Need a chicken coop cam - S/O chicken thread

[robinsmommy]

Could you try a higher protein feed?

Do you keep chickens all year? I don't keep them over winter. I was wondering if winter effects this more? Do they do it all year round or only winter? Or if keeping them in the coop because of winter weather would make them more found to do that.
Are they free ranging or in a run?
Could you give them so different foods until the bugs are out more? We would give ours tons of kitchen scraps, corn on the cob, whole watermelons, and pretty much everything else.

We do keep them over winter - do you harvest all yours for meat? How do you ever get good layers grown, if you start them in spring of one year? This spring at one year is the best laying they will do.

Yes, being "cooped up" does affect them more - they don't run around as much when there is snow, even though most of their run is covered. They are in a run - I daren't free roam them with the dog needing to go out, partially because some dogs love to eat chicken poo - and ours is one. Ugh!

Their morning "scratch" is sunflower seeds, sesame seeds and freeze dried fly larvae, and they also get food scraps from meal prep - they love, love, love fish and fish skins. For food they get organic chicken pellets that have fly larvae in them.

[frugalmom]

We do keep them over winter - do you harvest all yours for meat? How do you ever get good layers grown, if you start them in spring of one year? This spring at one year is the best laying they will do.

Yes, being "cooped up" does affect them more - they don't run around as much when there is snow, even though most of their run is covered. They are in a run - I daren't free roam them with the dog needing to go out, partially because some dogs love to eat chicken poo - and ours is one. Ugh!

Their morning "scratch" is sunflower seeds, sesame seeds and freeze dried fly larvae, and they also get food scraps from meal prep - they love, love, love fish and fish skins. For food they get organic chicken pellets that have fly larvae in them.

Nope we don't harvest for meat. We sell them. Last year chicks we got in April and they were laying by July or August. We had 6 hens and we always got 5 or 6 eggs a day. Way more than we needed as we are not huge egg eaters even for a family of 7.

Ok yeah it sounds like you have tried everything and they are getting good food. I don't have any other suggestions.

[robinsmommy]

Nope we don't harvest for meat. We sell them. Last year chicks we got in April and they were laying by July or August. We had 6 hens and we always got 5 or 6 eggs a day. Way more than we needed as we are not huge egg eaters even for a family of 7.

Ok yeah it sounds like you have tried everything and they are getting good food. I don't have any other suggestions.

I think the oyster shell, and maybe putting them in a portable run on the lawn when we can after the
grass greens up. We can hose the poop into the lawn to keep the dog from eating it (which can make her puke, ugh).

I’ll see if we can adjust the nesting area more- maybe putting buckets cut in half or something in it to make it less accessible to the other hens.

[candaceb]

I know very little about chickens but have done chicken duty twice a month this school year. We had that problem at school, and they put golf balls in the nesting boxes and it solved the problem.

[Kestrel]

Would the chickens eat something like the dry mealworms used for wild bird food? I saw some of those the other day, 10 pounds for $20.

[robinsmommy]

Would the chickens eat something like the dry mealworms used for wild bird food? I saw some of those the other day, 10 pounds for $20.

The freeze dried fly larvae we give them are about the same thing, only a US product and different bug. Most mealworms are a product of China. The fly larvae are from a company in our state.

[Kestrel]

Really? China is exporting their worms???

I didn't even think to look.

[robinsmommy]

Really? China is exporting their worms???

I didn't even think to look.

When we first started buying organic, local feed it was because at that time, a lot of the organic feed was from China, and there were a lot of scandals on food contamination, even for human food. The melamine in milk being one. So I started looking on the backs of packages. Ours is local feed, which I feel good about, as it has a smaller footprint for travel and supports local farmers.

If we can't get the fly larvae, we just wait to buy more treats. I don't know that I have seen meal worms that were not from China in the freeze dried format. The live ones might be from the US, but we rarely get those.