Author Archives: frankie

About frankie

Maiden name is Farmer so I guess I am getting back to my roots. I love raising chickens and especially when the baby chicks are hatched out. I am a senior citizen and live with my husband in Florida. We live a quiet, peaceful life on our two acres with our one dog ( two dogs died past year and we miss them) and various amounts of chickens. I have had up to 120 chickens but now at about 45. That seems to be a good number for us. Feed and medicines can be expensive and you certainly don't get enough money for the eggs to pay for the feed. Selling the chickens and chicks helps, too. It is not a business for me though....they are my pets. I have three terrific grown children that I am very proud of and two wonderful granddaughters. With my children living in DC, Texas and North Carolina, we will be doing a lot of traveling now that my husband has retired from 40 years with civil service. If you are new to raising chickens, I hope I can tell you amusing stories as well as give you information that will make your experience with chickens fun. I sometimes feel like raising chickens is like raising kids. Some days it is so rewarding and other days, it is a darn lot of work. I am very much interested in making life simple and trying to be self-sufficient as much as I can. I enjoy grocery shopping and getting the best prices as well as stocking up on food and household items. I also love to go to the thrift stores. I have bought numerous pairs of name brand jeans for $3. It just makes sense to be thrifty and since we have the time to look around and find bargains, that is what we chose to do. It also gives us something to do. We planted our first garden this year. Though it is small (squash, watermelons, sweet potatoes and tomatoes), it is a start. My daughter bought me a dehydrator for Mother's Day and we are looking into buying an upright freezer. Those things were needed before we plant a bigger garden. Hope you enjoy my blog....God bless.

Fighting the mites

Wow, is it difficult to fight the scaly leg mites.  I have used a lot of Vaseline covering the chicken’s feet and legs to smother the mites.  Unfortunately, a few toes were lost before I realized some of the chickens had a problem.  You don’t really notice until one of the chickens start walking like it has a sore foot.  I had so many chickens, too and to chase over 100 chickens down and check every one of their feet would have taken hours and I would have to do it at least every couple of weeks.  I  naturally just thought one of them had stepped on something and it would heal.

My husband said he is afraid I will get them, too because I am always barefoot.  I know it is possible to get some parasites from the ground so I keep telling myself I will wear shoes, but it doesn’t happen on a regular basis.  lol

Anyone else had to deal with this?  Any other suggestions.  I put seven dust down in the chicken yard but the chickens also have an acre that they can free range on so I don’t know if I should be concerned with my whole 2 acres or just their main chicken yards.

 

Moving those roosters out

I believe I am down to about 64 chickens now and I still have another 14 roosters I am looking to re-home.  Often when people come out for the free roosters, they want to buy my hens which are not for sale.

It is amazing that people are so undependable.  I don’t know why that amazes me.  People say I will be out at 4pm and then when 5pm gets here, I check my email just to make sure they didn’t try to contact me.  No phone call, no email.  How inconsiderate.  I have learned to give my cell number out and say call me first to make sure I am home.  That way I can go about my business and if they don’t show up, it doesn’t bother me.  Just because we are retired, doesn’t mean we don’t have a life.  lol

I am telling you this so if and when you decide to sell or give away chickens, make your plans for your life and don’t sit around waiting for people to show up as they say they will.

 

Moving Chickens Around and Starting a Garden

Well, now that I am down to 72 chickens, I have stopped using a couple of my chicken yards. I did this on purpose because I have been wanting to start a vegetable garden for years. I have a yard that is pretty well bare of grass and has been getting chicken fertilizer scratched around in it. Plus, the yard is fenced-in which will keep the rabbits and chickens out of it. I just need to remove the chicken houses that are in the yard and one is so big that I will need to at least partially take it apart.

I think I will even start some seedlings in my house or shed to get a jump start on the growing season. Food is getting so expensive and seeds are pretty cheap.

Also, I am going to plant corn to feed to my chickens. Any decaying food and the plants will end up being extra food for my chickens, too.

Update:  2/11/2012

Well, we ended up moving one smaller chicken house out and dealt with taking down some fence to get it out.  But the second larger chicken house that was super heavy, we cleaned out and are re-roofing it.  It sits on some 4×4 posts. It is only 4ft tall but I am going to use it as storage for my gardening tools.  Just need to change out the entrance so I can actually get to the tools without having to crawl into the shed.

We put down some decayed horse manure on the area we anticipate growing corn.  My husband suggested we plant something in the compost area we took the horse manure from.  So we are going to fence off that area (since it is now in a chicken yard) and plant something there.  I am thinking tomatoes or maybe watermelons.  The soil is so rich looking there.  Yoo hoo

Scaly Leg Mites and Petroleum Jelly

I noticed a couple of my chickens were holding one leg up.  When I checked it out, the foot/leg area looked kind of scaly with bumpy stuff on it. After some research, I found out it was scaly leg mites. My computer was down so my sister, Wanda was researching it for me.

The odd solution to the problem was petroleum jelly or Vaseline as most of us call it. You smear it on the feet and legs and you actually smother the mites.   I put the chickens with Vaseline on their feet into an area that had lots of hay on the floor.  I didn’t want the dirt to stick to the Vaseline and figured the straw would work better.

I cleaned-out the straw and poo in my chicken houses and put down Sevin Dust and fresh hay. I separated the two hens that looked like they were walking odd and repeated the Vaseline for a couple days. The scaly bumpy stuff will actually come off in a few days  if you peel or pick at it. You have to be careful though because if it is not ready to come off, it will bleed. Kind of gross but necessary because if the bump is under the foot, it is causing the chicken pain when he/she walks.

I had a number of chickens that had that problem and if you aren’t careful and catch it early, they can lose their toes and I believe it can actually kill the chicken.

Read up on it if you have this problem. There are some other solutions, too. This one worked for me though.

Back online

Well, so much has been going on that is hard to know where to start. My computer died on me and with it, my passwords and evidently my desire to post. lol

My husband retired Dec 3, 2011 so we have been traveling some and getting lots done on our property. And I have decided to downsize my flock since there are too many chickens to ask a neighbor/relative/friend to come take care of them. I am down to 72 chickens.