Feed Store Chicks: What Parents Need to Know

It’s that time of year again, when local feed stores and farm supply stores have tanks of little baby chicks out on display. I can hear their cute repetitive peeping from here calling me to take them home. While this at first may seem like a free petting zoo opportunity to some parents, the people who end up buying those chicks for food, eggs or to be future pets all while hoping that they will live, may think differently.

Here are some quick and easy guidelines for parents the next time you cruise through the feed store with your kids that will keep the chicks safer and the kids safer. For those who are familiar with chickens and poultry this is old news, but maybe it will help feed store customers that don't have chicken, or someone who is just getting into the 'rural swing' of things. It would be great, for the chicks’ sake if the stores that sell them would post something visible to this effect when the chicks come in but I have never seen it done (at least in my area).

Baby chicks are incapable of maintaining their own body heat.
That is why there is one or two heat lights placed over each container of chicks. These lights will always be hot to the touch, hot enough to burn the skin so mind the location of the lights. If your children must pick up the chicks, they should only hold them for a minute at the longest before gently returning the chick to the container. Not even a child’s body heat is warm enough to keep the chick from getting cold so the sooner they are returned the better.

Encourage the use of both hands for lifting and holding with one hand supporting the feet or bottom. 
Never pick chicks up by the head or neck try scooping them up with two hands.   When returning the chick to the container encourage your kids to gently set them down on the shaving – even letting go of them a few inches above the container can be shock to a baby chick.

Supervise closely and be ready to catch the chick if your child is surprised by movement or by poo and drops the chick. 
It is a fact of life that baby chicks, like baby humans just “go” when ever the need arises and that could be in your child’s hands. Chicks squirm when frightened and being picked up by any human is frightening. Chicks also have no depth perception at this newly hatched age and have no idea how far off the ground they are – a fall from even a child’s height on to a cement floor could kill a newly hatched chick or stress it beyond recovery (meaning even if its still alive when you put it back – it may die later).

Petting is usually preferable to holding, for the chick. 
Try encouraging your child to use one or two fingers to gentle pet baby chicks. Since young children are still developing fine motor skills and dexterity not only is this a good exercise but also it will help keep a wayward hand from inadvertently smashing a chick.

If the chicks are sleeping encourage your children to visit a different container.
Baby chicks, like baby humans, need lots of sleep to grow. Allowing the chicks to sleep reduces stress and will let them grow up into health chickens. If a chick is falling asleep in your child’s hands it’s time to put the chick down, this can be caused from the chick being too tired, cold and/or from stress. Some chicks that are stressed from constant petting and handling do not thrive and will be more susceptible to injury and disease while some others do just fine.

Wash hands after petting and holding chicks.
Salmonella can be found in chicken poo, all baby chicks fall asleep in their poo even if their container is kept super clean. So even if your child didn’t get pooped on they should still wash their hands with warm water and soap after petting baby chicks and make sure hands are kept out of the mouth. A case of salmonella poisoning could be serious or even fatal to a young child. While very rare - it has happened.

Image Credit MNN.com

It is not healthy for chicks to paint them. 
The colored chicks seen on TV and the Internet have actually been colored before they were ever hatched inside the egg with a special dye. Most consumer paints, dyes, and coloring that you have access to at the store are not healthy for baby chicks.

In general I disapprove of commercially dyed chicks as it encourages impulse and gift buys for kids (see below). Although I do see where doing so at a large farm would help identify breeds, types, and batches.

A baby chick makes a bad Easter gift. 
While it may seem like a tempting Easter gift – a baby chick will grow up to be a big chicken. Chickens can live to be 20 years old if conditions are right. They make plenty of noise, especially if they are a rooster, require lots of food, care, do not get along with dogs and will be messy - very messy. Chickens that are bought as Easter presents and then given away, when they grow-up, usually end up in someone’s soup pot despite promises to the opposite. While this is not necessarily a bad thing I am fairly certain it is not what you or your child intended.

Stuffed toy chicks make MUCH better Easter presents than live chicks – that is unless you are embarking on a whole new hobby of chicken keeping, in which case once you have a brooder, feeder and waterer in place - by all means get as many as you would like.

The future owners of these baby chicks thank you for being responsible attentive parents. Happy Easter and Happy Chicken Keeping! 


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Raising Your Own Beef

By Stephanie Dayle - via I.N.C.H. Survival

I wrote a guest article for the I.N.C.H. survival website. The link is at the bottom of this post.

Cattle bred for beef are amazingly hardy animals that can eat almost unusable pastureland and turn it into high quality protein for people. Homegrown beef is usually always healthier than its grocery store counter parts, because it is far more likely to be pasture fed and since most homegrown beef doesn't spend time in a feedlot it is usually hormone and antibiotic free. There are many benefits to raising your own beef.  

I grew up helping my dad with the cattle he raised, on average we ran 20-30 head of beef cattle every year and even now I try to keep as many as my property will support, as a result I have developed an educated opinion on the different methods of raising beef.  Keeping cattle is one of the many livestock choices a homesteader can make to secure a year's supply of meat and to take that extra step in self-reliance but it's not for everyone. Here is what you need to know about raising your own beef to decide if it's direction you'd like to go. 

Is raising cattle right for you? And how to get started...

-Click here to read the rest of this article- 

20 Cheap Tricks Around the Farmstead

By Stephanie Dayle

Here is a list of some top tricks that have saved me money and time around the farmstead. Most of these have become second nature to me so I had kind of a hard time thinking of them. Some of them are so farm kid 101 that I just assume everyone knows this stuff, but if it helps someone out its worth it. Do you know of another one that should be on here? Add it to the comments below to help others out! 

 

Make your own chicken waters and feeders. Simple poultry waters and feeders can be made for under $10 using repurposed materials. They work just as good as store bought ones at a fraction of the cost. Click here to for an article on how to make traditional waterers and feeders. Click here for and article on how to make nipple waterers.

Compost manure, garden waste, and yard clippings to add back in your garden later. It's cheap and more organic than fertilizer. Click here for an article on how get your own compost started.

                          

Install a drip irrigation system for your garden and fruit patches. It will pay for itself in one season and as a bonus it can be used in conjunction with rain barrels for off-grid watering. Click here for an article on how to do it! 


Toothpaste works great for cleaning horse bits or anything made of stainless steel around the barn.

Photo Credit: 1001pallets.com

Pallets are forever handy. A lot of lumber stores, give away used wooden pallets. Grab a couple and keep them on hand, they can be used in chicken runs during bad weather to give the birds an option to get out of the mud. They also work well keep hay off the moist ground, holding garden equipment and can be reposed into so many things.

Use wood burning pellets to soak up minor annoying puddles in or around the barn or the farmyard. The pellets expand and soon you will have a small pile of sawdust to sweep up instead of an annoying puddle or wet spot.

 

Those cheap laundry buckets you can buy at Walmart or Bi-Mart, are really Muck Buckets in disguise. Use them to clean out stalls or chicken coops, as stools to stand on, or put them in a stall or pen as an extra large water bucket. You have to refill these once for every 3 or 4 times you’d have to refill buckets. When they go on sale at Bi-Mart I can get them for $5 each.

Keep a used horse shoe or two that’s in ok shape after a farrier visit – throw it in in your barn, you may use it as an emergency replacement shoe one day. Even completely worn out horse shoes have many uses.

Keep a small stash of bailing twine around at all times for tying things up in a pinch.

 

Wood burning pellets can be used as inexpensive bedding. For poultry and other animals. They are more effective than pine shavings at absorbing moisture and keeping odor down, WAY easier to compost, they are considerably less expensive than shavings. Again turning into saw dust as they absorb moisture for easy clean up. Wood burning pellets are also cost less than the 'special wood pellets' made for animal bedding. You can, in fact, find 'pine only' burning pellets (see above picture) but a mix of hardwood and pine is ok too. Per EPA regulations there is no additives or glues in wood burning pellets. Click here to read an article on using pellets for bedding.

There are a few types of hardwood that should be avoided for use with animals but those woods are not commonly used in wood burning pellets. The concern I commonly hear about oak is a result of waste wood from furniture building. Oak used for furniture making is commonly treated with ammonia to enhance its appearance and prolong it's life. Oak treated in this way should not be used as animal bedding however, ammonia treated oak cannot be used to make wood burning pellets, so it is a non-issue.

You can open a hay bale with another loose piece of bailing twine: run one end under the twine on the bale (assuming you are dealing with bailing twine here and not metal straps or wire) grab the other in your other hand – saw back and forth briskly – the friction created will quickly create heat and burn/melt through the strap with a satisfying 'pop'. Simply repeat on the second piece of twine.

If you have to store a stock trailer outside park it on wood before the winter so it doesn’t freeze to the ground and so that it doesn’t sink in the mud and become stuck come spring time. This practice will also prolong the life of your tires.

 

To fight flies, and wasps around the barn, use simple homemade fly traps. Cut a plastic 2 liter bottle in half, flip the top upside down and insert back into the bottom half. Fill with a cup of fly attractant solution. Try diluting some cat food in water, old buttermilk, or some rotten meat in water as an attractant (do not use sugar or you will catch honey bees). Flies get in but they can't get out and drown.
It's important to get these traps set out in the spring as they need some time to ferment to work effectively, the worse they smell the better they work. Using organic attractant means if one of the traps breaks and falls (and the chickens eat all the dead flies - which they will) no harm will come to your chickens or any other animal that may get into the nasty smelling fly trap.

Olive oil from bulk buy stores (like Costco) works great for oiling and conditioning leather products, and is considerably cheaper than the chemical filled products you find at tack stores.

Get your work boots re-soled after you’ve worn them out – it costs a fraction of the price of new boots and will last you another couple years.

White vinegar can be used for a deep cleaning of moldy leather products. It will kill all mold spores. Vinegar will also remove buildup and stickiness on leather.

Listerine in a spray bottle is an all-in-one liquid cleanser use on horse bits or dirty hands, as a disinfectant or as a brace/liniment, it also works as a tail rubbing solution for horses.

Use old stock tanks that no longer hold water as chick brooders. They don't have to hold water for this purpose and they have steep tall walls - perfect for hatchling chicks


Knock sparrow nests down by spaying them with a tight steam of water from the hose – although keep in mind, if they are allowed to nest in areas that aren’t a fire hazard they are a great fly control system.

Pick up an old wool blanket – the thicker the better, from your local Goodwill store for a great livestock 'cooler'.' These blankets will soak up sweat after a heavy work out, during an illness, and they work great for wrapping baby goats, calves, and foals in. They work better than fleece and will keep livestock warm even when damp.

Again if you have some ideas of your own - add them to the comments section below! Hope these ideas help someone out there - they sure help me.

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How to Compost and Why

Post by Stephanie Dayle - via American Preppers Network

Compost your livestock manure.  Manure is a very valuable and underutilized resource.  It’s estimated that one horse can produce $175 a year or more in compost, with cattle doing a little better than that.  Start by using a cart attached to a tractor or ATV or you can even use a wheelbarrow.  Survey your property a few times each month, and pick up all the manure.  While this may seem like an unnecessary chore I usually wrap it in with another chore like, checking the fence lines or moving hay.

Combine that manure with any used shavings, straw, grass clippings, and other additional manure from stables or pens you may have, and form a compost pile.  You can make a large bin with lumber, cement or railroad ties to hold the manure, if you aren’t concerned about how a compost pile will look on your property or you can simply make a pile - making sure it’s located on flat ground to reduce run off .

Heat: Although the composting process will occur naturally over several months or years, with human help the entire process can be completed in as little as 4-6 weeks.  Four essential ingredients are needed: oxygen, moisture, and a proper Carbon:Nitrogen ratio.  When these components are present, the compost will heat up naturally to approximately 130-140º F.  This heat will kill most internal parasites and many weed seeds present in the manure.  If you are composting correctly, you won’t be breeding flies.

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Oxygen: The decomposition process takes place when particle surfaces come in contact with air.  To increase oxygen intake, turn your compost piles / bins as often as possible (anywhere from 3 times per week to a few times per month).  The more you turn, the faster you reach the end result. Turning the pile can be done by hand or with a tractor, in a rotating drum that you can build yourself, or in a bin that you can buy from the store.  This Increases the surface area by chopping, shredding, or breaking up the material speeds up the composting process.  If the compost lacks oxygen, it will have a bad odor - turn it more frequently.

Moisture: Your compost pile should be about the consistency of a well wrung-out sponge.  You don’t want it too wet and you don’t want it too dry.  If the compost appears too wet, turn it or add dry materials such as leaves or straw.  If it’s too dry, simply add some water.  Maintain moisture levels by covering your compost piles with either composting fabric or plastic tarps.

Carbon:Nitrogen:  Carbon and nitrogen are the two fundamental elements in composting.  The bacteria and fungi that break down the manure and turn it into compost are fueled by carbon and nitrogen.  The bulk of your compost pile should be carbon with just enough nitrogen thrown in to aid in the decomposition process.  Carbon is found in ‘browns’ (leaves, sawdust, straw, shredded newspaper, ashes, cornstalks) and higher nitrogen is available in ‘greens’ (clover, manures, alfalfa, garden waste, grass clippings, hay, seaweed, weeds).  If you have too much nitrogen, ammonia gas will be produced and you’ll notice a foul odor. The ideal C:N ratio is 25-30:1.  Below are some examples of materials that might be added to your compost and their corresponding C:N ratios.

Source Carbon:Nitrogen ratio

• Manure 15:1
• Dry Weeds 90:1
• Weeds (fresh) 25:1
• Cardboard 300-400:1
• Grass clippings 15-20:1
• Pine Needles 80:1
• Alfalfa 12:1
• Seaweed 20:1
• Vegetable waste/produce 19-25:1
• Garden Waste 30:1

• Leaves 50-60:1
• Sawdust 300-400:1 

• Wood chips 500-600:1 

• Straw, cornstalks 60-80:1

Locate your pile in a spot that tends to remain dry so that you can access the pile with equipment to turn it when needed.  To reach the proper temperatures, a compost pile needs to be at least 3 feet square by 3-4 feet high.  Composting in a bin decreases the size required for adequate temperatures, but involves more cost initially.

Finished Product: Photo by Kessner Photography

Compost piles are combustible.  Keep your pile away from housing facilities, and just like hay storage facilities, don’t allow smoking near your compost piles!  If a pile smells like alcohol, the conditions are ripe for combustion.  DO NOT add water at this time; instead, turn the pile to aerate it.  Your compost pile will cool off on its own and will be approximately 1/2 its original size.  Finished compost will smell and look like rich soil!

You can take this compost and use it on your own garden and save money not having to buy fertilizer, or you can sell it to your neighbors, or spread it on your pasture.  Livestock grazing on pastures spread with composted manure (instead of fresh manure) are more likely to graze normally and are less likely to restrict grazing to areas with the thinnest application rates.  Your pasture will produce more grass meaning you will have to buy less hay.

Handy Tip: To find buyers for your composted manure contact local topsoil companies, tree farms, landscapers, and organic farmers.  A sign out on the road will also help.  There's a good chance that you will need to deliver it to them but selling your extra compost can allow you to use that money for your critters - this allows them to earn their keep in addition to providing eggs, milk or meat.

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Stock Trailer Tips

 

Neat huh? This is why you ALWAYS, always, check your tires before you leave with the stock trailer. If I had missed this – it could have caused A LOT of damage to my trailer when it came apart - if my trailer were aluminum it could've torn my whole fender off, I've seen that happen.

Preparedness Plans for Animals

By Stephanie Dayle - via American Preppers Network

If you own animals, you need to have an emergency plan for them too.  Leaving your animals at home with extra food and water is NOT A PLAN.  Not only does it put them in danger but it endangers the lives of people who might try to rescue them.

If you have pets or livestock, you need to be able to keep track of them, care for them, feed them, and protect them during an emergency, even a LONG TERM emergency. If you can’t do that, you don’t need them. This sounds harsh but reality is sometimes.  You need to think ahead with plans for water, food and evacuation.

FOOD

Owning horses, chickens or other livestock means you always should keep enough hay or feed on hand to feed them and make it all the way through the winter until the next growing season.  You also need a way to get water to them if there was a long term power outage.  This is the only way to completely protect them from anything that could affect the area’s supply of feed and water.  For preparedness purposes avoid the bad habit of buying a ton of hay or a bag of feed, using it, then running to town to buy more only when it's gone.  What if there was no hay available in town or anywhere else near by?  Instead, get into the habit of having a large supply of feed that you rotate by using the oldest first and putting the new stuff in the back.  You would continue buying new feed to replace what you just used, but you would have a large supply on hand at all times.

Don’t be to concerned about it going bad, most livestock feed will last at least 6 months if not longer when stored properly, most commercial dog and cat food will last up to a year if not longer.  If you can’t afford that much feed or don’t have the storage space for it, you might consider reducing your herd or adding storage space so that it meets the demands of at least one winter for all of your animals.

The only exception to this would be a butchering plan.  With livestock, such as cattle meant for beef, it is possible that if faced with a draught (such as ranchers in Texas and the midwest recently faced) or a food shortage, the animals may be butchered at an earlier date than originally planned.  This may not produce the best meat, but it would prevent any suffering on the animal’s part.  Euthanizing your animals should only be a last resort.

Other animals need a back up food supply too.  Cats, dogs, birds – no one wants to run out of food right in the middle of a crisis so have at least a 3 month supply if not more stored at home (we have at least an eight month supply on hand a all times).  In fact, you may want to store it with some travel bowls and a pet first-aid kit so that if you, your family, and your pets ever have to evacuate, it’s all in one spot easy to grab. Click here to see a GREAT article on how to store pet food for emergencies!

EVACUATION PLANS

Let’s say you live in the city with a few dogs and a hurricane is headed your way.  Evacuation is mandatory, and disaster is imminent.  Here is how you could be prepared and make a plan.  These plans may not work for everyone, but I hope they give you some ideas and jump-start your own planning process.

Plan A – You have pre-scouted some “pet friendly hotels” in a small town several hours from you.  Knowing that the hotels will fill up exceedingly fast, you call ahead and secure a room, you leave town WITH YOUR PETS as soon as possible so as not to get caught in grid lock risking the loss of your room.  This doesn’t take long since you keep their first-aid kit, stored with some extra food and travel bowls in your laundry room.

 If they are taking cards, use one that you leave cleared off for “emergencies only” or better yet a pre-paid cash card, as you may need the real cash you have for extra food or whatever you left behind.  While you were planning, you also wrote down the numbers of the local urgent care center, the local vet office, and a doggie day care center. You grab your own emergency kit (and your family’s if you are evacuating with others) with your pet’s kit remembering to grab leashes and poop bags, and important documents. Next you pile your family and your dogs (in their crates if they will fit) in your car, and hit the road with your tank nearly full of gas because as a prepper you stopped letting it run empty a long time ago.  You have a couple of routes to the small town in mind in case one route is blocked.  With emergency cash on hand to pay for a week up front, you arrive at the hotel to check everybody in.  

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This plan gives you a “base of operations” where you can assess the damage and arrange for repairs on your home or make other living arrangements if need be.

Plan B – You have family four hours away from you and have cleared it with them ahead of time that you AND YOUR PETS can stay with them in case of an emergency.  You repeat the above evacuation process and pre-planning.

Plan C – You don’t have any family nearby and can’t afford a hotel. You can still figure out where local rescue groups will be setting up temporary animal shelters for the disaster, you pack up and take your pets there knowing most “people shelters” do not allow pets.  You arm yourself with vaccination certificates, photographs and any ownership papers to prove that you do in fact own these dogs so you can claim them when the disaster is over.  After you drop your pets off at a shelter you and your family will go find a shelter that will take all of you as a group.  Hopefully you will pick your animals up at the shelter when you are allowed to return home.

Evacuation plans also need to include livestock, and somewhere for them to stay with food and water until you’re home is safe again.  If, for example, a wildfire is threatening our place, I would take my horse and all the documents I need to prove ownership, to either my friends place 10 miles away, or my parent’s place 60 miles away.  I have discussed this plan with both parties and have permission to drop him off at either location in case of emergency.  My truck and horse trailer is in good working condition, and my horse is completely trailer broke, meaning he will load up in a horse trailer and unload for anyone (all “must haves” for horses; slacking on trailer training could endanger their lives and the lives of other people).  If I were to be at work when disaster strikes I may not be able to get back to the house in time.  So our neighbor has permission to scale our fence, access a couple of hidden spare keys, and has agreed to throw Pat in the trailer and evacuate with him. 

Part of being a responsible pet/livestock owner means having a plan.  While I don’t expect anyone to use my plans I want you to start thinking about what YOU could do.  Tragedy strikes most often when we are flat footed.  Sit down today and start answering some of those “what if questions”.