As important as killing the lice is identifying how the lice were brought to your coop. Bio security is very important. Treating the hens without stopping the inward flow of lice does little good.
Ah, I hate this, someone spent all that money for a treadle feeder and it isn't doing its job. Doesn't matter who made the feeder, they should work and usually when it doesn't there is a reason.
Can you describe why you think the treadle feeder isn't working, a picture of it installed so I can...
Really? In the middle of winter a hen is going to find all these bugs and grass? Back in the day I'd deliver furniture to New Orleans to a man named Boscoe and I don't remember growing grass in the winter. And grit....are you referring to their question about the oyster shell?
I think we are dealing with a 12 year old here. Or we have heard of Jetway Jesus, perhaps this is Chicken Jesus? If I don't post again, lighting has struck me down for blasphemy.
Rats colonize an area for one of four reasons; food, water, nesting materials, or a nesting space. The first two are the most common draws for a coop, the first one being the most likely.
So most people think like you do, how to keep them out of the coop, trying to treat the symptom instead of...
Good, mystery solved. That quarter pound of feed per bird is rarely off and i think that Stormcrow pointed out the deficiency in the feed being the reason for slightly more consumption. So you are feeding six pounds per day roughly.
oh, that was Country chicken lady. LOL Too many chicken ladies.
Are they cleaning up the last batch? All gone by dusk? I'd check a few crops to see if they are full or make half a batch.
So, I assume you have weighed the content of one scoop? It is difficult to believe that your hens are eating twice the food a hen would normally eat. Might weigh yourself holding your mixing bowl then again after you have scooped in what you think is five pounds of dry feed.
I think she is, she has another post on fermented feed where she wrote about a five gallon bucket plus four and then she referenced the feed flowing out of a feeder and spilling. I asked her in the other thread if she was mixing that much water with the dry feed.
OP, you need to reconsider...
So how much water did you add to the five gallons of feed, if I understood your post correctly. You said something about five gallons plus four...
Following up from your other post where you said you were feeding ten pounds of feed per day or more accurately, a half pound of feed per hen per...
So......you are feeding them ten pounds of feed per day and they are consuming all of it? That would be a half pound per day per hen.
Five pounds is expected.
Ditto on the wet feed, avoid that unless you place the wet feed outside the feeder to avoid mold.
Make sure you have any rodents under control. Predators like foxes can smell mice from a long distance so it might not be just the chickens they are attracted to.
My bad.... Still, an owl or large hawk will have no trouble ripping through the roof. The stuff is just twisted together. Then again, if you don't have larger predators it might just be good enough.
For now, drill some holes in the bent aluminum and sister some 2 x 2's or 2 x 3 boards to the...
Patch it up to get by and replace it with 2 x 4 wood construction. Or if you have a welder in the family, use some square tubing. It needs to be heavy enough to prevent storm damage or staked down to piers or 30" long wood stakes. Consider an A frame, gives you enough room to walk down the...
That is kind of their job, to watch for hawks. If there are plenty of area they can retreat to they stand a decent chance of surviving but probably won't be able to protect the hen. When a raptor attacks, it is quite a body blow and the force of those talons. I held an owl once wearing very...
Pail heaters, we have used them for decades in our paint booth. You can find them for under $37.00 on Amazon. Most fit five gallon buckets but they just wrap around so can fit almost anything over three gallons I would guess.
Those things are invasive pests that don't belong here, right? They eat bird eggs and any other baby creature they can get to.
They have plenty of length I would guess, but what is their weight? I'm thinking that even a good treadle feeder wouldn't stop one if it is over three to four pounds...