and more chicken tips

Coccidiosis doesn't have to be a problem for homesteaders who raise chickens. We used to buy 10 or 15¢ worth of permanganate of potash (the price is probably now about 501 or $1.00 for the same amount—2 tablespoonsful) and dissolve it in a pint jar of water. Permanganate of potash looks like freeze-dried coffee, only the crystals are dark purple. Once it's dissolved, you add just enough of the pint mixture to the chicken's drinking water to turn it a faint lavender. If you do this as soon as the chicks are hatched, they'll rarely get the disease because coccidiosis is actually a class of protozoan that live in the chicken's intestines as a parasite and the permanganate knocks them for a loop. Of course, if you wait until the birds already have coccidiosis, you'll have to use a stronger mixture of the permanganate and you may still lose a few chicks. It's better to use the potash as a preventative from the beginning. Any country drugstore should have it.

Chickens need grit. It goes into their gizzard and is what they use for "chewing" their food. Some soils just do not contain enough fine gravel to supply this need (the chicks will even pick up broken bits of glass in such cases) and you may have to buy grit for your birds.

From the point when pullets are almost ready to lay, and on throughout their adult life, they need some ground oyster shell to eat. This replaces the calcium that is pulled out of their systems to "package" the eggs, keeps the hens healthier and prevents soft-shelled eggs. Feed dealers have the material already crushed and bagged.