Future Breeds to get best for my climate

[Acre4Me]

Mediterranean breeds are great for hot weather (Leghorns as an example). Quite a few high production layers are less heavily feathered too.

You CAN wash chickens with mild unscented wash meant for animals. But, not the first choice - a nice dry dust bath is really what a chicken wants (peat moss, sawdust, sand, ash, are all good examples of things for a dust bath. NOT diatomaceous earth (DE) bc terrible to breathe in, but if you feel you must add DE, don’t make it a big % of mix). We wash chickens for show, and we also blow dry them (which they actually like) bc you need to dry their under feathers or they might get too cold (not sure about LA, but it’s too cold here and they will shiver even in July if too wet for too long). So, you can certainly wash just their legs and feet if needed.

Keeping cool: shade of course. Cool water to drink. Some use shallow tray or similar and place a block of ice so it melts over a few hours and chickens can walk on it, and through the cold water.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Is there a way to tell White Rocks from White Leghorns? I have a chick I got from a BYM of hatching eggs and I've been thinking it's a White Leghorn. Looking at the pictures here: https://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/white_rocks.html of both the adult and chick mine could be a White Rock . . . My chick hatched from a large white egg and hatched out w yellow down and orange legs and beak, turned pure white now at 5 weeks.

A White Rock chick and a White Leghorn chick have yellow skin and legs and yellow down that turns white when they feather out. A Leghorn will have a white earlobe while a Rock will have a red earlobe. If those two breeds are your only choices the earlobes are a good way I know to tell them apart. Leghorns lay white eggs, Rocks a shade of brown. Of course, there are many other breeds that can have yellow legs and white feathers and may lay a white egg. Since it hatched from a white egg it is not a Rock. It could be a Leghorn.

 

[Rusty Hills Farm]

White Rocks lay large brown eggs so would therefore hatch from large brown eggs, if that helps. They are substantial birds when compared to Leghorns, tho I didn't see the neighbor's as chicks so I can't compare them as youngsters.

HTH

 

[redinator]

Mediterranean breeds are great for hot weather (Leghorns as an example). Quite a few high production layers are less heavily feathered too.

You CAN wash chickens with mild unscented wash meant for animals. But, not the first choice - a nice dry dust bath is really what a chicken wants (peat moss, sawdust, sand, ash, are all good examples of things for a dust bath. NOT diatomaceous earth (DE) bc terrible to breathe in, but if you feel you must add DE, don’t make it a big % of mix). We wash chickens for show, and we also blow dry them (which they actually like) bc you need to dry their under feathers or they might get too cold (not sure about LA, but it’s too cold here and they will shiver even in July if too wet for too long). So, you can certainly wash just their legs and feet if needed.

Keeping cool: shade of course. Cool water to drink. Some use shallow tray or similar and place a block of ice so it melts over a few hours and chickens can walk on it, and through the cold water.

I read DE, the food grade variety, is good if they have mites or some other skin irritation, is that correct information?

 

[redinator]

A White Rock chick and a White Leghorn chick have yellow skin and legs and yellow down that turns white when they feather out. A Leghorn will have a white earlobe while a Rock will have a red earlobe. If those two breeds are your only choices the earlobes are a good way I know to tell them apart. Leghorns lay white eggs, Rocks a shade of brown. Of course, there are many other breeds that can have yellow legs and white feathers and may lay a white egg. Since it hatched from a white egg it is not a Rock. It could be a Leghorn.

So mine's not a White Rock since it hatched from a white egg, I'll cross that on off the list of possibilities.

 

[Down Under]

I read DE, the food grade variety, is good if they have mites or some other skin irritation, is that correct information?

Be careful using DE, as it's a respiratory irritant to both humans and chickens. Some folks swear by, I personally will never use it. I also don't like that it indiscriminately kills all bugs that come across it, which basically strips the environment of helpful bugs and microbes and can leave dead soil which in my opinion is way worse than a few mites and lice.

Mites live in the coop in cracks and, lice on the birds. I prefer to use a pyrethrin based poultry powder and use it as needed, both on the bird and in roost cracks and possibly in the bottom of the nest boxes. I also use plain old barn lime as a drying agent to help keep parasites getting a hold. I use it after a coop clean out, dusting the floor, nestboxes and roosts.

Most chickens will have some of both parasites at some point in their life. They control the numbers by dust bathing. I have only needed to dust broody hens, never healthy birds. Make sure they have a good dusting area. That where I would use the DE if I was using it, but things like peat and wood ash are better alternatives in my opinion.

I agree with oldhenlikesdogs and prefer the method of planting garlic, wormwood and lavender around the coop instead. For people that have not got the room to plant plants around the coop then using the dried versions works too.

 

[redinator]

I agree with oldhenlikesdogs and prefer the method of planting garlic, wormwood and lavender around the coop instead. For people that have not got the room to plant plants around the coop then using the dried versions works too.

Ok, now I'm confused . . I'm pretty sure garlic was on the list of foods toxic to chickens, according to Google, along with onions, chocolate, avocados, raw egg, and apple seeds.

 

[Down Under]

Ok, now I'm confused . . I'm pretty sure garlic was on the list of foods toxic to chickens, according to Google, along with onions, chocolate, avocados, raw egg, and apple seeds.

You don't feed it to them and they will not usually eat it, I plant it next to the coop but in an area that they do not have access to. I have also sprinkled the dried garlic crystals in their bedding and they have not eaten it, the mites just packed up shop and left.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Ok, now I'm confused . . I'm pretty sure garlic was on the list of foods toxic to chickens, according to Google, along with onions, chocolate, avocados, raw egg, and apple seeds.

Get used to getting conflicting advice on this forum. It happens all of the time. Some of it is just different opinions. Some of it is misinformation often based on something read on this forum. Some is a misunderstanding.

One basic concept that is misunderstood is dosage. Practically anything you or I eat, even the good for us stuff, contains something that can harm us if eaten in high dosages. Cabbage is an example. Cabbage contains something that if you eat enough of it then it can kill you or make you very sick. But you'd have to eat a lot of cabbage each day and nothing but cabbage for a few weeks to eat enough to poison you. An occasional serving of cabbage is beneficial to us and to chickens.

Apple seeds are in that category for chickens. Apple seeds (like many fruit seeds) contain arsenic. It is enough arsenic that if an insect small enough to bore into that apple seed and eat it that the insect will die, but a chicken would have to eat a lot of apple seeds before it had a problem. If you make a batch of apple butter and have a huge amount of seeds maybe don't dump then where your chickens can eat them but a few won't bother them at all.

I can't believe raw eggs are on a poisons list. Eggs are a fabulous nutritional food for chickens and many other things. My guess is the worry is that feeding them raw eggs might lead to egg eating. Whether it can or not would depend on how they were fed.

Some things can be harmful to them, even in small quantities. That's not my point. My point is that you will read a lot of conflicting info on here. Sometimes it helps to ask them why they say certain things but I don't have a good way to get around that. You are on the internet. You can get a lot of good info on the internet but you can also be misled. Solving that is way above my pay grade.

 

[saysfaa]

Get used to getting conflicting advice on this forum. It happens all of the time. Some of it is just different opinions. Some of it is misinformation often based on something read on this forum. Some is a misunderstanding. ...

What Ridgerunner said. And sometimes neither is misinformation. Each can be correct even though they are conflicting - depending on how much (like the dosing or washing a chicken seldomly like for a show vs every time it rains in a rainy climate or washing a whole chicken vs just the feet). Or other sorts of contexts.