The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[slordaz]

Will get pics tomorrow to tired after fixing fences this week. Today we found out who the culprit was of the disappearing eggs was, it wasn't the cockrel we thought, dang magpie got caught in the act for trying to steal one of the leghorn eggs which was to big for it to handle, so now to figure out how to deal with that lol.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

I have crows that will snatch any young chicks, right out from their mothers even, bold and smart, good luck out smarting your magpie.

 

[hellbender]

Will get pics tomorrow to tired after fixing fences this week. Today we found out who the culprit was of the disappearing eggs was, it wasn't the cockrel we thought, dang magpie got caught in the act for trying to steal one of the leghorn eggs which was to big for it to handle, so now to figure out how to deal with that lol.

Lead poison???

 

[slordaz]

nope our chickens are free ranged plus we have calves out there too so that isn't an option

trying to figure out a solution they are small enough to get in the door so the hens can come in and lay when ever, as they do not like to be locked in until they lay. Gonna check, might just start popping em.

 

[lalaland]

slordaz, when it gets cold, opt for warm and not hot oatmeal for the chickens. Believe it or not, the steam can cause frostbite on the wattles!

 

[lalaland]

@Leahs Mom , I think I remember tht you put waterers on gravel in a heated dog bowl.....I'm trying to figure out what to do with the quail. They are drinking out of a chick waterer - I used an open container but they walk through it, so changed to the chick waterer. Now, how the heck am I going to give them water in the winter.

I can't quite believe the heated gravel would keep the water in the top part of the waterer from freezing. Any ideas?

 

[Leahs Mom]

Yes, it was me. I've tried MANY things for heating water and, seriously, this works the best for me. I'll re-post a photo below.

I use a couple of these depending on how many birds I have. They are INSIDE the chicken house so not in the direct wind outdoors. If it's above about 14/15 degrees F, it does well and doesn't start freezing from the top down. When it gets really cold I just take out a fresh water in the morning.

If I know it's going to be really cold, I'll use heated water when I take it out before I leave for work....again, if below "0" or near "0" F, I check it as soon as I get home to be sure it hasn't begun to freeze from the top down. I very seldom have that problem, but sometimes it will start to freeze a bit around the glass edges and the top...not often.


So here's the deal:
*************************


Put grit into a heated dog bowl deep enough to to form a stable base and raise the waterer up to the rim level; put water in the grit to conduct heat. Place one of these 2 kinds of waterers on the bed of grit depending on which sizes you have.

Quart size heated bowl fits the chick sized water bases which cost about $2 and can be used with any regular mouth canning jar or a 5 lb honey jar which holds 1/2 gallon. This photo shows the 5 lb. honey jar (apx. 1/2 gal. water). (I used this size all last winter successfully with all age birds.)




The 5 quart larger dog bowl fits a 2 gallon waterer. I HAVE NOT TRIED THIS MYSELF. Hoosier Cheetah was trying it last year so I'm hoping he will stop in and comment on how it worked out for him.
Photo by @hoosiercheetah

 

[Leahs Mom]

PS:
When I say that I heated the water, I got it hot enough that it wouldn't harm the birds.


Also -
I am a FIRM BELIEVER in "restricted opening" waterers for winter and this fits the bill. We've known people whose birds accidentally stepped into open waterers (for example....just putting the water in the dog bowl and letting them drink from it rather than putting the restricted opening waterer on top). If the bird steps into water, their feet and lower legs can freeze almost instantly when they remove the foot from the waterer when the weather is extremely cold... losing the limbs to frostbite.

Restricted openings also reduce - or eliminate - wattles hanging in the water. When the wattles can get into the water it becomes a venue for almost instant frostbite as well.

I don't want to take that chance, therefore my quest to find something that protects them from accidentally getting into a waterer in winter.

That's why I don't just use a heated bucket or dog bowl without some kind of restriction.

 

[lazy gardener]

ROFL you should change your name to SMART gardener!

He doesn't just have a tiller. He has a BOBCAT with a tiller attachment....

I used to till...24/7 it seemed... Follows the pattern if tilling the fields, right? My grandma gave me my first tiller when I got married... I used it til it died, then got another... I tilled ACRES with that, then I would load it up and head over to moms and till her ACRES too...

Then one day, I was tilling her garden spot, where she'd been battling bindweed for year's.. (Back story here, bear with me lol)...I had just given up, my plot in my tiny yard in a town was overrun with it, so I had stopped tilling and tossed a bag of oats on it in frustration... And I had no bindweed the next spring. Epiphany!!!!

I stopped what I was doing, said "this is stupid, we're just reseeding bindweed," loaded my tiller up, and went home and sold it.

She still battles bindweed, and I still end up over there running her tiller for her, but I'm not weeding THAT

Then I met the new DH... And the bobcat... Oh boy I've had to literally fence off areas to keep him from having access to them... We negotiate lol; he has his till spots where he can till and pack it down and then watch the topsoil and all those microbes and nutrients blow away in our 40 mph Colorado winds... And my spots get "lasagna-ed" and things grow rampant and all I have to pull are the weeds that blow over from HIS side, and my topsoil stays put

I'm a no till advocate, for sure

Are you sure you're not my twin sister? Or perhaps your hubby is somehow related to mine... Nah! Mine is a city boy. But he does love his lawn mower. I have to strategically place huge rocks and other obstacles around any vegetation that I don't want him to level with the lawn mower. He's mowed down: high bush blue berries, rhubarb, takes special delight in mowing down zucchini, routinely mows any flowers that stray an inch or two outside of their border. Well... perhaps I exaggerate... the flowers stray a lot, perhaps a foot or two! I once caught him trying to mow down a cherry tree. He's not related to George Washington, but I call him Mr. MowsItAll. What other attachments does that BobCat have??? I have dreams of what I could do with a machine with a bucket and a few other attachments.

PS:
When I say that I heated the water, I got it hot enough that it wouldn't harm the birds.


Also -
I am a FIRM BELIEVER in "restricted opening" waterers for winter and this fits the bill. We've known people whose birds accidentally stepped into open waterers (for example....just putting the water in the dog bowl and letting them drink from it rather than putting the restricted opening waterer on top). If the bird steps into water, their feet and lower legs can freeze almost instantly when they remove the foot from the waterer when the weather is extremely cold... losing the limbs to frostbite.

Restricted openings also reduce - or eliminate - wattles hanging in the water. When the wattles can get into the water it becomes a venue for almost instant frostbite as well.

I don't want to take that chance, therefore my quest to find something that protects them from accidentally getting into a waterer in winter.

That's why I don't just use a heated bucket or dog bowl without some kind of restriction.

I use a heated dog bowl, and set a gallon milk jug in the middle. It creates the restricted access. And it also keeps some extra water out there so I can top off the "moat" when I go out to collect eggs.

 

[jockeyeba]

Question: I have a black Orpington cross that has always laid a nice large darker brown egg, sometimes with a speck of darker dots but she had seemed to quit laying. I have been finding these tiny dark brown eggs the last couple of weeks & had no idea where they were coming from. I'm leaning towards it being her but how can a hen suddenly start laying an egg the size of a Bantams? The picture is the egg next to my Ameraucana's nice egg (which is a beautiful blue that isn't showing in the photo I just took), has anyone had this happen before? Her normal egg's are the 1st & 5th in the back row & my Ameraucana's egg is the one in the middle of the 2nd row