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Permalink Reply by Julie Buck on March 6, 2011 at 5:07pm

Its hard to believe that they chickens take over the guineas.  My guineas as definitely in control.  I noticed that if I keep some scratch available all winter they stay busier.  I also try to make sure they get some greens - the outside lettuce leaves from a head of lettuce, the potato peelings, apple peelings and apple cores, etc.  - the stale bread and buns - Sometimes they get in the dog food but that's not what I really want them to be eating, neither does the dog.  Don't know why not though.  Most of the dog food is rice based and rice certainly shouldn't hurt them.  They especially love to scratch and eat in the straw that has been set out for bedding for the horses. Apparently there is still grain left in it from the threshing process.  Even in the winter they go out hunting that last little bit of grain.

Permalink Reply by Lorraine Smith on March 31, 2011 at 9:08pm

Do you have weeds growing yet? Maybe your neighbors do.  In winter, they are out most days & early spring seems to be crucial time for them to get all the greens they can. If they get sick, outside time picking at everything just may do the trick. My chickens are cooped now since the seeds are in, but I do let them out about an hour before they roost so they can "mow" the lawn. I throw all my weeds, sod, prunings into the coop for them.  I feed them kitchen scraps (they eat the coffee grounds!)  in the afternoon to always give them plenty of time to clean up. I have had rats get so aggressive they killed my hens, racoons of course will steal the eggs or whole birds. Then there are the weasels, so small they can get through 1" chicken wire! Eagles have disappeared one of my hens in the middle of the afternoon.

Permalink Reply by Kim Beall on April 1, 2011 at 11:09am

My hens LOVE it when I weed the garden - they get so happy tearing through the clumps of purslane and chickweed and dandelions I toss over the fence to them.  I'm almost starting to think of the weeds as one of my main crops: self-perpetuating chicken feed!

 

Yep, rats will definitely kill chickens - especially after they have gone to roost.  Chickens wake up too slowly to escape or defend themselves in time.  People don't believe me when I tell them even possums have killed my chickens, but they have!  They burrowed under the coop floor.  That's why my coop is now on legs, off the ground.  Raccoons and possums I trap and relocate by the dozens - this time of year, I catch and relocate one nearly every day!  Rats, though, are nearly impossible to get rid of without poisons, and I hate to think of a poisoned but not-yet-dead rat getting eaten by a raptor or a neighbor's pet, because that would also poison the animal that eats it.  But sometimes you have to do it. 

 

I have had much less of a rat problem since I've started keeping my chicken feed in galvanized trash cans, and I also make sure that when I give the hens kitchen scraps, I do it early enough in the day that they will have eaten ALL of it by bedtime.

Permalink Reply by Sudschick on April 1, 2011 at 4:17pm

I give my chickens alfalfa twice a week. I break a flake into 4 parts and toss them far from each other in their yard. I also give them vegetable scraps, like the trimmings from greens. When the spring grass and weeds start to come up, I pick a bunch of grass and toss it in. It's so funny to watch them grab one long blade of grass and run with it so that nobody else can get it. We get a lot of wild mustard here, and the chickens go crazy for the little flowers on it. I live in the desert and we don't get rain in the summer, so I take the hose and soak a section of their yard. They LOVE the wet ground to scratch around in. During corn on the cob season, I rinse the eaten ears to remove any butter or pepper and give the cobs to the chickens. I break each in half and spread them around their yard. They LOVE them. When I remove the cobs a couple of days later, they are picked absolutely clean.

Permalink Reply by Lorraine Smith on April 1, 2011 at 4:19pm

There's a beautiful colored hen!

Permalink Reply by Sudschick on April 1, 2011 at 4:22pm

That's Baby Girl, my pet hen. She's almost 8 years old and acts like a chick. She isn't part of the livestock hens, she's my baby. She gets to roam an acre, and sleeps at night on her pink blankie in the barn. This picture was taken about 9 days ago.

Sudsy

Permalink Reply by Kim Beall on April 2, 2011 at 12:18am

She looks like a red-penciled Wyandote?  My feed store just got in some chicks of this type and I am trying really hard to resist - but next time I go in I will probably go home with a few!

 

Did you know, alfalfa also contains a lot of calcium!  So that should make your shells harder.

 

My husband always says:  Nothing looks more delicious to a chicken than something that is already in another chicken's beak! :D

 

Permalink Reply by Sudschick on April 2, 2011 at 12:58am

I think Baby Girl is an Araucana...or at least a mix. Her eggs are blue/green. I'd like to get some French Maurans. I think that's how you spell it. Their eggs are deep, dark redish brown... and yes, your husband is correct. If you have any doubt, watch one of my chickens with a blade of grass in her mouth, and another hen chasing her to get it!...haha

Sudsy

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