Chickens !!!!

Finding land, working a small plot or anything else countryside related
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Zasso Nouka
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Re: Chickens !!!!

Post by Zasso Nouka »

Man, there's bound to be a steep learning curve when you first start and although unfortunate at least you seem to be identifying areas to look into quite quickly and you have someone nearby who give some guidance when you need it. After all what we have to do here in Chiba maybe completely irrelevant to where you are.

Some great tips in that video, I've got some of the water nipples but never worked out a way to use them as we don't have mains water in the chicken run so that idea of using a drain pipe is genius.

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Re: Chickens !!!!

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Zasso Nouka wrote:
Mon Apr 20, 2020 5:38 am
After all what we have to do here in Chiba maybe completely irrelevant to where you are.

Some great tips in that video, I've got some of the water nipples but never worked out a way to use them as we don't have mains water in the chicken run so that idea of using a drain pipe is genius.
I dunno man, what you mentioned seems pretty relevant to us here, surely guidelines for poultry would cover the entire country right?.

Do you not use rain water? Apparently (maybe just in our area) mains water has a tad too much calcium for the chicks to handle so it's best to use rain water.
I write a load of bollocks, don't take me seriously.

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Re: Chickens !!!!

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DocDoesFarming wrote:
Mon Apr 20, 2020 6:41 am
I dunno man, what you mentioned seems pretty relevant to us here, surely guidelines for poultry would cover the entire country right?.
You'd think so but given how every prefecture interprets the laws governing the ownership of farmland in their own special way so I've learned to say "This is what applies in our area, your's maybe different". I've just asked a friend who is an egg farmer and I'll give you his reply once I receive it
DocDoesFarming wrote:
Mon Apr 20, 2020 6:41 am
Do you not use rain water? Apparently (maybe just in our area) mains water has a tad too much calcium for the chicks to handle so it's best to use rain water.
Ours get well water but currently we're using home made waterers crafted from airtight buckets with a hole drilled in the bottom sitting in large flower pot saucers but it's a less than ideal solution.

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Re: Chickens !!!!

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The chap we get our chickens replied and, your going to like this
► Show Spoiler
If you want to sleep easily at night don't read this MSD Veterinary Manual and certainly don't look at any of the pictures.
DocDoesFarming wrote:
Sun Apr 19, 2020 10:05 am
Looks like we went for unvaccinated as we want to go 100% natural.
It's certainly not my place to tell you how to run your farm, do whatever you think is the right course of action but vaccines are fairly harmless and may make your life a bit easier, there's no evidence they would give your chicks autism :lol:

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Re: Chickens !!!!

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That site is super helpful, cheers for that. After googling "degloving" because I never knew what it meant I think I'm pretty much ready for anything although seeing injured animals always makes me feel sad :(
Please don't google degloving.

I'm going to get my wife to double check with the farmer because she's not 100% sure now if they are or aren't. :doh:
Honestly I'm all for vaccines, healthy happy chicks are the best chicks as far as I'm concerned. Having unvaccinated chickens just seems a little strange to me.

Apparently according to the books my wife has been reading the authors suggests a 10% or so loss is acceptable and that 100% survival rate means you are spoiling them too much. I think he's reasoning is that if you over care for them and the weak ones survive they will end up being a leech by eating only and not producing eggs.
But according to all the videos I've seen and stuff, if you can save them, save them so I have no idea what to think now.
Also that dirty water is fine because it will help build their immunity and make them stronger, again other people say otherwise.
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Re: Chickens !!!!

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Man, it's really confusing to know what to do with so much contradictory advice on the internet. One person says do this and another totally goes against it then someone else pitches in with yet another point of view. The guy who we get our chickens doesn't use antibiotics in his chickens feed so he said that he vaccinates for the following diseases twice during their lifetime at 0 days and then again at 120 days.

Newcastle disease
Fowlpox
Infectious bronchitis
Mycoplasma
Infectious laryngotracheitis
Salmonella
Marek

Some of those can result in all the chickens being culled if they crop up so either using antibiotics or vaccines can stop that. Also given how many folk here eat raw eggs Salmonella isn't something you really want cropping up. As I mentioned before we've never lost a chick to disease yet but they still find other creative ways to die.

Do you have public liability insurance ?

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Re: Chickens !!!!

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Zasso Nouka wrote:
Wed Apr 22, 2020 6:10 am
Man, it's really confusing to know what to do with so much contradictory advice on the internet. One person says do this and another totally goes against it then someone else pitches in with yet another point of view.

Do you have public liability insurance ?
My head spins at times, and it's not just chickens but farming in general. Someone has this way of growing cucumbers for example and then this guy has this way.
Fuck it, no point trying to follow someone's way all the way, take bits and pieces and do our own thing from now on I think.

Incidently the guy who's sort of "teaching" us told us we were spoiling the chickens too much and to not use the heat source, so today we turned it off, as a result the chickens clumped together and some died.....

Also I found out that that the chicks were vaccinated.

As far as the insurance goes no probably not at the moment but I guess we should get it before we start selling right?
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Re: Chickens !!!!

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DocDoesFarming wrote:
Wed Apr 22, 2020 7:26 pm
My head spins at times, and it's not just chickens but farming in general. Someone has this way of growing cucumbers for example and then this guy has this way.
Fuck it, no point trying to follow someone's way all the way, take bits and pieces and do our own thing from now on I think.
To be honest that's one of the hardest things we've had to deal with, so many conflicting points of view. It's really hard to know which one you should be following but at the end of the day if you can pick out the relevant parts that work in your situation then perhaps you can find something that works for you.
DocDoesFarming wrote:
Wed Apr 22, 2020 7:26 pm
Incidently the guy who's sort of "teaching" us told us we were spoiling the chickens too much and to not use the heat source, so today we turned it off, as a result the chickens clumped together and some died....
I wouldn't like to say folk over here are cold hearted towards animals but maybe when they've been farming them for a long time individual lives have perhaps a little less importance than you or I might be comfortable with. At the end of the day you are the one to decide how you do things and if it's different from what others around you choose then there's nothing wrong with that, it's your choice to do things how you want them to be and perhaps having a bit more compassion is a good thing.

DocDoesFarming wrote:
Wed Apr 22, 2020 7:26 pm
As far as the insurance goes no probably not at the moment but I guess we should get it before we start selling right?
Public liability insurance is definitely worth having, it's not particularly expensive but does cover you if anyone tries to make a claim against you. We only have ever had one person try to claim against us and I reckon they were trying it on as they said our eggs made them sick but when we mentioned all our chickens were vaccinated and we could prove that they dropped their claim. Can't remember the exact price but it was less than 5,000円 a year.
DocDoesFarming wrote:
Wed Apr 22, 2020 7:26 pm
Also I found out that that the chicks were vaccinated.
Well at least that's one thing you don't have to worry about, now if you can find out the best way to keep as many alive as possible then you'll be well on your way to having a system that works for you.

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Re: Chickens !!!!

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Zasso Nouka wrote:
Wed Apr 22, 2020 8:27 pm
I wouldn't like to say folk over here are cold hearted towards animals but maybe when they've been farming them for a long time individual lives have perhaps a little less importance than you or I might be comfortable with. At the end of the day you are the one to decide how you do things and if it's different from what others around you choose then there's nothing wrong with that, it's your choice to do things how you want them to be and perhaps having a bit more compassion is a good thing.
Too true.
Well we seem to be on a no-death roll recently, hopefully the cute little fluffy bastards can keep at it. I may need to redo the flooring also to get the heat up a bit (re-dig and mix and place some hot water bottles to help with fermentation).
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Re: Chickens !!!!

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That's great news indeed, let's hope they keep it that way :clap:

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