Monthly Archives: January 2012

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.