The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[lazy gardener]

Sounds like Mareks. Centrarchid talks about Mareks with his flock in the fall, if i remember correctly.

 

[JulesChicks]

Thanks for all the "stick" blender info! Wow...$149 for one of them!!!! That really is "fancy-pants"!


Now...
All of you that have them, tell me what things you use them for. I know I'll use it for mayo. What else?

I mainly use mine to puree soups instead of bothering with getting hot stuff into my VitaMix. I love pureed soups - sadly my kids and hubby prefer chunky.

 

[JulesChicks]

What are the common diseases carried by wild birds? West Nile and avian flu are not here. Pox is the only disease I am aware of and it is treatable if not too advanced.

Wild birds don't eat the chicken feed as it is in the coop as is water. I don't see any of the birds causing a problem. I wash the water containers twice a day and have been with the chickens when they are outside when water was outside the coop.

Feed sunflower seeds to wild birds in feeders inside a cage that only chickadees can get and thankfully starlings do not have the beaks to crack open any fallen seeds. Dog keeps starlings out of the yard too. Sparrows are annoying but they leave when chickens are in the yard.

Be concerned about MG - mycoplasma gallisepticum, a slow moving but contagious respiratory disease in poultry. I believe finches carry it. Our flock are carriers most likely since we had one tested positive, (we culled the 3 that were ill). No more signs, but it lives in the poop on the ground for up to a month in dry weather, and on clothing, hair, feathers, etc. The only way to get rid of it totally is to cull the whole flock, disinfect, wait 30 days and begin again. Not as bad as Mareks though, which will not die off in your environment. Good luck

 

[JulesChicks]

Once in a while I make mayo. I still have not found a recipe that suits my DH.
I have made several batches of soap with it. Ohh it is marvelous at soap making.
Other random uses, mincing onions, chopping peppers, making eggnog (this can be done in the ninja blender too),..

Just to see if they tasted differently I scrambled eggs with it once. The eggs tasted the same as when I had used a fork to scramble them. I like using the fork better as it is much less clean up.

I would love to know how you make soap! We spend way too much $$ on sulfate free soaps.

I have also used mine for scrambled eggs when doing a large amount. There is a recipe I used a lot (need to again) for baked oatmeal with steel cut oats - it's from Jenny McGruther, the Healthy Home Economist or someone similar. Anyway, you soak the oatmeal overnight with water and a little whey or yogurt and in the morning you add milk (raw), eggs, cinnamon and maple syrup (may be missing something) and the recipe recommended to use the immersion blender to whip up the liquid mixture to get it nice and frothy - so I use it for that too (worth it to dirty it over using a fork for the volume).

 

[JulesChicks]

I just wanted to say that I just bought an incubator!! So excited to hatch some chicks in a few months. I saw it on CL in my town so I had to nab it. I wanted a Brinsea but couldn't justify the expense if I'm not going to hatch a lot. I will just be hatching for myself and mainly because I can't find any Dominiques locally and so I'll be buying hatching eggs. I got a Hova-Bator 1602N (very clean and used once!) with the egg turner and a thermometer/hygrometer. I plan on buying a fan kit for it and then I'll still be under $100 for all of that, so I think I did pretty well.
Yippee!!

Oh, and I'm considering getting another couple of pullets at POL to keep my 2 Ams company in the big coop. I have 11 total now - 9 in the "small" coop and 2 in the big (8x8) coop, so just 2 more until brings me to 13 in late winter when I want to hatch. I think my girls should lay well in the winter since they haven't had a molt yet and it's their first winter laying.

 

[SallyinIndiana]

I would love to know how you make soap! We spend way too much $$ on sulfate free soaps.

I have also used mine for scrambled eggs when doing a large amount. There is a recipe I used a lot (need to again) for baked oatmeal with steel cut oats - it's from Jenny McGruther, the Healthy Home Economist or someone similar. Anyway, you soak the oatmeal overnight with water and a little whey or yogurt and in the morning you add milk (raw), eggs, cinnamon and maple syrup (may be missing something) and the recipe recommended to use the immersion blender to whip up the liquid mixture to get it nice and frothy - so I use it for that too (worth it to dirty it over using a fork for the volume).

I watched a lot of you tube videos from Soaping 101 and read a few books too. Then I researched a few sites listing the various oli properties for soaping. For example castor oil is good for bubbles. Tallow is good for bar hardness.

First one decides on oils they want to use. Second one finds an online lye calculator to calculate or formulate a soap recipe and lye amount. Third one decides on a liquid, I like milk or juice, but even simple non chlorinated water works well enough.
From here on out its really up to the soap maker, but I freeze the liquid the night before. Then I just follow the basic cold process techniques: heating the oils to 100 or liquid point whichever is higher, slowly adding the lye to the frozen liquid, slowly and carefully adding the lye mix to the oils, stir then stick blend until light trace, stir in additives such as oats, honey, colors, or fragrances, and finish by pouring into a mold.

Lots of great info on the soaping 101 videos but they can be a bit boring if you don't care for the little details. I sorted by posting order and watched the oldest first as they included most of the basic ones. There is even one to calculate how much oil should be in a recipe based on the mold you have picked.

 

[JulesChicks]

Sounds great - another project for me to get into after we're more settled (moved to new place).

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Sounds like Mareks.  Centrarchid talks about Mareks with his flock in the fall, if i remember correctly.

no not Mareks, I've seen that and had that years ago, I want to say it seems like west Nile but everything I read says chickens don't get sick with it. They don't get paralyzed just dumpy, don't eat well and get weaker from not eating. I give them a week or two to rally than cull if they don't and most don't.

 

[beginnergirl]

Shortgrass,

Thanks. Funny just met a permaculture farmer so the idea of permaculture is coming up a lot. Will post pics if anything ends up growing with the cover crop.

Lucky you have a sparrow hawk. Hope it helps with your sparrows.

 

[beginnergirl]

every late summer early fall there are a lot of sparrows around here flying weirdly, dying in my water... You are lucky to be able to keep the birds out of your pens, I free range mine and keep them in a large pole building so we constantly have sparrows and starlings we are battling, they poop everywhere, die everywhere, and eat a fair amount of my feed. My husband has a rat trap set in my shed, doesn't catch rats because they are too smart but he is catching a sparrow every day.

Horrible. Have not heard of sparrows dying like that. Hope you get some answers here. I will watch to make sure that wild birds stay out of the coop.
We used an electric "rat zapper", battery operated rat electrocution. Ugh. But kills quickly without poison. You just pick up the plastic cylinder and rat falls out. Worked well but about $50.