Opinions and thoughts on coop flooring.

Susan, so they are on cement all the time?

Do you gather the poop for your compost? or just hose it to oblivian?

Do they wonder the grasslands?

Don't their little footies get cold?

Hey frans! Nice to see you! LOL @ you following me. I just run on nervous energy, trying to get as many things done as I can in between the kids sports and social lives. I have none!

Oh how I wish I had a rich uncle! Bad enough I have thoughts of college money hanging over my head, the kids sports are racking up lots of bucks NOW. I'm just really good at moving money around and making due with things we have and reusing found items and scraps. ;)

Those cattle panels are fun aren't they? So many things you can do with them. I am planning for arbors and trellis next as I want to grow some roses on them as "gateways" to different garden areas.

If you can get away the first weekend of June, you SHOULD come visit! We are having our annual Round Up and people will be camping here as well. It would be great to meet you!

I also use a nice flat shovel to clean up the poo and throw it on a compost pile. I figure between the rabbit droppings and chicken clean ups, I may have some really good top dressing soon.

frans, no their pen is dirt, just the coop floor is cement. The pen is 12' x 24' and the coop is 8' x8'. We also have cattle. The weaned calves eat in the barn that the coop is attached and DH puts the calf manure right outside the door in the corral and I just throw the chicken manure on that pile. In the spring we spread the pile with a manure spreader on the hay field just before it starts to come up and then DH harrows it to spread it out more. Everything is utilized. Thanks for the compliment on my girls. No they don't free range anymore.
Susan

This message was edited Mar 4, 2008 11:18 AM

tf, CONGRATULATIONS! LOL! Yeah, I do the same thing. It makes life so much more easier to use what you've got already than to go out and buy fertilizer. DUH!
Susan

i hope folks understand that if you medicate, or feed medicated food to your anumals, you should have your soil tested for, among other things arsenic. what goes in, comes out LOL

another great thing for garens/ hay fields are chicken feathers!

That seems so odd to me tf.. I am not doubting you.. I just.. how does the medication come out as arsnic.. or are we medicating with arsnic.. and what was it we were medicating for?

umm, i am no scientist, but when i was researching organic standards for vegetables, it specifically stated not to use chicken manure when they chickens had been treated with antibiotics, and when you do use any, to test the soil for arsenic. once i decided to get chickens, i checked out organic standards for raising fowl and discovered there are many ways to keep chickens healthy. since i am not industrializing anything, i can keep things clean and healthy without antibiotics, worming meds, lice dustings, etc...

confusing, complicated, and off subject. sorry i brought it up. but if you are curious, you should research it. everyone can make a difference in the enviroment just by edcuating yourself...

tf

Still off topic, but here is a site about arsenic and chicken feed--arsenic used to be used pretty commonly on animals. It was considered a "tonic". http://www.mindfully.org/Farm/2004/Arsenic-Chicken-Roxarsone4jan04.htm

Yep.. we did stray a bit.. but very interesting.. I will continute to pursue.. I really hadn't thought about it.. and while looking for feed, I was happy (dahhh is me) to see I wouldn't have to worry about anything.. what could happen.. heck their already on an antibiotic..
??Why are we feeding an antibiotic on a regular basis????

Sorry bout the hyjack Badseed.. I will move on.. and start a new thread when I learn enough to ask more questions.

It's all good! Even when the topics bounce back and forth, I still learn something. ;)

l'm thinking that you think l feed my calves medicated grain. NOT ON THIS FARM!!! The only time ANY of our animals receive antibiotics is when they actually NEED it. I feed my chicks medicated chick starter, other than that when they're adults they get layer pellets and henscratch. Antibiotics are NOT the answer for everything, but drs and vets seem to think they are.
Susan

I had a friend over for Christmas dinner one year. An hour after he ate the turkey, he broke out in hives and had trouble breathing. We took him to ER and they said that because he was alergic to penicillin, his reaction came from the TURKEY. They said it was actually quite a common experience.

THAT'S why I like to raise my own meat! I don't feed medicated feed and if an animal has to be treated with antibiotics for some reason, I won't put him in the food chain for at least a month.

And we worder where antibiotic resistant bugs come from.

jylgaskin, l'm with you. That's precisely why we raise our own meat too! I purchased a bag of feed one time and when l got home with it the label said medicated, it went right straight back to the store. From then on I made sure I got straight grain W/O antibiotics.
Susan

Susan, if you were talking to me about thinking you were using medicated grain for your calves... no....

I am new to the "farm, animal" world.. and ask all sorts of questions... and I saw and purchased the medicated chick starter.. thinking that it would be a God-send in getting them off on the right foot... I mean the feed store wouldn't steer me wrong.... would they ???

When TF mention arsnic... it got me to thinking and asking more.. and now I am reading...

I haven't taken back the chicken started yet.. the 3 other stores I went to today all they have is medicated also... don't I have a choice??

there is non-medicated available....i had to get that for my ducklings & goslings....they eat too much for the medicated so it is bad, possibly fatal, for them

The feed that I was talking about was for calves, I didn't want medicated for the calves. You DO want medicated for the chicks though because it DOES get the started off on the right foot. I'm sorry we both misunderstood each other. I always start my chicks out on the medicated as they seem to be alot healthier.
Susan

This message was edited Mar 6, 2008 11:23 AM

ah, that would be different :-)

i used the medicated for the chicks....this time i opted to have them vaccinated prior to sending, so i hope that goes well....i wanted to have it less confusing when my young ones help

Oh, no, i wasn't thinking that either Susan, I knew you didn't LOL. I just wanted to be sure folks who did would not be using their stuff for the garden. I get UN-medicated chick starter too. Mine free range and need to build their own immunity, and I want them to live a long time, not kill them at a young age. When you medicate them, it wears off as adults, and they are more liekly to get sick...

It is hard to find the medicated chick starter, try a store that caters to farmers and ranchers as opposed to horse people, 4-hers, and hobbyists...

i wil ifnd that other study linking antibiotics to arsenic in the soil... maybe this weekend when i hav a little more time...

Thanks ladies. I would be interested in hearing what you find out tf.
Susan

I opted not to have them vaccinated because I couldn't find unmedicated feed... heck all our feed stores here have turned into frilly stores... even tsc is half clothes.. just a short matter of time and it will be another.. frills & fluff

that's too bad. one day i hope to have enough critters to buy more property and grow more of our own feed, plus order the rest by the pallet, fresh from the mill [bagged, not bulk]

did you know you can plant and harvest beets to use as a high protein feed additive? and let your field grass grow high, the chickens and other fowl appreciate the camoflauge and feed on the grass and weed seeds...

last year my chickens ate the seeds off of goathead weeds. and i promise they were getting plenty from the feed store too. they just love anything green LOL

i'm going to plant a feathered friends garden as well as one for our goats....i found the unmedicated feed at tractor supply here....it's almost funny but they routinely run out of feed for poulty & goats....never expected that!

we are down to 2 hens & 2 roos w/ 35 + one free rare one (probably a roo) from mcmurray....i'm sure the hens will be thrilled with additional girls to give them a well deserved break :-)

TF, are those beets the kind we eat? If so, I don't think they would get to the chickens to be eaten by them. I love beets in any form. Including the greens.

I always give my chickens scraps. Last summer I canned a bushel of beets and gave them the tops and skins. The pooped pink for three days.

The comercial horse feed beet pulp is really good to feed them in really cold weather. Mix it with hot water and give it to them warm. It really gives them a boost. I found dried sugar beet pulp once too that was for cows. They loved it.

Just wondering.. (yet again) what would posses you to say.. "hey, I'm gonna give this cow beet pulp to my hens.. bet it'll give em a boost?"

Does this come naturally once I become a chicken mom??? ;-)

I was looking for ways to boost the vegative material for the winter and add variety. The natural sugars also help them provide heat. If chickens are given a choice, they eat a wide variety of things. Vegitive matter and bugs for protien, not all that much grain. Once people started trying to riase them for meat and eggs in the most efficient and profitable manner, we started limiting their diets to predominately grain. I'm just trying to give them back a bit of what they had before. Think about it, eating comercial chicken feed every day would be like us eating nothing but corn or bran muffins, every meal, every day. You could survive, but it wouldn't be fun.

I have really happy chickens.

I rehabilitate wild life and have a variety of animals around, I am always looking at diffrent feeds and such to give everybody the best, most natural diets I can. After you have chickens a while, I think you just naturally look at theings as say "I wonder if they would like that?".

Good morning all! I give my chickens the bottom of the bags of doritos, tortilla chips and hawaiian sweet onion chips. So they either have a Fiesta or a Luau! They love it! I just crumble them up in the bottom of the bag (they look like sawdust anyway) and shake them out on the ground. The rooster starts clucking up a storm and the girls come running!
Susan

here is a great link to my fav homesteading site
this is an idea to add greens in the winter
http://www.themodernhomestead.us/article/Sprouting.html
who can resist doritos ?. I know i can't

No One Can EAt Just One crumble....

And you know... I really did know that beet pulp is a very common ingredient in dog food. Some days I just don't know where my brain is hiding..

I think they are using sugar beet pulp--we have truckloads of sugar beets moving down highways here. I'm not sure it is as nice and red as the common beet. Sometimes I think they let the cattle in to clean up the field after harvest--:-)

Well, sugar beets aren't red. We get them to feed the deer when we can. I do know that the deer love them, so I would think that cattle would too.

Like I said earlier, the chicks would only get the skins if beets come here. I would eat them myself. ;o))

You're right, Granny--they aren't red at all. They look like something they call "manglewurzle" in England. There they just grow them as cattle feed, just chop them up in the field and the cows move in and eat them. At first I thought they were eating rocks! I've never seen beet pulp offered at our local feed store, but I am definitely going to ask. Of course they may be too "rich" for our California chickens--they never really need to stock up on energy rich food to keep warm. But if they are cheap and rich in protein, it would make sense to incorporate them.

I have to leave tomorrow and my chicks are just at the cutely ugly stage and lining up to roost when they sleep. When I get back they will be gangly teenagers and I will have missed their growing up. I feel really sad about it. The Delaware and Orpington come running and perch on my hand now--of course it could be the meal worms I've been feeding them.....

This message was edited Mar 8, 2008 12:29 AM

oh, they won't forget you, your are their dear chicken Momma, & they WON'T forget mealworms!

come back soon!

oh, yes those mangel beets are heirlooms, & my favorite to eat, they get so HUGE & the tops are like chard!

tf

TF, I never thought about eating sugar beets. Most people here get them in the fall to put out for bait piles for deer. They come with the tops off so I have never seen what those look like. Thanks for the info.

Has anyone here ever tried the deep dry litter method? We do that H. Ussery wrote an article about it and we tried it and will never change to any other method.
We live on sand. Our coop is built on a 2 foot cement footing. We put 18-24" of pine shavings on top of the sand. The chickens scratch and turn everything over so their poop is rarely visible and we clean once or twice a year depending on the number in our flock. By the time we clean out...it can go directly to the garden because it is already mulched! Our coop never has an ammonia odor and the chickens take care of the bugs...although we do not have alot of bugs in the coop.
Our coop is 28x14 and we have 100 chickens. They are very happy and we gather an average of 85-90 eggs daily. The eggs are always sold within 4 days of storage at 40 degrees. DH also uses shavings in the nest boxes and I rarely have to clean up an egg. He changes the boxes weekly just because! Shavings are fairly cheap as of yet...they are still the leavings from the saw mills and can be bought for $10 a pickup load...slightly more if you buy a semi load and they deliver...gas prices have really made that an expensive option. When we do clean everything is sanitized with a natural disinfectant that won't hurt them should they get a taste of it. During the winter DH now has a corner with the sand for dusting available after having them dig down to the bottom a couple of times to get to the sand...leaving the shavings in a heap right in front of the door of course! This method is the best we have found!

jcomy i m going to try the deep litter . We have woods and have leaves up the wazoo. I m going to use that for our deep litter.
Your method sound very good. I may have to play around with it.
I don't have chickens yet but we will in the next few months. I hope, :)
Im glad to see others using this type method. I like Ussery ideas.

I think you will like it very much. No one believes that we have as many chickens as we do when they are by the coop...NO ODOR! We use the shavings with our new chicks also and haven't had any problems so far...Knock on wood! ;-)
Never thought of leaves...we have pines and some scrub oaks until we get some of our maples growing bigger. I would think that leaves would work and they break down probably faster than the shavings. We were looking at worm composting today and DH thinks it would be fun to try that to try and build up the chicken run area...plus the chickens could have worms for snacks. Hmmm maybe I will be able to convince him for wind power and windmill, solar heating, etc......

LOL jcomy
trying to convince my dh of that too.
yes i think the leaves would decompose faster but we have 36 acres of them . :) so not to worry on supply.
I bet shaving is more odor absorbent . I think the birds would love pine needles.
worm composting is neat ,havn't tried it yet but i will