The Old Folks Home

[ChickenCanoe]

I love how they can flatten themselves out.

Somewhere I have a picture of a hen on the roost last winter with chick heads sticking out from under feathers all around her.

 

[chickadoodles]

Here we have the grumpy Veera sitting atop her icepacks.

that should get her off the nest. lol

 

[chickadoodles]

Slow cooking some supper


Spicy chicken soup is on the menu tonight. Yum!

 

[Alaskan]

I, too, have horrible winters and prefer to hatch in January. I feed at least 22% protein. They are in my basement for about 4 weeks, they get a heat lamp for about 7 to 10 days, then it's ambient temperatures which are between 50 and 65. Then they go out into the coop. That's it. They're generally mostly feathered by week 4 and they do fine outside without a heat lamp in the coop. They start laying in early to mid spring, which makes them incredibly desirable around here when the swaps start up and people want started birds. Most people at the swaps are selling chicks, I'm selling POL pullets. I sell out quick. Unless they're turkens.

Are your coops heated? What temps are they at?

I just can't keep the chicks in the house for 4 weeks and so they need to go out sooner and in warm weather.

SCG, that is disturbing. 

I rummaged through the freezer, and I think I discovered why it always feels full. I put three ice packs with Karins food a couple weeks ago, they're probably in the car still. But in addition to those, I found 11 frozen icepacks in our freezer. And then there's of course the two drawers that have an assortment of seagulls, rabbits, pheasants and ducks.

But Veera is now sitting on top of a couple of ice packs. Hopefully this works.

Seagulls? We don't get to eat seagulls.....you do? I would think they would be oily. Hummmmmm

 

[vehve]

I hope so, I really do.

Slow cooking some supper


Spicy chicken soup is on the menu tonight. Yum!

That looks yummy.

 

[vehve]

Seagulls? We don't get to eat seagulls.....you do? I would think they would be oily. Hummmmmm

I was wondering why no one picked up on that one

Those birds are for training the dogs. I guess some people might eat crow (those we have too, forgot about them in the freezer) or seagulls, but I haven't tried. I did see a TV show where they made sweet and sour crow with rice. Didn't seem half bad.

 

[Cynthia12]

No names have been mentioned

Yes, I thought of just that ... so no names mentioned. There are plenty of ads on t.v. I could be talking about any one of them.

And no names mentioned on the home..many around here!

Fri..coming up. Will be interesting.

 

[chickadoodles]

Quote: I hope so, I really do.

Slow cooking some supper


Spicy chicken soup is on the menu tonight. Yum!

That looks yummy.
Thanks it is. I just made chicken soup and added some cumin and hot sauce and a bit of tomato sauce.

 

[Lacy Blues]

Oh Lacy, what a great idea. I had no idea that I needed anything but fermented feed. Just the apple in it , right?

I put yogurt into my fermented feed and I recently started whipping up a granny smith apple in the blender with a little water to help it along and adding that to the fermented feed. Both of these about once per week. I don't go through my entire bucket of ff every day so there is still some in the bucket for quite a while. I just keep adding feed after taking out the morning and evening rations. I also add raw garlic daily, about a tablespoon in a 3 gallon bucket and 2 tbsp in a 5 gal bucket... roughly. I don't measure.

Anyone have any experience with broodies? We don't have the coop space capacity to add new members to our flock, and I don't have a suitable broody breaker cage at the moment. What if I just let our little Veera sit on her imaginary eggs, will she give up eventually without me intervening? Or is she going to sit on the nest and exhaust herself completely?

Most of my birds, if I allow them to sit and hope they stop... wear themselves out. If I don't want them to go broody and this depends entirely on the time of year and how many chicks I have already and whether or not I've had any birds in a particular flock go broody for me, plus their age.

I fooled my chickens into eating some strawberry yogurt by making a big pot of grits and mixing the yogurt in them because I know they love grits and are scared to try new things. And it worked! I even gave the dogs some. It was a huge pot of grits a nearly a whole large carton of yogurt.

You'll want to get plain, unsweetened yogurt. The sugar they add to the flavored yogurts will kill the probiotics, maybe not every last one but probably 90% of them, so they are taking away the benefit and you are eating a yogurt-like substance. So, if that's what you're eating in hopes of receiving the benefits, it ain't happenin'. You can train your taste buds to eat the plain. I started by mixing in some applesauce and a little cinnamon. That will work as long as your applesauce is unsweetened. You can also use yogurt as a substitute for sour cream. I use it plain with my omelets when I have them or enchiladas or burritos... whatever you like, just put some yogurt on the side and add a little to each bite... it's actually pretty good and not so sour as you first think it is.

give her a week and then move her to a wire bottomed cage.

You can also borrow a couple of day old chicks and let her have them for two days then give them back or sell them if you bought them. The Hen will stop being broody by then and then forget about the chicks soon after you remove them.

Sometimes the formerly broody hen will molt.

With my hens, giving them chicks before they've been SERIOUSLY broody for at least two weeks, they'll kill the chicks. I've had some go seriously broody for more than three weeks and still kill the chicks.

When I don't want one to be broody, I'll toss her off the nest every time I see her on it once I'm aware she's not just laying late.

Yeah, the wait a week approach was sort of what I had in mind. She tried this a couple weeks earlier too, but then she stopped by herself. We should be getting some colder weather soon too, so that might help as well.

I wouldn't want to build the cage myself, since the only smart place to put it would be the ceiling of the run, and I don't know if I'd trust it to hold. Maybe I need to haul the smaller dog crate from the cottage or something.

I've tried taking her out of the nest a couple times, she can stay with the flock for even half an hour, but then she goes back. She seems to have an internal clock that says when she's supposed to go lay an egg, but the time of the actual laying gets later every day during her stretch, so she ends up spending longer and longer times in there which seems to induce this, at least that's how it went close to the end of her previous two weeks of laying every day. Now she did it for two weeks again and started spending a longer time in the nest towards the last couple days, and hasn't laid in two days.

Apparently, from what I've read, they lay an egg every 28 hours (on average) so it is normally a little later each day.

 

[Cynthia12]

Corid is Amprolium and is a thiamin disrupter. They Cysts die for lack of nutrition.

The trick is to treat to kill the load and then the second half strength treatment regimen is to build resistance. They may need a treatment or two later. It is not a problem usually after they are 18 weeks old or so.

1. treatment strength(20% corid, 1.5 to 2 tsp. per gallon) for 5 to 7 days

2. then half strength for 5 to 7 days.

You will be less likely to need repeat treatment if you do the two treatments.

Haven't had to deal with anything that calls for this, but have to ask just in case it happens some day..is there a with draw period for egg eating? Not for the chickens, but for us humans..thought I would set that straight.