Trace Oswald

I use Autumn Olive, Black Locust, and Box Elder extensively on my land.  Autumn Olive fixes nitrogen and the berries are delicious.  Black Locust grows fast, fixes nitrogen, makes excellent long-lasting fence posts, is a great shade tree, and coppices well.  Box Elder is the consummate wood chip tree.  It grows super fast, rots down easily, coppices beautifully.  I make nearly all my ramial chips from Box Elder and no matter how much you cut it back, or in what season, it recovers and grows back many feet in a year.

Dave Lucey wrote:Hey Trace.  Whereabouts are you?  

There may be ways to get it free, or super cheap, locally.  Do you need it skirted and washed or are you willing to do that yourself?

A couple of thoughts:
- Lots of backyard flocks have to sheer just for health and don't use their wool.
- There is always waste in any fiber-mill run, and it is a waste stream to them.
- Shearers dump the belly and britches when they shear and most shepherds throw that out.  (I use it as weed block, mulch, and fertilizer)
- If you can find a local fleece show, there will ALWAYS be people looking to get rid of older fleeces.
  - Corollary: Most fleece shows only want fleeces sheared in the last 12 months, but out in the parking lot folks will unload their older fleeced cheap to get them out of their barns.

In my neck of the woods, this is the busy time for shearing.  We want to get the fleeces off before the ewes lamb.  Raucous, playful lambs are hard on a mom's fleece.  It started in February and will run through April/May.

This makes me think that I should go find a 'what to do with all this wool' thread.

I'm in WI.  I actually emailed a sheep farmer yesterday that is only a couple hours from me and she said exactly what you mentioned.  The belly fleece and fleece that has vegetation stuck in it, she loads into her truck and dumps it in a ditch.  She said I'm welcome to all of it for free.  For insulation, I don't think I would bother cleaning it unless it was really filthy, and if that's the case, I would probably just compost that part of it and dig through for some that is relatively clean.

Matt McSpadden wrote:

My concern though, is if there is a failure... are there other places that are getting close?

I think you might be better off redoing all the silicone so its all the same age...

This.  I've resealed many an aquarium, and it's exceedingly simple.  Scrape all the old silicone off, clean the glass sparkling clean (salt mixed with a very little water works great and you don't have to worry about leaving any chemicals in the aquarium that can hurt your fish), put a nice even stripe of silicone on, and use your damp finger to smooth it and press it tightly into the corner.  You can easily redo that aquarium in about 30 minutes I'm guessing, and even if you didn't need to silicone it it would need a good cleaning anyway, both for appearance and for fish safety.  Be sure to use aquarium safe silicone.

I don't know if it would be cost effective to ship, but I need sheep wool for insulation in the Layens bee hives I am building.  I would like to buy 20 lbs or so if that is possible for a reasonable price.

In my case, it's very easy to tell eggs are being eaten rather this being the winter slump.  I have two coops.  One of the coops has no egg eaters in it and I am getting between 6 and 8 eggs a day from the 10 hens in that one.  Many days I'm getting less eggs than that from my other coop that has about 35 hens in it.  The bedding in the nest boxes with the egg eaters has dried yolk in it, the wooden eggs have dried yolk stuck all over them, even some of the chickens have dried yolk stuck to their combs.  I think I have about 6 egg eaters.  I'll be dispatching those soon.  I'm curious how many eggs I'll have after that.  

Josh Hoffman wrote:

Scott Leonard wrote:

Why?

My understanding is that debeaking and decombing is typically practiced in feeding operations where the animals will be stressed and overcrowded. I believe this happens because they are looked at as "production units".

I imagine most people here would want to find out what is causing the stress and remove that factor if possible or cull if not, rather than the debeaking or decombing measure. I know I would and this seems to be the spirit of OP.

That echoes my thoughts exactly.  People smarter than I am say it is stressful, painful, and can cause long term discomfort, as well as just stopping a chicken from being able to perform "normal" chicken behaviors.  In addition, I dislike treating the symptom of the problem, and would rather try to find out what is causing it.  I've never had chickens with the kinds of problems debeaking is supposed to cure.  I don't believe my egg eating issue would be corrected by debeaking.  I think it probably came about by an egg occasionally being broken by being stepped on or what have you and the chickens just discovered they like the taste.  I didn't address it as quickly as I should have, and it became a habit that was picked up by more of them.  That's my thinking anyway.  Bottom line for me is, I think debeaking is cruel, and unnecessary for people that raise chickens in a happy, stress free environment with plenty of room, fresh air, good food, and clean water.

Thanks all for the input.  I'm going to pursue this in two ways.  I'm going to follow up on Matt McSpadden's solution of roll away nest boxes, partially because I like the idea of cleaner eggs and to help ward off future problems with egg eating, as well as culling the chickens I know are eating eggs.  I have a new "breed" that I want to work on anyway.  I have a blue copper maran rooster that mated with an easter egger hen.  One of my light brahmas made off with some eggs into my currently unused dog kennels and hatched a couple babies.  The hen that hatched is the most beautiful chicken.  She is black but shines a beautiful green color in any lighting, has really gorgeous black cheek feathers, and just a sprinkling of copper feathers on her neck.  She's a very friendly, sweet chicken.  I've decided to add a few of these to the flock, so as many as I end up culling, I'll fill back in with more of these.

Scott Leonard wrote:Are the birds debeaked? Having a blunt tip makes it very hard to crack shells, also make sure there is adequate water

No, they aren't debeaked.  Frankly, I would much rather cull them than do that.  At least I know culling is stress free, quick and painless.  I give them something that they like to eat and dispatch them with a .22 through the brain.

I've tried all the normal advice, wooden eggs, making sure they have plenty of good food/water/calcium, making the nest boxes darker with curtains, and I still have chickens eating my eggs.  Is there anything else I can do short of culling them?  As near as I can tell, I have at least a half dozen that actively search out and eat the eggs.  A couple of the peck the chickens that are laying to try to get them to move so they can eat the eggs.  I had a day off work where I just stood and watched to see who was doing it and I caught half a dozen that were going into the boxes and pecking eggs.  I separated them for culling, but my lady talked me into putting the curtains on the boxes and giving them one more chance.  Mistake.  They ate all the eggs again.  Worst of all, some of them are teaching the others to do it.  I'm ready to cull the whole flock and start over.  Anyone have any other ideas?  I hate to cull any of my chickens, but feeding 40 chickens and getting 7 or 8 eggs a day isn't working for me.

I don't know if any actual rust resistant type, sorry.