Hi Kim
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Originally Posted by KimS
Our girls are 5 and 6 years old and still laying almost every day. What do you consider old? Some of their eggs are bigger than extra large eggs that we get from our corn feeding farmer (we only have 3 chickens currently and have to top up our egg supply).
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commercially in australia any chook (chicken ) over 2 is consdiered too old ! one of ours is an ex battery hen and last winter she layed most days !
here chooks stop laying during the summer due to the heat but usually start again about april ........ but this year no start yet ......... we have looked everywhere and cant see that they could be laying outside and there are no bits of eggs to make us suspect snakes or goannas are eating the eggs (usually if this happens there is some evidence and anyway it seems snakes and goannas have gone into winter hibernation ) we tried leaving them in but still no eggs
we also lock our chooks in everynight in their fortified chookery because we have lots of foxes and especially now is fox breeding season
our eggs are small because our chooks are smallish - apart form the Isa brown we have 2 pekin bantams and 2 cross bred part bantams ....... when we get some new chooks we are thinking of getting some purebreds probably Australorps
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Scraps from the table. I keep a big bucket in the kitchen, they get all the carrot peelings, apple cores... pretty much anything you would throw into the compost.
I while ago I had left some rice soaking too long and it smelled 'yuck'. I put it in the compost pile... then when I came back later, the chickens and the dogs were eating it... YUCK. I waited for someone to get sick but no one seemed worse for the wear at all.
I should've known better though... all the animals seem to love the compost pile.
In the summer I don't worry to much about feeding them if they've got lots of free range time... we put them away every night or on days that we notice the hawks are doing a lot of hunting out back (probably when they have babies).
In the winter I top up their food with some cooked rice... but not too much because it really is just 'filler'.
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we do also give them any table scraps its just that we dont have many LOL there is only hubby and I and we dont leave much LOLOL
outside leaves from cabbage etc are claimed by the goats - usually as soon as dh goes down to the veggie patch to pick the vegs for dinner there is a goat stampede and lots of loud bleating until he gives them something ! mmmm maybe the chooks have to learn to be louder LOLOLOL
although overall the chooks dont miss out because we do give them the excess goats milk usually arround a litre a day ......... and they do seem to prefer it a bit sour as keft overs after we have finished ! we also have a chook kefir culture going ande they get kefir twice a week
the chooks also love a pick on the goat poo and it is said to be very good for them and helps prevent coccidiosis ......
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Try throwing a whole fish out and see what they do. Does your dh clean up the gizzards when they're not eaten? If he leaves them, I bet they will be gone the next day.
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they seem to be dumb chooks ! he does leave the gizzards for days and used to even give them the fish heads but eventually has to pick them up due to the smell ! years ago our chooks used to pick at the heads and eat the gizzards but not this lot ! I guess I answered myself there maybe when we get some new chooks they will appreciate the fish ! btw we also have 2 dumb muscovy ducks who wont touch fish
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We have not cleaned out the chicken pen in 6 years. We don't have to, the chicken ensure there is nothing left. Even the corn we threw out there... it stays for about a year but by the next year they've got it pecked right down to dust... probably from getting the bugs that try to take up residence in them. (When there's snow, the girls pretty much stay in their 'chick condo'. We leave the door open but they don't seem to like going out in the snow.)
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our chooks pen is like a desert moonscape LOL in relation to the bugs the permaculture people suggested we should breed maggots as chook food !!!
we have to clean the chookpen out regularly and put in limesand because we have a big problem with stickfast fleas ........ I would think with your cold climate you wouldnt have such problems ?
snow is just incomprehensible to us LOLOLOL dont know how you or the chooks survive !!!!
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What not to feed: tomato greens and potatoes. Actually they'd have to be starving to eat the tomato greens anyway. One of the few bugs that chickens won't eat is a tomato horn worm. That may be because it's full of tomato greens, which are toxic for chickens.
Gee... kind of brings up the gluten in dairy issue again doesn't it.... chicken are smart enough to avoid eating something that eats something toxic to chickens... but humans just aren't quite there yet.  
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by tomato greens I guess you mean the plants and leaves ? we certainy dont feed them to anyone and dont even put them in the compost ........ they are suppoosed to be good to make bug spray but we have never tried it ........ the wormfarm has the monopoly on potato peelings ! we keep hoping to breed enough worms to feed some to the chooks but its a long way off yet !
I agree that chooks know what to eat and what not to eat ! someone asked on the permaculture board if anyone knew of a chook ever being poisoned by eating something toxic and no one could think of a single incidence
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One day I'm going to try raw, grassfed dairy... just to see...
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<sigh> yes I too would like to try it ........ feeding our goats gf is an even bigger headache ........
thanks
koz