Distorted Silencemember
217 posts
Location: Melbourne


Posted:
My mum has an addiction for models and all things chicken wise, so for christmas we got her three hens (and one rooster which we have to take back)

So I was wondering, what do people know about the care of chickens?

Any information is gladly accepted

You've got to move fast to beat the Devil - Your arm's too short to box with God.


AnonymousPLATINUM Member


Posted:
I would say I am fairly knowledgable on the subject, My mum breeds Silkie Chickens and we have about 30 chickens in our yard at the moment. What exactly is it you would like to know and what kind of chickens are they?

PM me if you want!

Huggz, Shante

arashiPooh-Bah
2,364 posts
Location: austin,tx


Posted:
my jaw just dropped, almost wiped the big grin on my face right off...i can't even tell you how weird it is that we both posted stuff about chickens at about the same time completely independent of each other. course mine was a joke.

LOVE THE CHICKEN!!!!

all i know is i had a buddy, a very weird buddy, who had a chicken named "girlfriend"

-Such a price the gods exact for song: to become what we sing
-Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty.
-When the center of the storm does not move, you are in its path.


ValuraSILVER Member
Mumma Hen
6,391 posts
Location: Brisbane, Australia


Posted:
Chickens rock my world....Lol @ Arashi.. Your buddy sounds kinda scary......I told you chickens are infiltrating the system...They work in a subconcious way and before you know it... BLAMMO you love the chickens...yip sir you'd better believe it!
To care for a chicken you must love it and hug it and cuddle it until it wants to get down.

[ 25. December 2002, 22:48: Message edited by: Valura ]

TAJ "boat mummy." VALURA "yes sweetie you went on a boat, was daddy there with you?" TAJ "no, but monkey on boat" VALURA "well then sweetie, Daddy WAS there with you"


dromepixieveteran
1,463 posts
Location: Florida


Posted:
quote:
Originally posted by arashi:
LOVE THE CHICKEN!!!!
Yeah man!
LOVE THE CHICKEN!
LOVE THE CHICKEN LIKE WE LOVE ALL THINGS!

CHICKENS=GOOD
GOOD=CHICKENS!

I love chickens so much that we are havig turkey for Christmas and not chicken!

love and hugs,
drome

JUGGLEwithyourmind!


SickpuPpyNinja Rockstar!
1,100 posts
Location: Denver, Co. U.S.A.


Posted:
Though it probobly won't be up for a few more months, The Church of the Chicken Jesus is in the works. I promise it will blow the universal life church out of the water.

Jesus helps me trick people.


jim bombadilmember
142 posts
Location: bristol


Posted:
I used to keep chickens a few years back they dont take too much care you need a feeder and a drinker and the like a nice laying box with hay and all that. You'll probably have to clip their wings if you don't want them jumping the fence!

Distorted Silencemember
217 posts
Location: Melbourne


Posted:
Eeeek, they can jump fences??

We have to wait a while before they grow big enough so the cat isnt a threat to them before we let them out...

So far, the chickens have eaten everything weve offered them, is there some foods that they should eat?

You've got to move fast to beat the Devil - Your arm's too short to box with God.


FlyntSILVER Member
Intrepid Penguin
5,635 posts
Location: Australia


Posted:
well, as far as i'm aware, chickens are vegetarians.....

when they are little, its best to feed them weetbix, soaked in water, so its nice and mushy. they really like mushy stuff when they are little. When they are older, they like corn (dried of course) and other birdy type grains.

You wont need to clip their wings if your fence is high enough. By high enough, i mean about eight feet, and remember to give them enough room to run around in, they love excercise. Boxes for laying, and to hide in and stuff like that, things for them to roost on too `

remember, a chicken is for life, not just for dinner `

Currently on the right side up of the world.


BurningByronmember
340 posts
Location: Australia


Posted:
mmmmmm all this chicken talk is making me hungry.............
I think I'll go chew on some chicken stock....

kidding guys please dont hurt me.....

HOW TO FLY 101:
step 1. Throw your self at the ground.
step 2. Miss.


the mind gap.old hand
829 posts
Location: Brigadoon


Posted:
My mother kept loads of chickens when I was growing up. Here's what I know:

Build a hen house. If you have foxes round you're way make sure you can shut the hens in it at night - a fox will kill as many hens as it can if it gets in. It'll need to have a couple of branches inside or something like that for them to perch on at night and somewhere they can lay eggs otherwise they'll just lay them all over the place and you'll have to waste time hunting for them. If you make sure there's plenty of straw in the egg-laying bit and not too much room they'll tend to stay out of it unless they're actually laying an egg so it'll stay a lot cleaner. You'll have to make sure the main bit of the hen house is kept clean of course but with only 3 of them there souldn't be too much shit covering everything.

Clip their wings. They're birds so they can fly. We had an 8 foot fence that they could easily get onto when they hadn't had a wing clipped. All you need to do is cut off the flight feathers from one of their wings with scissors. And when they start being able to fly again a few weeks later, do it again. To be fair though none of ours ever flew off and disappeared, the most they did was fly onto the fence and walk along it until they could stare at us through the kitchen window when they were hungry.

They will eat quite a wide variety of food but if you go to an agricultural store you can get proper chicken food that contains everything they need and a small amount of some hormone or other that makes them better layers (on average you'll get an egg roughly every 26 hours per hen).

Move the hen run to a different part of the garden every few years otherwise you'll end up with a corner that just turns to desert cos of all the scratching around in the dirt they do. For just 3 hens you won't actually need to give them much room, especially if you're going to be giving them the run of the garden, but obviously the more space you give them the happier they'll be. If you build a compost heap in their run then whenever weeds, grass cuttings, scrap food etc. gets put on they'll have something else to play with and find food in. And something else to find ants in - they like to be able to make their dust baths where there are ants so that they can roll and flap about to annoy the ants into climbing all over them shooting their formic acid around and seeing off any parasites. Even so, check them once in a while for mites. If they're infested all you need to do is get some anti-mite powder (can't remember what it's called) and dust them with it.

Definitely buy a trough for food because so much gets wasted when they stamp it into the mud, and a proper waterer so that you don't have to clean out and refill their water every day (if you put a clove of garlic in the middle bit of the waterer, under the lid, the water will stay fresh and clean for considerably longer).

It's pretty much the same for looking after any breed of chicken but they do all have their strengths and weaknesses. I expect the reason shante's mum breeds with silky bantams (other than the fact they're all nice and fluffy) is cos they're without a doubt the best mothers but their eggs aren't as big as a rhode island red for example.

I'm sure you don't really want to read any more about chickens in one go so i'll leave it at that. Everything else there is to know you should just be able to pick up as you go along - they're not at all hard to look after. Just keep them stress free and they'll keep on laying eggs, it's as simple as that. I hope you have fun with them - they're a bit dim but quite amusing nonetheless.

I hope this helps

wherever you go, there you are.


melissaBRONZE Member
member
156 posts
Location: madagascar, USA


Posted:
chickens can be quite nice to have, they provide you with fresh eggs, good compost manure, can be used to eat bugs, and can help turn the soil in between seasons. at the momment i have just have pet ducks but the place that i lived this summer had chickens.

for chicken or duck questions check out the website www.poultryconnection.com it has a huge amount of info and the bulletin board is a great place to ask questions.

also do a web search on "chicken tractor" it is a pretty intersting thing to do, basically you build a big box with no bottom out of chickenwire and with wheels and you put the chickens inside. put the chickens back in their house at night but use the tractor in the day. you can either wheel the tractor around the yard so that they get fresh grass and bugs or you can leave it in once place and the chickens will peck and scratch at the ground until the soil is turned and pretty well cleared of vegetation. this is good because it helps prep the soil for planting new crops.

i would not recommend clipping chicken wings, if you take care of them well they will naturally return to their roost every night. their wings come in quite handy if they need to evade a predator.

what you do need to do however is build a nesting/roosting area that includes a nest box area and a roost for them to sleep on. make sure that this area has a roof or chicken wire covering the top so that animals like foxes, racoons, possims, dogs, hawks, owls, etc... can't get in. you can let them run around in the garden during the day or you can do the chicken tractor approach if you want them to have fresh greens but not at as much risk.

raising them so that they have fresh water, food, and the abilty to run around makes it so that they are less likely to becomes ill. happy chickens

as far as food READ THE LABELS of the chicken food and make sure that they are being fed a %100 vegetarian diet. currently we are at the brink of a total ecological collapse in the oceans because of the massive overfishing of little boney fish that are used sticktly for producing livestock feed additives. we do not directly eat these fish but they provide the foundation for countless other species to eat, their overharvest creates a huge ripple effect with very negetive results. check out:

https://www.discover.com/archive/index.html
DISCOVER Vol. 22 No. 9 (September 2001) article on important fish

also as far as chicken feed it is good to add a little cayenne or habeneros poweder to it. the birds can't taste it but it will prevent rodents from becoming a problem (who can taste it.)there are also a few scientific studies going on that suggest that the pepper chemicals help to destroy salmonilla in the chickens and in the eggs that they produce.

anyhow, chickens are nice. it gives you the opportunity to eat eggs that you know are from chickens that are organic, freerange, and treated in a humane way.

-melissa

arashiPooh-Bah
2,364 posts
Location: austin,tx


Posted:
BUM, BUM , BUM, BUM , BUM, BUM (trumpets start)

[gande chicken parade walks by, complete with marching bands and fire baton twirlers, and a giant, overcute, inflatable chicken faery]

a thousand voices rise in unison to the cry... "gimmie a c!"

Ceeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!

-Such a price the gods exact for song: to become what we sing
-Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty.
-When the center of the storm does not move, you are in its path.


musashiistarring Skippy the green llama
1,148 posts
Location: Seattle, WA


Posted:
mmm, talkin about those habeneiros n chikin made me think of my favorite grilled chikin recipe..Just in case everything else fails..

for the marinated chicken breasts
3 each Whole chicken breasts, boneless, skin off, cut in half
1/4 cup Red curry paste
3 Tbls. Fresh lime juice
2 Tbls. Cilantro, minced
2 Tbls. Scallions, minced

-for the lemon grass vinaigrette
1 each Shallot, peeled and minced
1 stalk Lemon grass, white core only, minced
1/4 each Red jalapeno pepper, seeds removed, minced
1/4 cup Rice wine vinegar
1/4 cup Brown rice vinegar
1 cup Peanut oil
to taste Salt and pepper

- for the romaine salad
2 each Hearts of romaine
1/2 each English cucumber
2 each Shallots
2 inches Daikon radish
4 each Red radishes

-for the curry noodle salad
1/2 pkg. Cellophane noodles (mung bean noodles)
4-1/2 tsp. Curry powder
1-1/2 tsp. Cumin seed
1-1/2 tsp. Coriander seed
1/2 cup Peanut oil
1/2 cup Fresh lime juice
2 Tbls. Rice vinegar
1/2 cup Fish sauce
1/4 cup Sugar
1/2 bu. Scallions, sliced
2 each Red jalapeno peppers, seeds removed, sliced
1/2 bu. Fresh shiso leaves, julienned

-for the carrot-peanut wontons
1 Tbl. Butter
2 each Carrots, peeled and chopped coarsely
2 cups Chicken stock or broth
1/2 cup Peanuts, roasted until golden and ground
to taste Salt and pepper

18 each Wonton wrappers
as needed Peanut oil for deep frying

-for the Thai chili sauce
1/4 cup Rice vinegar
1/2 cup Sugar
1-1/2 tsp. Chili flakes
1-1/2 tsp. Korean chili flakes
1/4 tsp. Sambal
1/4 cup Minced garlic
1/2 inch Ginger root, peeled and minced finely
1/2 tsp. Fish sauce

Preparation
-for the marinated chicken breasts
Separate the chicken breasts into six pieces and trim to remove any bones, fat or skin. Combine the curry paste, lime juice, cilantro and scallions in a bowl and mix well. Toss the chicken breasts well and allow to marinate until ready to cook.

-for the lemon grass vinaigrette
Combine the shallot, lemon grass, red jalapeno pepper, rice wine vinegar andbrown rice vinegar in a small bowl. Slowly whisk in the peanut oil. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Reserve.

- for the romaine salad
Chop the hearts of romaine across the leaves into 3/4" pieces. Peel the cucumber, shallots, daikon and red radishes and slice into julienne on a mandolin using the fine blades. Toss together and reserve.

-for the curry noodle salad
Soak the cellophane noodles in boiling water for two minutes. Drain and place into a large bowl.

Combine the curry powder, cumin seed and coriander seed in a saute pan and toast lightly. Add the peanut oil and simmer for two minutes. Remove from the heat and allow to cool. Combine the lime juice, rice vinegar, fish sauce and sugar in a small bowl and mix until sugar is dissolved. Add the scallions red jalapeno and shiso leaves and combine with the noodles. Mix well and season to taste wiht salt and pepper. Reserve.

-for the carrot-peanut wontons
Saute the carrots in the butter until softened then add the chicken stock. Simmer until the stock is reduced by half then transfer to a blender, add the ground peanuts and puree smooth. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Chill and reserve.

Lay the wonton wrappers out on a flat work surface and spoon about 1/2 teaspoon of filling into the center of each wrapper. Moisten the edges of the wrappers and fold over to seal. Bring the two opposing points to meet and press together. Reserve until ready to cook. Deep fry at 350 F. just before serving.

-for the Thai chili sauce
Combine the rice vinegar, sugar, chili flakes and Korean chili flakes in a small pot and boil until clear. Add the sambal, garlic, ginger and fish sauce and remove from the heat. Do not boil a second time.

-to complete the dish
Grill the chicken breasts over medium-high heat until cooked through. Toss the romaine salad mixture in the lemon grass vinaigrette and place into the center of each plate, flattening slightly to form a well in the center. Place the curried noodle salad into the center of the romaine and place the grilled chicken breasts on to . Arrange the deep fried peanut wontons around the perimeter of each plate and drizzle a small amount (as much as you like) over the wontons and around the edge of the plate. Garnish with cilantro sprigs.

First intention, then enlightenment..
Ars Pyronomica

" Life is programmed. Whether death is programmed or not is yet to be determined."


ValuraSILVER Member
Mumma Hen
6,391 posts
Location: Brisbane, Australia


Posted:
GIMEE A H!!!!

Non-Https Image Link

ALL HAIL THE MIGHTY CHICKENS

Non-Https Image Link


[ 29. December 2002, 16:46: Message edited by: Valura ]

TAJ "boat mummy." VALURA "yes sweetie you went on a boat, was daddy there with you?" TAJ "no, but monkey on boat" VALURA "well then sweetie, Daddy WAS there with you"


dromepixieveteran
1,463 posts
Location: Florida


Posted:
Give us an I!

JUGGLEwithyourmind!


Salingermember
382 posts
Location: Southampton


Posted:
Did you know there´s supposed to be more chickens than humans on the planet?

Beware of the chicken, they will have their time...

A conspiracy of silence speaks louder than words...


arashiPooh-Bah
2,364 posts
Location: austin,tx


Posted:
did you know?
chickens were put here on earth by benevolent aliens as a first line of defence. the grubs, man, the grubs... they are the seeds of an offensive invasion front, a race of large, bloated man eating slug-like caterpillars... ever see MIB2? like that thing in the subway... or mmmmmm shai halud...the chicken is a one mined killing machine, i tell you...each cell is imbibed with the pure desire to protect and serve...

kentucky fried chicken knows this, so in the interest of economy they have started to genetically engineer super chickens, consisting of nothing but an arm and a leg. really that's all the chicken needs to really be effective as a superwarrior. it's rather frightening, tho, seeing a bunch of petri dish grown chicken legs walking around a lawn and bashing grubs over the head until they go splat...

a landscape of human creativity and genius

cynical enough for ya?

-Such a price the gods exact for song: to become what we sing
-Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty.
-When the center of the storm does not move, you are in its path.



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