The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[Leahs Mom]

@oldhenlikesdogs
I think your animals all look great! And the barn looks tidy to me. It's the animal house!

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

@oldhenlikesdogs

I think your animals all look great!  And the barn looks tidy to me.  It's the animal house!

Thank you, love your pole building too, the more room the better, everyone should have one. I'm going to steal your netting idea, that's so smart, you are way smarter than me. I have yet to have any hawks fly in my shed, the sparrows and starlings are my nemesis.

 

[armorfirelady]

It was good to see you! I know you have some tips to share!

I can share what I like most.

Fermenting feed- very simple and my hens are healthy

Wood ash- My hens always have it available. The one time I didnt they got mites. Never again will they go without it.

Ventilation- Even in my simple cattle panel coop ventilation is important. Once the temps get over 35 I start to roll up the sides. The more air the better. Even during the winter the door window & south facing sides are open unless its snowing hard. Once the wx is nice the girls are outside more than in the coop.

Deep litter- Every spring I empty the coop into my veggie garden. This year I dug up about 8 inches of beautiful black gold that was under the deep litter. Its been building up for years. I plan on using it in my potato frame I made this year. I then rotottilled the rest in the coop up and put a thin coating of shavings over it.

 

[Leahs Mom]

the sparrows and starlings are my nemesis.

@oldhenlikesdogs

When we first decided to use the pole barn for winter housing there were 2 things I was extremely concerned about. Rodents was one. Birds flying in and making nests in the rafters was the other.

I am able to set traps in such a way that, at least so far, the rodents haven't gotten out of control.

And the netting has so far prevented "fly-ins" and nest building.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

I h

@oldhenlikesdogs


When we first decided to use the pole barn for winter housing there were 2 things I was extremely concerned about.  Rodents was one.  Birds flying in and making nests in the rafters was the other.

I am able to set traps in such a way that, at least so far, the rodents haven't gotten out of control.

And the netting has so far prevented "fly-ins" and nest building. 

I have donkeys that come and go out the door, so until they are all gone the birds get in. My husband uses a rat trap, a shallow bowl and some corn in it to catch sparrows, and during the warmer months he knocks down all their nests which has cut down on them. He also shoots at the starlings, who will move elsewhere pretty quickly with a few that stick around. We have gone from hundreds to less than a hundred, but it's a constant battle.

We get rats in the fall coming in for the winter, trapping hasn't worked so we put out poison, which works and is temporary, it does make me nervous, but the rats are pretty aggressive in their tunneling and consumption of my feed. And it needs to stop pretty quickly. The traps were originally for the rats but my husband discovered he caught more sky rats with their use.

 

[Leahs Mom]

I can't picture how the trap is working for the birds. Can you do a photo?

The main thing I've been concerned about in using poison is that my birds (or other animals) might pick up a rat or chipmunk that has died (or still alive but weakened by the poison) and eat it.

Are you able to find them and dispose of them?

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

The rats die in their tunnels, I had found one chipmunk dead in the area that the dogs were tossing around and I quickly disposed of it. I do get weird when he puts it out, I think he would like me to shut up. We use a black bait box. So far no one else has died from it, we have been using it for about ten years. I'm not sure if we have mutant rats, but they can tunnel under a 30 foot length of concrete and come out of multiple holes.

We used to have a dairy farm and rats were a problem there too. I once tried running a hose down a rat hole to drown them, they kept pushing the house out of the hole. We also had them in the house once and they chewed a hole through the floor on the second floor trying to get to some bird seed. Not pleasant. Our rats are smart, and persistent, maybe our harsh winters weed out the dumb ones.

I will go out and get a picture of our red neck bird trap for you.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

The trap isn't set, i can't do that, but this catches lots of sparrows, put where chickens can't get cause i think you could catch a chicken too. We're had it on the ground and up high, seems to work best lower where they think they are stealing feed.

 

[Leahs Mom]

Thanks! Great concept. Now why do you think the rats don't go for it?

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

No matter what bait we use, the rats will trip the trap and eat the bait off, I think we have caught one once. We have tried all the advice about trap placement, and baits, nothing works, we just keep feeding them. Wish we could figure it out. I imagine them throwing stuff at the traps to set them off.

We use a similar set up for chipmunk, we put the trap in a small bucket so they have to hop in to get stuff, hate doing it but they keep hiding all my corn and sunflower seeds every where, and they drive the dogs nuts, which drives me nuts.