This message is from: "Cheryl Beillard" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Carol .. in response to your question about shoes, we have lots of snow and ice here and I shoe the horses that I am using, and do use the plastic inserts with the circle in the centre that fits between the shoe and the hoof .. they really do work .. the feet are clean all winter ..snow and ice do not collect and if it does, it pops out at the slightest touch. I am a big fan of this type of footwear, when you are at risk of slipping. re the chickens .. as someone who raised 1000 meat birds a year for 10 years, and until last week had always had a dozen or so lay hens too -- here's what I have to say. If you don't think you want to be woken at 4 am, then don't have a rooster. You don't need them to get eggs, of course .. but I liked them for the esthetics .. My husband and son admit to great relief that they can sleep in, now that I've offloaded our last flock on unsuspecting neighbours who wanted to "grow" theirs. We have kept ours in an unheated coop for years .. but it has meant that in very cold temperatures (minus 30+C) that their combs would sometimes freeze, esp. when they got water on them from drinking (water is another winter "issue") .. to avoid this I used to put vaseline on their combs and wattles every couple of days .. lots of feathers flew and it took a while, but I preferred that to being confronted with blackened extremities, ..toes are affected too. This is one reason why most people kill their lay hens every season and get starter pullets the next spring .. they lay more reliably of course, but I was very attached to several of my hens .. one Plymouth Rock in particular. Now that our herd of 5 (larger by 2 as of Friday! thanks once again to Julie Will) has taken over, in terms of priorities, I'll be glad to spend this winter worrying about them, rather than the chickens. And no one crows .. they just whiffle when we open the door and they think it's feeding time (which means every time you open the door).
