Marvin Weber

Many of my fruit trees are showing signs of sickness. They were planted four years ago and have been showing these signs for several years. I see it especially in apples but also in plums, pears, even the invincible sea buckthorn.

Any ideas what is causing this?

1. Pesticide residue in the wood chips or leaves that I used for mulch?
2. A trace mineral deficiency? I do test the soil and haven't noticed any serious deficiencies in the minerals I tested for.
3. A disease of some sort?
4. An insect pest?
5. Something I haven't even thought of?

Scott Leonard wrote:And not to overly obviate the point, I've never had an egg breakage  issue

Scott, I have had several flocks of commercial debeaked hens that ate their eggs.  Once they learn it they find a way to crack those eggs. I think it always starts when they are stressed, such as from over crowding, or a deficiency in their diet.

Salt is important. Probiotics can help, either from fermented feed or fed as a powdered additive.

When they really get in the habit they even manage to get some eggs from our roll-out nests.

The main line of defense for us is to avoid the stressors. Also, I highly encourage the idea of culling the offenders if they can be identified, and selecting for those that are not as apt to eat eggs.

There is a lot of confusion around the term "chicken tractor".

As was already mentioned, portable floorless poultry pens were used for many years before this term came into use.

Andy Lee and Pat Foreman wrote the book called "Chicken Tractor" to advocate using a floorless pen in a garden to allow chickens to do tillage--instead of using a tractor. That's why they called it a chicken "tractor". That usage is the only way the term makes sense. It's not a tractor when used in backyards or pastures. Joel Salatin's term, pasture poultry pen, would fit better in such a case.

A tractor is technically a machine that pulls, using traction.

So, pasture poultry shelters have been around for years, but Andy Lee and Pat Foreman wrote the book to promote use of these pens in gardens. It seems somehow, the wrong term got attached to pasture poultry pens in general.

After reading this thread, I rushed to the health food store and got some roasted organic pistachios.

However, after some more research, I have come to realize that it may not be such a brilliant idea after all.

For one, apparently the original pistachio study that was spread around was done in Iran, a pistachio producing country. and nobody has been able to find nearly the same high levels of melatonin in pistachios since then.

Also, roasting can reduce the levels of melatonin. So raw would have been better. But I would still have to eat a lot of pistachios to get anywhere close to a 3 mg dose. Also, nitrites added to the nuts would prevent sleep, so make sure to get untreated ones.

Many foods do contain melatonin, but probably not in high amounts. Might be more effective and healthy to get the natural version, though. So I'm not giving up yet.

I did see a paper which suggested that cherry juice did increase the quality of sleep in one study. Here is that paper; the sleep discussion is about halfway down, at 5.1: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308814624018223

Somewhere else I read that the cherries would have to be raw, and juice wouldn't be effective. So I think we must be still in the very beginning stage of researching this. In the meantime, it probably wouldn't harm us to eat some cherries, nuts, bananas and milk in the evening. So lets keep the citizen science going!

We have some Dominique chickens. They are a smaller American breed and are quite hardy and healthy. They do lay smaller eggs. We really like them; I would say they are an ideal all-around chicken with no big faults except for the smaller egg size.

I just found out about this new book by Florida Bullfrog, recommended by David the Good. I haven't got a hold of a copy yet so I can't give you a review. Here's an Amazon link. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1955289158/ref=sw_img_1?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1. By the way, don't buy from Amazon if you can help it... I just don't have another link at this time, but you can search for it. I always try to support smaller more local businesses if at all possible.

Brody Ekberg wrote:On to the issue now: we’ve got mites. Been battling them since last fall with differing degrees of success. I think some pullets we bought last fall came with mites and lice and we didnt know until they were mixed with the flock for several days. I know I should have inspected them before buying and then quarantine but I didnt and now here we are. I learned that lesson!

I am working on a "landrace" of hardy, mite-and-disease-resistant chickens on our farm.

There is a wide variation in genetic strength. I don't keep the non-thriving hens for breeding. I sort out the best layers and the healthiest hens in late winter for hatching our new generation. I also look for the older ones that have resisted disease for several years in a row, and are still laying. After doing this for about 4 years now, we don't have much trouble with mites or diseases anymore.

However, we aren't yet where we would like to be at for egg production over winter. We do depend on them making a profit, so we will continue to work on selecting for good winter laying.

If you get on Richard Perkins' email list, you can sometimes get his plans for free. His are built out of plywood and  are a good design.

You want to be sure to have a large enough opening so the eggs don't get stuck, but not so big that the hens can still reach through and eat the eggs in the roll-out tray.

Alternately you could, of course, buy a roll-out nest. My brother makes aluminum ones. I sell them on my website (for those located in Canada): https://www.bountywoodsfarm.ca/product/roll-out-chicken-nest/.

Could definitely be beech. Beech can have even rougher bark in some cases. Is it relatively light or heavy? Alders would be lighter in weight and have a much looser grain than beech. Is the wood reddish? Can we see a close-up of the grain?

I have carried the same Victorinox (Swiss Army) officer knife for 30 years. I have lost it a couple of times and found it again. Once I dropped it when I was up on a 65 foot silo, and it landed on the concrete. It survived the fall with only a little gouge in the plastic handle. Over time that gouge disappeared from wear. The blade is ground back to only about half the original width.

I use it every day for cutting something, or the flat screwdriver, or the corkscrew to grab things to pull them out, or the reamer to scrape or to drill holes in thin wood or plastic.

My favorite knife was a Colonial pocket knife (Providence R.I.) with a very high quality carbon steel blade, easy to keep an edge. But I lost it after a few years. I would buy one again, but I'm not sure that Colonial is still making regular pocket knives.

I would prefer a carbon steel blade that can be easily sharpened, although the stainless steel of my Victorinox is sort of nice as I don't have to worry about rust and staining.

I may have to consider an Opinel for the quality blade, although I wouldn't be a fan of the fat wood handle.