What did you do with your flock today?

[Nomadicus]

Godiva sounds awesome ♡.
So, how many coops and runs do you have now? Lots of work... and what would you do the same or do differently? With such a large flock and so many different goals, I bet you have some good insight at this time.

I have 8 hoop coops (houses) with 4 more in the building. Building is stalled until the dangerous heat is over. I work to have a multipurpose possible new breed or maybe just a landrace approach with what would be mutts to most people. I detest high production layers because that shortens their live by so much and painful deaths. We live one day at a time just like the chickens do. My main genetics are based on the French breed Bresse and White Jersey Giants and Dark Cornish. Those 3 breeds are being crossed in to one or more new test pens. Now I have a White Giant breeding my pen of Bresse pullets. The Dark Cornish and White Giant pens are being kept pure until I have 50 more pullets of each to work with. A trait of the Bresse is a long breast while the Cornish have a wide and thick breast. The White Giants have overall big frames. Giants & Breese both lay a substantial # of eggs per year. All of the breeds I am using were created by someone with a vision and not a corporate entity or university. There is no reason to stop now and let the big corporations dictate what farms and homesteads have for chickens. They always have short lived chickens that have to be used by an expiration date.

 

[Nomadicus]

I have a 20 dz order for eggs to fill in 3 hours. Just enough time to squeeze in a nap. I'd like a sealed in room in a coop with my girls where I could nap while they sang me to sleep.

 

[TropicalBabies]

Happy Aloha Saturday!!!
Last morning waking up at Koke'e for a little bit, I think... unless I get lucky and sneak away. It is a beautiful, not too warm and breezy day.

Having 5 less hens on the roosts seemed to make it roomy in the chicken shack last eve. This morning the run seems empty with only 24 birds.

My favorite feed store has been out of my favorite pellets for the last few buys and won't have for another few weeks. My girls are wasting the heck outta the crumble I use to replace. With no pellets and not freeranging much at all, my feed bill has increase significantly. Kind of a cool real life experiment for me, like a reality check, again. What works- ️ Naturewise pellets and freerange,
and what does not so much.

Forest caught his 3rd rat. I heard the scuffle and promptly shut the window. He had fun, I'm sure.

Well, last house to clean today... plus yard. Better get my wiggle on. Wishing you all a safe and terrific day!!!!

 

[Smokerbill]

It's been a nice off-and-on rainy day here, cool and cloudy. Since my chickens never had the experience of being outside in the rain I let them roam around the yard for an hour or so. They spent a lot of time scratching down the two compost piles, and ate their whatevers in the yard.

One of them found a snail and played keep away for a while. I think it was able to pick the goodies out of the shell because she dropped it. I gave it a gentle stomp to break the shell and it was empty. The hens then ate the shell fragments. More Calcium!!

Five eggs today so far, all nice, clean and well shaped. Except for one, which looks a little long and is probably a double yolker. No jumbos today, all seem to be in the 43 gram weight size. Smalls, I think.

I had to give up some of my rice and veggies to entice the birds back into the run when their time was up.

The cockerel is definitely the leader of the pack now. A couple of the hens didn't stay outside long. I think one of the was feeling like laying an egg.

 

[Nomadicus]

Happy Aloha Saturday!!!
My favorite feed store has been out of my favorite pellets for the last few buys and won't have for another few weeks. My girls are wasting the heck outta the crumble I use to replace. With no pellets and not freeranging much at all, my feed bill has increase significantly. Kind of a cool real life experiment for me, like a reality check, again. What works- ️ Naturewise pellets and freerange,
and what does not so much.

Forest caught his 3rd rat. I heard the scuffle and promptly shut the window. He had fun, I'm sure.

Well, last house to clean today... plus yard. Better get my wiggle on. Wishing you all a safe and terrific day!!!!

Are your feeders hanging so that they eat at crop height? That makes a difference on how much they can drag out as the eat.

 

[TropicalBabies]

Are your feeders hanging so that they eat at crop height? That makes a difference on how much they can drag out as the eat.

Well, the feeder they are emptying has the 2" elbows - not 45°. Works great for pellets... not so efficient for crumble. I'm trying to think of my solution with limited resources up here... was thinking of duct tapping 1 or 2 ports to stop the bleeding... or just suck it up till I go down the mountain and replace it.
Or, just wait it out after taping 2 ports if that slows it enough. I don't mind some waste... just seems super excessive by spioled chickens who are not worried about finances.

 

[Nomadicus]

Is there a way to put a ground cover under the feeder so it can be collected (minus poop) and run back through the feeder. I'm found that hanging old fashioned metal feeders high enough they can still get to the feed but not so low they drag it out. I've been using mostly pellets but now am going to use oyster shell free choice and granules again so the roosters don't get the calcium. It I find a lot of feed on the ground I don't feel bad about not filling the feeder until most of it is cleaned up. Mine learned that finally.

 

[Smokerbill]

Well, the feeder they are emptying has the 2" elbows - not 45°. Works great for pellets... not so efficient for crumble. I'm trying to think of my solution with limited resources up here... was thinking of duct tapping 1 or 2 ports to stop the bleeding... or just suck it up till I go down the mountain and replace it.
Or, just wait it out after taping 2 ports if that slows it enough. I don't mind some waste... just seems super excessive by spioled chickens who are not worried about finances.

Someone here early this year mentioned something about gluing some kind of guard inside the lower side of the feeder hole that prevented birds from pulling feed out and wasting it. I never quite grasped mentally how he did it. But the modification is here in the forums, somewhere.

Others have placed feeders on a large tray of some kind that catches the feed that's slung out.

But yeah, since I switched to the small pellets, feed waste has really decreased. And some of the birds like to scratch on the floor under the feeder ports, so I think I have very little waste.

 

[Smokerbill]

Is there a way to put a ground cover under the feeder so it can be collected (minus poop) and run back through the feeder. I'm found that hanging old fashioned metal feeders high enough they can still get to the feed but not so low they drag it out. I've been using mostly pellets but now am going to use oyster shell free choice and granules again so the roosters don't get the calcium. It I find a lot of feed on the ground I don't feel bad about not filling the feeder until most of it is cleaned up. Mine learned that finally.

That's a great idea! don't refill the feeder until they've cleaned all the spillage up. I do the same as you, I think. Feed a 19% all purpose feed (not layer feed) and free choice oyster shell for the layers so the rooster doesn't get calcium overload.

 

[ChicksnMore]

I heard the scuffle and promptly shut the window.

What a great cat though!