Not that it has been awhile since I was able to fill the chicken’s dust bath, but the volume in the tire was negative.
There is room for another batch or two of dust bath mixture.
Negative volume
Category: chickens
Iron in the ash
My folks visited and Dad burned some of our wood pile to make ash for the chickens, since we actually had an allowed burn day. I haven’t made ash in over a year because of time restraints and burn restrictions. As we shooed the spiders and geckos out of the iron cauldron I use as a fire pit, I noticed a large flake of rust fall off. I don’t want the chickens eating that, so when the ashes cooled, I used a fishing magnet to remove the metal.
I dredged the ash with a magnet four or five times before I was no longer collecting large flakes of iron.
There is still iron in the ash, but small enough grains that it shouldn’t cause hardware stomach in the chickens. Hardware stomach is where the farm animal eats wire or nails or some other metallic object, and the object damages the digestive tract, often leading to death.
Mesh repair
In the light of day I went out to repair the rips in the hardware cloth in the chicken runs so no more skunks could slips through. I took scraps of half inch hardware cloth and wired it to the damaged quarter inch hardware cloth.
I found that with two layers of hardware cloth, making a spiral of aluminum wire made it easier to lace the wire through the cloth, since I didn’t have anyone on the other side to feed the wire back to me.
After threading the spring through the layers several times, I would tighten the loops and twist in the ends. Using this method and using smaller wire “ties”, I reinforced the rips, and secured the solid mesh over the weakened areas.
I also put a layer of 2×4 no climb welded wire on the outside as protection from weed whackers. As a precaution, I have been making sure the coop is secure at night, rather than relying on run security. I do have an automatic chicken door, but I check each night that it is working, and verify it opened in the morning.
I think it was Jade that was taken down by the skunk, but it could have been Schmoo. I won’t be able to tell for sure until next molting season, since Jade has (had?) a very distinct feather loss pattern.
And now three
I lost my first chicken to predation this week. When I checked on the four remaining hens, one of the Faverolles was unmoving and had clearly been snacked on. Reviewing the camera footage showed a young skunk galavanting all over the inside of the coop. The chicken it killed was feeling poorly, she had been sleeping on the floor for a couple days rather than on the roost. I didn’t think anything of it because I’d never had a predator invade, I just built her up a throne of pine shavings in the corner so she could be close to her sisters.
I found where the skunk got in, the 1/4” hardware cloth on the meadow side of the runs is torn. I leave the coop door open all night during the summer to keep the temperatures down. For the last six years the runs have been secure enough to do so. Repairing the unauthorized entry will be in a future post.
The problem with comb identification
Chickens’ combs change, which makes using them as identification is tricky. When they are ready to lay eggs, the combs are bright red and full, when they are not in season, the combs loose color and mass. Above are two pictures of Jade the hen, the first when she was under a year old, the second at six years old. I can still count the tines, but other structures are more difficult to discern. Colored leg bands were the best identification for me, because I could see them at a distance, but they do need diligent maintenance. There is a technique of wing banding, where a skilled chicken farmer clips a small band through the web of the wing. I see now why breeders would prefer that more permanent method. A couple of my similar looking hens removed their plastic leg bands, then I couldn’t tell them apart anymore and rather gave up on the whole id part. I believe the last remaining unidentified Faverolle is Schmoo. Jade I identified by her molting pattern, and Seashell has a unique coloring. Wing Ding is still with us, and as the only Black Star hen, she is easy to identify, and very hard to ignore when she comes for her treats.
Critters and Craft 