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Nettle Soup posted:The battery hens came back into lay a couple of days ago, just got our first egg in months. Don't think I'm gonna be hatching this year, it's too much and not fair. Great to hear from you NettleSoup! Pictures of your rescue hens pretty please? Yes, you had your share of heartache last year with your hatchings. 
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Mar 3, 2013 00:28
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Nettle Soup posted:The battery hens came back into lay a couple of days ago, just got our first egg in months. Don't think I'm gonna be hatching this year, it's too much and not fair. Yeah, you had some unusually bad luck last year. It happens...  I just FINALLY joined BYC, after meaning to for years. Life was getting in the way of my chicken obsession.
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Mar 3, 2013 01:10
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I think it must be something in the air. The battery hens are fine, the old farm-bred hens are fine, but all the chicks we hatched ourself went west, apart from Conquest, who follows me to the feed bag every morning and then back. The battery hens follow me too, they'll even push their way inside if I leave the door open accidentally, they're amazingly soft and friendly considering their history. I'll take pics tomorrow when it's not dark... 
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Mar 3, 2013 01:21
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I need some advice about introducing our new chickens to the rest of the flock because I hear a lot of conflicting information. Our 4 new girls are currently in a smaller run alongside the main one so they've been able to see and hear each other for a few weeks now. But what's the best way to take the next step and put them all together? Some people have said 'just put them in the coop one night and leave everyone shut in for a few days' but that seems like it'd cause too much stress. I've read it'd be better to put the new ones in a large crate or something in the coop for a few days so they can learn it's their new home, but the old girls can't pick on them. Or could I just put them in the coop one night, let everyone out in the morning and they'll figure out to go back into the coop because the older girls do? I just don't want my parents to have to chase them around in the evening to put them to bed...
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Mar 3, 2013 21:28
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Customer Service posted:I need some advice about introducing our new chickens to the rest of the flock because I hear a lot of conflicting information. what has been working for me whenever I've introduced new chickens to my flock was to keep them separate from each other, the main flock outside the run, the newcomers inside, so they can see but can't really hurt each other. the welded wire cloth I use has openings big enough to their heads fit (live in an urban area, the backyard is completely fenced). After a few days I start letting everybody inside the run together, but leave a pet crate open in there so they can run around and hide if the new ones get chased around. I also put the new chickens inside the crate at night for a few days right next to the coop, so they get used being to their surroundings, and the flock gets used to having them present at night. I eventually just put the new chickens inside the coop once everybody else has settled for the night to teach them where they need to sleep. I just make sure I get up right at dawn to open the coop and let them out to avoid chicken drama. You can just try and dump them in the coop one night and let them wake up together, but from what I've learned watching my own hen hoes, there an be some hassle and fighting, and if your coop is on the smaller side like mine, you need to make sure you let everybody out as soon as the sun comes out so they can get away from the head chickens while they establish the new pecking order. Also I'd make sure to do a head count at dusk because some chickens don't follow the flock right away if they haven't spent much time sleeping in the coop. The two newest hens I have, pancake and waffle, still try to get into the house if I forget to lock them in the run with everybody else. Sometimes chickens get weird and decide they don't want to sleep in the coop and go roost somewhere else, like my henhoe tissue did for like a month. she kept getting on the avocado tree to sleep, and she's been a house hen since we caught her almost a year ago. Chido fucked around with this message at 22:47 on Mar 3, 2013 |
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Mar 3, 2013 22:42
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Customer Service -- Yeah, what Chido said. When you put the little ones in with the older chickens, please provide a place (like a small animal carrier, or a small wooden box) where the little ones can get away from the adults. The chicks will be chased around the first few weeks until the pecking order is established but they need a safe place to temporarily get away from the cranky older chickens. When VS was keeping last year's Chickam chicks inside the house, she had to introduce two much younger chicks to the older chicks (there was like a three-week age difference, which is a lot for chicks). Naturally, there was a lot of pecking and chasing at first. VS had a table and a couple of chairs (with foot rungs) in the corner and the babies would run back there to hide for a few minutes since the older chickens couldn't get back under the chairs very easily. The younger chicks got really good at running and dodging. 
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Mar 4, 2013 00:27
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Customer Service posted:I need some advice about introducing our new chickens to the rest of the flock because I hear a lot of conflicting information. How old are the youngsters? If they are two months old or less, youngsters that age don't yet have the savvy to recognize body language & vocal warning cues from the older birds, nor have they learned the pecking order. Your older girls will school them, and sometimes school them hard, but it'll all work out in the end. You may have to step in from time to time at first to break up bullying, but it'll get smoothed out eventually. Here's how I do Meet & Greets when introducing new flock members: http://jackshenhouse.com/VSChickIntroducingNewBirdsToFlock.htm And the last section on this page: http://jackshenhouse.com/VSChickHensBroodiesChicks.htm Jealousy and injured feelings are a fact of life with adult flock members when new kids are introduced, especially when it comes to 'their' humans. Make sure to praise & reward good behavior (when big ol' Betty is just standing there and NOT thrashing the newcomer nearby, that qualifies), it helps reinforce it and the older girls will catch on.
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Mar 4, 2013 02:40
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Random cute chicken pic:
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Mar 5, 2013 14:46
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There was a roo perched on my fence today, yelling at us to get up. The dogs were goddamn fascinated. I went to catch him and pitch him back in the neighbor's yard, but by the time I grabbed gloves he had already disappeared. I thought chickens were fairly slow. 
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Mar 5, 2013 15:04
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Good lord ducks grow fast.
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Mar 5, 2013 15:31
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Fluffy Bunnies posted:There was a roo perched on my fence today, yelling at us to get up. The dogs were goddamn fascinated. I went to catch him and pitch him back in the neighbor's yard, but by the time I grabbed gloves he had already disappeared. I thought chickens were fairly slow. They can be really hard to catch, I had to buy a live trap to catch thee three henhoes that used to sleep on a pine tree outside. It took us a couple of months I think to catch them all.
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Mar 5, 2013 16:10
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unprofessional posted:Good lord ducks grow fast. We need some proof 
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Mar 5, 2013 18:26
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Greycious posted:We need some proof I also demand a side-by-side photo shoot with the chicks. For science, you know.
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Mar 5, 2013 21:03
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Got a sick baby in my arms who is taking all my time right now. Soon.
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Mar 5, 2013 22:32
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Hello all. We just got four chicks, and it was suggested I come here for some guidance. Here are the ladies:  and a better group shot:  We got 2 golden sexlinks, a Faverolle, and a Blue Andalusian. The yellow (not gold) one is the Faverolle. They're lovely, and positively deadly to small squirmy creatures. I put a cam up as well, at the request of the Oregoons - http://www.ustream.tv/channel/13547039 So far, so good. We've got a coop, we just need to build it. We've got a couple acres of land, but it's heavily wooded and we have a lot of random neighbor dogs as well as our own dogs and cats to worry about. I think we're going to try to build a tractor-style coop with a portable run so the girls can move around to different spots safely.
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Mar 6, 2013 05:48
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Lynza posted:We just got four chicks, and it was suggested I come here for some guidance. Oh my! So cute! And their little wing feathers are already coming in!  I'll have to check out your webcam tomorrow! Thanks for sharing!
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Mar 6, 2013 06:21
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They have so much personal character, I wasn't expecting it, really. But they all have names - The golden with stripes on her back is Lily The golden with no stripes is Rose The black one is Dahlia The Faverolle is Daisy Rose hangs back while the others do tug o' worm. Dahlia almost always catches a cricket first, but Lily usually ends up with it. Daisy tends to try to play the keepaway game, but she's a little older than the others, and I think maybe not as agile. I think Rose is smarter; she hangs back and looks where I dropped the manna from heaven. Usually there's a meal worm or red wriggler that the others missed, so she gets to hang out and eat her snack without having to fight for it. I wish I could get a better picture of Daisy's feathery legs. 
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Mar 6, 2013 06:43
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Baba is still bald and no sign of growing new feathers on her back yet, but I think giving her extra mealworms, grapes, ham, and egg has broken her tiny brain. Now she looks at me expecting to get something, and today she was looking at me the same way Waffle does when she wants to jump on my shoulder. I knelt and Baba jumped on my shoulder, and she's never done that before! She lets me grab her and because it's cold today again, I tucked her inside my zipped hoodie and she just dozed off, didn't struggle or anything. she was never like this before
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Mar 6, 2013 08:10
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Mallory is very calm, which is nice: As is Lana:  Archer, however, like his namesake in an rear end in a top hat. I spent about 15 minutes getting him back into the run: 
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Mar 6, 2013 15:29
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Those are ridiculously nice photos of beautiful chickens!
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Mar 6, 2013 16:49
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Raikiri: Your chickens are gorgeous! What breeds are they? Archer was just having some fun.
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Mar 6, 2013 17:44
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Mallory looks like an Andalusian - that's what my Dahlia will look like when she's older So what do you seasoned pros think - I think we should find a rooster chick and raise him with the ladies now, but if that's a terrible idea, maybe not. It just seems like raising them together would make transitioning them much easier. With a strange rooster there would be some stress upon introduction. What do you guys think?
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Mar 6, 2013 19:43
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So we thought that we'd have to get rid of our 4 hens when we moved this coming summer but we just found a place to live for next year (and hopefully 2-3 years after that) and the landlady is cool with us having the chickens unless the neighbors decide to complain. Which I'm not too worried about as we're in much closer proximity to the neighbors at our current place and haven't had any issues. She's still got a little while in which she could change her mind but we've discussed it twice now and she seems completely on board so I think we'll be good to go. Really excited that we won't have to say good bye to them this summer!
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Mar 6, 2013 22:28
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I made another feeder for a friend. She's actually studying veterinary sciences at Univ of Florida and will be shipping out to Michigan this summer to get some kind of poultry inspection certification. Her little brothers have chickens here at home so I thought they might enjoy this.
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Mar 7, 2013 05:32
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Raikiri, your birds are adorable and so tiny! What breed is Mallory (my guess would be some sort of Ameraucana/easter-egger)? I sort of love her. Lynza: Andalusians have much bigger combs, very showy wattles, no beard, and iridescent blue earlobes! They're also a lot sleeker, being a Mediterranean breed. They also lay white eggs, which was a surprise to me! Here's my Inara:    As a wee pullet, and two from last fall, roughly how she looks now. She's noticeably smarter than the rest of the birds (followed closely by my Barred Rock), much flightier, and a VERY good forager. I'm told these are general breed traits, so prepare yourself! She's also at the very bottom of the pecking order. Go figure. Also, you're in PDX, right (I lurk the YCS thread, not actually stalking you)? Once your ladies get older we should totally have an Andalusian playdate. Regarding roosters: Make sure you really do want one. Read all of Velvet Sparrow's writeups on how to properly interact with them, do lots of research, and get that poo poo DOWN. My man and I both tried everything we could to get a good working relationship with my roo, but no matter what he remained constantly confused and stressed and angry and dangerous (I think, in retrospect, we started too late and weren't consistent enough for him). When he started going for the eyes, and when we had to move into the city (constant hollering is frowned upon in the suburbs, who knew), his time was up. The fact that he hightailed his own sorry rear end to safety instead of protecting the flock when a motherfucking hawk landed in the run didn't do him any favours, either. I'm now confident in my inability to keep roosters now, so have no plans for more in the future. Please consider that this scenario is a possibility! Anyhow, an update on my birds: Wexter the roo was had for Christmas dinner, and was delicious. The differences between him and store-bought birds was really surprising. He tasted more... complete? and had a fuller flavour, he was MUCH more sinewy, and his bones were extremely well-developed (thank you, layer feed). Store-bought bones get soft and chalky and chewable when you boil them - his stayed completely SOLID. They were also more filled-in; his pelvis was a solid piece with none of the usual holes or gaps. Really interesting! The actual butchering was horrendous, and if I ever have the occasion to do it again, I'm using an axe and NOT a knife.  Thankfully my BF stepped in as I started panicking and got the job done. Before we started, I thanked Wexter for his services and apologized profusely. I hope he understood in that little pea-brain NMS: I tried the soft-palate option, IT DIDN'T WORK. We had a freshly-sharpened knife as a backup, and even then it was too dull to slice his jugular. My man started sawing at his neck as I was yelling "PULL IT OFF, YANK HIS HEAD OFF JUST TWIST GO GO GO" RIP Wexter.  The poor girls (particularly the lowest two in the pecking order) mourned for a bit over a week. It was heartbreaking. After that, though, life got a lot more pleasant and we get along much much better now that there isn't constant roo-stress riling everyone up. Also, it turns out he was a little non-foraging piggy. Immediately post-cull, their food consumption HALVED. 17% of my flock was eating 50% of the food.  We've since moved into the suburbs (oh god no), and the sweet little next door neighbour loves the birds and hangs out with them and tosses them bread. He's trying to convince me to get bees, but that's going to wait until I actually buy a house. Inara and Boogers (Andalusian and Australorp) started laying this spring, too! it only took them like nine months to start, the little troublemakers.Question: Chipmunk my Welsummer (ostensibly my most cold-hardy breed) stopped laying, 100% completely, last fall. She hasn't laid a single egg since September - is this normal behaviour? Should I be concerned? She's not acting or looking ill or lethargic, and I'm not finding evidence of mites. The only oddity I can recall is she put on more facial feathers in November than the other girls, so maybe it's just that her body is optimizing for feather-production? Mid-February everyone else started laying again profusely (We went from 2 eggs/week to 4 eggs/day). Edit: I'm fairly confident she isn't hiding them someplace, either. All the egg-hiding spots were under the coop, and we didn't discover a stash of hers when we moved it to the new place. Muffy_the_Diver fucked around with this message at 06:17 on Mar 7, 2013 |
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Mar 7, 2013 06:13
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I'm getting hooked on this chicken thing. Not only do I want more chickens, I also want a pair of runner ducks to eat slugs in the garden, and a pair of turkeys for thanksgiving and christmas. I'm picky about the origin of my meat, last year I paid 120 bucks for a smallish local turkey. It was the best turkey I ever had but yeah, 120 bucks. (Switzerland is expensive!) Time to start badgering my long suffering wife.
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Mar 7, 2013 08:22
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Muffy_the_Diver posted:Raikiri, your birds are adorable and so tiny! They're all Bantams, she could be a blue Pekin or cochin but I'm not really sure.
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Mar 7, 2013 11:06
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Hey Bantaras. I do art for a living and love your feeders. How much would I have to pay you to make a feeder for me if I supplied the artwork? We're suppose to build a newer better chicken area this spring and I'd love a new feeder for it!
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Mar 7, 2013 15:38
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Muffy: Yes, I'm near PDX (in Banks). We should definitely get the ladies together! The girls seem to be doing well. One of my coworkers who has never owned chickens says they look "too hot" to him. Oooookay? Anyway, I now have a cricket colony started. I got a seed sprouter, also, which is awesome for them AND for me (god I love me the alfalfa sprouts). The girls really seem to prefer huntable items; crickets, meal worms, red wrigglers, etc. They do like dry oats, as well, but the things they have to catch are waaaay higher on the "OH GOD YES" scale for them. They still gruffle down on their feed, but I'm definitely a raw feeder at heart. I want them to eat as much stuff that they should eat as tiny dinosaurs - not what Ralston thinks they should eat because they've been torturing chickens in batteries forever.
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Mar 7, 2013 19:19
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Chido posted:Baba is still bald and no sign of growing new feathers on her back yet, but I think giving her extra mealworms, grapes, ham, and egg has broken her tiny brain. Now she looks at me expecting to get something, and today she was looking at me the same way Waffle does when she wants to jump on my shoulder. I knelt and Baba jumped on my shoulder, and she's never done that before! She lets me grab her and because it's cold today again, I tucked her inside my zipped hoodie and she just dozed off, didn't struggle or anything. she was never like this before The three hens that've been wandering down onto my parents' place will be in grave danger shortly. If they get into my grandfather's garden, he'll break out the squirrel shooting gun and that'll be the end of them. We don't know whose chickens they are, unfortunately, so I can't send my sister to tell their owner to corral them better.
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Mar 7, 2013 21:37
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Huge longshot here but any Oregon or Washington based goons interested in a trio of Bourbon Red Turkeys? The Tom is almost 2 years old and the hens are about 6 months younger. Came from a flock of natural breeding and brooding turkeys if that matters. Very nice birds but I got them to free range and after two of the original five got taken by predators I can't let them do that anymore and don't have the pen space to spare. Actual location is about 20 minutes north of Portland, OR if people are interested.
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Mar 7, 2013 21:56
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Raikiri posted:They're all Bantams, she could be a blue Pekin or cochin but I'm not really sure. Does she lay yet? I ask because she's got a pea comb and beard, which pekins don't have. Ameraucanas come in blue bantam, so that could still be her breed.
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Mar 7, 2013 22:30
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GabrielAisling posted:I dreamed about your bald chicken. I kept poking where her feathers should have been growing because I don't understand poultry skin. Then I fed her little bugs like from James and the giant peach. I really need to stop reading this thread right before bed. That's adorable . If you guys have live traps, you could try catching them... or make some chicken soup. chickens don't wander too far off from where they sleep I think, or at least the henhoes didn't when they were strays, so if you ask the neighbors and none of them claims them, then they might have been dumped there.
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Mar 7, 2013 22:38
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Bonster posted:Does she lay yet? I ask because she's got a pea comb and beard, which pekins don't have. Ameraucanas come in blue bantam, so that could still be her breed. Yeah, Archer is actually hers (hence the naming, if you happen to have seen Archer). We usually get 4-5 eggs a week from her at the moment.
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Mar 8, 2013 00:09
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Alterian posted:Hey Bantaras. I do art for a living and love your feeders. How much would I have to pay you to make a feeder for me if I supplied the artwork? We're suppose to build a newer better chicken area this spring and I'd love a new feeder for it! Hey Alterian! I've been selling them for $35 plus shipping. The materials come to about $25, and I add about $10 for the labor. I'd love to make you one! Can we show it off here when we're done? I've been wanting to make a feeder with a graphic of a chicken and her belongings tied up in a bandanna on a stick walking out. - (or maybe it should be a picture of a fried chicken?) that says: "If you don't lay, You don't stay" wish I could draw!
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Mar 8, 2013 02:45
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Muffy_the_Diver posted:
Oh God, your butchering story (the spoilered part) had me laughing my rear end off despite the subject. Poor obnoxious rooboy. How old is Chipmunk? Has it been quite cold/dark where you are now? When did you move? My hens took FOREVER to settle in and properly come back into lay when we moved...months, really. This will be their second Spring here and I hope they have all gotten their poo poo together. The changes, not only in the actual stressful move but also in losing their Head Roo (Phoenix), Weedcat becoming new Head Roo, their new coop, surroundings and the new altitude/climate really screwed them up, poor babies. Not to mention the changes in things like wildlife, night noises, SNOW (didn't know chickens could express 'WTF?!' so well), etc. Chickens HATE change. Also, are your nest boxes to her liking? Make sure there is plenty of straw of other nest material, sometimes just adding a bit more does the trick. My hens prefer the dark 'hidey-hole' type of nest (with curtains) so they can feel like they are hiding their eggs in privacy & safety.  I actually just replaced the worn-out black landscape cloth curtains on the nest boxes today, the hens were ALL excited and couldn't wait to jump in, the roos were kept busy escorting them.  Hoping to convince someone to go broody and be a Chickam mama.Lynza, beautiful chicks! I'm going to climb on my usual soapbox and urge you in the strongest possible way to build freakin' Fort Knox to house them in when they go outdoors. If you use a chicken tractor make SURE they are securely buttoned up in a secure coop at night--predators have all night to get a chicken dinner and can be VERY determined and crafty when it comes to getting at your birds. I've heard far too many horror stories from people who come out in the morning to a massacre. I've got a chicken info site here with tons of stuff that may help: http://jackshenhouse.com/ Velvet Sparrow fucked around with this message at 10:26 on Mar 8, 2013 |
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Mar 8, 2013 10:13
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Awesome, thanks VS! I remember the first Chickam and I hope I'm doing a good job so far. My dad and my husband are going to be in charge of designing and building the run/tractor. What I'm thinking is that they will have a coop for nighttime (it's all wired in, we'll be putting a horse stall mat beneath it so nothing can tunnel in), and then we'll have a portable-but-ironclad run they can use to range during the day. Does that sound like a workable option? We're literally in the middle of the woods. We have neighborhood dogs, raccoons, and coyotes. I saw a coyote about a quarter mile from my house just yesterday, actually. My main issue is whether we can get them into the run and then move it. I guess if we hardware cloth'd the bottom we could just lift it? I'm holding the girls a lot so they get used to being lifted, but it'd be nice to know that moving them between coop and run will be not a giant festival of drama. Also: I am now raising crickets and meal worms. In a month or so, if you're in PDX and want either of those things, let me know and we can hook you up.
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Mar 8, 2013 20:10
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Lynza posted:Awesome, thanks VS! How heavy duty is the horse stall mat, can it be chewed through or pried up/squeezed under? Can it warp over time and create a ripple large enough for mice/rats? Raccoons are particularly clever and obnoxious, what they'll do is reach through wire (anything with openings big enough, like chicken wire or the stuff with the large rectangular openings) with their little hands at night, grab a sleeping chicken by the wing and then hold it while they eat it's back out. They leave the chicken alive and suffering horribly. The next night they bring their friends and do it again. Also, disease-carrying vermin such as rats & mice can squeeze into incredibly tiny openings. Also snakes if they are a concern in your area. Just about every damned thing out there wants a free chicken dinner.  Oh, and Chickam returns on or about April 20th! 
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Mar 8, 2013 23:28
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Velvet Sparrow posted:Oh, and Chickam returns on or about April 20th! I'm sure the question on everyone's mind is "How are we doing the naming this time?"
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Mar 9, 2013 00:03
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We don't have big snakes, just garters, so that's not a big deal. While there can be mice, the cats have pretty much got that one licked. The kitten catches some poor little thing just about daily. We also have four dogs, so for the most part things like raccoons and coyotes don't ever come into the yard. The coop is pretty snazzy - it's this one - http://www.aosom.com/product/detail/3174 The coop itself, the living area, anyway, is all wood. So no way for something to grab through the holes, at least when the girls are inside. A horse stall mat is basically a very thick, heavy, rubberized mat that's about 2" thick. They are tough as hell. I don't think anything is coming up through it. We may put something like chicken wire underground below it as well, for an added level of security. It may also be that the coop is on concrete, while the run moves around through the property. Yaaaaaaay Chickam!
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Mar 9, 2013 00:31
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