I may have finally found a cure for feather picking

[azygous]

Absolutely. The smell belongs outdoors. When I am making salves and oil tinctures, I use a crock pot and leave it in my garage for the 48 hours it takes to cook so I'm not living with it in the house for so long. One must be resourceful to avoid such discomfort.

 

[Loving my girls]

Sorry, this is not accurate.
Hemp seed oil is a different product than CBD oil. Seeds are not a good source of CBD, but they are nutritious.

CBD is sourced from the flowers and leaves.

"Cannabidiol (CBD) is a cannabinoid — a different class of natural molecules that get their name from being able to interact with our body's endocannabinoid system."
And CBD oil uses a carrier oil, because CBD molecules are fat-soluble.

Absolutely true.

A little gem of information …
Our neighbour recently started farming it when the rules changed over here in france.
The rules changed, yes, it is legal to grow it but illegal to process it so my friend had to deliver it i. His own vehicle to Switzerland to be processed. Then it had to be tested thoroughly before being passed to a registered supplier.
At the end of it I think he had enough profit for a can of beer.
He doesn’t do it any more

 

[Dominique King]

Does CBD oils help? My mother has a friend she trades bread and eggs with to get it.

 

[StinkyAcres]

@azygous, will heating the leaves as you describe cause the kitchen to smell like someone has been smoking pot? It's not an odor I enjoy.

I absolutely can't stand the smell. It's a lot like skunk to me. It's sickening being around people who have smoked it.

 

[azygous]

It tastes far worse than it smells when I use the tincture form. But chickens seem to enjoy or at least tolerate the taste.

 

[azygous]

A few words about CBD oil for the novices here. Extracting the oil from the leaves and flowers, requiring a few complex steps, produces a tar-like substance that is very highly concentrated. It's not easy to use in this form so we infuse the cannabis with a carrier oil. This in turn can produce much more convenient forms such as salves and ointments and lotions as well as tincture and oil capsules. I use both solid and liquid coconut oil as my carrier oil. But it's more convenient to let my chickens consume the decarbed leaves as eating leaves is more fun for chickens than trying to push the oil into them.

This way they self dose, and I'm betting this is more beneficial for them. But you certainly can find ways to dose them with the oil if you have no access to the leaves and flowers. But keep in mind that raw leaves and flowers have inactivated compounds until it's heated for the required length of time.

 

[SourRoses]

I absolutely can't stand the smell. It's a lot like skunk to me. It's sickening being around people who have smoked it.

The scents are caused by terpenes, the same chemicals that cause scent in other plants / produce. The interesting thing is cannabis has the genetic potential for producing many different terpenes commonly found in other plants! There are varieties that smell like pineapple, grapes, cookies, anise, vanilla, and banana.
There are also the varieties that smell like skunk, diesel, pine sol, bleach, etc. Those varieties became popular in the past as they coincided with strength and balance of THC / CBD. Sadly, young male smokers tend to prefer Skunky Indica types, so there's a lot of that out there and it may be the most recognizable of the cannabis odors.
Underneath these recognizable scents, there is a component of the odor that belongs to cannabis alone... but most people would find it inoffensive, and it doesn't have the power to linger.

Hemp comes in different varieties as well (as long as it's under 0.3% THC it is considered Hemp in the US), so it has a range of smells, but since that trait hasn't been selected for it can be very mixed.

 

[Sylvester017]

@azygous ~ TY for sharing. I bet this would have calmed a bully hen we had years ago that we sadly had to re-home.....

 

[Cheekychook12]

Not my experience the pecking is caused not by ‘run’ space but coop space.

Huh I hope that is the case because I’ll be building them a bigger coop with more nesting boxes
And it’s not one bully chicken either they’re all doing it
They often pick at each other when they free range which seems odd to me
The one at the top of the pecking order doesn’t have any feathers missing but she hardly ever picks at the others

 

[Loving my girls]

Huh I hope that is the case because I’ll be building them a bigger coop with more nesting boxes
And it’s not one bully chicken either they’re all doing it
They often pick at each other when they free range which seems odd to me
The one at the top of the pecking order doesn’t have any feathers missing but she hardly ever picks at the others

Excuse me if you’ve already said this but how big is your coop and how many chickens do you have ? Also how much roosting space do you have ?
It does seem weird.
Here comes by general question, have you checked them all for mites, lice and all things creepy ?