Ravens, friend or foe?

Ravens, extremely smart adversary?

    Most people associate this bird with dead animals and egg stealing. The truth of the matter is, he is an opportunist that is just extremely smart for a bird and knows how to take advantage of his surroundings. University studies have found that he is able to identify people's faces, which means if you wrong a raven he will remember it and harass you as long as he lives. Not only that, he has the ability to teach his offspring that this person is not to be trusted. This species has been known to steal coins out of vending machines, use tools to gather food and to elicit other species of animals to help them find food. 

    Instead of considering the Raven to be an adversary, you may just want to consider him to be an ally. As I mentioned before ravens will elicit other species of animals to help them gather food. This symbiotic relationship with predators such as coyotes, hawks and eagles can be turned to your advantage. The ravens will follow these predators in hopes of stealing food from the predators. So if you hear a raven, you may well expect a predator to also be nearby. Many a time I did not see the coyote or other predator until it was too late, but I always heard or saw the ravens before such an event.

Since then I have many times thanked the raven for letting me know there were predators nearby, thus giving me the opportunity to protect my poultry, or any other livestock prone to such predators. You may not see the predators, but I assure you the raven does. 

My first successful incubator hatch

Hatching chickens in a incubator. 

    This is my first successful attempt at hatching chicken eggs in a incubator. In the above photo you can see the chicks starting to peck their way out of their eggs at day 20. (chickens take 21 days to hatch.)

    In my first attempt, I mistakenly tried to hatch turkey eggs, which I later learned that the broad breasted and hybrid turkeys require artificial insemination in order for the eggs to be fertile. The tom turkeys are simply too heavy to perform their required duties. In the end, I realized I should have tried to hatch chicken eggs first, just to get a little experience. 

    Prior to this, I was allowing hens to set on their eggs and hatch them out. The advantage to this is I do not have to keep a constant eye on a incubator's temperature and humidity. I don't have to worry about power outages or other problems. And afterward, the hens do a fair job of looking after the baby chicks by keeping them warm and feed. 

    The disadvantage is that some hens are inexperienced and would only hatch out one or two eggs out of a clutch of 12. In addition, by allowing the hens to do the work it also takes that particular hen out of production for several months. This means that if she was laying an egg a day, I might be out 200 eggs during that time. 

    My father told me that they use to keep a few Bantam chickens on the homestead for the sole purpose of hatching out eggs. The bantams eggs were too small to have much commercial value, but they made the best mothers and would hatch out just about anything, including goose eggs. In addition to that, the bantams being so small, were pretty much self-sufficient, and if allowed to free range would fend for themselves.

   Here to the right you see the wet, less than a day old chicks. It takes about a day for the chicks to dry out in the incubator before I can move them to the brooder. Baby chicks can survive for several days on their internal food stores. This is why baby chicks can be shipped across country with little ill effect. 

    In this first successful attempt, I was actually surprised that I got any of them to hatch. I had three power outages and on several occasions the temperature or humidity drop below what was recommended. 

    I also had to collect eggs for 10 to 12 days before I had enough eggs to put in the incubator. I put the eggs in an egg carton and in a room that stayed around 55 to 65° and turned them twice a day by hand. Too cold the eggs would've died, and too warm the eggs would've began to incubate.

    The best advice that I can give you is make sure you read all the instructions that comes with your incubator. Then go to your local extension office for any of your farming or homesteading information. They are a great resource for many topics and directly connected with your local agricultural university. And of course don't forget to look for additional information on the Internet.

A better chicken coop and chicken runs

A better chicken coop and chicken runs

The basic idea is to give the chickens fresh green feed without actually letting them run loose. Living here in the desert there is a long list of predators, including some that people might not expect. This is not to say that you cannot free range your chickens, it just means if you do you should expect to lose a few chickens from time to time. coyotes, dogs, cats, skunks, raccoon, weasels, hawks and eagles are just a few of the many predators I deal with on a regular basis. As a result poultry runs need to have netting on top to keep hawks and eagles from thinking your chickens are a buffet.

Watering poultry

Watering poultry

  You've made an investment in your livestock and making sure your livestock has a fresh clean water supply is very important. Water should be changed daily if you are not using a pressurized water system. Wild animals will want to use your poultry water supply and this poses a health threat to your livestock. If you can keep your water supply clean this will reduce the stress on your poultry and improve the health of your flock.

Chicken nipples

Poultry nipples are a fairly new way of safely watering your poultry.They allow you to water your poultry and keep wild birds out of your water supply and from spreading disease.

 It is a more sanitary method of watering your poultry . They are a miniature version of the watering nipple used for dogs and larger livestock. You can attach these to buckets as you see here or they can be attached to pressurized water systems. You should use two or more nipples in case one gets clogged or if you have a lot of poultry.

 Two things should be kept in mind.  The cheapest source is usually eBay. The second thing to keep in mind is that chickens will not learn to drink from these on their own . Simply tie a string to one of the nipples and let it drip. After a day or so the chickens will know where to get their water . The buckets need to be cleaned from time to time, but all in all they work well during the summer. In winter I am back to using a rubber bowl.
    I only have turkeys and chickens at this time so I don't know how well it works for other birds. It should be noted that I am still trying to get the turkeys to use the nipples.

During the winter months I use a rubber feed dish. These feed dishes are made from recycled tires,come in a variety of sizes and will last forever. They remain flexible during the winter months (Unless you live in sub freezing temperatures, in which case everything breaks.) when the water freezes and makes it easy to remove ice. When using this type of waterier it's important to change the water daily, as wild birds will leave droppings in the water spreading disease.

(note) this type of dish should never be used around baby chicks as they will fall in and drown.

    During the winter months chickens have a tendency not to drink enough water. A heated watering dish will encourage the chickens to drink more water. An additional benefit to a heated watering dish is that the hens will lay more eggs during the winter months. Although heated watering dishes are expensive, homemade watering dishes can be made with a light bulb under a metal pan. It should also be noted that during the winter months it is a good idea to add minerals to the water. 

These mason watering jars for baby chicks are made from galvanized metal, left and glass on the right. both are dishwasher safe and will last a lifetime. The glass one on the right has been in my family for over 50 years and the only thing that I have had to replace on it is the jar. I do not recommend plastic for several reasons. One it is designed to the biodegradable which means they will rot in the sun after a year or two and the other is for about the same amount of money you can find the metal or glass ones. In addition as the plastic heats up in the sunlight it leaches chemicals into the water.

Feeding poultry

Some of the things to keep in mind while watching this video is that crumbles and lay pellets are the main feed for adult laying poultry.   Also an additional supplement that you may want to add to their diet is Oyster shell. Oyster shell is added to the diet if your hens are laying eggs with shells that are too thin. In contrast; If the egg shells are too thick you may want to cut back on how much calcium or oyster shell is in their diet.

It should also be noted; chicken scratch or cracked grains should not be used as their sole diet. It does not provide enough protein for them to lay eggs and may result in vitamin deficiencies.