pen for these.
The question I have is what are they? When I look them up I get everything from easter eggers to Araucana. This can not be correct. When I am doing my search can you
tell me some specifics to look for to make sure I am reading on real Ameraucana's and not those offering or discussing the mixed?? (I assume).

One of the things I am looking for is if it is better to get hatching eggs or try to buy chicks. If there is anyone you know on the board that works with the Ameraucana's it would
be most helpful.
thank you and have a great day =)

Ameraucana is a breed that was developed in the 1970s and is in the American Poultry Association Standard of Perfection. There are a bunch of color types and they can be shown by adults at poultry shows in competition.

There are also chickens called this that are sold by hatcheries that are not in the SOP. We call them Easter Eggers.

Centuries ago a breed of chickens in the area of Peru caught a virus. The virus mutated the gene for egg shell color creating the dominant blue gene. All of the breeds we have that lay blue eggs came from that mutation so they are all related in that way. Many variations exist but since that gene is dominant, most will lay a blue shelled egg.

Bye the way, brown is a coating and is also dominant. Brown over blue makes green so that is also where the green eggs come from.

There is a lot of passion involved in the blue egg shell chicken World.

 

[COChix]

Isn't it the greatest way to get rid of weeds?! We bought our place a couple years ago and all the gardens were completely filled with grass. After trying to clear them the back breaking way multiple times I covered the whole works with cardboard and deep litter. My husband thought I was insane but a few months later we had beautiful grass and weed free gardens.

Nice will have o remember that when we put the garden in this year. Last year I covered our beds with a thick layer of newspaper and heavy mulch on top. We had minimal weeds as well. Thanks for the tip!

 

[lazy gardener]

Hmmmm,,,,,
I am doing a search and it has caused confusion for me.
Hubby has decided he wants me to keep Ameraucana chickens. I have two other pure breeds the Cochin and the WCBP. He's planning on building a new pen for these.
The question I have is what are they? When I look them up I get everything from easter eggers to Araucana. This can not be correct. When I am doing my search can you
tell me some specifics to look for to make sure I am reading on real Ameraucana's and not those offering or discussing the mixed?? (I assume).

One of the things I am looking for is if it is better to get hatching eggs or try to buy chicks. If there is anyone you know on the board that works with the Ameraucana's it would
be most helpful.
thank you and have a great day =)

One way to weed out the Ameraucana wannabe's is to buy from an established breeder, either chicks or eggs. The breeder will be able to tell you that they have a specific color pattern available. If you hear that the breeder has lots of mixed colors, it's probably EE that are being sold. Go to the Ameraucana thread in the "chicken breeds" section. Personally, I love my EE gals, and would choose them over Ameraucana's simply because I think they are a better layer. Please let's not start world war 4 over which is the better bird, there's room for lots of choices as well as opinions. I'm just stating my own preference.

 

[potagergirl]

Awesome,
thank you so much for all the info.
I have been able to locate and read the correct information for the Ameraucana now that I have a good starting point.
Nope don't want to start ww4. I think all chickens have a beautiful quality to them. I'm just a little crazy about getting what is known
to be the plain/real/beginning/ what ever you want to call it kind. I would eventually like to show all my chickens once I know I have a good quality stock. That's where the question began because when I was looking for the Ameraucana it talked about the show quality acceptable colors etc... and I wondered what the difference in the birds are.
I've been looking at breeders since I have current info from the byc people that know =)

thank you all

 

[Miss Lydia]

Miss Lydia, here are a few links. Just Google essential oils poultry if you want more there are bunches...some so-so and some based on science.

http://www.theprairiehomestead.com/...-and-how-i-used-essential-oils-on-my-hen.html

http://www.animalfeedscience.com/article/S0377-8401(10)00077-5/abstract?cc=y

http://animalnutrition.dupont.com/productsservices/essential-oil-feed-solutions/

http://www.hobbyfarms.com/farm-indu...tial-oils-prevent-salmonella-in-chickens.aspx

The Google query pulls up 632 thousand results so something there might work.

jtn thank you .

 

[Leahs Mom]

@Miss Lydia
I have a couple of possible resources here that I'm going to skim through before I recommend as they are mostly focused on herbs rather than the EOs. But I also send an email to a friend who has several EO reference books. I thought that one or more of them may have a livestock section so if I hear anything from her I'll report back.

 

[Miss Lydia]

@Miss Lydia
I have a couple of possible resources here that I'm going to skim through before I recommend as they are mostly focused on herbs rather than the EOs. But I also send an email to a friend who has several EO reference books. I thought that one or more of them may have a livestock section so if I hear anything from her I'll report back.

Thank you so much.

 

[Leahs Mom]

Quote:
Yep! Best man in the world... for me anyway

 

[LindaB220]

I have a couple of things I've been wondering about. One is that my FIL raised chickens probably about twenty years ago. The eggs he gave us had the hardest shells I've ever seen. I mean I think you could have injured someone with them, lol. I wonder how he fed them to get such hard shells. Do you think he added extra calcium to their feed. I am not concerned about the shells on my eggs. There is calcium in their feed and I leave out oyster shell in case they want it. I have not asked him .....he is close to 90 and I'm not sure he would remember or that he would hear me. He refuses to wear a hearing aid. I am just curious about what he did.

My other question is about the color of my egg yolks. My chickens are free ranged. I feed them fermented feed with occassional scraps, scratch, BOSS and pumpkin seeds. I don't think the yolks are especially dark. It may be that they are darker than I realize because I don't see many commercial eggs to compare them to. Also,even tho they are free ranged I only began collecting them in september so the bug population was going down and they are eating more of what I am feeding them and fewer "wild things". I'm just curious if anyone has any ideas.

Also, one of my Doms is sitting on four eggs right now so she is not laying. It now seems that her sister has stopped laying, too. Is this normal chicken behavior?

And last, what is the best way to encourage the hens to lay in the designated area instead of hiding eggs. I cannot catch most of my chickens so I don't know how I could contain them...especially as most of the nests are not enclosed. I have closed off the last hiding g spot...I don't see any more places they could use but I know they may find other places that I don't see. I don't mind walking around the yard to gather eggs, but this last place was one I couldn't reach and would not due to snakes in the summer.


Just curious and I hope its ok to ask on this thread. I know that was more than a couple....can you tell I have no one to talk "chicken" with in person?

Bahahahaha. Talkin' to the choir here. Nobody, but nobody in my family can stand to hear me talk about them. After all, we can buy eggs from the grocery store and God Forbid that I actually mention eating one. Not gonna happen. I had to promise, word of honor, that I wouldn't try to sneak one of the processed birds into the family dinner. I kid you not.