The road less traveled...back to good health! They have lice, mites, scale mites, worms, anemia, gl

[Beekissed]

I was out in the backyard day before yesterday with the flock....all of a sudden they all ran to get under the bushes....I stood and looked in the trees, but couldn't see anything......as I was dumping the coop poops in the other half of the backyard, a red tail flew so close to me, I could touch him! I'm so sorry for your loss......

Dumping coop poops? Not doing deep litter yet?

Bee....I need to know the transition look of poops from dry food to FF please......from what I see.......a lot darker?

Yes, from all reports from others and from watching the meaty chicks and knowing what they normally put out. My flocks have always had darker feces, due to the foraged foods being the bulk of their diets, I imagine. When they arrived here they had horrible, runny brown poop and then they had several huge, tarry coal black poops like a broody. Then it all went back to what I expect from a chicken...just normal with good, snow white urate caps.

 

[LOVEIGEE]

Dumping coop poops? Not doing deep litter yet?

Yes, from all reports from others and from watching the meaty chicks and knowing what they normally put out. My flocks have always had darker feces, due to the foraged foods being the bulk of their diets, I imagine. When they arrived here they had horrible, runny brown poop and then they had several huge, tarry coal black poops like a broody. Then it all went back to what I expect from a chicken...just normal with good, snow white urate caps.

Tried deep litter (the wrong kind before)....just lots of shavings and poop shuffled each day.......going to do it........you watch, I'll be your perfect apprentice.......

Trying to be anyway.....

 

[Beekissed]

It'll save you time and work. Sort of like a self-cleaning oven but it's a self cleaning coop. I love it so! I was just looking at the litter in the coop and watching the chooks walking on the softness of it.

Picked some up in my hand and took a whiff and it smelled like soil, decomposing leaves and faintly of livestock. But I had to put my nose right down on it to even smell that. That's been in there for over 2 months now, you'd think there would be a smell or two. There wasn't any for the meaties I had in the same space for 3 mo. either...and there were over 50 of them. If a meaty doesn't smell bad, something is being done right.

Thought about all those years before I started using the DL and just shook my head...if only I had thought about it or heard about doing that. I don't remember my grandma ever cleaning out her coop and I'm wondering if what she had going on in there was deep litter. I don't remember it having any bad smells at all. Lots of ventilation and light in her coop and not much smells...all good.

 

[bobbi-j]

I would love it too, if I had 2 buckets!

I didn't have time to catch up yesterday, so I'm 20 pages behind on my daily thread check... So please forgive me if someone has already chimed in on this. I use plastic dishpans. The ones you can get for under $5 at Walmart (if I remember right, these cost less than $2 each). Just like the buckets, I have holes drilled in one and it sits in the other. Fits just right in my laundry room sink and easy to move when I need the sink for something. A gallon ice cream bucket of dry feed, fermented, lasted my 28 chickens for a couple of days if I didn't add more feed.

On that note, can you add feed daily to the already fermented stuff and have it ready to go in 24 hours? Haven't tried that yet....

 

[galanie]

I bet that broke your heart, to see your good birds in that situation.     I don't understand how people can't see the obvious.  I'm doomed to have to point it out to those who cannot see or those who refuse to see.  Either way it gets old. 

Do you think she will do as you suggest? 

That one would go better with the blog title...I like it! 

She has ONE chance to remedy this mess. If not, no more cockerels from me. I'd rather eat them, or give them to Food for the Soul to use to feed the hungry. There is a lot of meat on my cockerels, and they deserve a better end.

Interesting thst she is having the same problem with her sheep. Way too many, on too little ground, so the parasites are killing them. Because of the fact that she WANTs to be chemical free, she does not treat until it's too late, even though she KNOWS she has a problem. More land, or fewer sheep. The answer again is over burdening the available land ,so the parasites and stress take over.

I'm going to toot my own horn and say, and I hope I'm accurate, that this isn't a mistake I've done yet. Lord only knows I've made plenty and am not finished making mistakes yet. Giggling about "chicken math" aside (which I never did really understand), how can you say you love an animal you can't adequately care for? I must be thick. I don't get it.

 

[memechick]

Dang...if we all get BEE mugs and accessories, we'll all have to have a reunion somewhere and sit around sipping tea and reminisce about all the stuff we've learned.

This gave me a thought ...... Bee, would you consider holding a "Common Sense Chicken Keeping Seminar" maybe in the spring? When it warms up and the days are longer. I would gladly pay for this "hands on" learning and purchase an airline ticket from NH to WV. You can even "quiz" us to see what we retained. LOL.

 

[Beekissed]

I didn't have time to catch up yesterday, so I'm 20 pages behind on my daily thread check... So please forgive me if someone has already chimed in on this. I use plastic dishpans. The ones you can get for under $5 at Walmart (if I remember right, these cost less than $2 each). Just like the buckets, I have holes drilled in one and it sits in the other. Fits just right in my laundry room sink and easy to move when I need the sink for something. A gallon ice cream bucket of dry feed, fermented, lasted my 28 chickens for a couple of days if I didn't add more feed.

On that note, can you add feed daily to the already fermented stuff and have it ready to go in 24 hours? Haven't tried that yet....

Yep...sure can. In the 2 bucket method the waters in the reservoir are really richly cultured and when they rise throughout the mix when you add fresh feed and mix it with already fermented feed, those increased yeast cultures can get to work on the fresh feed a lot more quickly. That is known as backslopping, when you use the already established cultures to inoculate the fresh feed mix to make it ferment quicker. In warmer temps this goes even faster.

As the fresh feed absorbs the water, it is actually just sucking those yeast cultures inside the seed/feed and it has a good start on eating the sugars in that feed because there are so many of them in the fluid. If you had to wait and culture the fresh water and feed with just the addition of a little ACV, you'd have to wait longer to get a good ferment throughout the feed mix each time.

Those words "daily thread check" stuck in my mind and all I could think of was "We thank you, Lord, for our daily thread...."

 

[Beekissed]

This gave me a thought ...... Bee, would you consider holding a "Common Sense Chicken Keeping Seminar" maybe in the spring? When it warms up and the days are longer. I would gladly pay for this "hands on" learning and purchase an airline ticket from NH to WV. You can even "quiz" us to see what we retained. LOL.

Yep...sure would. Might be cheaper to drive...not sure. I would be delighted to do a hands on and would love to travel right to people's homes and see their setups and make suggestions. It's so much easier to do that in person when you can visualize what they are working with.

Don't need any fees or any such blather but just transportation costs and a couch to sleep on, a meal or two.

 

[galanie]

Yep...sure can.  In the 2 bucket method the waters in the reservoir are really richly cultured and when they rise throughout the mix when you add fresh feed and mix it with already fermented feed, those increased yeast cultures can get to work on the fresh feed a lot more quickly.  That is known as backslopping, when you use the already established cultures to inoculate the fresh feed mix to make it ferment quicker.  In warmer temps this goes even faster. 

As the fresh feed absorbs the water, it is actually just sucking those yeast cultures inside the seed/feed and it has a good start on eating the sugars in that feed because there are so many of them in the fluid.  If you had to wait and culture the fresh water and feed with just the addition of a little ACV, you'd have to wait longer to get a good ferment throughout the feed mix each time. 

Those words "daily thread check" stuck in my mind and all I could think of was "We thank you, Lord, for our daily thread...."  

"And forgive us your Threadpasses... As we forgive those that.." Oh my.. LOL "gig

 

[nakstk]

Those words "daily thread check" stuck in my mind and all I could think of was "We thank you, Lord, for our daily thread...

."

there is ALWAYS something to be thankful for.