Washingtonians Come Together! Washington Peeps

[Stumpfarmer]

I mentioned a few pages back that I give my flock brown rice with vitamin D complex once a week, and am thinking about moving to twice a week soon; my grandmother insisted hens need cod liver oil in the winter, but it's hard to find these days.

Can you tell me a little more about how you do this?  Is the rice cooked?  Is the vitamin liquid or something else?  Where do you get it?  Do you mix them together and serve it in a "dish" that's separate from their regular feed? 
When I give my 3 hens a treat the lowest of the pecking order seldom gets more than a tiny taste because she gets chased off. 

Thanks!

I'm interested in supplementing with vitamins too! I don't know how to encourage my 2 perfectly healthy laying age hens to resume laying again, but would love suggestions! I'll try anything, since they aren't molting there's no reason for the lull!

cook the rice.

Yup: raw brown rice is very hard, and often passes through undigested, even when chickens have big grit. It's sort of the opposite of rolled oats, which is well digested raw.

 

[Stumpfarmer]

OH: about treats and pecking order: if you're feeding sufficient treats for everyone, the lowest chicken should have something to eat after the others get bored and walk off. The ONLY chicken I have that gets shorted in Sylvia: Ian either eats everything, or spoils what he doesn't eat so she can't have it: it's why he's going to that great stockpot in the sky. I use big feed pans- I started with the rubber grain pans we use for show cattle, but now use plastic because the rubber is impossible to keep clean and chickens can't breat plastic by stepping on it like cattle! Those are from Del's and are the 12" size, so there's no crowding other chickens out.

 

[Ogress]

I can't believe how low the snow line got this afternoon - must be about 2700 feet.

Just a week ago we were talking about 3 months of glorious weather! Now it seems like it was never here other than most of my trees still have more leaves than they would normally have at this time of year.

 

[Greg Richardson]

Quote: When I have flocks with that problem sometimes I have to use three feed trays.
Most of the time two will do.
Ticks off the bullies when they can't take charge of all the food.

Kind of like what our government is trying to do.

 

[TheReidHomestead]

Well howdy folks!!! Just marking my spot in the new thread so I can easily find it later!!

Welcome to all the newbies!

Want to give a big shout out to Chickadoodoo!!!!! How are the Orp girls doing for you? I sure miss their big fluffy butts!!!!

Speaking of Vitamin D, I remember a similar discussion about supplementing with it last winter. I think Chickielady used Broilermax, maybe she will post her thoughts onit? It is true, that when winter sets in here, there is not much natural vitamin D from the sun. I will be interesed in what Robin's take is on this subject.

We managed to hatch out 12 chicks the other day. 6 of our own BLRW as well as one of our olive eggers. The rest were from shipped eggs. We had two different shipped egg batches come in. One was the mixed assortment and we had 2 FBCM's, 2 Ameraucana (1 black/1 blue), 1 Barnvelder hatch. Then we had 11 very active Crele OEGB's at lockdown, but only one pipped and died in there. The other 10 didn't even pip! Was very bummed about that as they were for one of my girls 4-H project.

Drove to Ellensburg yesterday to check out CWU for my oldest DD who's a senior this year. She wasn't as impressed with it as she was with WSU which is her first choice. But glad we went before the snow came in!

Stay warm everyone!!!

 

[DeesHens]

Quote: Thanks Stumpfarmer. Vitacost.com has cod liver oil at discounted prices if you are interested. I have used this company for years and they are very efficient and reasonable.
I have krill oil so that is what I used to help Betsy recently. It seemed to help her as I think she is fighting a persistent slight sour crop condition? Gurgles a lot in the crop after eating grain and have seen some neck stretching a few times. Do you know of a good treatment for this? Thanks. ~Dee~

http://www.vitacost.com/productResults.aspx?ntk=products&ss=1&Ntt=cod liver oil

 

[FirewifeJess]

So...about vitamin D. I have both 5,000iu and 10,000iu gel caps of D3. Which one, and how many of those would I break over and mix in with some oatmeal for my dozen girls, and how often? I really want to help them, clearly if 2 of them have simply stopped laying while not being broody for the last couple weeks, there's a deficiency somewhere. It seriously happened right around the time the sun disappeared. I hope I can use what I have already, I've got TONS of D since I'm also very deficient and take so much through the winter. Thanks for the help!

 

[FirewifeJess]

DeesHens - we LOVE Vitacost! It's where I used to get all my coconut milk, before we started making our own. We get almost all our vitamins and supplements from there, like 5-HTP, multivitamins, kid stuff, and tons of natural remedies! I buy Calms Forte for William like it's going out of style since it's the only thing that keeps him asleep at night! Everyone should shop there, it's amazing

 

[T Hi]

Hi!!!

Ok I have made my post on the new thread! Back to bed! Good night y'all!!

 

[Chicken Rustler]

Hi!!!

Ok I have made my post on the new thread! Back to bed! Good night y'all!!

Nice to see ya drop in !! Take care of ya girly.