Re: Astrolorp roosters and husbands and scruffy birds


"Valkyrie1066" <tonimorris@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1119795515.192587.105520@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Just to specify, I do not feed CHICKEN to my chickens. There are meat
> by-products in all pelleted poultry food, around here, anyway.

Its something we don't have over here anymore - more's the pity. Meat
protein is wonderful for chickens but our powers that be do not consider
useful things like that.
We cannot even get the wonderful tonics that always used to give such great
condition to birds like meat and bone meal or even better bloodmeal.

> I feed
> them a combination of whole scratch grains and crumble, as well as a
> whole cabbage every two days, suspended from a perch in a wire basket.
> I give them all the garden scrap, and all of our table scraps except
> chicken meat.

You might want to watch things like pork as well -- some of the bugs can be
more similar so affect your birds potentially.

> What I bring home from work are the fat and rinds from
> large pit barbecued beef roasts.

As its not a main feed I am sure they will love it but care that you don't
over do the fat/carbs -- there is very little valuable nutrition from the
fat and the rind so you can get birds laying down the surplus energy in hard
fatty deposits within their abdomen. These are hard to detect from the
outside - its not like us humans and our rolypoly tummies. However these can
get in the way of good organ function and in the way of eggs - a common
cause of egg peritonitis

> We also catch bugs and beetles that
> swarm in the summer and feed them live. I have an eight year old that
> loves to catch bugs for her favorite chicken and his friends! We also
> put out oyster shell and ground up eggshells.

excellent

>
> I did hear that it could cause a disease something like mad cow if you
> fed chicken to chickens. I would appreciate whatever you guys know
> about that fowl condition.

I have not heard of a prion disease in chickens I don't think -- its more a
problem of general bugs -- there are plenty of things like Salmonella's
associated with meat birds. While they are species specific they do not
threaten human health and as teh birds are around so short a time they are
not treated for them.
Good poultry keepers in the old days would always boil the scraps for their
pigs and their poultry with oat and corn meal.


> The book that I bought was "Chickens in your backyard." I've
> downloaded texts from other chicken experts to read about feed, forage,
> remedies, etc.and I am hoping to learn from some of your experiences on
> this board.

welcome aboard :~)
>
> KFC - Okay, that one cracked me up, I"ll have to show that to my
> husband!!!
>
> Oh....the cayanne pepper doesn't kill the fox, it makes their mouth
> burn when they try to eat the chicken! That's why I said it was
> non-lethal.
>
> Electric netting sounds interesting, but there is no power in that old
> barn, I'd have to have a half mile long extention cord!

If you look at http://www.smallholdershop.co.uk/fencing.html you can see how
the netting works. There are plenty of battery energisers, even solar ones
and I am certain you can get this in the US


--

regards
Jill Bowis

Pure bred utility chickens and ducks
Housing; Equipment, Books, Videos, Gifts
Herbaceous; Herb and Alpine nursery
Working Holidays in Scotland
http://www.kintaline.co.uk

.

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