Okay. I'm a bit freaked out.
I was looking through Craigslist and saw there was a guy who has layers to get rid of in my area. He said he trimmed their nails and treated them for lice, or mites, or something.
I didn't know chickens' nails need trimming. I'm new to chickens and mine are 13 weeks old. So to learn yet another thing that I had no idea that I'd need to worry about I came here and did a search and started reading about bumblefoot, which also freaked me out. At least I have some knowledge to hopefully prevent that. I certainly didn't read anything in the building a coop section about it.
After reading about the bumblefoot and the long nails I went out to look at my girls feet. I didn't see anything wrong, and the nails look proportionate, but I don't know chicken feet. I was raised in the city. How do I know when to trim them?
Trimming shouldn't be an issue. I've had dogs and cats my whole life and trimmed many nails. I can't imagine its much different.
The next concern I have is my girls end up walking in their poo and it sticks to their feet. Yes, I do clean out their run. I'm just worried about infection if they do get a scratch or injury on their feet. In the coop in the Winter I'm planning on doing the deep litter method, but aren't they going to be walking in their poo in there, too?
The whole living in their poo thing has me grossed out. I've even gotten to the point that I don't want to go in and try to handle them daily like I started out trying to do because of the poo that they get on themselves when they scratch themselves with their feet. I now have skittish chickens.
Oh, I suppose you're going to ask how big of a run they have. Its 8'X16'. I started out with 11 layer, 2 bantam, and 5 cornish cross chicks. (The guy at the farm store warned me that some will die and that its normal with day old chicks. I went a little over kill.) At 4 weeks 3 of the layer chicks went to new homes. At 7 weeks 3 more layer chicks went to new homes. At 8 weeks 3 of the cornish went to live in the freezer. At 9 weeks 2 more cornish went to go live with their buddies in the freezer and the 2 bantams went to go live on a farm because they turned out to be little roos. I currently have 4 layer girls, 1 rooster and 1 cornish. The rooster and the cornish are going to be stock as soon as the rooster starts to crow. I don't have anymore room in the freezer. I'm thinking about getting one more layer.
The grass has all died in the run. They have a 4'X6' shelter in the run until the coop is finished, which should be within the next 3-4 weeks (hopefully sooner). The coop will be another 8'X8'. I rake out the run every 2-3 days. They get DE in their food and an occasional sprinkling all over the run (Man that stuff works awesome!)
A couple days ago I went in with the shovel and dug up a few spots, thinking it would compost in, sorta, and be a fun thing for the chicken to investigate. There was a hard crust that had developed on top of the soil. When I dug it up there was a healthy worm population. I'm thinking the DE wasn't so good for the worms once I got everything mixed up. Not so sure the digging it up is a good idea or not. The birds loved the dusting opportunity.
Sorry, this was just going to be about the toenails, but it snowballed. Guess I'm feeling a bit concerned about a bunch of things. Thanks in advance for the help.
I was looking through Craigslist and saw there was a guy who has layers to get rid of in my area. He said he trimmed their nails and treated them for lice, or mites, or something.
I didn't know chickens' nails need trimming. I'm new to chickens and mine are 13 weeks old. So to learn yet another thing that I had no idea that I'd need to worry about I came here and did a search and started reading about bumblefoot, which also freaked me out. At least I have some knowledge to hopefully prevent that. I certainly didn't read anything in the building a coop section about it.
After reading about the bumblefoot and the long nails I went out to look at my girls feet. I didn't see anything wrong, and the nails look proportionate, but I don't know chicken feet. I was raised in the city. How do I know when to trim them?
Trimming shouldn't be an issue. I've had dogs and cats my whole life and trimmed many nails. I can't imagine its much different.
The next concern I have is my girls end up walking in their poo and it sticks to their feet. Yes, I do clean out their run. I'm just worried about infection if they do get a scratch or injury on their feet. In the coop in the Winter I'm planning on doing the deep litter method, but aren't they going to be walking in their poo in there, too?
The whole living in their poo thing has me grossed out. I've even gotten to the point that I don't want to go in and try to handle them daily like I started out trying to do because of the poo that they get on themselves when they scratch themselves with their feet. I now have skittish chickens.
Oh, I suppose you're going to ask how big of a run they have. Its 8'X16'. I started out with 11 layer, 2 bantam, and 5 cornish cross chicks. (The guy at the farm store warned me that some will die and that its normal with day old chicks. I went a little over kill.) At 4 weeks 3 of the layer chicks went to new homes. At 7 weeks 3 more layer chicks went to new homes. At 8 weeks 3 of the cornish went to live in the freezer. At 9 weeks 2 more cornish went to go live with their buddies in the freezer and the 2 bantams went to go live on a farm because they turned out to be little roos. I currently have 4 layer girls, 1 rooster and 1 cornish. The rooster and the cornish are going to be stock as soon as the rooster starts to crow. I don't have anymore room in the freezer. I'm thinking about getting one more layer.
The grass has all died in the run. They have a 4'X6' shelter in the run until the coop is finished, which should be within the next 3-4 weeks (hopefully sooner). The coop will be another 8'X8'. I rake out the run every 2-3 days. They get DE in their food and an occasional sprinkling all over the run (Man that stuff works awesome!)
A couple days ago I went in with the shovel and dug up a few spots, thinking it would compost in, sorta, and be a fun thing for the chicken to investigate. There was a hard crust that had developed on top of the soil. When I dug it up there was a healthy worm population. I'm thinking the DE wasn't so good for the worms once I got everything mixed up. Not so sure the digging it up is a good idea or not. The birds loved the dusting opportunity.
Sorry, this was just going to be about the toenails, but it snowballed. Guess I'm feeling a bit concerned about a bunch of things. Thanks in advance for the help.
