Hey.... Lets keep Chickens..!

oldandhappy

Our Bantams Girls love there dust tray which is basically a wooden box with low sides and filled with fine gritty soil. Often add there corn treats to it in the afternoon. Must say they love crushed toast crumbs and digestive biscuits:eek::). They have now had fitted underlay covered in plastic over there roof today(me!!! done it) to make sure they dont get chilled with this bad weather coming to us any time. The ducks are still laying but the hengirls have gone on strike...typical of Bantams. Dianne

ALIBOBSY

moominyak wrote: »

Mine have pellets in a hanging feeder (which I top up whenver it's running low), they get the mash (or meal) mixed up with warm water in a couple of bowls in the morning. If I don't have time to sort their warm breakfast, they still have the pellets which is the same stuff just in pellet form. I've never tried adding water to the pellets, I suppose it would take a bit longer to prepare as presumably the pellets would take a while to soften up.

The poultry spice / crushed shells wouldn't really mix in with pellets too easily I don't think (although if it's wet... then maybe that would work).

I think it's the poultry spice and the eggshells which are making a difference, they seem to love it anyway!

ETA: The weather up here is pretty yuk just now too, generally grey, gloomy and wet. Maybe ex-batts are just so delighted to be outside they don't care about the weather

According to our packet of poultry spice it can be added to the water, so we put some into the water as well.

On the subject of cold weather do we need to take any precautions to look after our chuckies. We already lock them in at night. Other than extra straw/sawdust is there anything else? Oh suggested an old blanket over the top of the coop at night to keep the worst frost off and to enable quick removal of any snow when it arrives.

ali x

miss_t_2

poohbear59 wrote: »

I will try the warm layer mash to see if it helps. Do you use layer pellets with hot water on them?

I always give my chooks warm mash to keep them going when it gets cold and they seem to love it! I have just used actual layers mash before but have run out, so at the moment am just covering pellets with hot water then mixing in some corn, poultry spice and meal worm (that's why they love it). It takes less than a minute to absorb and means you don't need to find storage for mash!

Hope this helps?

moominyak

That certainly does, thanks miss_t One less sack to keep in the garage! Between the dog, the hens and the wild birds it's a wonder there's room in there for anything else

@ MKCOL - glad you've had a couple of eggs at last!

rigsby1967

MKCOL wrote: »

Sadly my pair seem to have gone on strike all of a sudden!!

They had been v good layers since getting them in May, almost without a fault each laying one a day, sometimes having a day off to follow up the next day with a MAHOOSIVE egg.....but now they have stopped. Just switched off. Both of them have decided that's it & haven't produced for the last week now.

Any ideas? They free range all the time (hence the garden is a complete mud-pit now grrrrrrrrr) and now it's colder we're locking them up over night (which we prev hadn't been doing).

Any ideas? Other than not laying they still seem really happy & fine - plenty of poop!!

.

By going on another website i have learnt alot of chooks stop laying in the winter due to the shorter days.......they need so many daylight hours to lay eggs, Thats why your chooks are fine and happy but just not laying. They may not lay again now until the spring.

HTH
rigs

RAS

They also neeed to moult sometime and that may put them off laying.

LolaLemon

i need a little advice, im sorry if this has been covered before, but at 42 pages here i am not going back through it all lol

i have been very interested for ages in keeping chickens, and im going to do it this summer, well at least once the snow and ice and frost has gone, but from reading a few random pages on here, ive seen rats being mentioned.
Please can you tell me more abt the rat/chicken link and how to deter them.
Foxes im fine with theirs a family across the street (and past the school football field and over the burn) from me, they have lived thier for years, and due to the foxes i know taht id be better buying a coop with run (any recommendations on where to get a good one cheap?) rather than making one. But the rats scare me! I dont want to be the person encouraging them here.

Money_maker

rigsby1967 wrote: »

.

By going on another website i have learnt alot of chooks stop laying in the winter due to the shorter days.......they need so many daylight hours to lay eggs, Thats why your chooks are fine and happy but just not laying. They may not lay again now until the spring.

HTH
rigs

Thats right and tbh, its mainly the egg producers who use lighting to lengthen the days to keep the egg supply coming so there is no difference in the seasons. This can exhaust the hens. Suggest the hens are left to their natural production - generally it kicks back in again in january anyway.

oldandhappy

LolaLemon wrote: »

i need a little advice, im sorry if this has been covered before, but at 42 pages here i am not going back through it all lol

i have been very interested for ages in keeping chickens, and im going to do it this summer, well at least once the snow and ice and frost has gone, but from reading a few random pages on here, ive seen rats being mentioned.
Please can you tell me more abt the rat/chicken link and how to deter them.
Foxes im fine with theirs a family across the street (and past the school football field and over the burn) from me, they have lived thier for years, and due to the foxes i know taht id be better buying a coop with run (any recommendations on where to get a good one cheap?) rather than making one. But the rats scare me! I dont want to be the person encouraging them here.

You will not get a cheap chicken house and run that will last for years. Quality wood and a good thickness of wood for supports will cost you but then it should not rot or collapse so not so pricey in the long term. You need to keep foxes out because they will dig under the structure so mesh under or paving slabs around for some extra protection. Where there is food there is going to be rats...so try and keep the food in the chicks feeder not scattered around too much. Please note my knowledge is just acquired in the past 3 months but felt I could help a little. Dianne

jamsandwhich

LolaLemon wrote: »

i need a little advice, im sorry if this has been covered before, but at 42 pages here i am not going back through it all lol

i have been very interested for ages in keeping chickens, and im going to do it this summer, well at least once the snow and ice and frost has gone, but from reading a few random pages on here, ive seen rats being mentioned.
Please can you tell me more abt the rat/chicken link and how to deter them.
Foxes im fine with theirs a family across the street (and past the school football field and over the burn) from me, they have lived thier for years, and due to the foxes i know that I would be better buying a coop with run (any recommendations on where to get a good one cheap?) rather than making one. But the rats scare me! I dont want to be the person encouraging them here.

Hi - as oldandhappy says, you won't get cheap and performance, I bought a henhouse and run off ebay which was sold as 'slight seconds' as in it could have a hinge missing. I did take over a week to buy as I couldn't quite believe it but the description was good and seller had good feedback - until selling these houses! The wood was cheap and nasty, hinges missing, bolts missing, mesh cut too small to fit frame and needed completely weatherproofing for winter. It also came packaged as a 'Delux bunny house' with chinese writing all over the box:rotfl: However, we did all the repairs and got a part refund to cover costs so not too bad as we have a good set-up and OH built a huge run for our two which they are happy in as well as roming in the garden when we are around.

We are also not doing anything to encourage ours to lay through the winter by using a light or other artificial methods, they are still giving us an egg each a day but would rather let them produce naturally than force them on. I am not an expert but as with human females, I believe that chickens are born with a set amount of eggs in their ovaries - by forcing them to lay tihs will reduce their egg laying productivity over a longer period as the eggs are used up and hence why battery farms get rid of their hens before they are a year old. I suppose you will still get a similar number of eggs over a hens producing lifetime whether it be in the first two years or over five years. I would prefer to supplement the reduced egg production over the winter months with free range bought in eggs and have my hens lay a regular amount throughout their lives.