The Old Folks Home

[vehve]

We gave up trying to stop that pretty quickly...

 

[ChickenCanoe]

I am off tomorrow.
I am going to try to catch up on my projects.

**Put hens and chicks in the tractor
**Redesign the auto-feeder
**Cull down SC pullets by about half
**Select SC spring breeder cockerels
**Set up nest box in new pen
**Set up grit/shell feeders
**Take lots of pictures!

We'll see what gets done.......... It's awful hot out.........

The list. I make one every day. There's so much to do though that I get sidetracked.

Vehve, my breeder coop is not finished, but it is already 8'x24'. It have a metal roof and the walls are solid walls up to a height of 4' and another 4' above that is wire, all the way around. Talk about ventilation!

Is your breeder coop going to have multiple units?

Ventilation is as important as predator protection.

I feel you dude! In central Texas right now we have 100-102 degrees with a heat index, because of the humidity, of 105! Birthday suits? Yes, and like Marilyn used to say when asked what she wore to bed....."Only Chanel #5." But for me it is old lady talcum powder so one doesn't feel sticky.

It's 99% at my house now. I've worn knee boots outside half the summer cause it's so wet, but it's also been in the 90s for about a week and a half. We hit 100 a couple days ago. Not as bad today with yesterday afternoon's rain.

For me it's corn starch.

And we have vents! I still refuse to believe the amount of holes that people on BYC recommend you to cut on your coop. So far, with outside humidity being 85%, the inside humidity has not gone over 70%. I don't think that's too bad, ventilation would not keep it any lower. And sure, in the morning you can smell a bit of poop, but just enough to notice it's there, the smell isn't offensive.

Outside:


Inside:

You've made a beautiful building. I encourage you to reconsider and cut big holes. The humidity is only a problem in the winter. The rest of the year, including winter, it is pathogens that need big air flow to keep at bay. Chickens die from heat and bad air. They're outdoor animals. We only put them in coops to keep them dry and safe from predators.
When large scale poultry production began in earnest in the early 1900s they cooped up the flocks for winter. It wasn't uncommon to lose half of the flocks. It was considered normal. Then someone surmised that viruses, bacteria, fungus and protozoa were cooped up with them and thriving in the warmer, moist environment. One farmer decided to take one side off of his buildings. He'd go out in the morning and the snow would have drifted up in the corners - but he didn't lose one bird that winter. A revelation was born.
A local friend started with chickens 3 years ago. She has a very nice coop and a large covered predator proof run. She has roosts in both. Her chickens have never roosted in the coop, including all winter - opting for the breezy run.






On my breeder houses I have approximately the top third of both East and West walls open, right at roost height. The breeze blows right through but the birds have never had respiratory issues.

That's a great coop. And it looks like you're doing the deep liter method, so just throw out some scratch into that mess and they will scratch it up to find the grains and break up the poop. Then it drys right up and does not stink at all. Anyway, that's what I do. I shovel it out only about 2 or three times a year. I am also amazed at the amount of air circulation that is recommended, even in winter. Then I discovered that chickens can stand 40 degrees below! So I realized I was worrying about their warmth way too much. They are better off to be cold than to have a humid coop because then they get all manner of possible respiratory diseases. : (

X2 Many breeds of chickens were developed in extremely cold climates and they didn't coop them up. Not to mention that their ancestors, jungle fowl natural range extends from tropical rainforest all the way into the Himalayas so they're quite adaptable. And they don't sleep in coops either.

Well, that was a bit of a scare. I heard a horrible commotion from the yard, and quickly went to check, what do I see? A northern goshawk bashing around in our yard. I yelled at it a bit, and it took off. The older ones had all found shelter, but I found the Sussex roo hiding under our cabinet shed with quite a lot of feathers strewn on the ground around it. He was a bit shaken, but didn't appear to have any wounds. The Sussex pullet was nowhere to be seen though, so I locked up the rest of the flock, and took out Kiusa and we went looking. The dog found her in about 2 minutes, hiding outside our yard in some bushes and under some rocks. There were some feathers there too, but she seems to be fine, although a bit nervous. It seems that with them being a bit clumsy, they make for a pretty easy target. No unsupervised yard time for the chickens in a while. And finding lost chickens is a lot easier with a trained hunting dog, let me tell you that. It will be interesting to see what this does to egg laying. Viiru was happily unaware of anything in the egg nest during the attack, so we might at least get one egg today.

I've only lost meat birds to hawks. But I always keep a Pene rooster with each free ranging flock. When I was younger, we'd occasionally lose a leghorn with no roosters but we had 100 of them.

 

[vehve]

@ChickenCanoe The chicken door is open too, allowing them access to the run. They can sleep there if they want to. But I still believe, that as long as you have dry bedding in the coop, it will stay dry too. The peat moss we have in there seems to suck all the moisture out. We also air the coop every morning when we do cleaning. My plan is to try it with the existing ventilation, but if it becomes a problem, I can always convert the service door into a vent. Chickens have been kept in Finland for a pretty long time too, and most chicken coops I've seen have a lot less ventilation than mine if you take into account their size. The one's I've been in, don't smell bad, and I haven't heard of problems with chickens dying either. We do traditionally keep quite a lot of bedding in there though, I don't know if it affects it. We usually have about 4 inches of bedding in ours, but it's not deep litter since we keep it dry, so there isn't the same kind of bacterial activity in it. When the chickens were small, we gave them leftovers inside the coop. It took about 6 weeks before it started to smell, at that point we changed the litter and haven't given them leftovers inside the coop. But anyway, I'm going to try it this way, and see how it works.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

We all have to do what we think is best. What works well one place is bad advice elsewhere. Stocking density has a lot to do with it.
Good luck to you.
It's still a marvelous looking building.

 

[vehve]

Haha, that sounds like "This darn idiot just doesn't get it". I hear you, but I'm stubborn. I'm completely aware of the fact that I might be totally wrong with my approach. I guess we'll see in a few months.

What's the situation in Ferguson at the moment? Hasn't been anything about it in our papers.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Haha, that sounds like "This darn idiot just doesn't get it". I hear you, but I'm stubborn. I'm completely aware of the fact that I might be totally wrong with my approach. I guess we'll see in a few months.

What's the situation in Ferguson at the moment? Hasn't been anything about it in our papers.

I didn't mean it that way at all. I read bits of advice in poultry magazines that have probably worked for the author but wouldn't work most places. I tell people not to treat everything you read as gospel, even from knowledgeable chicken people. Certainly what works for one in Texas or Nevada wouldn't work for Alaskan, SCG or someone from Minnesota. Nor would good husbandry in the Costa Rican lowlands make any sense for you.

Ferguson has bee quite calm. Everyone has been waiting for the grand jury decision. Doesn't mean it can't get bad fast. There's a push for body cameras. Two forces here, including the county police are starting to test them as we speak.
The places where they've been used, even the police were surprised at the results. One California community, in the first year after the cameras' introduction, the use of force by officers declined 60%, and citizen complaints against police fell 88%.
The price of cameras has fallen dramatically of late but if citizen complaints fall to 10% of original, that could offset any cost.
Apparently the cost of storage and management of data is more than the initial cost of the cameras.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

I wanted to report that I received a call yesterday from the MO Dept. of Ag. They will be coming 2 weeks from today to test my flock for NPIP. I'm looking forward to it, now that my adult flock is so small. Not nearly as daunting as it could have been. They should only have to test 13 birds, even though I have about 75.

 

[vehve]

Yeah, I would not recommend my ventilation setup for anyone else, at least not before I've seen it through a year.

I don't know how to feel about surveillance cameras. I think there are privacy concerns involved too, but if they help with safety, it might be worth it.

 

[vehve]

What do they test for in the NPIP program?

 

[ChickenCanoe]

As far as I know, only Pullorum and Typhoid. You can have them tested for other things but not necessary for certification. I think there is a charge if tested for other things like Avian Influenza.
Also, as far as I know the testing is free. They have about a 3 hour drive to get here. They'll be here by 9 or 10 AM and I have to be able to catch all adult birds. I'll keep them cooped till then and then it will be mayhem for about an hour.
I'm happy so now I can ship chicks and eggs legally. Would have been better to have NPIP if I had all my previous flocks but maybe now I can recoup a small percent of my costs.