|
Imagined posted:Unrelated, I found a cool thing on Amazon that you can only really fully use (in the land of pre-washed eggs) if you've got your own chickens. My cat would knock that over in a heartbeat.
|
#
?
May 7, 2022 15:23
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 11, 2024 20:53 |
|
|
Imagined, that is awesome, i bet everyone loved that Joburg posted:My cat would knock that over in a heartbeat. i got one of those for my birthday last week and we're trying it out but i do have some fears of it being knocked over  that would be a real mess
|
|
#
?
May 7, 2022 15:32
|
|
|
You could epoxy the base to something heavier/wider if it's a concern, maybe.
|
|
#
?
May 7, 2022 15:45
|
|
|
I've looked at those, but in the end I just ended up with these (or something very similar) https://www.freewaypoultry.ie/product/plastic-egg-tray/ I always worried the eggs would bump into each other and crack.
|
|
#
?
May 7, 2022 16:44
|
|
|
the skelters are great for storing eggs, but it's kind of a pain for us to take them out again. The eggs won't crack from rolling like 2 eggs worth of space down, so that's the max amount you can pull out at a time. Duck eggs or especially big chicken eggs can get stuck partway up too, and you have to be careful dislodging them. Those plastic trays are great for horizontal storage, but stacking them upwards is a problem if you don't have very uniform eggs
|
|
#
?
May 7, 2022 17:13
|
|
|
We just do regukar old egg cartons in the fridge. Too wide a size variety in our girls eggs for anything fancier
|
|
#
?
May 7, 2022 17:20
|
|
|
ShootaBoy posted:We just do regukar old egg cartons in the fridge. Too wide a size variety in our girls eggs for anything fancier honestly this feels like the best or at least easiest answer for most circumstances. we only really switched to skelters because it made it simpler for us to deal with a relatively high volume in a small space while still keeping all the eggs in age order.
|
|
#
?
May 7, 2022 17:48
|
|
|
The only issue we had with keeping them in the fridge was keeping track of which were the oldest and needed to get used first. We'd tried writing on them with a sharpie but the sharpie wanders off or someone gets lazy even one time and the system breaks down. I worried that somehow an egg would get skipped over multiple times until it was finally months old and funky. In practice this never actually happened but still, I'd prefer to always use the oldest eggs first on general principle.
|
|
#
?
May 7, 2022 18:21
|
|
|
When I bring the eggs in in the morning, I just rearrange the tray so there's no gaps from where eggs have been taken away the day before and then put the newest ones at the end. Sometimes you want old eggs, sometimes new, depending on what you're doing with them, but I'm never getting more than 4 a day so volume is relatively low right now.
|
|
#
?
May 7, 2022 18:29
|
|
|
I do cartons in the fridge too. Georgia requires eggs to be refrigerated (but doesn’t require washing) if you sell them. I have separate cartons for chicken, ducks, and guineas so I have about 10 cartons in the fridge at any one time. It’s a bit annoying.
|
|
#
?
May 7, 2022 19:37
|
|
|
I have plastic egg cartons that I cycle through and wash after emptying. I have four 18-packs but we usually only build up to 25 or 30 eggs at maximum before eating them all up or giving some away
|
|
#
?
May 7, 2022 20:40
|
|
|
Ok, back on the egg express! Just got our new set of girls: 2 light brahma, 1 Maran, a gold laced Wyandotte and 2 very different appearing olive Eggers! They're in the house now, and just got introduced to the wonders of cooked egg. They weren't sure about it at first, just walking over it and eyeing it suspiciously. Then one brave soul started to peck and after a taste did the "I've got something delicious!" trill, ran away and all the others wanted in. Naturally they all ran after the first one, ignoring the egg right in front of them. So I did a little math and with those breeds we can expect 21 to 31 eggs per week. We don't use nearly that many! So freebies for friends.
|
|
#
?
May 8, 2022 00:35
|
|
|
MrUnderbridge posted:Ok, back on the egg express! Just got our new set of girls: 2 light brahma, 1 Maran, a gold laced Wyandotte and 2 very different appearing olive Eggers! We need pictures to verify this. Y’all, it’s broody central around here. I have 3 broody ducks, and now 4 broody chickens including one of my Leghorns! Two other chickens are making some of the pre-broody noises so they could go any day now. Fauna and Rose are both working on brood #2 for the year. Chick season is just the best  One of the three remaining duck eggs that I gave to the muscovies was hatching yesterday, I could see the side of it when I did a snake check in the duck house. It’s a few days early so I’m not sure how that will turn out… a farmer guy told me that snakes don’t like sulphur so I spread a bunch around the poultry yard in hopes that will repel them. I assume that’s what happened to the other 5 eggs that the ducks started with. Snake season is not the best.
|
|
#
?
May 8, 2022 11:52
|
|
|
|
|
#
?
May 8, 2022 13:48
|
|
|
Baby!!!
|
|
#
?
May 8, 2022 14:37
|
|
|
a child
|
|
#
?
May 8, 2022 15:48
|
|
|
I dipped from this thread for half a year, even so much as just lurking, because I had to get my birds re-homed in early December. I bought a house (first-time woo!) & closed on it at the start of November. It did not have a fence in the back, and we had a ton of other renovations to do to make it habitable. The good news was, my birds got rehomed to friends of the family where they could live the same good life they had with me- over half an acre for six birds to free range all day in, roomy coop to come home to, and school-aged kids eager to take care of some birds that enjoyed interacting with people. Mostly for treats of course but if that back door opened, they would run from wherever they would just to make sure. Still though, it was hard to crack this thread open and not feel depressed about it all. My wife has been working on the fence piecemeal, and has closed off half the yard in her free time. Last week she tells me 'just get some chickens.' At first, sensible-brain said no, we need the yard 100% closed before I do that. But after sleeping on it, the rest of my brain that has reliably succumbed to poor impulse control said 'gently caress it we're doing this,' and I ordered some lavender orpingtons & gold-laced wyandottes from a hatchery:  Of the 7 I ordered, one lavender and one wyandotte didn't make it. I called around, and one TSC a short drive from me had some 'cinnamon queens' just delivered that morning! 'Cinnamon queen' is an absurd upsell name for a rather mundane hybrid of RIR and RIW... but at least they're sex-linked and I didn't have to worry about cockerels. I got them all on Thursday, and this is them this morning! They're all absurdly eager hand-feeders, except for one of my wyandottes. She's a little aloof. She was also on the weak/lethargic side Thursday morning and I was emotionally prepared for her to biff it overnight to Friday. My wife and I spent some time with her giving her some water with a little honey in it, and before lights out on Thursday started drinking on her own. Friday, she was up & eating too!  While they're going to be very pretty hens, they're all super adorable little chicks. The markings on the cinns are neat! Bummer they're going to lose all that and grow up to be sorta boring-assed RIRs that look like they got dappled with bleach.
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2022 13:46
|
|
|
They're very pretty! Congratulations on the new flock, and best of luck with them! 
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2022 14:15
|
|
|
 Well, as of yesterday I'm no longer a chicken keeper. Venus died, we buried her, and I rehomed Jupiter. Almost all the chickens I've lost were either taken by a predator or died from what seemed to be congestive heart failure. Venus' legs were paralyzed, but her heart and lungs seemed okay. Local vets told us they won't see livestock, and livestock vets told us they won't see a single chicken. So I had to cull her by manual cervical dislocation myself. I think it was the hardest thing I've ever made myself do and I can't stop thinking about it, even knowing it was the right thing. I was terrified that I was going to gently caress it up and she'd be in pain. Instead it went flawlessly, and if I'm being honest, I wish I had done this for some of my other chickens instead of letting them die on their own. Still, I can't stop thinking about it, and I felt like a failure for my experience as a chicken keeper coming to an end this way. But it didn't end that way--the last task was rehoming Jupiter. I put Venus' body in the room with her so that she didn't just vanish never to be seen again. (I don't know how much difference this makes for surviving chickens, but it's recommended for other animals.) We converted our sunroom into a chicken hospital, so the last thing she did was perch up on a bench and lay an egg--onto the tile floor where it broke instantly. I snatched up the shell, but she ate the rest of it before I could even fetch a paper towel to clean it up. I think she's gonna be okay. I was so worried about finding a home for a five-year-old hen, and I was overwhelmed by the positive responses I got from the local community. In just a day, we found a home for her at a farm just a few miles down the road. They have an enormous coop that puts mine to shame, with an enclosed run bigger than my entire setup and a coop with a bunch of perches and nest boxes and hardwood floors. I expect she'll have no problems holding her own, and may wind up the boss of the run. They have horses adjacent to the run, and I imagine she's going to enjoy that too. Keeping chickens has been a lot of hard work, and some heartbreak, and a lot of fulfilling experiences that I never predicted nor even imagined. I didn't expect it to change me so much. And I would like to have chickens again, when we eventually move house to someplace we intend to stay for many years.
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2022 17:06
|
|
|
You have made the hardest yet best choices you could as the caretaker of these little feather-headed darlings. Venus was loved to the end, and Jupiter will flourish in her new surroundings -- what you've described sounds like an amazing new home for her. I hope your next chickens come along sooner rather than later!
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2022 17:24
|
|
|
Halloween Jack posted:
I was so busted up with what I had to do in December that I couldn't even post about it. It didn't even involve culling, and my prior 2 and a half years of chicken tending had very little loss or frustration. I definitely wish you the best of luck with finding a more permanent residence that lets you restart a flock!
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2022 21:26
|
|
|
I lurk this thread to learn about collective chicken experiences and for escapism. I have a neighbor across the railroad tracks who owns chickens, and I can hear them from my apartment. Would it be weird to knock on their door and ask about their setup and the kinds of chickens they have?
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2022 22:07
|
|
|
That Old Ganon posted:Would it be weird to knock on their door and ask about their setup and the kinds of chickens they have? Have you talked to them before? If not it might be a good excuse to introduce yourself, even if you save the Chicken Quiz for a later conversation. In These Difficult Times[tm] the more you can establish community with neighbors the better in my opinion. Especially people you can barter food with.
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2022 22:28
|
|
|
That Old Ganon posted:I have a neighbor across the railroad tracks who owns chickens, and I can hear them from my apartment. Would it be weird to knock on their door and ask about their setup and the kinds of chickens they have? it's been my experience that chicken owners love to talk about their chickens, i say you should go for it i stopped at someone's house -- not even a close by neighbor, some house a few miles away -- just to ask them about what kind of chickens they had because they were so pretty. we chatted for 20 minutes and i got an egg.
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2022 22:30
|
|
|
my cat is norris posted:it's been my experience that chicken owners love to talk about their chickens, i say you should go for it I was about to say exactly that! Folks that keep a small flock, like 4 to 12ish, are probably (foolishly) emotionally invested in the animals and will enjoy talking about them like an enthusiastic parent. I always enjoy talking about my chickens when asked.
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2022 23:38
|
|
|
I have a distant neighbor who was riding past on their 4 wheeler one day with their grandkids and stopped to ask about my goats. Now they come over about once a weeks to see the animals. Today they got to see the baby ducks  Sorry about your chickens, HJ. I’m sure Jupiter will have a wonderful life at the new farm.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2022 00:45
|
|
|
 “Don’t even try it, buddy”
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2022 02:20
|
|
|
I'm pretty introverted, but if someone stopped by to have a friendly chat about my chickens I would talk their ear off and probably give them eggs. Bonus: If you strike up a friendship with the chicken person they might ask you to watch them if they need to go out of town! That's always been a difficult thing to do with chickens.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2022 10:35
|
|
|
I'm a reserved person but love talking about my chickens with anyone and everyone who will listen (and then try to give them eggs). There's a wee toddler who visits her granny next door regularly and is too shy to even look at me, but I showed her one of my hens the other day because she heard one of them while she was outside playing. She was so stunned she didn't move or speak for several minutes, just stared wide-eyed at the burbling creature in my arms (who eventually fell asleep). Apparently she hasn't stopped talking about it since and tells everyone she meets about the fat chicken
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2022 11:18
|
|
|
 fingers crossed that they don't ALL hatch holy poo poo 25 eggs is a bunch +4 from my coop
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2022 22:50
|
|
|
all the babies 
|
|
#
?
May 11, 2022 00:09
|
|
|
 
|
|
#
?
May 11, 2022 00:58
|
|
|
god i thought she was dead. So dramatic!!!
|
|
#
?
May 11, 2022 02:55
|
|
|
my cat is norris posted:So dramatic!!!
|
|
#
?
May 11, 2022 03:45
|
|
|
freeedr posted:
i love her her too even though she had me really concerned there for a moment here are the chicks from a few days ago, trying to sleep until i rudely interrupted them  they've really started to get their little personalities (and feathers) this week and they are hilarious. one was playing keep away with a piece of bedding today, and i opened the crate door and let them tear around the room after each other. they had zoomies the rhode island reds are named Susan, Sigourney, and Sophie, but they're losing their head feather differences and i won't be able to tell them apart pretty soon i'm afraid. the australorps are Misfit (on account of her skull-like face feather pattern), Cherry Sweet, and Persephone. even when they lose their white feathers, i think i'll be able to tell them apart. Misfit is extremely chill, Cherry Sweet likes to sit on top of everything and i think Persephone is angling to be head chicken.
|
|
#
?
May 11, 2022 04:35
|
|
|
I honestly had no idea that chickens had so much personality and capacity for emotion before my wife convinced me that we should get the ones we have now. Every time I see their happy, impatient dance at the coop door when they see me coming to let them out, or watch them line up curiously behind me, chattering noisily, when I'm messing with something in the barn just in case it's food for them I experience the same feeling that I've heard people report when they see those videos of cows capering in the field after being released outdoors from months in the barn over-winter: "I didn't realize my food had emotions". Chickens are magnificent, ridiculous little critters and I feel blessed to have had the opportunity to get to know them apart from my dinner plate. Even if they haven't converted me to vegetarianism yet, they have at least made me acutely aware of them as beings and not just meat.
|
|
#
?
May 11, 2022 11:38
|
|
|
Imagined posted:I honestly had no idea that chickens had so much personality and capacity for emotion before my wife convinced me that we should get the ones we have now. Every time I see their happy, impatient dance at the coop door when they see me coming to let them out, or watch them line up curiously behind me, chattering noisily, when I'm messing with something in the barn just in case it's food for them I experience the same feeling that I've heard people report when they see those videos of cows capering in the field after being released outdoors from months in the barn over-winter: "I didn't realize my food had emotions". Chickens are magnificent, ridiculous little critters and I feel blessed to have had the opportunity to get to know them apart from my dinner plate. Even if they haven't converted me to vegetarianism yet, they have at least made me acutely aware of them as beings and not just meat. oh yeah, that's the stuff
|
|
#
?
May 11, 2022 17:13
|
|
|
Cute chicks! My chicks got to spend an hour in the introduction pen today. It was so sunny they had to come in so they wouldn’t get sunburned.
|
|
#
?
May 11, 2022 17:20
|
|
|
Joburg posted:Cute chicks! They are all ADORABLE!
|
|
#
?
May 11, 2022 23:04
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 11, 2024 20:53 |
|
|
is sunburn a concern when they grow up?
|
|
#
?
May 11, 2022 23:29
|
|