Bruce's Journal

Animal Crackers work for our sheep (or at least some of them) but they won't touch apples or anything else we have tried.

Half of ny goats love apples and carrots, the others see unimpressed. They love BOSS. They get very little grain so they think that's a treat!

@luvmypets should know some Alpaca treats, she has some.

Thanks FEM... you just reminded me that I have a box of fudge brownie mix and 1/2 a bag of chopped walnuts up in the cupboard... Now I'll have to run out to the store and get some vanilla ice cream to put on them when they come out of the oven all warm and chocolaty & gooey and such <wicked grin>

Latestarter said:

when they come out of the oven all warm and chocolaty & gooey and such <wicked grin>

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Not nice.... But enjoy!

@Latestarter , that was MEAN.

@Bruce, about the chickens and winter. I was told that if you up the protein in the winter you will get more eggs and I do believe that they are correct. I just went back to game bird feed and after one bag my girls are starting to lay again. But the days are getting longer too, and molt is over so maybe just a coincidence.

If you increase the light to 12 hours a day they will lay. What I have done when I had free range hens was have a light on a timer that came on at 4 am and went off at 8 am. That way they "got up earlier, and would eat and drink some before I would let them out loose. But I did not put the light on in the evenings so they would go to roost as it started to get dusk then dark. It is too much of a drastic change to go from light to instant dark in the evenings. They wouldn't be on the roosts and then would fly around and get hurt trying to go up on the roost.
The extra protein will help a little bit, but it is day length that is the big deciding factor.
One other thing I do with the purebred show birds is feed a hot mash in the morning, a little soupy but not too much, like thick cake batter, and they get both the warmth first thing in the morning and extra water, they might not be drinking as much as needed. Don't make a huge amount of hot mash, you want them to clean it up. If they leave some, you can just add hot water the next day but don't keep it more than 2 days or it will go sour and they won't like it. Sour is different from fermenting.
Giving them some milk will also sometimes help some to increase laying.
When we were getting real cold temps, I would dump the waterers in the evenings so I didn't have to deal with frozen blocks in the morning and they don't drink at night while on the roost anyway. So the hot mash was eaten fairly quickly and then they would go get a drink of warm water on top of that. Increase water consumption....

Just last week my husband put another light up for me so I can see when I do chores. It is in the coop and is on maybe 2 hours a day, but it is at night. It is connected to all my outside path and barn lights so I can't turn it off individually. I wonder if that has helped with the eggs too. Didn't think about that until now. With those lights on there is about 12 hours of light.

frustratedearthmother said:

Doughnuts, cupcakes, fudge brownies, chocolate chips, whipped cream - dang I'm hungry!

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I believe we were talking about ALPACA treats I guess I'll keep working on this list but I am NOT going to buy them expensive things like raspberries and blackberries!!! Maybe I'll try squash, have plenty of Red Kuri and small butternuts in the basement. I wonder if they would want it in small cubes or shredded or .... And would they care if it was peeled or would they eat the peel. That goes into the compost bin.
http://www.gentlespiritllamas.com/html/tips/treats.htm

I know about light and laying but I choose not to force my girls given they will live out their natural (assuming not unhealthy) lives here. Might as well not wear out the egg laying machine. And it is kinda weird. I've heard they need 14 hours but in the past my girls have started back up in late Feb or early March well before there was 12 hours of natural. I held them at 12 hours last fall through winter thinking it might keep the older girls laying a bit longer in the fall. No good. But I didn't want to screw up the pullets so left them at 12 all winter. The older girls started laying again as they had before.

0 eggs today, I guess one of the two yesterday came early