Plank
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Posts posted by Plank
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anyone know....i have got five 3 week old chicks now in the garden ,when should i think about getting them vaccinated.... cheers
Hello Blackdug,
Modern hybrids lack resistance and so they are generally vaccinated. Most traditional breeds are, or should be, bred for resistance. With a few exceptions of particular traditional breeds that are prone to a particular disease and so are commonly vaccinated against that. What kind of chickens are they?
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Just a quick question folks is there any type of cock bird that dont crow as much as normal or are quieter? If not is there anyway of keeping the quiet till a more reasonable time? I always wondered if keeping them in the dark would do anything. If it will make them think its still night or is it not the light that triggers them.
Hello,
Individual cocks will suit themselves, there are no hard and fast rules. If anything it easier to identify ones that are likely to be noisy rather than quiet, these would include most breeds of game and Long Crows (bred for crowing comps). It used to be possible to ask a vet to operate on the vocal cords of a cock to silence it, but the procedure can no-longer be carried out without a medical reason.
You are right to identify light as a trigger for crowing. Other triggers include loud noises, especially the noise of others crowing. It is possible to reducing crowing during anti-socal hours by keeping a cock in the dark. The black-out needs to be very good though. If you want eggs you should be aware than the amount a hen lays is affected by light, as a rule of thumb less light means less eggs.
One way people reduce early morning crowing is to keep the cock away from the hens overnight in a dark, ventilated, place and introduce him later in the day. If you can keep the cock in a solid building, like brick, it will reduce the amount of noise he can hear (possible trigger) and the amount of noise that can be heard outside the building.
Of course you only need a cock for breeding, hens will lay (unhatchable) eggs without.
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Be sure to give that ego constant maintenance. Who knows what might happen if you stopped inflating it?
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all my traps are left to weather in the runs or holes, straight out the packet, set correctly they target animal wont know its there
Thanks for the reply. It's nice to know what works for you. I see that the Defra code of practice for snares recommends boiling in washing powder for an hour to remove the manufacturer's scents. Then boiling in tea leaves and oak chips for another hour to stain. I guess that might also work for other traps. But without a vat it's impractical for cage traps. Or wooden traps.
http://archive.defra.gov.uk/wildlife-pets/wildlife/management/documents/snares-cop.pdf
From what I've read on the net in America they spray cage traps to 'kill' the scent. The commonest recipes for home made scent killer involve hydrogen peroxide. The stuff widely available in the UK doesn't seem to be suitable as it is stabilised and often perfumed.
http://www.nodakoutdoors.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=29585
Which was why I was asking if anyone had experience with bleach and soda.
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I ain't showing mate.Just been Given some Mallard Eggs and if they Hatch i Wanted them to Stay about rather Fly off. I'll take my Chance then And leave them as They Are.Thanks for the Info.
No problem. I forgot to say, but if you do decide to go down the route of cutting the feathers then a stout pair of scissors are the tool for the job.
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Normally I like bumble bees, but they've set up a nest in a brick built lean-to next to my mother's kitchen door. Now during every day there's several buzzing around the kitchen and a few more exploring the house.
It's only a matter of time until she sits on one or something and gets hurt. I'm confidant they are red tailed bumble bees, not the red-shanked ones. What is the best way of dealing with them?
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be brave man -- what have you got to lose next time try a few -- then you`ll know if it works or not first hand ..like i said the best way to learn -- trial n error ..thanks for the feedback, i decided to play it safe and invested in one of the little brinsea mini advance incubators, so the second batch in there now.
Overloading a hen can lead to none of the eggs hatching, it's not always the same egg going cold.
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Is it Legal to Pinion Ducks Wings?.
No.
Their ability to fly can be restricted on a temporary basis by cutting through their primary and secondary feathers on one wing just beyond the tips of their covert feathers (so the cut feathers are left a little longer). Don't do this until after their feathers are fully grown though as when they are growing feathers are supplied with blood and the duck may bleed. They look a little prettier if you leave two primary feathers at the tip of the wing whole.
Any thing other than a 'natural' wing, so clipped or pinioned, will knock off show points. Although pinioned may also get you reported.
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hello plank you seem to now your stuff,i have hatched out a ex batt x with a Rhode island red bantam. this pullet is now 12wks could i expect better than average egg production ie better than the pure bred from this bird or does it not work this way she seems quite early maturing cheers
Let me start by saying that I don't have any experience of that particular cross and I'm not aware of any statistics for that cross. However I would expect a batt x Rhode Island Red bantam cross to lay more eggs than a pure bred Rhode Island Red bantam.
Large pure RIRs were developed as a egg laying utility strain. They feature in the ancestry of commercial hybrids (usually along with some Leghorn). There are separate cock and hen lines that produce the parents of egg laying hybrids. If you were to rescue a cock of the same generation as the laying hens and breed them the off-spring won't be as good. These commercial hybrids are a bit like the hybrid seeds you can buy, they may be very productive but even if you saved the seed from the plants you grew their offspring won't be as productive.
Having said that RIR bantams weren't produced as a utility strain, rather they were produced by enthusiasts many of whom were interested in showing. To this end large RIR were crossed with Old English Game bantams which have a relatively low laying rate and this depressed the rate in the RIR bantam.
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Hello all,
I'm relatively new to trapping, I've had some success with a Larson but that is all. I've got lots of questions, but first of all I'd like your thoughts on scents. Should I wear gloves or is it better to rub your hands with earth? Should I wash new traps with soap and water to remove factory or oil smells? What about wooden traps I try to make? Is it a good idea to 'kill' the smell on a set trap by spraying it with a bleach and baking soda mix? How long do traps left outside take to weather?
Thanks in advance.
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To get hens back laying I feed: layers' pellets, Vitalin (cheap dog food but contains fish and meat meal which is extra protein), plenty of oyster shell (calcium for shells)continuous access to greens: grass, spinach beet (is particularly good), plenty of grit, a warm safe house at night with a choice of nest boxes all of which are dark and in corners. You can also feed milk (mixed with the feed), yoghurt, cooked meat for extra protein: in very cold weather I put lumps of hard beef or lamb fat into their run for them to peck at if they want.
Also make sure they are free from mites and internal parasites: I use Diatomaceous Earth: dusted on to their skin, round the house, perches, nest boxes, and internally: about 1 tsp per 6 hens daily in their food.
I'd wish I'd read the above more carefully before I replied to your later post, you already know about feeding milk.
Your obviously knowledgeable but it might be worth making clear to people new to chickens that like feeding vegetable waste from the kitchen like peelings (not garden waste), feeding meat scraps is technically illegal, something to bear in mind if anybody official is likely to be about. Although according to an episode of last weeks 'Farming today' on R4 their are signs the EU regs might be relaxed. Also while cooking the meat is a very good idea there is some evidence that disease can still be passed on by cannibalism even of cooked poultry.
I see you feed Diatomaceous Earth, have you taken worm counts and if so what change has it made for you?
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Hello all,
I hope this is the right forum for this, I'm new. I'd be grateful for recommendations of field sport memoirs. More for the atmospheric tales than technical details. Like old time poacher/gamekeeper stories.
Thanks.
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I agree with the folks who say that chickens go off-lay when moved. It takes time to make an egg and they will lay any eggs that started production before they were move after they were moved. To tell if an individual chicken is laying you can feel it's pelvis. The bones around the gap the egg comes through will be wider for a chicken that is 'in-lay' than for one that is 'off-lay'.
Also,
Hybrid chickens have been bred to convert food into eggs not meat so compared to pure breeds they will be very thin. The chickens may have had eggs inside them nearly ready to lay when you were catching them if these eggs were broken when you pounced there egg making bits could be completely http://www.thehuntinglife.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/censored.gif although if that happened they would usually look ill with a few days. Of course you've had a couple of whole eggs so at least one must be working.
Although as I said I expect the stress of the move has stopped them one thing to look out for is the eggs being layed and then eaten. Some chickens also eat up the bits of shell and I've heard anecdotes about weasels stealing whole eggs, although I take those with a pinch of salt.
I noticed you said that you thought the chickens weren't suffering from stress, and hybrids usually cope well (they have altered stress genes), but when folks want to keep (or at least delay) a chicken from laying they keep moving it from coup to coup. Although it's too late now a useful tip to mitigate the effects of a stressful event in poultry is to give them a vitamin supplement in the water. One of the ways stress causes them damage is that it interferes with the the way some vitamins are processed into the chicken's blood so the extra vitamin in an accessible form helps compensate.
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Yes, sorry: forgot to say I sprinkle water on their feed to soften it. T'ain't natural for hens to eat only dry food so I never feed pellets bone dry, just enough water to soften but still hold the shape; The Vitalin shouldn't be dry either but as I mix it in with the pellets it gets the same treatment.
I'm glad wetting the pellets works for you but different makes of pellet use different 'binders'. By binder I mean the non-nutritious 'stuff' that holds the powder together in a pellet shape. For some, usually the cheaper, pellets this binder can react with water, not in a dangerous way but to change the flavour of the pellet which can reduce consumption of the pellet by the chicken. If the food is available in a powdered form then it can be mixed with liquid as a mash without a reaction as their is no binder. In the good old days cheap layers mash was mixed with a little surplus milk when chickens went into moult to improve the food. Now, of course, you'd have to be wary of EU regs.
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Hi everyone thanks for reading this topic!
well the story goes like this: on tuesday i was out ratting at a chicken farm (barn hens) and the hens had mostly been taken away but about 20 remained and as the owner was culling all he caught so my request to take some was taken very well, after catching 8 hens with the help of my fellow ratteurs the best 6 were chosen and put into the van. The hens were settled that night in temporary housing on the decking of the house. the next day (wednesday) they were released into the open garden and decided they liked sitting under the quad trailer so i put up some windbreaks (xmas trees) and put some food and water down (the food was samples from the farm, layers mash) and I found the best looking hen had laid an egg about 1pm the next two days i have found another egg in the same place and as that particular hen is the only one i see sitting there i presume their hers. now I have found no other signs of eggs from the other five worse looking hens. these chickens have been at the farm for a month after the chickens got removed so had no guarenteed food source. I have looked everwhere but no eggs have been found except those mentioned before. grit is provided for them and there well looked after. i have come up with a theory that the undernourished hens aren't laying because there bodies aren't strong enough yet to produce more eggs. all the chickens have settled well so i dont think its stress. can anyone provide a better answer and solution? any other details please ask for
Hello,
I agree with the folks who say that chickens go off-lay when moved. It takes time to make an egg and they will lay any eggs that started production before they were move after they were moved. To tell if an individual chicken is laying you can feel it's pelvis. The bones around the gap the egg comes through will be wider for a chicken that is 'in-lay' than for one that is 'off-lay'.
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What breed of chickens lay the most?
Cheers
Gareth
Commercial hybrids are capable of laying the most, but that doesn't mean they will! How much of it's laying potential a chicken fulfills depends on how it's kept. An important factor is the amount of light they have and how bright that light is. By law they should have a period of darkness so you can't just leave the lights on all the time. Typically people keeping chickens on a small scale who manipulate the light set a timer to switch artificial light on early in the morning then off again about mid-morning when their is natural light, the chickens then can roost normally as dusk falls. For hybrids about sixteen hours of light is optimal for maximum egg production.
For people keeping pure breeds the lighting issue can be more complex. If they want to show they may want to manipulate the chickens into moulting when there are no shows. If they are breeding they might want to manipulate the chickens into laying earlier in the year so their chicks are well grown for the sales. Both of which would need different lighting patterns.
Incandescent or 'warm' flurecent bulbs tend to work best and the shed must be bright enough for you to see clearly, and face the nest boxes away from the light. If you keep cockerels don't forget they will crow with the light!
HTH
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all good advice above
see if you can get hold of a "silky" bantam hen..........they are vert broody, and will sit on a rock and wait for it to hatch
as said above....the problem you will have is the time difference between hatchings and the number of eggs she is comfortable sitting on
Good advice. Some folks go for silkie x larger breed hens as sitters. They (Usually) keep the broodiness but can cover more eggs.
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when the young birds moult the neck and rump feathers on cocks are pointed at the tip and pullets are round. hope this helps ya pal.................steve
Thats a very good method most of the time, to see the feather tips clearly some people get a square of white card and hold it behind the feathers. Unfortunately it is not so good for breeds with unusual feathers like Silkies.
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Hello,
I've moved into the smallholding I used to patrol with an air rifle as a teenager. Then I had plenty of time to stalk the pests around the place. Now I'll need to learn new ways to fit in pest control with all the other jobs that need doing.
Plank
Thanks a bunch t;@t
in Snaring, Trapping & Pest Control
Posted
Bad luck with those traps. What do you feed the call birds on? I've used tinned cat food which was okay but attracted flies. I guess roadkill etc. would have the same problem?