The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[oldhenlikesdogs]

I'm assuming they are a full crop, unless they start to look different. It's hard to tell when they are going through this baby molt.

I'm hoping that if I don't get into a heritage breed, that I can manage myself. We had a flock of 26 plus some assorted roosters at one point. It was nice that they were all auto sexing, but honestly it was a bit much.

I have around 100 chickens currently, so I'm no help with self control.

 

[texasmomma]

I have around 100 chickens currently, so I'm no help with self control.

heh We live on a little less than an acre in the suburbs. Chickens are a no-no here. We called our coops "stealth coops". LOL I'm thinking about getting some sheep. I am not always a rule follower.

 

[Leahs Mom]

I've considered a couple sheep for an area that I mow....just feels like I'm throwing food away every time I mow that pasture. It's just short of 2 acres.

 

[Amanita]

I think it probably does have to do with the particular breed personality to some degree.

And, @hoosiercheetah , the owner of this forum has a book out that he co-authored with a vet called, "Chicken Health for Dummies". In his book, he encourages an "all in all out" policy like you're talking about for many reasons.

I really struggle with that for a couple of reasons. One is that I'd like to be "self-sufficient" as much as possible so I'd like to have my flock begin raising their own young and not be as dependent on an outside source for chicks. Another is that I am hoping to see them be a more "natural" flock in which there are chickens of all ages.

The other side of that story is that in nature, eventually there would be sub-flocks that would form and go off into another area to continue to proliferate which would happen over and over with an unlimited natural setting..... Which we don't have in captivity unless we just let them take over all the acreage and live all over the place instead of cooping.

Sigh.

So...all of this is to say that I'm still in process trying to figure out how I want to handle it all myself. I know what my "idealistic" self would like to see. And I definitely appreciate the reasoning behind "all in all out".

I think, in the end, if I continue having chickens I'll end up somewhere in the middle. But we shall see...based on my experiences and the time and the resources I have I'll have to figure out what works here. Either way, I hope to emulate the most natural situation I can in husbandry.

Leah's Mom, I know this was quite a while ago now that you wrote this, but I'm still working my way through the thread. I feel the same way, and I was wondering if you would care to share your experiences since you posted that? Did it work out the way you had hoped or did you need to make some compromises? (Apologies if you've already written about this and I just haven't read it yet.)

 

[Amanita]

I can't believe I ate read the whole thing!

There's an amazing amount of good information here, I'm so grateful to you all for sharing everything you know. I'm sure there are plenty of surprises in my future, but I'm really glad I got a chance to absorb some of this knowledge before starting out.

We haven't quite got the chickens yet; the shell of the coop is up but then I realised I want to redesign it a little bit after really paying attention to what everyone else has done. Leah's mom, I love the 'people area' you have and the inside nesting boxes, so I'm thinking of setting up a similar partition near the big door and putting a chicken door in the side. That would give us a small area to keep feed and other supplies in as well, which I think would come in very handy.

I want to put together a kind of natural first aid kit, I'll be drawing heavily on the info in this thread to source the supplies I need!

The last bit I'm trying to figure out regarding the coop is the floor. Deep litter definitely seems like the way to go, and I get the impression that having a dirt floor would be best for that. Would I be making some kind of big mistake if I just left the floor off completely but still had the coop elevated a foot or two into the air? Obviously I would cover the gap so that predators couldn't get in at night. But it seems that with our climate it would stay cosy enough even with that much open.

Apologies if this is not the right thread for all of this, I just feel very at home here after having spent what must be a couple of months reading through it all!

And the breeder that I was hoping to get the Dorkings from is out of stock for the season, which means I need to rethink my plan there also. As far as I can find out we're much more limited here in the available breeds, and there are a lot of production hybrid type breeds arounds which are being pushed heavily. I'm wondering if I'm going to really struggle to get genuine heritage breed birds.

I guess I'll look at what else is available and maybe switch to a different breed. Would love some more suggestions from people who have experience of them.
Preferably:

• Good at free ranging/predator aware
• Not too fussed about quantity of eggs, brown or coloured slightly preferred over white
• Dual purpose ideally but not critical since I'd need to work up to using for meat
• 'Traditional' looking, i.e. not Silkie, frizzle, feathered feet, etc.
• My husband has a strange objection to pencilled/laced/barred so none of those

Thanks again for everything you've shared so far, and in advance for any more advice

 

[Lauravonsmurf]

I think floor type and so on is one of those combo personal choices plus environmental issues. I tried a more deep litter thing with my first birds years ago, I did not like it... but others love it, so probably a matter of trial and error... some folks like pea-gravel others sand too... stuff people put on their floors vary greatly too with likes and dislikes for the same stuff. I also had problems with critters digging under so I have done the opposite, I went for full on brick floor for my enclosed coop/house so at night no critters can burrow under and I just clean it up as needed and scrub and disinfect brick floor... during the day the hens free range the backyard. Tomorrow is a cleaning day for the bricks, coop and beds the chickens frequent. Yard Work... lol. On thing to consider is a path to your coop for when in rains... another reason I went with brick it gets muddy and having slogged through the clay mud here in the past I decided walkway would be nice.

 

[Lauravonsmurf]

Breeds well you got choices... sounds like you maybe want clean legged single comb birds, Rhode Island Reds, Sex Links, Plymouth Rock (they come in other colors besides barred), New Hampshire, Java, or Delaware, if you want something unusual but dual Naked Necks single comb meat bird lays decent number of brown eggs. There are lots of breeds... depends on what you want.

 

[texasmomma]

I posted a few days ago about some mixed breedchickens I got from a friend. 1 is a different color than the rest, and seems fine. The other three seem to have a soft spot on their shoulders. I'm assuming crop until I find otherwise.

I bought them together. They all hatched together. They are living with 4 hatchery birds I got from the feed store. One of these mixed chicks is just not developing normally, and I'm looking for opinions.

This one was always smaller. It has 5 toes. It's feathers look like they might be frizzled. On the back of the wings, there are bald spots. The wings look wrong. They arent feathering properly. One of the legs seems to have no fuzz/feathers.

I gave pics here, but a pic of a hatch mate. It seems fine other than the crop/shoulder thing. My 8yo is in charge if these, and I was t to prepare her in case this chicken is just not a good candidate for our small, backyard flock.

Last pic is of hatch mate to compare.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

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View attachment 1077907 I posted a few days ago about some mixed breedchickens I got from a friend. 1 is a different color than the rest, and seems fine. The other three seem to have a soft spot on their shoulders. I'm assuming crop until I find otherwise.

I bought them together. They all hatched together. They are living with 4 hatchery birds I got from the feed store. One of these mixed chicks is just not developing normally, and I'm looking for opinions.

This one was always smaller. It has 5 toes. It's feathers look like they might be frizzled. On the back of the wings, there are bald spots. The wings look wrong. They arent feathering properly. One of the legs seems to have no fuzz/feathers.

I gave pics here, but a pic of a hatch mate. It seems fine other than the crop/shoulder thing. My 8yo is in charge if these, and I was t to prepare her in case this chicken is just not a good candidate for our small, backyard flock.

Last pic is of hatch mate to compare.

What are you asking?

 

[Molpet]

my BJG males feather out slowly on their wings like that. I have heard of mix silkies/ frizzels having only one leg feathered, I do not have any of those