Cooling Cucumber Salad

Often my recipes are inspired by what I have on hand.These are items that I usually have in the summer: Cucumbers, mint, parsley and chives from my garden, and a lemon from the market.

I partially peeled the cukes and then cubed them. Washed the herbs well, dried in a salad spinner, minced, and tossed them in. Squeezed the lemon and strained out the seeds over a measuring cup. A lemon usually yields about a quarter cup of juice, but it varies. I checked how much I had, then poured in good extra virgin olive oil to not quite match that amount.  Salt, pepper, whisk, toss.

Make it a main dish by adding feta cheese. Or, serve as a side dish. It goes nicely with salmon and egg salad sandwiches. (One can salmon, one large hard-cooked egg, mayo, pickle relish. Mash.)  It’s a summer menu that doesn’t heat up the kitchen.

The Spa Treatment

Making an accurate diagnosis for a hen that looks sick, but doesn’t have respiratory symptoms, is nigh on impossible. Chickens exhibit the same symptoms for a myriad of diseases. Walking like a penguin, standing hunched with wings down, a dark comb, off-feed, a hitch in the gait, droopiness, and straining when laying, can be due to a long list of diseases including but not limited to:  cancer, tumors, peritonitis, internal laying, egg bound, and ascites. Sadly, most of those issues cannot be cured. Some hens will die soon after you see the symptoms,  others can live for a long time looking poorly. I had a Barred Rock hen, Eleanor, that lived for three years in a slow and crotchety way, and it was only after death, when I did a necropsy, that I was able to determine that she was an internal layer with many other health issues.

But sometimes, the hen does not have a lethal disease. Sometimes the hen has what I call an imbalance of inputs and outputs. What the hen eats and drinks is equal to what she ejects in the forms of manure and eggs. The egg is mostly protein and minerals. This process of making those eggs, day after day, is depleting, and as the hen ages it gets increasingly harder for her to replenish her system. It can go out of whack. Often, when this is the issue, your hen’s comb will change color and she’ll hunch up and barely move. (See Agnes’ story here.) If this is the case, then the Spa Treatment can help. It also is effective when a hen has ingested toxic plants.

The Spa Treatment is also effective in fixing minor blockages. Sometimes the hen has a mild glitch in her intestinal or reproductive tract. Her muscles need to contract to move things along, and perhaps they’ve weakened. Sometimes an egg forms incorrectly, and the resulting mass is hard to expel. The Spa Treatment will move things along.

What I call The Spa Treatment is simply a nice long soak in an epsom salt bath, a dose of olive oil, and TLC. Epsom salt is a combination of magnesium and sulfate. You can find it in the pharmacy, as it’s used by people as a laxative and as a foot soak. For such a simple and inexpensive product, it has many curative functions. The magnesium improves circulatory health, flushes toxins, improves muscle and nerve function, maintains the proper level of calcium in the blood and increases oxygen use. The sulfates help form brain tissues and joint proteins, creates mucin proteins that line the digestive tract, detoxifies contaminants, and improves absorption of nutrients. Obviously, it’s a general and potent cure-all. Fortunately, it is absorbed readily through the skin, which makes treatment with it easy.

So, how do you know if what ails your hen can be helped by the Spa Treatment?

As always, when you suspect that your hen isn’t well, it’s best to isolate her for a day. This enables you to see whether she’s eating, if she’s producing manure, and if so, what it’s like. You’ll also see if she’s laying. These are all clues to whether there is a blockage (nothing coming out) or an infection (nasty looking manure) or an egg laying issue. (Soft egg? No egg but a runny discharge? Egg bound?) In many of these cases, I’ve had success using the Spa Treatment. Sometimes, after treatment, the hen will go on to be healthy for a few more weeks, sometimes for years – it all depends on whether there is an underlying issue that can be fixed, or if there is a terminal ailment. For example, Agnes recovered nicely after her spa treatment for about ten days, but then went back into decline. Her necropsy showed that she died of ovarian cancer. But Buffy, who received the Spa Treatment because she ingested too much vetch, a pasture plant which is toxic in large doses, recovered fully. Another time, Buffy’s comb turned dark and she became listless, again, she recovered fully. The Spa Treatment can’t hurt, and I’ve never known a hen who didn’t enjoy it;  it just might save your hen.

The first step in the Spa Treatment is to give your hen an epsom salt soak. Fill a tub with water that is warm but not too hot, the temperature that you would want to bathe in. Add a cup of epsom salt to the water. Set your hen into the tub. Few hens struggle to get out. Yours should settle right in. You might have to gently encourage her to sit down. The water should come up to her chest, but no higher. Let her soak until the water cools. If she is particularly poopy or dirty, you can use soap and wash her, then refill the tub with water and epsom salts and soak again. (To see how to bathe a hen, watch my YouTube video.) Gently lift her out of the bath and pat dry with a towel, then use a blow dryer on low. The hens like that, too!

Next in the Spa Treatment is to dose with olive oil. Enabling a hen to clear out her intestinal tract can often set a hen right.Hopefully, your hen is strong enough to eat. Two teaspoons of olive oil helps to move whatever is in her system along. The easiest way to give this to her is to put it on her favorite treat and let her eat it (try it in cooked oatmeal or pieces of bread.) If your hen is not able to peck at and swallow even her favorite treat, then she is likely too sick for the Spa Treatment to work.

Lastly, she needs TLC. If the hen likes being in the quiet safety of a dog crate, away from bullying hens, give her some time on her own. If she prefers to be with the flock, put her back with her friends. Hopefully, all of this care will alleviate the symptoms. If the Spa Treatment is going to help your hen, you’ll know within twenty-four hours. If you see a positive change in your bird, you can give the treatment one more time. However, if there is no change, then whatever she has is more serious that than the Spa Treatment can help. If it doesn’t help, at least it hasn’t hurt, and you’ll have narrowed down what might be causing the symptoms. The Spa Treatment has fixed several of my birds, and helped many others. If you have success with the Spa Treatment, do let me know! The more case histories I hear about, the better advice I can give.

Compost In The Chicken Run

Problem 1:  Chickens need to get plenty of fresh air and exercise. They need soft dirt to scratch in. They do best on a varied diet that includes greens and bugs. In the summer they need shade and cool earth to lie in. But, I can’t let my hens out to free-range unless I’m watching because of hawks that live nearby. So, for much of the day my chickens are confined to a packed-dirt pen. It’s not optimum.

Problem 2:  Every day, I fill a bucket with scraps from my kitchen endeavors. There are onion peels, stale bread and carrot scrapings, coffee grinds and desiccated oranges. Some of it the chickens eat (like tomato cores) and some they don’t (like banana peels.) If I toss it all to the hens, the entire run would soon be a mess of molding food. How to feed the chickens the worthwhile bits without sorting through these dregs? I don’t want to have two compost buckets on my kitchen counter. I have other stuff to compost, too, including weeds and damaged vegetables from the garden, and the muck and trampled on hay from the goat stall. There’s a lot of material from different sources, but I don’t want to fuss with it. I want one easy pile.

Two problems, one solution: build a compost bin in the chicken run. The hens will eat what they like, and shred everything else into little bits. In the summer it becomes a cool, damp respite from the heat. In the winter I use my judgement. If there’s snow cover I don’t put the compost out. It only works if the hens are able to get in it and scratch. You don’t want it to become pile of frozen garbage. But, there are plenty of days in the winter when the hens are happy to have compost to work in. All year long, this method of turning waste into compost is barely any effort for me – the chickens do all of the work of mincing the material and turning it over. Soon enough, it decomposes, shrinks in size, and it turns into good garden soil.

Since I have separate flocks of hens in two barns, I have two compost piles. In the Little Barn’s run there’s an area off to the side of the coop that was easy to turn into a compost heap. I’ve put a sturdy piece of fencing blocking it off, but left openings on both sides. The two exits ensure that the hens don’t get trapped in a corner or bullied and the fencing keeps the compost from being kicked by chicken feet into the rest of the run.

In the Big Barn run, using metal fence posts and chicken wire, we built a compost that forms the letter C. It’s round shape keeps the hens from getting hassled by aggressors. The girls go in and out easily, and yet it keeps the materials contained so that the rest of the run stays tidy. I’ve tried bins made from pallets, but the hens liked roosting on top and then escaping out of the pen. They don’t like to sit on thin chicken wire.

As I mentioned, I throw just about everything in the pile. I put in leftovers that are no longer edible by people. Once in awhile a moldy strawberry goes in the mix. Chickens are fussy and I haven’t had a problem with  them over-indulging in questionable foods. The one thing not  to feed hens is avocado, which is lethal! Also, go easy on the carbohydrates, like bread and pasta. Too much of that and their calcium and protein balance will go off and you’ll find soft-shelled eggs (not to mention fat hens.) I’m also cautious about tough, long veggies, like leek ends, and big chunks of bread that the chickens can choke on. I also avoid foods that they won’t eat right up and that attract vermin, like bones and grease. This is not the pile that I put the manure in. I have a separate system for that described in this FAQ.
It doesn’t take the hens long to shred all of the material, even what they don’t eat, into fine bits. Soon it becomes dark, rich earth. As the pile rises, I dig in and take the loam to the garden. It’s an easy system, and everyone benefits.

Chicken Manure Management

Chickens poop. A lot. Each one of your hens will produce about a quarter pound of manure a day, which according to one source, is 1 cubic foot every six months (I haven’t measured it myself!) Birds don’t pee. Everything that they excrete comes out in one large plop. It’s big, bulky and smelly. It is also a potential carrier of disease and internal parasites, and is a medium that all sorts of unpleasant bugs, such as flies, want to live and breed in. Chicken manure is 75% water and is very high in nitrogen. As the nitrogen decomposes, it gives off ammonia gas. Using dry and absorbent bedding, and having a well-ventilated coop is the first piece of the management plan to keep your hens healthy and living in an environment that is a pleasure for you and the chickens to be in.

The next part of the plan is manure removal. I like using pine shavings as bedding because it dries out the manure and can be sifted through. Hay and straw is not absorbent and becomes wet and matted. I use shavings in the nesting boxes and on the floor. If a hen poops in the nesting box, it’s easy to clean out using a kitty litter scoop. I do this daily. I might also use the scoop if I see a big pile on the floor.

Once a week I go into the coop and, using a fine-tined pitchfork, sift through the shavings, removing the manure. You won’t get all of it, as some will already be dried and broken into tiny bits, but you’ll be able to get the bulk out.

Most of the manure will accumulate under the roosts. Some coops are designed to have “poop boards” where the manure lands, and is untrodden on by the hens. That manure should be scraped off of the boards daily.

Once the manure is removed, if necessary, I add some fresh bedding. Chickens shred everything into tiny bits and eventually both the shavings and manure will turn into fine dust. If you can feel this dust when you breathe, it’s an unhealthy environment for both you and the hens. The dust will coat everything in the barn and will harbor bacteria. So, every few months I shovel everything out and start fresh. By the way, it’s said that cedar shavings give off fumes that are bad for animals. Other woods are okay, although not widely available,  but if you have a woodshop, you can use most other shavings. However, the pine is the most absorbent and safest for your birds.

Since my chickens are confined to dirt pens, those need to be cleaned, too. I use a flexible metal rake to gather what manure I can, and shovel it up. It’s important to keep the dirt in the run dry. Adding coarse builders sand (sold in bags at lumber yards) will improve drainage, and the hens love to dust bathe in it.

I keep a compost pile in the chicken run. I put kitchen scraps, weeds and leaves in it, but I don’t include the manure. Internal parasites, like roundworms and tapeworms, shed eggs and/or body parts in the chicken manure, that then require intermediary hosts to survive.  These hosts are usually insects, like dark wing beetles, that live in damp, dark places near the chickens. By removing the manure front the pen, I’ve stopped the cyle. I’ve never had to worm my hens. I run fecal samples so know that I have never had a problem.

Chicken manure cannot be put directly onto your garden as it will “burn” your plants. Also, you don’t want to put it fresh onto vegetables as it might carry salmonella or e. Coli.  However, although it starts out noxious, when composted, chicken poop ends up as dark loamy earth. There’s a lot of advice about how to take care of compost, which all seems complicated and time-consuming.  I’m a lazy composter and I don’t want to turn piles of manure or pay attention to it. Also, I have dogs who would relish the chance to roll in chicken poop, so I need a method that keeps it out of the way. What I came up with is cheap and tidy. I use plastic garbage cans that have been thrown out because their bottoms cracked. I cut off the ends, and put the trash cans near my vegetable patch. I add the manure and the shavings, and also, once in awhile, dead leaves and discarded greens.

As the manure dries out and the mass shrinks, I add more material. Even in the winter, when the compost is frozen, I keep topping it off. Once it is full, I let it sit for at least six months. It will go from this:

To this:

This manure is very rich, and high in nitrogen and calcium. It’s terrific straight on my bare pumpkin patch that has anemic soil, and mixed into the dirt of my vegetable and flower beds. Nine years ago I started gardening on this property that was mostly granite gravel and poor soil. Now my flower beds look like this, thanks to the girls and their manure.

 

What To Feed Your Chickens

What chickens eat and what chickens should eat are not always the same thing. Chickens are omnivores. That means they’ll snarf down just about anything, or at least try to! I’ve seen a hen catch and slurp down a snake like spaghetti. I’ve seen a chicken snatch a toad by it’s leg and all of the other hens go in a raucous chase after it, only, at the end to discover that a toad is not good eating. Chickens also eat less exciting foods, like vegetables, fruits, flowers and grass. They eat grains and seeds. They scratch the ground and find bugs and specks of things that we can’t see. So, the question isn’t really what chickens eat, but what the right diet is for them.

In the 19th century most chickens were barnyard scavengers. They hatched out under their mamas and were taught to look for grain in the horse stalls, and for bugs and greens in the garden. The farm wife tossed stale bread and kitchen scraps to the hens. Chickens destined for the table were fattened on sour milk. Sometimes, in the winter, they’d be given a handful of grain. The hens back then laid only a few eggs a week. This haphazard diet was enough sustenance for them. But, flocks became larger and more confined. Chickens were bred to lay more and more eggs. Instead of 90 eggs a year, a hen now might lay over 300. With the increase in egg production came an increase in the nutritional requirements of the flock.

 

Laying Hen Pellets

Commercial laying hen pellets (or crumbles which are the same thing but smaller) are designed for today’s productive hens. Creating a daily egg is depleting. The pellets have the right proportion of protein, minerals and energy for the chickens. These pellets should make up the bulk of your flock’s diet. Your chickens should have access to the pellets all day long. They should go to bed with full crops (the crop is the pouch in their throat where the food is first stored after it is swallowed.) It takes over 25 hours to create one egg. During the night, as the hen is sleeping, she is still building that egg. She gets the materials for making that egg from digesting food. If her digestive tract is empty she can’t make the egg. So, let your hen eat what she wants from sunup to sundown.

 

Oyster Shell and Grit

Even though the commercial feed contains calcium, it is good to provide another source. Coarsely broken up oyster shell is the most easily absorbed form (even better than finely-ground.) I put it in a rabbit feed hopper, which keeps it tidy and prevents waste. Chickens also need grit – tiny rocks- that the hens need so that their gizzards can grind up food. Without grit, digestion is slowed and the hens are less efficient at extracting nutrients from feed. Like oyster shell, grit should be offered free choice.

 

Vegetables, Table Scraps and Free-Ranging

As good as it is, commercial feed should not be the only thing that your hens eat. A standard-sized hen will eat between 1/4 and 1/3 pound of pellets a day, if it’s the only food offered. However, it remains essential for our backyard hens to have a varied diet beyond the pelleted ration. Greens and dirt to scratch in are key components to keeping your flock healthy. If you can let your hens free-range, they’ll find plenty to eat. However, for those of us who live where there are severe winters, or who keep hens on small lots, or have too many predators to allow free-ranging, you have to provide a varied diet in other ways.

Chickens appreciate table scraps. They’ll eat most anything, from coffee grinds to stale toast to soggy green beans. Some things they won’t eat, and sometimes it’s a matter of personal preference. Mine don’t like raisins, and yet it’s a favorite treat for a friend’s flock. Not all of the foods tossed in the compost pile are ideal for chickens, but if your hens are getting most of their food intake from laying hen pellets, then it’s unlikely that they will overeat any one item in the scrap pile. There’s only one item that I know of that is lethal to chickens and that is avocados. Contrary to what you might have read out there, potato skins and eggplant leaves aren’t going to cause any harm. But, some foods are better than others. If you offer too many carbs, like bread and stale cereal, your hens will get fat and won’t get enough protein. So, dole those out judiciously. In the summer, you can toss all of your garden waste, including bug-softened zucchini, weeds and grubs in with your chickens. Your hens will eat what they like and shred the rest. I don’t give them grass clippings, as that can cause impacted crops. The same goes for long scallion stalks. But, it’s not a good idea to simply throw kitchen scraps and garden waste into the run, as it will become a mess. To keep everything tidy and healthy I have a compost bin in the chicken run. What the hens don’t eat gets churned into tiny bits and quickly turns into good dirt. It’s an easy, healthy system.

In the winter, when the compost bin is frozen, I hang cabbages inside the coop for rousing games of cabbage tether ball. I also put treats in suet feeders. Outside, I’ll cut a hole in a pumpkin and the hens will spend days pecking at it – even when frozen it will keep them busy and healthy.

 

Scratch Grains, Meal Worms and Other Treats

We all love to give our hens treats. Unlike so many others in our lives, chickens are raucously grateful for the smallest offerings. But, I’ve seen a disturbing trend to over-indulgence in the feeding of backyard hens. You can make your chicken sick – or even kill her – with too many of the wrong treats. One food that chickens love is cracked corn. It’s like candy to them. But, it has no nutritional value other than calories. It’s okay to give a little in the winter when the weather is really cold, but otherwise it has no benefit. It does quickly make hens fat, which can lead to serious egg-laying glitches. So, as much as your girls are gleeful about cracked corn, don’t feed it.

On the other end of the spectrum, I am especially concerned about all of the people feeding their hens mealworms. A small amount, like a tablespoon a day, is a fine treat. But, people are feeding handfuls. They’re practically feeding their hens pure protein (mealworms are up around 50%) The chicken expert at my local feedstore just told me about hens dying from kidney failure due to being fed mealworms as the main part of their diet. Besides the health dangers, mealworms are very expensive. Yes, it’s good for chickens to eat bugs, bugs they have worked for and found themselves, bugs that are part of an active life, and one in which the insects are part of other things that the chickens are sorting through and ingesting. A chicken should have to work for her treats, by scratching and exploring. Chickens should fill their crops over the course of a long day, not at one time. Tossing in a large handful of mealworms or corn to your hens is the exact opposite of what is best for them. Because hens that are active and outside are the healthiest, I keep a compost pile in the chicken run. It keeps them busy scratching and there’s always bugs and tidbits for them to find and eat.

Hulled sunflower seeds are a nice treat – in moderation. They have that extra bit of protein, and also contain good essential fats. My retired girls get about a teaspoon per bird per day. Plenty! Don’t feed the seeds with the shells on, as too many can cause an impacted crop. The sunflower seeds, and sometimes a small bit of cracked corn) are what I use to call my hens. If you’ve seen my YouTube video, you know how fast my hens come when called. Since they rarely get such treats, when they hear that can shake, they know something very, very special is waiting for them.

You might see large, solid blocks of chicken treats a the feed store and are supposed to be placed outside for foraging hens. These blocks attract chipmunks and mice to your run, and they don’t encourage the hens to move about and search for food. They also are sweet and so the hens prefer it to their pellets. If your girls are stuck indoors during the winter, a block can keep them busy. Otherwise, I don’t think they’re a good idea.

But all of this doesn’t mean that you can’t spoil your hens. A piece of crumbled stale bread, a bowl of yogurt, a bruised tomato, will all cause a happy commotion in the chicken yard.

 

Water

The one most essential thing to provide your flock is fresh water. Even though it does seem as if chickens prefer muddy pools (rather like toddlers in a rain puddle) always have clean water for them. Put the water font up off the ground (a few bricks work for this) so that it stays clean. Scrub the water font weekly. In the winter, if you are located in an area with freezing temperatures, either use an electric heating stand under the waterer (these are designed for chicken waterers) or be prepared to swap frozen waterers for fresh several times a day. A chicken without water will die within a day. In the summer I put an extra waterer out in the pen near the shady area where the hens like to hang out. Chickens overheat easily and water will go a long way to keeping them healthy and alive.

To wrap it up, what your hens need are laying hen pellets, fresh water, greens, fresh air and exercise. Indulge them by giving them an interesting environment, compost to shred, and your delighted attention. Once in awhile, toss them something really special (but keep it special by doing this sparingly!) Your treat will be having healthy, active, laying, hens.

 

Feeding Chicks

For the first two days of life the chick makes use of the yolk that is still inside of it. After that, the chick needs food and water. Chicks should be given free-choice finely ground feed that is 18% protein. They shouldn’t eat laying hen pellets because it is too high in calcium and too low in protein. The easiest way to feed chicks is to purchase chick starter. Do not purchase chick finisher or special “grow” feeds, as those are for meat birds that are slaughtered before maturity. Chicks remain on the chick feed for the first 14 to 18 weeks, which is about when they are mature enough to lay. Some people use medicated feed to protect the chicks against a protozoan disease called coccidia. I don’t believe in using medicated feeds unless the chicks show symptoms of illness. So far, I’ve never had to use it.

Most chicks are kept in brooders, which are essentially heated boxes bedded with pine shavings. These are safe places for the chicks to grow but not ideal. I think it is essential to give the chicks a clod of dirt with some greens attached the first week. The clump of earth is beneficial to the chicks in many ways. It exposes them to small amounts of local microbes so that they develop natural immunity. It gives them something to do, as even chicks get bored! It gets a bit of grit into their gizzards. Most importantly, it teaches the chicks to peck the ground and not each other. Providing that clod of dirt will greatly reduce aggression and pecking issues later. Do make sure, though, that there isn’t fine grass clinging to it. The greens should be sturdy so that the chicks peck little bits off. Dandelions are perfect for this. You don’t want them getting impacted crop from fine blades of grass. It is tempting to give the chicks other treats as well, everything from sunflower seeds to strawberries. But, remember that if the chicks were outside with a mamma, that they’d be moving and eating tiny bits of things and not standing still and gorging. You can give them treats, but in very small amounts, and make sure that they fill up on chick feed first. As soon as it is warm enough the chicks can go outside and peck and eat whatever they want. Just make sure that the bulk of their diet is a balanced chick feed that they get free choice.

For more about feeding chickens for the first 20 weeks, go here.