The Accidental Smallholder Forum

Livestock => Poultry & Waterfowl => Topic started by: Brijjy on February 11, 2013, 09:28:52 am

Title: Fed up to the back teeth
Post by: Brijjy on February 11, 2013, 09:28:52 am
with this sh**tty, wet, dank, miserable weather. I think I may need to re-home my Cochins as they are not loving the mud! I have tried putting all sorts of stuff down in their pen but the mud keeps re-appearing ever more quickly. I would just like a few weeks of no rain, it's not too much to ask is it?  :(
Title: Re: Fed up to the back teeth
Post by: colliewoman on February 11, 2013, 11:03:54 am
A Foot of bark chippings is the only thing that has worked anywhere for us hun, trying to get some more now for the duck pen. It's awful when you have to consider rehoming your stock because of the rain :'(
Title: Re: Fed up to the back teeth
Post by: happygolucky on February 11, 2013, 11:28:38 am
Horrid weather indeed, althought he suns out here....for a change  :innocent: :innocent:  I often thought about getting stuff from forests to sprinkle around....we do not have that problem but I have seen plenty of muddy chicken runs.....When we walk in the forest the pathways look nice and natural but often made from layers of chippings crushed and compounded...I would love paths like that rather than concrete slabs
Title: Re: Fed up to the back teeth
Post by: hughesy on February 11, 2013, 11:40:38 am
Duck boards made from pallet wood have kept our chickens from sinking into the mud.
Title: Re: Fed up to the back teeth
Post by: Marches Farmer on February 11, 2013, 02:21:03 pm
I use a mixture of rubbish hay and shavings - it makes a mattress you can just roll up and put on the muck heap to rot down. 

We normally curse our sloping ground (we're on a hilltop), but not this year.  If our ground is running in water I can't think how bad flatter ground must be.  Snowed here through the night, thawed a bit  and it's drifting down again now. 
Title: Re: Fed up to the back teeth
Post by: in the hills on February 11, 2013, 08:00:59 pm
Our land is on quite a steep slope but is a bog  :rant: . We have decided that as we lose our hens we won't replace for a while and will let numbers reduce and then keep fewer birds.


Everyone around seems to be in the same boat. Local farmers wife says shes had enough !!!! Even their gator is struggling to get through it. It's the worst they've ever seen it.


Don't know how my little pekins keep going. ::)
Title: Re: Fed up to the back teeth
Post by: Victorian Farmer on February 12, 2013, 10:52:03 am
This week end iv given 2 pares of geese and 7 ducks a way as people are so fed up with feed price and wether i dont think its good to over stock .iv got 2 big sales on in march and i dont think i will hatch eney more  nobody has bought chicks and no intrest . Sheep are at the lowest price again so not good .Ground to wet to plant and most people are eating food they dont no whats been put in the food .Not a good start .
Title: Re: Fed up to the back teeth
Post by: graham-j on February 12, 2013, 11:22:18 am
Hi,its the same from one end of the country,most of my land is on a slope ranging from 1:4 to 1:3 and its still under about 2" of water its ridiculous.I have got the geese,ducks and turkeys in some large pens in the orchard,the have no grass left.I daren't let them out,the ground is so wet they will wreck it in hours.The sheep have made such a mess at the top end of there field and the bottom has just turned into a bog.

Graham.
Title: Re: Fed up to the back teeth
Post by: Foobar on February 12, 2013, 12:43:47 pm
I've put down 4cm of sharp sand in our run, did it weekend before last, and it's brill.  No more wet feet for my girls.  This weekend just gone the garden turned into a lake again with all the rain, but the chickens were all safe and sound in their sand pit run.
Title: Re: Fed up to the back teeth
Post by: downtoearth on February 12, 2013, 07:13:12 pm
We've been quite lucky here, the weather this last week has been cold and we've missed the snow, just hard frost, so my girls are dry and happy.  For the moment!