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

[20736]

Well, personally, I like your approach from the very start.
When you thought you couldn't care for them, you found them homes.
Then, you followed up.
When one of the placements went South, you were proactive and took the birds back.
Now, you are returning the flock to good health.
Dang, you should be President or Governor or sumptin'
Keep up the great work, you did everything correct in my book.
God Bless y'all real good.

 

[Beekissed]

About Barren Ground:

Bee, I'm interested to hear more from you regarding what you call barren ground. I have a 20'x40' pen with 4 mature pine trees. Coop is inside the pen. When I am not home, chickens are in the pen - they free range when I am home.

Last winter, because I was losing hens to a hawk , for a short time, I made a smaller pen inside the large one with a wire fence roofing the small pen. ( Hawk would sit on top of the wire roof waiting for dinner ).

The ground in the small pen, and under the coop (construction trailer turned coop), the ground is bare and hard. We are in a drought. Ground under coop used to be soft dirt, it is now pretty compacted.

I think this is what you would call barren ground. You have referred to reconditioning it. How do you go about doing that?

The majority of the pen is grass, weeds, blackberry brambles, and dust under the pine trees. So there is good access to good foraging material, but the smaller area, about 144' is primarily dirt.

That packed down, bare earth cannot breath, it cannot absorb water well and filter impurities out and it usually has no beneficial bug or worm life in it. That kind of ground is where only bad things can thrive. To recondition it you need to look to nature for that model. When you have a barren spot in your yard and want to fix it, what do you do? You probably lightly till, fertilize and reseed it to grass.

Since you can't do that in a chicken run as the birds will just deplete that again, you'd have to find other ways to loosen and return the soil to good health. A forest floor has a great soil culture, though it grows little grass. Bugs and worms thrive in the leaf pack and decaying debris of a forest floor. If you cannot have grass cover for your soil, the next best thing is to create a faux forest floor. If you live in a dry climate, use more moist composting materials. If you live in a moist climate, use the drier stuff. Layer it in, let the birds pack it down, poop on it, let the rain soak it, layer some more. I'd create a dry side and leave one side uncovered. The birds will toss material back and forth between these two sides. I'd do whatever it took to cover that soil and bring earthworms back into the soil.

A good layer of hay at the bottom is conducive to worm life in drier climes, leaves in wetter areas. Do an experiment...leave a hay bale sitting in one corner of the run for a couple of months...then lift it up. You should see earthworms living directly under it, feeding off the hay. They like the dark and they like it moist..and they will loosen the earth for you when they move in to feed on the composting material. As the worms and other bugs loosen the soil, you get your great sponge and filtration system back. That healthy soil will revitalize itself and also provide a place for beneficial bugs and bacteria to live and feed off of any bad bugs and bacteria.

It may take time and tweaking to get it right but a forest floor doesn't get created in one season...it takes years of leaf fall, moisture, decay, fresh air, etc. It's worth working on it, though, if you want a healthier flock and if you plan on keeping chickens in that area for years.

Beekissed,

Have you considered burdock? I am not sure if it is native to your neck of the woods but thought I have might seen a glimps of it in a photo of your woods. You can dig up the roots and make a mash. The leaves are very soothing for burns and ulcers. The seeds are wonderful roasted on a salad or crushed and used in feeds for a good cleanser.Outside the kitchen, the dried root of a one-year-old plant is used in Western and traditional Chinese medicine. The root contains about 2.5 percent protein and 45 percent inulin, a complex sugar. Inulin has a demulcent effect on skin and mucous membranes in the body, helping form a protective film that soothes irritation or inflammation. Inulin also serves as a prebiotic, which means that it serves as food to probiotics, the healthy bacteria present in the digestive tract.So it should piggy back what you are doing.

I haven't but it's great information!

I'm also going to put down a mulch for what I'll call the "winter yard".

I have a large pile of wood chips that have mostly pine (spruce) but also have some hardwood mixed in. There are lots of pine needles in there as well.

My question is this: Would it be advisable to use the spruce/pine needles or should I avoid those?

I don't want the pine resin to be too strong...I want to encourage the worms and grubs to keep toward the surface under the deep mulch so that they can scratch all winter and find bugs.

Not sure if the pine would accomplish that or deter that!

I would. Variety of material, I would think, would be key to a good compost. I'd mix in some hay or other grasses with all that so the worms have something to feed on.

 

[ncastell311]

No woman ever shot her husband while he was doing the dish​

I love it! That's wonderfully passive aggressive!

 

[Beekissed]

So, we can safely assume that no man has ever been shot by his wife while doing the dishes....as I have never seen a man do the dishes that wasn't being forced to do so by his own mother.

 

[Mtn Laurel]

"I have marigolds in my fields that I planted for the chickens last year, should I pick off the dried heads and put them in the FF?"

Unless they have some nutritive or health preventative value, I wouldn't. A better use would be to steep those heads in some water and use it to treat the roosts...it just may act as a good deterrent to the stray mite that wants to take a trip to the buffet. If you are just wanting them in there to color your egg yolks, you won't need them if you free range...egg yolks should be bright, deep orange.

<snip>

I planted a lot of marigolds in the spring especially for the girls. Well, they HATE them. I've tried giving them as treats, picking the petals and sneaking them into stuff, etc. and the girls always find a way to get around them. Agree that you sure don't need them for yolk color as long as they free range but I was hopeful they'd enjoy them. NOT!

With the cooler air, the marigolds have come forth with a TON of blooms and look better than ever. I'm thinking I'm going to snip off those heads and just put them into the deep litter. The small amount of moisture in each head may facilitate decomposition of the litter yet isn't enough to make things overly moist. And the insect-repellent aspect of the marigolds might come in handy to deter undesirable critters.

Not to mention that the litter will be colorful. At least, for a while!

 

[Beekissed]

They stink to high heaven and you can't really even wash the odor off your hands...it simply has to wear off.

If chickens won't eat them voluntarily, I wouldn't offer them for eating.

Now, calendula or pot marigolds, do not have that acrid or strong snot odor of the regular marigolds. They are often used in lotions and balms for healing of wounds and in some commercial feeds to influence yolk color so as to make their yolks seem more healthy. It doesn't actually do that, though it does have beta-carotene and colors the yolks, but the general populace is quite fooled and think it is getting free range derived eggs.

If you have calendula you may want to include those in your FF, as they do have beta carotene and lutein and does have anti-inflammatory properties. The other kind of marigold I wouldn't force the chooks to eat, no matter how much beta carotene they have.

 

[lalaland]

re Barren ground: I don't know why I didn't think of tilling the small portion that is packed earth. I'll add hay and leaves to it. And I may as well add hay to the underneath of the chicken coop as it sits about 3 feet off the ground.

I don't think it would be this bad if we weren't in drought. Supposed to get rain today, I am on water conservation so don't want to water the ground. But tilling will help open the ground up for moisture, should any ever fall again, and topped with leaves....maybe I can get someone's leaf or grass clippings, ....should help.

Thanks!

 

[chicken curious]

Quote:
BK, did you answer this and I missed it? I'm curious about the olive leaf extract. I think I've heard mention of it before in discussions about natural *human* treatments, but I wasn't paying enough attention. :blush

 

[Miss Lydia]

BK, did you answer this and I missed it? I'm curious about the olive leaf extract. I think I've heard mention of it before in discussions about natural *human* treatments, but I wasn't paying enough attention. :blush

I looked for it too, so I think she may have over looked it with so many questions being thrown at her.

 

[aggiemae]

Yes, I even smelled Ruby's butt the last time we examined it...

I think that smell is one of the biggest indicator of illness, infection and even stress. Did you know that a healthy dogs paws smell like popcorn?

I have been working on fermenting whole oat for the past three days. I used yogurt as a starter but it's pretty cool out so I bought the bucket it in last night. Hopefully I'll see some change 9n the next few days.

I cut down our sunflowers on Thursday since it was going to rain and got about 20 pounds of BOSS. I already know that my hens don't eat them uncracked so I am sprouting a tray of them in my bathroom.