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Post by mnjrutherford on Jul 2, 2013 20:07:11 GMT -5
Oh trust me, we wash our hands around this place!! ALL the time. No one comes in the door without washing hands next. I learned the "WE ARE TOTAL POO" lesson a few years ago. With birds, dogs, cats, and now pigs, there is not one square inch of property that was not recently poo. LOLOL A GOOD lesson to remember BEFORE getting sick! Sorry you are going through it though. I keep a jug in the kitchen of about 1 ounce bleach to 1 gallon water. I pour a cup or two into the dish water and the egg washing water. I put about a half ounce of bleach in every load of laundry as well.
Pig mash is great for protein and we've done that before. I'm thinking we have snake problems. We've already found 2 in the coops and one had JUST swallowed an egg. The boys made him "cough it up" though... ewwww...
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Post by davida on Jul 2, 2013 20:21:19 GMT -5
Pig mash is great for protein and we've done that before. I'm thinking we have snake problems. We've already found 2 in the coops and one had JUST swallowed an egg. The boys made him "cough it up" though... ewwww... I keep a couple of golf balls in each of the nest boxes for the snakes. I have never had a snake so do not know if it works or not. |
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Post by mnjrutherford on Jul 2, 2013 20:24:40 GMT -5
Well now... that's interesting... we USED to keep golf balls in the nests to encourage the girls to lay... THAT didn't work. I don't know what it did for the snakes though. I will say this, we don't kill our "good" snakes and we haven't had "bad" snakes on our property for a few years. Our neighbors have killed at least 5 copperheads so far this year. I don't know if there is a correlation or not.
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Post by olddog on Jul 3, 2013 9:34:47 GMT -5
Jo,
I am a beginner poultry keeper, also, and i have just 8, kind of elderly ladies, and they do produce about 3 eggs every other day, but just since I started giving them fresh kale, kefir cheese, and those black oil sunflowerseeds, if this helps. they really hated that pelleted chicken food, so I gave up on that, but i do give them a seed mix from the feed store free choice also.
They have a little pasture to run around in, but it is not irrigated, and so is pretty brown and dry right now, in our California climate.
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Post by mnjrutherford on Jul 3, 2013 12:20:11 GMT -5
We don't have the money for the black oil sunflower seeds and you are right, they LOVE those! Actually, we are working on a "chicken garden". We will be getting the round hay bales, one at a time as we can afford them and get them to the house. We will roll them out, wet them thoroughly, then sprinkle them with a variety of seeds; brassicas, beans, sunflowers, corn, melons, squash, etc. There will be nice whole seeds, sprouts, and over time, hopefully even some stuff will grow. It's an experiment of course. We won't loose anything because even if it doesn't work as a chicken garden, it will add biomass and improve the soil.
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Post by mnjrutherford on Jul 18, 2013 4:34:41 GMT -5
I have been reading about sprouted fodder and I'm giving that a shot using some spare seed. Some of the rice bean seed I have mixed with a variety of brassica seed for the first batch started on Tuesday and some navy beans I was given yesterday. We will send some to the birds and some to the piggies. I'm looking very specifically at the weight. The first days mix weighed in at 1.5 lbs dry then 2.5 lbs after soaking 24 hours. Then I used 2 lbs of navy beans. I haven't weighed them soaked just yet. From what I've read, you grow the sprouts 6 to 7 days for swine, poultry, horses... anything with a single stomach. 7 to 9 days for ruminants, animals with multiple stomachs.
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Post by olddog on Jul 30, 2013 14:28:20 GMT -5
Jo,
Ha ha, it took me this long to figure out where on this forum I was, cant navigate very well with this new forum setup!
Sprouted fodder sounds really good, I will try it. Thanks for the tip.
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Post by mnjrutherford on Aug 7, 2013 6:51:41 GMT -5
COOL! Good luck with it! The blend I used would have done much better if I'd had a screen to hold the seeds on rather than papertowels. The paper held the moisture well enough to begin to rot. Pretty gross. I ordered a #50 bag of barley from the feed and grain, they don't keep it on hand AND it was the cheapest of all the whole grains. $15 and some change. Even if all you do is soak it, you are doubling the weight.... I hope we get to pick it up today or tomorrow and get this thing started!!! PLEASE post your results!!
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Post by nathanp on Jan 12, 2014 18:10:55 GMT -5
I lost one of my birds to a hawk today. I really hate the idea that I might not be able to let them into the yard. It might be very impractical to try to cover a large enough area in the yard to protect them unless I can get bird netting at a cheap enough price. Does anyone have a source for netting or any other ideas?
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Post by blackox on Jan 12, 2014 19:05:04 GMT -5
Do you live in a rural area? We used to shoot the chicken hawks when they threatened our flock. Sad, but sometimes necessary.(We have a very large population of hawks. Some species are too small to take our birds.) We haven't had problems with hawks since we've had our geese. The geese are are large and intimidating enough to keep the hawks at bay.
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Post by nathanp on Jan 12, 2014 20:01:17 GMT -5
That's not an option where I live. It is suburbs, but close to town. Too close to town. To be honest, I rarely even see the hawks, but obviously we know they are there.
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Post by blackox on Jan 12, 2014 21:05:26 GMT -5
I don't know why I didn't mention this before... try hanging old CD's and colorful ribbons up around the chicken run as a defensive measure. I've read about it, it scares the hawks off. I have only hung up one old CD so far so it didn't matter much to the hawks, but I noticed a dramatic decrease of those pesky house sparrows in the chicken run. They like to eat the scratch grain.
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Post by oxbowfarm on Jan 13, 2014 13:06:47 GMT -5
I know I just recently advocated for killing problem wildlife in another thread, specifically trapping raccoons, but I've got to recommend against shooting hawks. Its a violation of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and will get you in lots of trouble with the Feds.
Like $15,000 worth, plus possible jail time if they want to make an example of you. There is no chicken in the world worth that kind of hassle.
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Post by steev on Jan 13, 2014 21:41:41 GMT -5
One of my farm neighbors, piqued that hawks were taking her chickens, one day swung her hoe at one that was swooping and connected, killing it. For years thereafter, its mate would swoop at her when she was in the yard; I saw it do it.
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Post by steev on Jan 14, 2014 22:07:06 GMT -5
Just for clarity, I would make the point that while I see the need to protect one's crops,(which may also be poultry or critters), and I will certainly try to protect mine when I have such, my heart is with the hawks and coyotes; they are such magnificent creatures, un-dumbed to our use, unlike our poultry and livestock, which we have largely made to be ambulatory vegetables, to the point that they no longer have undomesticated versions, nor can they survive without us. I think, ultimately, that my orientation is to permaculture, both in plant and animal. I recognize the need for domesticated animals (damned hard to milk wild animals), but does everything have to serve us, to the exclusion of other creature's needs?
Really, how much of Creation has to be about us?
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