All About Silkies, Nigerian Dwarf Goats & More
If you have backyard chickens, you probably get a lot of eggs and therefore, end up with a lot of eggshells. Do you have any uses for eggshells? What do you do with them all? Well, you’ve probably been just throwing them out.
If you have just been throwing your eggshells out, stop! We try to use everything on our homestead. And, there are several uses for eggshells that you can start with to keep from wasting them.
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Is a DIY chicken feeder something you need? Well, let’s talk through why you might need a DIY Chicken feeder.
You’ve probably made several trips to your local farm store to replace a chicken feeder that has seen better days. Not a big deal at first, but eventually, the cost of all of those feeders starts to add up.
We feel your pain. So we decided to make a full list of THE best DIY chicken feeders your chickens will love!
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Coccidia in chickens and goats, if left untreated can be very dangerous.
Coccidia otherwise known as cocci or coccidious is an internal parasite that can affect all species. Coccidia can be found in the dirt, fecal matter, pretty much anywhere outside that your animals will definitely be touching.
You would think that with how widespread coccidia can be that it would be a simple thing right? Wrong! Coccidia, although by definition (it is a single cell protoza) is a simple organism how it affects animals is not simple at all….
You can’t call yourself a farmer or homesteader until you have gone out in the freezing cold and broken up icy waterers. But, we think that experiencing that once or twice is plenty enough for anyone. There are several tips you can use to keep goat and chicken water from freezing.
So, unless we move back to Florida (where winter is 50 degrees), we need to find ways to keep waterers from freezing in the winter-time. (For more winter fun, check out these Winter Farm Activities you should try!)…
If you have taken care of your sweet chicks, you have brooded your chicks and they possibly have started to lay they are living the happy chicken life outside, but then winter is coming. You probably want to know the secret to keeping chickens warm in winter, right?
Our first year with chickens in winter we were really stressed out about how we would be keeping our chickens warm. Winters here are not SO awful, but it gets well below freezing for quite a while. We also get a good amount of snow a few times a year….
During the Spring and Summer our chickens lay like gangbusters. However, sometimes, we will have unexplained decreased egg production. Whenever this happens, we always try and troubleshoot to figure out why our chickens have decreased their egg production.
It is important to know how often chickens lay eggs so that you know if you are getting a normal amount or if there is decrease egg production to look at.
Each year your chickens will go through molt. This usually happens in the early Fall time. If they are molting, it may look like a big feather pillow fight in your coop. Helping to increase the protein intake for your chickens can help them get through molt and reverse their decreased egg production.
If you are getting less eggs because they are breaking, you should give some free choice oyster shells to your flock. The calcium in the oyster shells should help harden the egg shell and decrease broken eggs.
Whether it is your own chickens or a snake, sometimes less eggs are due to something eating them. To help remedy a chicken egg eater, you can fill an egg shell with hot sauce which should help detour further eating.
If chickens have mites and lice the stress can cause them to decrease egg production. So, if you start seeing decreased eggs, then you should check the vent and under wing area on a few birds to see if they have any little bugs on them.
Chickens will shut down or decrease egg production if they are stressed out or undergoing changes. If you have added new chickens to the flock, moved their coop, or made any other changes recently they may stop laying for a short period of time. You really just have to wait this one out.
Whether it is the heat of summer and the water is running dry or if it is the dead of winter and their water is frozen solid, if the chickens are not getting enough water, they will decrease egg production. Afterall, think about how much liquid an egg is made up of.
The shorter, darker days of winter will cause egg production to drop drastically. Chickens need a certain number of hours of light to produce an egg. You can add a regular light and timer to the coop in order to give them extra light in the dark winter days to help keep their egg production up.
