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Thanks. It's working well for adult layers and eight week old chicks. I ferment unmedicated chick starter separately until three or four weeks old. I started lessening the alfalfa cubes. Grass is coming up where I live and I free range. The Alfalfa is for added protein and greens during the...

I use crumble. My winter FF is Crumble, whole oats, alfalfa cubes, ground pumpkin, dried Oregano, crushed whole fresh garlic, sometimes scratch with whole wheat and BOSS. I use small drilled holes in the bottom of the inner bucket and one or two rows of smaller holes around the side near the...

No mess. I keep my FF double buckets in the house for the winter. I also don't keep it on the soupy side. More like thick oatmeal. I scoop out what I need in the house into a colander. Drain it a bit while I put on my boots. I spoon it into the pans and it's gone in a half hour. My birds free...

Do you have Cenex farm stores in Oregon? They carry the small bags of unmedicated chick start and Grow. Purina Sun fresh recipe. I make small buckets of FF for my Silkie chicks using this.

I've posted pictures of my FF dishes before. They are plastic mud pans from the hardware store. I drill drainage holes in the bottom. Asked my husband to build me a holder for them to get them above my deep litter and he built this out of a scrap of board. The dishes pop out easily for...

Yes. I have when I have found the bird soon enough. Or made the decision that the bird was suffering and it was not in its or my best interest to prolong the birds life. This is not uncommon for me because I'm retired and know where my birds are and what they're doing and how they're doing...

Yes. I keep first aid things for wounds. I keep Blue Kote and a Blood Stop powder in the barn. Only used it once this year when the roo caught a spur in the fence. Used both and the spur fell off in five days without complications. I don't use anti-biotics on the chickens. If the chicken dies it...

I don't add UN-ACV, garlic powder, garlic oil, chili powder, pumpkin seed, or oregano to my FF as medicine. It is fed as extra insurance for healthy immune systems for already healthy chickens. Most of you here already know the only thing in my barn medicine cabinet is Nu Stock and a hatchet.

My garden is surrounded by 1" chicken mesh. They will go under it if you don't bury it.

It's very easy to grow. Yes dormant in winter. It's 28 degrees here and the ground is frozen. So is the Oregano. If you know someone with a decent vegetable garden in your neighborhood, you might be able to trade eggs for a shovelful. Should also be easy to find in the local nursery in the...

Yes. I have it growing and thriving in my potager garden. I harvested it and dried it in the fall. Have used all of that already. The plant is dormant right now.

This is a good question that I also wonder. Cheaper in dollar stores. I add it into the FF until I can see it and smell it.

I use garlic oil in my waterers with UN-ACV and Oregano in their feed as a natural health booster. All can be thought of as a preventive antibiotic. I like to up my chicks health without feeding medicine in the store bought feed but by using all natural ingrediants. No pasty bums. Seven healthy...

I add hot water from my faucet. Too hot and you kill the stuff that is percolating your ferment. My FF sometimes bubbles and sometimes doesn't. I notice it bubbles more if my house is warmer and I let it sit longer covered with liquid before taking any out of it. I used snipped up dried...

Same here. Every morning before feeding I pull off the towel, put my face near the bucket and inhale deeply and then let out a nice satisfied, "AWWwww". When my family smell it they run to the other room with varying cries of, "EWwWwww!"

I would start feeding my birds for feather growth at moult for older birds and a couple months before the show. Feeding won't change the condition of feathers. It will help aid healthy lush growth to those coming in.

I was referring to the White Leghorns I knew raised in batteries like this when I was a kid. They weren't even called Leghorns then. They had a number for the breed. High production hybrid birds strictly used for commercial use. I lived next door to a commercial farm 1956-1962. The farmer quit...

Yes. They will need it. Grit will help them digest all that roughage.

Agreed. When I get a broody out in the main barn, grit will be no concern. All ground floor pens are dirt based under the DL and I keep a can of free choice grit and shell in the upper breeder pens. Once grown, everybody get access to the great outdoors to scratch up their own grit. The less...

Normally I wouldn't bother purchasing special grit but a local visit to a two feed stores here had these two outcomes. One store only sold 80 pound bags of large gravel grit and one store didn't even know what grit was or was used for. It's nothing but mud in my garden or I would have searched...