Chicken Keeping Food For Thought... And a Winner!

By Leigh:

Every now and then, I’m going to infuse this blog with little bits and pieces from the perspective of a Chicken Newbie… (that would be me). I feel very lucky to have such a wonderful mentor in Bee – and some other “Old Timers” that we’ll be hearing from later on down the road.

You see, when I first became interested in keeping chickens, I wanted to do so for a number of reasons, not the least of which was to have my own source of organic, free range eggs.

Ironically, information junkie that I am, the more I read for the purposes of learning how to raise my own chickens, the more I learned about the use of chemicals and medications…

So… if I de-worm my chickens 4 times a year with chemical de-wormer, if I put antibiotics in their water at the first sign of a ruffled feather and if I rub my flock down with chemicals to treat or prevent mites and lice, how would I be eating organic eggs?

I wouldn’t be!

It was only by chance (or fate) that I happened to stumble upon an informational forum thread on a popular chicken website… and I found Bee and her no-nonsense, all natural wisdom. This was what I had been looking for all along! If I wanted to use chemicals and antibiotics, what would be the purpose in raising my own chickens? Why not just buy chemical and antibiotic-laden eggs at the store?

So how does this chicken newbie do things differently than she would have if she’s followed the most common advice out there?

• I don’t use poop boards or clean out my coop daily. I use the deep litter method which is healthier (and more natural for my flock.
• I do NOT useDiatomaceous Earth (DE) in my coop or on my chickens… ever. I don’t want to kill off those good nematodes that feed on the larvae of mites and lice!
• I provide wood ash for my birds to take dust baths in. Wood ash kills mites and lice, and my chickens love to roll about in it. And it’s free. Can’t beat “free!”
• I feed my birds chopped pumpkin seedsevery now and then – it’s a natural, organic de-wormer… and the chickens think it’s a delicious treat.
• I ferment the chicken’s feed – they are better able to absorb the nutrients in this feed, and I’ve cut my feed costs by 2/3rds!
• I use unpasteurized apple cider vinegarin their fermented feed and in their water. The U-ACV has many benefits, including making my chicken’s digestive tract a “hostile environment” for parasites. It may also change the pH and mean more of their fertilized eggs will result in female offspring. Not proven, but I’ll report back on that when I start hatching.
• I understand now that if kept healthy, most chickens with good genetics will not succumb to common illnesses like coccidiosis.
• All critters – including humans and chickens – carry parasites and bacteria. It’s a fact of life. It is only when there is an overgrowth of either that we have problems. Balance is the key! Living in a sterile coop is no better than living in filth. The most natural and organic way to achieve health is by finding that middle ground where a symbiotic relationship is created with both bugs and bacteria – not too many and not too few… just the way life was created and developed on this planet.

So there’s my perspective on some of what I have learned so far.

Oh… and you’re still probably wondering who won the key chain?

Drum roll please…

Commenter #7 – Aoxa

Anonymous November 21, 2012 10:50 AM

Wow! Awesome post :D

I often get eggs with blood on the shell and never considered it abnormal. Usually it is from pullets coming into lay or really big eggs like Bee said. :)

-Aoxa

(And if you’re wondering, multiple comments by one person were counted as one, and MY posts don’t count. I also didn’t count those that were just a question about another comment.)

So congratulations, Aoxa! Please email me at shabbychicken@hotmail.com with your mailing address and your choice of keychains!

Leigh –

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Bloody Egg. Do My Chickens Have Worms? (And A Giveaway!!)

Dear Bee –

I read online that finding blood on the egg shell is a sign of capillary worms in chickens. Can worms be present inside of eggs? The same site said chickens should be given chemical dewormer orally to rid them of worms and as a preventative measure too. Do you agree?

Bee's Answer:

 

Nope.  Eggs come from the oviduct, not from the intestines where most parasites dwell.  

(This is a good illustration of a chicken's ovary and the potential eggs this hen would have laid.  While the illustration is helpful for the purposes of illustrating this post, I also wish to point out that this particular hen wouldn't have been a good layer. A good layer would have a much larger ovary with many more eggs in various stages of development.)

Parasites usually live in the small intestines which have a greater blood supply than the large intestines. That's quite a distance from where the eggs come from.  ....that's why they are clean instead of covered in poop when they come out ~ different tube.  

Blood on an egg could mean any number of things and it's usually not repeated... as in one hen always having bloody eggs.  I've seen it on very, verylarge eggs, on the eggs of new layers, and on the eggs of hens getting back into laying from a slow down, etc.

This obsession folks have with chickens and worms is often a source of amusement for me.  I've never seen a worm in any feces of any chickens I've kept down through the years and neither has my mother.  It's just not that common to have worm infestations in healthy flocks.  Anyone who is dealing with heavy worm loads is doing something wrong along the way and needs to stop what they are doing instead of subjecting their flocks to harsh dewormers on a scheduled basis. 

Take it from someone who has seen the inside of a freshly killed chicken more than most ordinary folks have (I've been killing chickens since I was 10 yrs old)... high loads of internal parasites are just not a normal part of backyard flocks.  If they are becoming so, it could be because people are creating "super worms" by constantly and needlessly deworming their flocks.  

Super worms are created when worms survive the chemical dewormers and then breed more worms that can survive. Many flock keepers will then switch dewormers to kill the surviving worms, which leaves the survivors of THAT dewormer.  Now you have worms that can and will survive two dewormer chemicals... and it goes on and on.  Sort of the same way we get lethal e.coli and other pathogens that do not respond to antibiotics... because of the overuse of antibiotics in the human population creates germs that are survivors of anything that comes down the pike. 

I'll give the same advice here that I gave earlier... stop staring at poop, stop obsessing over every little egg abnormality, stop giving medicine on a scheduled basis out of fear of things.  Start just using good, simple flock management practices so that we can stop worrying over every little fart the flock lets.  Then we can rest easy and any bird that isn't doing well will stand out like a sore thumb against all the glossy, fat and healthy birds you have.  Then you take that bird and cull it.  That leaves all the pretty and healthy chickens still standing, leaving nothing to worry about. 

If you have more than one bird that isn't doing well... look to your flock management practices, not a quick fix of medicines that just create more problems. 

Bee -

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Who's ready for a Giveaway??

The fantastic folks at Louise's Country Closet have kindly offered to give one lucky reader a key chain from their great selection. 

To register to win, please:

• Become a follower of this blog (if you haven't already).
• Go to Louise's Country Closet and take a peek at all the great items out there.
• Comment on this blog and let us know which key chain you like the best!

One winner will be randomly selected from all the comments we get and that winner will be announced next Wednesday, November 28th, 2012.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Ask Bee - Fermented Feed = Less-Smell in Chicken Waste

Dear Bee –

One thing I've heard from people using fermented feed that they note the lack of bad smells in the coop/bedding. Why is this?

Bee’s Answer:

That is a great side effect of using the FF, but I think it's important to mention that it is merely a side effect and the physiology behind why it is happening is a much more important and desirable goal.

This means that there is better bowel health due to more villi being present in the bowel.  More villi means more blood supply, which results in better nutrient absorption from the available feeds passing through the small intestine.  The fermentation of the feed before consumption also changes some of the feed ingredients, allowing it to be better digested and absorbed by a monogastric animal such as a chicken.

To put it simply; the food is being usedinstead of passing through the bowel without being fully digested.  The bird is getting more benefit from the feed which reduces the amount of feed required by the bird.  This translates into saving pennies that grow into dollars over the long haul. 

The introduction of good live cultures also helps inhibit the overgrowth of more harmful pathogens such as salmonella, coccidia, e.coli, etc.  Your chickens will have better health overall. 

Yet another good side effect of having this healthier bowel structure, blood supply, and good bacteria is a decrease in parasite infestation.  The more digestive enzymes there are, the better the digestive action is. This creates a “hostile environment” for parasites, and thus they can not thrive inside your chickens.  Parasites thrive better in an unhealthy bird with an unhealthy bowel. 

This is important to know when you are thinking of de-worming your chickens:   One has to ask, “How did my chickens' health get to such a state that it has an infestation?”  Take care of your chickens’ health and the other problems ~ visible worms being shed in the feces, etc. ~ will right themselves.  All mammals have a parasite present in their bodies/bowels, but you will rarely see evidence of it in the fecal matter unless there is an overgrowth.  When is the last time you looked in your toilet and saw long, white worms in your poop?  This does not mean you have no worms, it merely means you have them but you are not infested with a large population of them. 

Same with chickens.  It's expected that chickens will have some level of intestinal parasites, but never enough to affect their health or production.  All animals have them and they thrive anyway.  The key is not to try to get all the worms out of your chickens ~ if the conditions are that lovely for their infestation, they'll just be back.  Rather, the goal should be to create such a healthy chicken that the worms can not get a foothold inside them and colonize enough to cause problems.

Fermented feed (see our Fermented Feed how-to Here) has so many benefits that I can really see no down side to it and I know that the decreased smell of the feces is the most obvious, but that lack of smell is just a sign of the many other benefits of this method of feeding.  

Bee -

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