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

[Beekissed]

Also provides more food and more accessibility to the eating of that food for more gentle flock members. More nutrition, less stress to birds with better genetics=Win.

 

[Beekissed]

I was just up tending to the Gnarly Bunch and realized just how much I had missed tending to chickens this past year. I simply love, love, love making things comfortable for creatures and humans alike....I guess I was born to be a servant. I love it!

I love putting more sweet smelling hay into the nest boxes so that the hens feel hidden and toasty warm while they are contemplating ways to take over the world...and lay an egg while doing so.

I love putting out fresh, cool water because I know how good it taste to have the same. A glug of ACV and they have all that apple-y goodness in there.

I love putting fresh leaves in the coop and throwing BOSS into it...they look so happy as they scratch up the bedding and mix the new and dry into the old, compressed and possibly moist at the bottom bedding.

I love refreshing the feed in the ferment bucket and getting it to just the right consistency....it smells like the pickles in the crocks in my granny's cellar.

I love sitting down on an old block of wood in the coop and watching them enjoy all the new comforts. I love seeing how their feathers are filling out, old scales are lifting and sloughing off, and breasts are filling out. It's almost like watching time-lapse photography because it seems to be happening so fast and before my very eyes...I swear those two brown hens didn't have tail feathers yesterday!

I really, really missed having chickens...and especially these chickens. I feel very blessed that I get to take care of them again and that this makes us ALL happy. Even the dog seems more content to have his old flock back.

Jake dreams.....

 

[Bulldogma]

Jake dreams.....

Now that is one shiny, healthy looking dog! Your critters are lucky to have such a caring and knowledgeable caretaker!

 

[Suzie]

Beekissed

Your reflections above are so reflective of my chickens - if they are contented, happy, well fed, watered and have fresh comfortable bedding I feel complete. I am so happy to know that my chickens, ducks and geese are safe and contented to sleep tonight in their respective homes - it has been a long haul for me to get my new girls up to the health of my other chickens but I feel we are (almost) there - of the 21 we rescued we now have 9 - no new problems and I can only hope that whatever the problem(s) that ailed them has now been addressed - they are even curious now - the trust is beginning - you have helped me so much in your explanations and expressions to give me faith that it can be achieved....! My work will never end to help them to reach forward to a life of love and a sense of belonging... peace and contentment is all I can wish for their future with me.

Thank you so much for the amazing insight and inspiration to those of us who need help from people like you!

Suzie

 

[Beekissed]

Now that is one shiny, healthy looking dog! Your critters are lucky to have such a caring and knowledgeable caretaker!

Chicken poop~it does a body good.....

They are indeed lucky. It was funny that they were scared of me when they arrived but not a bit worried about this dog...him they remembered. And he remembered them....he was very upset when they were being examined and was really fussing at me. I had to make him go lie down because he was whining and prancing around so much. He thought we were hurting his chickens!

The day they were taken away to that farm, he had the same reaction. He whined and paced back and forth all the while they were being loaded in the truck. Smart and sensitive dog, that one.

Beekissed

Your reflections above are so reflective of my chickens - if they are contented, happy, well fed, watered and have fresh comfortable bedding I feel complete. I am so happy to know that my chickens, ducks and geese are safe and contented to sleep tonight in their respective homes - it has been a long haul for me to get my new girls up to the health of my other chickens but I feel we are (almost) there - of the 21 we rescued we now have 9 - no new problems and I can only hope that whatever the problem(s) that ailed them has now been addressed - they are even curious now - the trust is beginning - you have helped me so much in your explanations and expressions to give me faith that it can be achieved....! My work will never end to help them to reach forward to a life of love and a sense of belonging... peace and contentment is all I can wish for their future with me.

Thank you so much for the amazing insight and inspiration to those of us who need help from people like you!

Suzie

You know? I was just sitting up to the coop watching chicken TV and thinking the very same thing....how content and peaceful the flock looks. Thus my flocks have always been...no fighting, no loud noises, no nervous behaviors...just calm, purposeful motion and low singing. I know they must feel like they have died and gone to chicken heaven.

I'm so glad that others have gotten anything useful from this thread! That was my intention. I am learning too....normally I just do things for my chickens and carry on the normal husbandry chores without really analyzing just why I do them, so setting this down for others to read has clarified the reasoning behind my decisions.

It helps me to stand back and look at it all and decide if I want to change it or leave it alone. I've found out more about the power of the NuStock... and also why my flock has been free of all these parasites all these long years~ because they have always lived in a natural setting and, in doing so, have pretty much taken care of all these conditions within the context of that environment.

 

[Daisy8s]

Bee --

I recently received a hen with scaley leg mites so I ordered Nu-Stock based upon your recommendations in this thread. I also ordered some Bag Balm while online, because I remembed it sitting on the shelf in the milking parlor, when I was a girl on our family dairy farm.

It came and I opened it up--and nearly cried. That's the smell!!! That's what our barn smelled like when I was a girl! I was immediately taken back to so many wonderful girlhood memories of being with my dad in the dairy barn. In one smell there were so many images--my dad's big, capable hands working gently on a big ol Holstein, warm frothy milk with the steam rising from the cup for a cold, winter's night warm up, standing beside my dad and peeking through the fence at little calves slick with afterbirth wobbling to their feet for the first time...then, walking home holding his hand while he pointed out the Big Dipper and Orien's belt.

My dad died when I was 13 but I'd already learned so much from him. Thousands of hours in barns and fields...doing real work and learning what kind of a person I should be. Who knew one little bottle could take me back to such a beautiful time in my life?

Thanks, Bee. These old time medicines were good for my hen...but even better medicine for my soul.

 

[Bulldogma]

Bee --

I recently received a hen with scaley leg mites so I ordered Nu-Stock based upon your recommendations in this thread. I also ordered some Bag Balm while online, because I remembed it sitting on the shelf in the milking parlor, when I was a girl on our family dairy farm.

It came and I opened it up--and nearly cried. That's the smell!!! That's what our barn smelled like when I was a girl! I was immediately taken back to so many wonderful girlhood memories of being with my dad in the dairy barn. In one smell there were so many images--my dad's big, capable hands working gently on a big ol Holstein, warm frothy milk with the steam rising from the cup for a cold, winter's night warm up, standing beside my dad and peeking through the fence at little calves slick with afterbirth wobbling to their feet for the first time...then, walking home holding his hand while he pointed out the Big Dipper and Orien's belt.

My dad died when I was 13 but I'd already learned so much from him. Thousands of hours in barns and fields...doing real work and learning what kind of a person I should be. Who knew one little bottle could take me back to such a beautiful time in my life?

Thanks, Bee. These old time medicines were good for my hen...but even better medicine for my soul.

Yes - it's amazing the way smell brings back memory like no other sense!

 

[weezilgirl]

I know that feeling. I bought a dying puppy once, for $75, and we had 7 great years together. Following one's heart almost always works.

 

[Beekissed]

What a beautiful story!!!

I know exactly what you mean about those old-timey smells that trigger golden memories. If your family catches you sniffing the bag balm and smiling you will have to explain.

My grandpa kept some in the barn too and granny used it for all sorts of things.

Smells are so intertwined with my memories of all that is good in life that one whiff of homemade bread and my mom's face appears and her strong, capable hands kneading dough for feeding her family. I can even hear the sound of the dough ball being turned and scraped over the flour on the table. That ancient rhythm of women down through the ages all making the staff of life, making it with love and care for families all over the world.

That memory is so strong that when I make my own bread I feel the need to call my mother and talk to her. It is a sweet and old song woven down through the generations, woman to woman, and in the rhythm and sound of that simple action of making bread we are all sisters, swaying to the same tune.

 

[Bulldogma]

Chicken poop~it does a body good.....

They are indeed lucky. It was funny that they were scared of me when they arrived but not a bit worried about this dog...him they remembered. And he remembered them....he was very upset when they were being examined and was really fussing at me. I had to make him go lie down because he was whining and prancing around so much. He thought we were hurting his chickens!

The day they were taken away to that farm, he had the same reaction. He whined and paced back and forth all the while they were being loaded in the truck. Smart and sensitive dog, that one.

We're so lucky and blessed - though we're new to chickens, our dog is wonderful with them! The other day I caught the dog sleeping flat-out in the sun with 2 guinea fowl sitting on her!



That's our dog, Brandy Ann and our little Swedish Flower Hen cockerel, Gunnar.