Chickens on the homestead

[NH Homesteader]

lol they free range and get tons of snacks on top of their actual chicken feed. I think that makes up for my lack of attention!

 

[Beekissed]

Lol I feel like a bad chicken keeper because I'm really not friends with my chickens!

Your "inattention" to your free range hens likely contributes to their safety, NH. I never pick up a chicken in the daytime nor do I ever want any of my birds to get used to that for any reason. It often results in this when they hold still for shadows stooping over them....

Just before Winter she went to the chicken coop in the sky from being attacked by a chicken hawk.

For some reason, over the past several years, people have come to equate physical affection and increased dietary intake of "treats" and high pro feeds to "good care", when it's just the opposite. Some chickens seem to like to be touched, though it's not likely if they don't also associate that touching with food being given...it's more of a conditioned response than otherwise.

But, for the most part, chickens are prey animals and we are predators, so they are rightly wary of being touched by us. Frequently touching or picking up birds that are going to be free ranging can give them a slow response time to danger from above, some eventually have NO response to shadows from above except squatting and letting it happen, as they associate that with humans and food. Not a great idea.

Hands off is a good policy if you love your chickens. Also, just providing a balanced diet is also more love than feeding treats and high performance feeds to large fowl, dual purpose poultry...they aren't high performance animals, so that excess protein and sugar is hard to metabolize and can shorten their laying and life span.

 

[freemotion]

I've had several breeds throughout my chicken keeping years and finally identified what I wanted in my flock and bred to get it. I wanted large breed laying hens that would reliably go broody. I also wanted a flock that was very good at free-ranging most of their food. A few years ago I bought 25 Icelandic hatching eggs through Craigslist and hatched out I think 14 of them. I loved my Icelandic flock! But those little birds could fly quite high and laughed at my fencing. The roosters ultimately ended up sleeping in the trees and could leap at least 14 feet up in a single jump. They had to go. I live in a close suburban neighborhood and it just did not win me any points with the neighbors. But I managed to get a batch of mixed breed chicks before I rehomed or ate all the Icelandics. We ate all the roosters and I rehomed the purebred hens. I still have some gorgeous Icelandic rooster tail feathers in my hat.

Icelandics are very colorful and great free rangers and very reliable broodies. They are about halfway between a standard chicken and a bantam in size. Too small to be dual-purpose in my opinion. So I bred them up in size using some larger heritage breed laying hens. Each year I bring in a new rooster of a large laying breed variety and now my hens are almost all standard size. My flock is completely self-sustaining with the exception of bringing in new genetics with a rooster each year. Interestingly, I've never had to pay for a rooster. People gladly will give it away to a good home. People who order chicks will generally get a packing peanut rooster in there and in the suburbs roosters are not popular.

Got my first broody of the season starting today. Once I know she's solid I will move her to a pen in the backyard. The new rooster is an Easter Egger and I love a colorful egg basket as well.

Oh, and I try to get rose combs or pea combs because our New England winters can be rather cold.

 

[NH Homesteader]

I have some NH's at the moment and their poor combs... Love my dominiques for winter birds!

 

[Beekissed]

I've found the key to avoiding frostbite in large, single comb breeds....lots of wide open ventilation at and above roost height, as well as large ventilation open below the roosts. Seems to move the humidity right on up and out.

That way a person in northern climes doesn't have to limit themselves to pea comb breeds.

 

[tortoise]

We have a small flock of purebred Rhode Island Red for egg layers. We incubate a batch of eggs each spring to rejuvenate the flock.

We have a meat cross flock going too. Dark Cornish and Buff Rock. I got White Leghorn to add in, and I'm not entirely sure that was a good idea, but we'll see what it produces next year.

I am interested in keeping birds in northern climate (USDA zone 4) without using heat lamps in winter. How is it done? We have a wood freestanding coop for the RIR and the meat mixes are in a pen in the barn.

 

[freemotion]

We have a small flock of purebred Rhode Island Red for egg layers. We incubate a batch of eggs each spring to rejuvenate the flock.

We have a meat cross flock going too. Dark Cornish and Buff Rock. I got White Leghorn to add in, and I'm not entirely sure that was a good idea, but we'll see what it produces next year.

I am interested in keeping birds in northern climate (USDA zone 4) without using heat lamps in winter. How is it done? We have a wood freestanding coop for the RIR and the meat mixes are in a pen in the barn.

My dad had hens in zone 3 in far northern Maine. He used deep litter in the coop and had a nice, tight coop. The water rarely froze even though temps got well below zero and stayed there for weeks. If he went in the coop and smelled ammonia, he would simply add more bedding and the smell would diminish.

My barn was built with horses in mind and has a lot of ventilation at the top. In spite of this, roosters are especially vulnerable to frozen combs and generally will be combless by spring if we have much of any sub-zero weather.

 

[tortoise]

Huh, does decomposition in the deep litter add a significant amount of warmth?

 

[NH Homesteader]

We are zone 4b/5a. We use deep litter. There is ventilation around the top of the coop.

They really don't mind the cold. They mind being wet and in the wind. I choose my breeds accordingly, but RIR are tough birds also!

 

[freemotion]

Huh, does decomposition in the deep litter add a significant amount of warmth?

Yes! I use it with my own hens and goats. For a few years I had a "buck box" for the buck, which was based on a sheet of plywood so was 4' x 4' x 8'. One year I had a rather small buck so I put my big gentle Ginger in with him for the winter to help him stay warm. Well, with two pooping and peeing in there, I had to go in and clean it out late winter because Ginger could hardly stand up inside the box. I ended up stripping off my winter gear inside the box as I pushed soiled bedding out towards my waiting husband. I was rather impressed. There were active bugs/worms towards the bottom. I ended up never stripping it to the ground so there would be a head start to new composting. It is amazing.

I don't have enough hens for my coop to get the same heat going in there, but the small combed hens do fine.