Washingtonians Come Together! Washington Peeps

[Stumpfarmer]

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!

I dose 1,000 au per chicken once a week in winter; I'll probably be giving Sylvia twice that a couple of times a week before I start moving the other BLRWs in with her after Ian's gone.

The big deficiency is daylight, and especially the rapid decrese in daylength: last year, between Halloween and Thanksgiving I got, at most, five eggs all together and then starting about then and increasing every day until they hit Spring and I got buried in an egg a day from everyone for a while, I started getting 3-6 eggs a week from all of the hens; tghe EEs started laying while they were still in the hall bathroom with no where near enough light. I'm trying to pick out the metabolic path of how much of the light thing is lack of Vitamin D metabolism and how much of it is related to the lutenizing hormone pathways that control ovulation and are, typically, sensitive to both light exposure and body fat content across species.

I need to google a whole lot more and possibly find some poultry science articles not done by Tyson/behind pay walls.

 

[Chicken Rustler]

Quote:

I also do the green beans cooked (often canned since I don't often have fresh) Then add about 1/2 onion in ringlets a couple cloves of garlic chunked and a BUNCH of bacon ends aith most of thefat trimmed off. Heat until the onions are no longer crunchy. OOOO YEAH BABY

I could just about live on that!!! In fact I just may have to make that to go with the ham and acorn squash I am making for dinner tonight!.

 

[Stumpfarmer]

Hi!!!

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

Howdy, sweet, glad to see you around!

 

[Stumpfarmer]

I can't believe somebody had the hatching eggs I would like and here sets Silkiebator drawing unemployment !!!!!

Hmmm? I could probably get you five or six BLRW eggs and three green-shelled EE ones, but I haven't any way of knowing those are fertile.

 

[Chicken Rustler]

Quote: Thanks but I really don't need anything now. I was just joking about it because they were LF Salmon Fav and that is what I want.
Thanks for the offer

BTW I sent ya a PM !!

 

[KMHunter]

HA !!! I finally caught up.
Still a bit ill here, but getting better.
Have tons of work to do as soon as I get a bit more energy......have all flocks to Eprinex, and a batch of chicks and a flock of Jersey Giants to vaccinate...all done in the dark of night...which is thankfully coming earlier each night so I do not have to stay up til midnight in order to do all this stealthy stuff..............
I am planning on laying about & watching the hawks game today......hopefully they win again !!!!!!!   

And I am tired of eating applesauce, chicken broth & cream of rice.................................

I take it you missed the game on Thursday? The Hawks aren't playing today.

 

[Stumpfarmer]

Are green beans poisonous to chickens?  I'm finding mixed responses.

Tonight I gave a bunch of the kid's leftovers to the big girls.  They pigged out on all of it, but left what looked like most, or all, of the cooked green beans in the bowl.  I though that was odd.  So, I came in and looked it up.  Some people say green beans are poisonous to chickens.  Are they?

What my girls may have eaten a little bit of today were cooked green beans...

The answer is yes & no, but mostly yes.
Beans contain Hemogluttein, a naturally occuring toxin. It's been awhile since I researched it, but I don't think it is fatal, but can make you seriously ill.
It is most prevalent in dried beans, I believe Kidney beans are the worse. 4-5 dried uncooked Kidney beans can put a human in the hospital. The easy solution is to cook the beans, if memory serves it is about 10 min of cooking in boiling water will destroy the toxin. Interestingly enough, partially cooked beans are worse the uncooked beans.

Fresh Green beans do contain Hemogluttein, but we all know that we've eaten them without getting sick.I believe the levels are low in Green beans, and often green beans are cooked.
If you google it you will find that many areas of europe won't eat green beans with out them being cooked into oblivion. Some of the stories are funny.

Russ- my alter ego (Imp) believes that green beans are the root of all things evil, taste like chicken poop, and should be banned from all 9 planets.

ETA- I give my chickens some frozen mixed vegs about every other day. I just thaw them in the microwave.

Russ, where are you getting that info? It really is at odds with my experience of feeding green beans/raw shell beans, and the inherited livestock feeding patterns of my family (for poultry, cattle, sheep and pigs) although we are Blue Lake snobs, and I suspect that other cultivars have different chemical profiles. The only cultivated food bean I know for sure that has phytotoxic effect is fava beans which are antagonistic to people with sickle cell disorder and thalasemia and the monotypic carriers of those disorders.

There are a bunch of legumes that have toxic seeds (some vetches, all Lathyrus sweet peas) or whole plants that are toxic when mature (one of which was implicated in the death of the Into the Wild guy) but Phaseolus vulgaris and its cultivars is not something I've seen warnings about until right here in this thread, this week. We have, over the years, grown farm-stall size commercial beans, and fed the over-ripe fruits to cattle and pigs, had the Thousand Banty Army bottom prune all the pole beans, and this summer lost about 2/3 of the Blue Lakes to deer.

Sorry about my skepticism, but it's at odds with sixty years of observed experience.

 

[Stumpfarmer]

I can't believe somebody had the hatching eggs I would like and here sets Silkiebator drawing unemployment !!!!!

Hmmm? I could probably get you five or six BLRW eggs and three green-shelled EE ones, but I haven't any way of knowing those are fertile.

Thanks but I really don't need anything now. I was just joking about it because they were LF Salmon Fav and that is what I want.
Thanks for the offer

BTW I sent ya a PM !! 

Got it, thanks.

 

[Stumpfarmer]

I can't stand green beans unless they are raw or barely warmed up.  If they are that toxic, I think I'll switch to just growing peas, because I can't stand over-cooked green beans.

Try carmelize sone onion and garlic then add raw green beans and a little itialian herb seasoning (from the grinder) to taste.         OOOOooooohh yeah baaaby !!!

Nope, they are still horrible. 

My mom used to tell the story that when I was a baby, she'd try to give me baby food green beans. One taste and I'd refuse to eat anything for 3 days.

I don't think green beans are all THAT toxic. Many foods contain things that could be potentially a problem, like eggs and chicken.

My son had the same problem with carrots, and later hated anything with celery in it, loathed fennel: turns out he's got an inherited food sensitivity, relatively common among people of North German heritage, where he's sensitive to whole sections of the Apiceae (formerly Umbellifera) and they give him migraine-like symptoms.

I've got a major allergy to sunflower seeds and plants, myself, so if my chickens get those for treats other people have to feed them!

 

[mikeyb]

Quote: scramble the ones you can't use and feedem to the cluckers.