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

[lalaland]

Bee,
The nustock was finally delivered, and I slathered up all the legs this morning while everyone was still sleepy on the roost. Today I was planning to switch out the hay and poop for clean hay to get ready for winter - when the girls spend more time in the coop (they can go outside whenever it is daylight, but sometimes choose to be in). I have three questions for you:

1. Deep litter: For a good deep litter, would you suggest not emptying it out and starting with fresh hay? I don't use pine shavings, as I don't want that expense, and I do use hay but I never find it decomposes in the roughly 6 months. I Usually just empty the coop in the fall and again in the spring - by spring it is pretty stinky as it is too cold in there to decompose - I think in the summer it is too dry to compost. I just add more hay on top of poop. I don't stir. The girls don't stir, as they don't spend any time in the coop in the summer. I don't have a lawn, so I don't have leaves, I guess I could haul some from the woods. Suggestions?

2. scaly mites and roosts: I have wooden roosts (both 2x4's and tree branches). I'm thinking of oiling up the roosts with unused motor oil to smother out any mites. I don't want to go to the expense of the neem oil/tea tree oil route. I have used veg oil in the past. Your thoughts?

3. Rats!!! Yup, got them. As I switch to FF, I think I will have less or no spilled feed to attract them, and perhaps they will leave. Don't think I will be that lucky. I don't have barn cats, and don't have dogs (work is 75 miles away one way, so not home enough to care for a puppy, and don't want to adopt an older dog that I haven't trained with the chickens). I don't want to use poison. I do use traps, but they are smart. Any OT advice?

thank you!

 

[aggiemae]

I see the pictures ......... on page 1. I'm following this thread daily!! Beekissed is a wonderful teacher ........ I have nominated her for an "educator award" and an ovation. I have only owned chickens for 18 weeks now and have a lot to learn ...... I refer to Beekissed threads routinely to see if an answer to one of my concerns is posted and sure enough I can always find some useful info or helpful hint to keep my yard ladies healthy. I want to start the fermented feed method this week. Thanks Bee for being there for us! Hello from NH.

Well, I am on page 24 now....


I have started a file where I am compiling all the things I am learning here and a list of things to include in a natural medicine kit.

This thread has also encouraged my efforts to provide year round foraging

I do have a question.When the ladies where chicks they loved to scratch in the compost pile but back them we didn't have any chicken poop in it... We currently have a fabulous grub nursery in my compost pile and where get cups of clean grubs off the top for the hens for a week or so but the supply is dwindling. I was planning to rake down the pile and let the hens scratch though it for the last of them but the compost now has lots of chicken poop in it and some people say that is bad...but then again some people think that hens shouldn't eat eggs or egg shells...

The chickens are healthy they get ACV and yogurt and the compost is hot...So WWBD?

 

[Beekissed]

Bee would say have at it! Chicken poop bad? It comes out of their own butts and they live with it 24/7. It only becomes bad if they are living on top of it without escape all the time as in pen/run setups where it is allowed to recycle their own parasites and bowel pathogens back into their own systems due to an overgrowth in the soils. Chicken poop in a compost pile shouldn't be a problem at all...

 

[MyGardenHelper]

3.. Rats!!! Yup, got them. As I switch to FF, I think I will have less or no spilled feed to attract them, and perhaps they will leave. Don't think I will be that lucky. I don't have barn cats, and don't have dogs (work is 75 miles away one way, so not home enough to care for a puppy, and don't want to adopt an older dog that I haven't trained with the chickens). I don't want to use poison. I do use traps, but they are smart. Any OT advice?

thank you!

Try adding some cayenne pepper to the FF right before you feed it. Birds cannot taste hot, but mammals can. Squirrel-proof wild feed has pepper flakes in it. We had a squirrel problem with our chicken feed and the cayenne took care of it. I no longer have to put it in their food, but I do occasionally for the health benefits of cayenne. It's very good for the heart and opens up the circulatory system. I find that I get more eggs after feeding it too

 

[Beekissed]

Bee,
The nustock was finally delivered, and I slathered up all the legs this morning while everyone was still sleepy on the roost. Today I was planning to switch out the hay and poop for clean hay to get ready for winter - when the girls spend more time in the coop (they can go outside whenever it is daylight, but sometimes choose to be in). I have three questions for you:

1. Deep litter: For a good deep litter, would you suggest not emptying it out and starting with fresh hay? I don't use pine shavings, as I don't want that expense, and I do use hay but I never find it decomposes in the roughly 6 months. I Usually just empty the coop in the fall and again in the spring - by spring it is pretty stinky as it is too cold in there to decompose - I think in the summer it is too dry to compost. I just add more hay on top of poop. I don't stir. The girls don't stir, as they don't spend any time in the coop in the summer. I don't have a lawn, so I don't have leaves, I guess I could haul some from the woods. Suggestions?

2. scaly mites and roosts: I have wooden roosts (both 2x4's and tree branches). I'm thinking of oiling up the roosts with unused motor oil to smother out any mites. I don't want to go to the expense of the neem oil/tea tree oil route. I have used veg oil in the past. Your thoughts?

3. Rats!!! Yup, got them. As I switch to FF, I think I will have less or no spilled feed to attract them, and perhaps they will leave. Don't think I will be that lucky. I don't have barn cats, and don't have dogs (work is 75 miles away one way, so not home enough to care for a puppy, and don't want to adopt an older dog that I haven't trained with the chickens). I don't want to use poison. I do use traps, but they are smart. Any OT advice?

thank you!

1. Yes, use the leaves and get more ventilation in your coop. If your deep litter is stinking, it isn't being done properly, so might look into the info on the deep litter thread...please don't use DE in it, it will ruin what you are trying to accomplish. More ventilation, more air flow at floor level. Don't remove the old litter, just start building better and let your chickens do the aerating. If you don't already have the aforementioned ventilation(and I don't mean those little screens under the roof line...I mean large, light filled windows cut into the side of your coop which can be covered all or partially during winter cold and winds. I opt for ventilation at several levels..not just inflow at the bottom and outflow at the top...sometimes it just doesn't work that way. Sometimes a drafty old coop is the healthiest coop.)

2. Why not just make a dilute solution of NS and spray those roosts down? It will stick around, believe me. I'd also apply it liberally to their feet when you take them off the roost at night and this puts it right back on the roost and worked into the wood.

3. I don't know why you don't want to use poison, you don't have a dog or cat there to accidentally ingest it. The bar poison is best, JustOneBite, is great and you can place it in areas where the chickens cannot access...believe me, the rats will find it. It is quick,effective and cheap. No, the chickens won't eat the dead and poisoned rats...mine never did, nor my dog or cats. They usually won't eat a dead animal like that unless they are deprived of proteins in some way.

If you do not rid of rats you will soon have a snake problem...and then you have an egg and chick problem when you can't keep the snakes out. They can get in anywhere a rat can. Harder to trap or poison a snake than it is a rat.

If you are leaving feed in the feeder overnight, I wouldn't. Feed just enough that they clean it all up and you won't find rodents hanging around much. Might want to also pick up a barn cat or two...this is a cheap way to control the rodent population outside the coop.

 

[Ashdoes]

Bee i have a question about ALL the chicken poop...
I have a bucket that the coop poop goes in, so it's contained just fine. But, I rake the run two to three times a week, and I'm wondering where I should put it? I have a pile of weeds in a corner, that are all dried up, and I started dumping the run poop on that. I figure when it rains it'll get worked into the ground. But is there somewhere better for it? My compost tumbler is full for winter, so it can't go in there. If I start a pile outside of the run my Bostons will eat it, and that just grosses me out.
What do I do with all the poo! I thought about starting a pile on the back acre, it's outside of our backyard fenced acre, but I still don't know what to do with it all. I don't have any plants it could be used on, so it would just be sitting there. Who knew poo could be so confusing.

 

[Beekissed]

Bee i have a question about ALL the chicken poop...
I have a bucket that the coop poop goes in, so it's contained just fine. But, I rake the run two to three times a week, and I'm wondering where I should put it? I have a pile of weeds in a corner, that are all dried up, and I started dumping the run poop on that. I figure when it rains it'll get worked into the ground. But is there somewhere better for it? My compost tumbler is full for winter, so it can't go in there. If I start a pile outside of the run my Bostons will eat it, and that just grosses me out.
What do I do with all the poo! I thought about starting a pile on the back acre, it's outside of our backyard fenced acre, but I still don't know what to do with it all. I don't have any plants it could be used on, so it would just be sitting there. Who knew poo could be so confusing.

Why not try treating your run like a composter and process those manures just like you would with deep litter in a coop. I'd cover part of your run for some dry areas and leave part open for wet areas and the birds will toss the matter back and forth in between these areas, and then I'd fill the whole darn thing with fall leaves and bag some up for later use as well. Then I'd just start layering those leaves, a few shavings, any weeds you can chop to place there and any grass clippings. Let the chickens have something to do this winter, let the nitrogen of the manure combine with some carbonaceous matter and start making better use of the manure and also start cultivating your run into a healthier place for the chickens to be. Think forest floor. Give them some outside roosting and other levels in which to get out of the bedding when they so wish but otherwise, that run needs to be put back into healthy balance. Just raking out the poop doesn't cut it...bare soil is no place for the good growth of beneficial microbes and bugs. They just don't want to live there...but the bad ones will. Start building healthy soils in your run by doing some natural composting and see how it turns out?

And chicken poo is what keeps my dog so darn shiny...

Oh...and I also advise that you not catch that poop from going into the litter in your coop and just start composting there as well....just give the manure something with which to bind and let nature break it down into something healthy and useful.

 

[loanwizard]

Why not try treating your run like a composter and process those manures just like you would with deep litter in a coop. I'd cover part of your run for some dry areas and leave part open for wet areas and the birds will toss the matter back and forth in between these areas, and then I'd fill the whole darn thing with fall leaves and bag some up for later use as well. Then I'd just start layering those leaves, a few shavings, any weeds you can chop to place there and any grass clippings. Let the chickens have something to do this winter, let the nitrogen of the manure combine with some carbonaceous matter and start making better use of the manure and also start cultivating your run into a healthier place for the chickens to be. Think forest floor. Give them some outside roosting and other levels in which to get out of the bedding when they so wish but otherwise, that run needs to be put back into healthy balance. Just raking out the poop doesn't cut it...bare soil is no place for the good growth of beneficial microbes and bugs. They just don't want to live there...but the bad ones will. Start building healthy soils in your run by doing some natural composting and see how it turns out?

And chicken poo is what keeps my dog so darn shiny...

Oh...and I also advise that you not catch that poop from going into the litter in your coop and just start composting there as well....just give the manure something with which to bind and let nature break it down into something healthy and useful.

Amen! Plus, doing it this way is a lot less work.

 

[Pullet Surprise]

Bee would say have at it! Chicken poop bad? It comes out of their own butts and they live with it 24/7. It only becomes bad if they are living on top of it without escape all the time as in pen/run setups where it is allowed to recycle their own parasites and bowel pathogens back into their own systems due to an overgrowth in the soils. Chicken poop in a compost pile shouldn't be a problem at all...

This is the one thing (well one of the things) that has had me confused and paranoid. Bee, you just simplified it so that my little pea brain could finaly comprehend it. I just got through cleaning out pens this morning and shifting the "stuff" to spots in the yard that need it in order to make way for the new crop of leaves that are begining to come down. Because we are on sandy, sterile soil, the areas I would like to grow grass and clover etc. on for the chickens need a pretty hefty layer of compost and not just mulch. I suppose I could put a layer of last year's leaves in the pens to start it all off again with or just let it "fall" in. We have pine straw as well. The girls have a large amount of woodland type area to roam on, but I think they need more "grass" areas as well. They have some, but choose pretty much to stay under cover in the woods a lot. I've been paranoid about that balance between good soil and bad. I think this pretty well settles it in my mind.

 

[lalaland]

Bee,
ok - I don't need a lot of convincing to leave the summers accumulation of poop and feathers in the coop. Instead of working on emptying the coop, I'll work on hauling leaves from the woods into it.

My coop is an old construction trailer, and it has 5 large windows in it, two facing west, one south, one north. There is definitely air flow as the windows are louvered and don't shut tight, not to mention the crack in the corner where rats chewed in (now barricated with metal screen and covered with hay). I put plastic on half the windows last year, but still had some condensation on the walls so this year am skipping the plastic. When it gets 30 below zero outside, it will be maybe 15 below inside, and then I do sometimes put a heat lamp in to bring the temp up to zero.

I don't use DE as I agree with you that it kills the good with the bad.

Re: roosts - I could spray NS on them, but the expense! I used a good third of the tube this morning already on the legs. Maybe I'll see if I can find sulpher at the feed mill, and spray a water/sulpher/soap mix? And are you opposed to the motor or veggie oil, or just feeling NS would be better?

And, when the scales are looking good on the WLH, would you post a pic? need encouragement here as mine are soooooo bad.
many thanks