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I think that usually 'swamp' means visible or exposed water somewhere.
But hey if it makes you happy to consider 'swamp' to be a place where you dig in the earth to find water; then I am happy to see that you live in a swamp in your city
swamp: a wetland often partially or intermittently covered with water; especially one dominated by woody vegetation (not be confused with a fen dominated by peat, a bog dominated by shrubs, a marsh dominated by reeds, or a muskeg dominated by tussocks).
BTW --> it is unwise to raise chickens in a true swamp unless you take steps to drain it, since constant standing water can cause infections and lameness in chickens. Given that we have a high water table in our area, and a layer of permafrost a few feet below the surface, there are areas of our property that can be quite soggy during Breakup (spring thaw) until the surface layers of soil thaws enough to allow for proper drainage. We will have to be careful to situate the barn above these low-lying areas and use gravel and mulch to keep the barnyard dry for our chickens and other livestock. Thank goodness that we don't actually live in or near one of the many muskegs that are common around the many creeks in Interior Alaska.
During the summer; when our goats are browsing in the forest, our chickens seem to be fairly happy pecking through the goat droppings and among the ferns. They get a lot of snakes, frogs and newts in this manner; and they lay pretty heavy.
The problem is that the clutches are mostly hidden. We find their clutches commonly already with 30 or more eggs in them, many will already have gone bad by the time we find them.
In cooler weather, or when we observe a fox in the area, we keep our chickens in their coops. Which requires feed. Living in a forest, we do not produce our own feed grains.
We have worked out how to get our grains for much lower prices then corporate pre-fixed feeds. But they still have to be bought and hauled onto our property.
Fortunately these grains are common to all of our livestock as well as to man; so stocking grain is not a bad thing. Grains are good for man and for beast [even though some folks may get squeamish at the idea of eating grain products that have never been in a corporate 'food' factory].
It is not really 'self-sufficient' since we do not produce the grains here on our land.
I do know people who do produce their own grains, without aid from petroleum. However I am not doing such at this time, since most of our land is forest.
For us, in our forest setting, I see no method by which we can raise chickens in a self-sufficient manner.
We have electric incubators and we setup electric heated brooders. Every spring and through-out most of the summer, we incubate eggs and brood chicks, to replenish our flocks. So we can cull in the early winter and keep our freezer filled. But this relies on electricity.
So we have been trying to get hens to be broody.
In our experience only a tiny portion of modern breeds will have any desire to brood. And commonly when they appear to be broody they will only set for a week or two, and then stop. They refuse to brood on a clutch for a full 21-days.
From our research it appears that natural brooding and mothering has mostly been bred out of most modern breeds of chicken.
We got a flock of Australorp chicks this spring, in the hope that they are still good brooders and mothers. But a fox showed up and ate them all. We got a second flock of Australorp chicks late in the summer, and we have kept them in a coop protected from foxes. It is our hope that next spring, we will be able to use these Australorp hens to brood for us, to allow us to move away from the use of electric incubators and brooders.
For us, in a forest setting, I see no method by which we can raise chickens in a self-sufficient manner. However we are attempting to approach to as close to that goal as we can get.
In our experience only a tiny portion of modern breeds will have any desire to brood. And commonly when they appear to be broody they will only set for a week or two, and then stop. They refuse to brood on a clutch for a full 21-days.
From our research it appears that natural brooding and mothering has mostly been bred out of most modern breeds of chicken.
F.B., we always had great success with crossbreed banties in brooding out new clutches of chicks, quail, ducklings, turkeys, and even geese. (Although we did take pity on the hens sitting on top of a single goose egg and substitute smaller eggs instead.)
They are fearsome mothers, highly protective and extremely successful in rearing their chicks. It was a sight to see when one of our most successful banty moms hatched out a clutch of eight ducklings and waited patiently every day by the pond as her "children" played in the water.
Try Old English, Phoenix, Silkie, and Cochin crossbreeds. I bet your luck will change.
Last edited by MissingAll4Seasons; 10-12-2010 at 01:59 PM..
We've also found that most modern breeds have been bred out of broody. I've talked with the folks at the co-op extension and they pointed me toward the heritage breeds, most of them are dual-purpose birds so you get a little less meat and little less eggs, but they are good foragers and tend to be very broody.
If you can get at least one good broody hen, like Cypher did, she will adopt (and sometimes demand!) day-olds as well as sitting a clutch you give her. My Mom-Mom had a buckeye hen older than Methuselah that saved herself from the stewpot because, even though she only laid 2 or 3 eggs a month, she was the most awesome surrogate Mom... she'd brood and raise everything from quail to turkeys, sometimes at the same time. She'd adopt babes year-round at differing ages and differing species... it only mattered that they had feathers and needed a momma. She was crazy-protective as well, no one ever messed with her babies!
As for grains in the forest, yes that does keep one from being 100% self-sufficient unless you can start growing some. Buckwheat and oats are supposed to grow fairly well in forest-type land if you don't mind harvesting with a scythe around the trees (assuming you don't want to clear cut for a field). We're going to be trying that out soon. Some of the grasses and legumes do fairly well for hay if you can thin out the canopy a little and don't mind hand-harvesting. Might not be as much as you'd get from a field or all that you might need; but it would be a start if it works. Another thing that they recommended for supplemental protein in the winter is worm bins, 3 or 4 big vermicomposting bins (rubbermaid tubs) is usually enough for a small laying flock (6-8). Of course, we don't have earthworms up here, so I'll need the bins just to be able to innoculate my garden and compost pile every spring, as well as supplement the chickens in the winter!
F.B., we always had great success with crossbreed banties in brooding out new clutches of chicks, quail, ducklings, turkeys, and even geese. (Although we did take pity on the hens sitting on top of a single goose egg and substitute smaller eggs instead.)
They are fearsome mothers, highly protective and extremely successful in rearing their chicks. It was a sight to see when one of our most successful banty moms hatched out a clutch of eight ducklings and waited patiently every day by the pond as her "children" played in the water.
Try Old English, Phoenix, Silkie, and Cochin crossbreeds. I bet your luck will change.
Thanks we will try next with these Australorps.
We have tried with Silkies and Cochins. In fact this summer we did finally manage to get one hen to be broody and it was a Cochin.
She was acting broody, but after two weeks on a clutch she abandoned it.
Then later was acting broody again, so we tried with a second clutch. After 25 days we took that clutch away. I think she was not willing to sit for sufficient periods of time.
She wanted to stay in her nest so I gave her a third clutch and from a dozen eggs she hatched out four and managed to get two of them raised.
It took her all summer to do it.
Last year our incubator was able to hatch out 20 out of 40 every 21 to 23 days; one group right after the next all summer long.
We've also found that most modern breeds have been bred out of broody. I've talked with the folks at the co-op extension and they pointed me toward the heritage breeds, most of them are dual-purpose birds so you get a little less meat and little less eggs, but they are good foragers and tend to be very broody. ...
This is the consensus we have seen among homesteaders on other forums.
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