The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[maryhysong]

ok, not working on fence yet. friend just sent this photo:

said she couldn't understand why her chickens were having a fit!

LoL; my cat were raised in the chicken house to keep them safe from coyotes and owls when they were small. They still go in and out and frequently nap in the nest boxes so my birds just ignore them. Unless the cats are trying to eat chicken feed, then they get pecked on the head

 

[Leahs Mom]

@lalaland
Very pretty photos!

My birds are out again for the first time on Wednesday. The sliding door was frozen down until just this week. Nice to see them out again but now I have to either build real pens for the barn or move them back to the hen shed. Right now they can't go in and out unless I'm home to open the slider and it is dark when I leave in the morning. If we put proper pens in the barn on the other side, I can put the auto pop doors in. If not...it's back to the hen shed for them so they can go outside when I'm gone.

 

[Leahs Mom]

Quote:
@maryhysong
Just curious...do you think that the cats being present in your yard helps keep hawk predation down? Or are the cats hawk-food too?

 

[maryhysong]

@maryhysong
Just curious...do you think that the cats being present in your yard helps keep hawk predation down? Or are the cats hawk-food too?

I think they would be hawk snacks too. But I have a Maremma that barks off a lot of predators including hawks.

 

[Lacy Blues]

@lalaland
Very pretty photos!

My birds are out again for the first time on Wednesday. The sliding door was frozen down until just this week. Nice to see them out again but now I have to either build real pens for the barn or move them back to the hen shed. Right now they can't go in and out unless I'm home to open the slider and it is dark when I leave in the morning. If we put proper pens in the barn on the other side, I can put the auto pop doors in. If not...it's back to the hen shed for them so they can go outside when I'm gone.

Why not send them back to the hen shed since it's warming up and then you can take your time in building pens inside the other barn for next winter.

 

[Leahs Mom]

I may do just that.

I don't think my husband has time to build the pens and I was hoping to find a "handyman" type person that may be out of work to do the job.

One thing we found is that the dust factor in the whole pole barn was tremendous. There is dust on everything in there just from having had the chickens in the barn. We store the lawn equipment, tractor and other things including using it as a storage for items that should not get dusty. If I keep using the barn, we would want to build off a room of sorts where the pens could be separated from the rest of the barn somehow so that the dust stays in that area only.

This brings up other issues of placement, etc.

I have thought I may contact pole barn builders and ask for some possible "floor plans" of how we could separate things in there, trying to keep in mind future uses. The barn is good sized with a nice cement floor. Never been used for animals until I put the chickens in this winter.

I have to say that it worked out really well for them to have a 16x12 area indoors since there was snow on the ground for most of the winter that was way deeper than they'd have gone out in. The shed is really too small for 9 birds to be stuck indoors during the winter and some would have been bullied to the outside run whether they chose to go out or not. I liked that I didn't have to shovel anything also.

 

[Leahs Mom]

Thought this was worth reading so posting a link. It is regarding GM in general.

The thesis of the article that was signed by 300 scientists regarding GM is that anyone that claim that GM is safe is not basing that on adequate testing even though they purport that there has been adequate testing. In the US, the FDA gave GM a "GRAS' rating (Generally Regarded as Safe) even though proper testing has not happened.

Anyhow, here' is the article if anyone is interested:
http://www.enveurope.com/content/pdf/s12302-014-0034-1.pdf



My own personal "take" on GM is that the health and fertility problems we're seeing that seem to be related to GM contaminated feeds (for human or animal) may be as much due to the high amount of glyphosate that they can tolerate which is not only "on" the plant but taken up into their structure as well. Those high levels, in addition to chemical fertilizer and pesticides used on GM crops, I think may be enough to be a health hazard...not to mention the terminator genes and other "wonders" of GM...

I guess we shall see.

But I think the main message these scientists are getting at is that we are at risk of having contaminated our soils in such a way that we will have a hard time "healing" the land and IT HAS JUST BEEN A HUGE EXPERIMENT that may go terribly wrong...and never should have been released into the open until more conclusive testing was done on the long-term effects.

 

[EastNashChick]

Thought this was worth reading so posting a link.  It is regarding GM in general. 

The thesis of the article that was signed by 300 scientists regarding GM is that anyone that claim that GM is safe is not basing that on adequate testing even though they purport that there has been adequate testing.  In the US, the FDA gave GM a "GRAS' rating (Generally Regarded as Safe) even though proper testing has not happened.

Anyhow, here' is the article if anyone is interested:
http://www.enveurope.com/content/pdf/s12302-014-0034-1.pdf



My own personal "take" on GM is that the health and fertility problems we're seeing that seem to be related to GM contaminated feeds (for human or animal) may be as much due to the high amount of glyphosate that they can tolerate which is not only "on" the plant but taken up into their structure as well.  Those high levels, in addition to chemical fertilizer and pesticides used on GM crops, I think may be enough to be a health hazard...not to mention the terminator genes and other "wonders" of GM...

I guess we shall see. 

But I think the main message these scientists are getting at is that we are at risk of having contaminated our soils in such a way that we will have a hard time "healing" the land and IT HAS JUST BEEN A HUGE EXPERIMENT that may go terribly wrong...and never should have been released into the open until more conclusive testing was done on the long-term effects.

Scary

 

[chicalot]

@vpatt. .. a cage within the larger group or nearby should work well. My 6 weekers have been in cages for a few days near the bigger chickens and today they were able to stay out with them all day. So funny seeing a 6 week roo try to go toe to toe with an old hen and gets his tail feathers handed to him so to speak. He learned pretty quick to keep his hackles down

I woke up today thinking the rooster would be dead or the event for the day would be a culling. I didn't even get to check on him yesterday and my husband had no good reports. However, I kept seeing movement in his cage today. When I got to go out at lunch to check him he was more energetic. I gave him fresh food and water and didn't have to coax him. He's eating and drinking. Go figure! Normal poops too. I gave him fresh straw and he picked through it off and on through the rest of the day. He has hope now. I think his beak needs a trim.

 

[chicalot]

Ps. Thank you ronott (im sure i butchered the name) for the advice on the Corid that had to be what turned him as I don't think it was the yogurt and I hadn't gotten to the vitamins. He's still weak but we'll see.