He's about eight weeks old and I need to downsize my flock, as it is once again getting out of hand. His daddy was the serama, and his mom the d'uccle. He's a good looking boy, and I think he's going to be a stunning little rooster.
My hatch was a complete bust. I have one baby (hatched last night), and he's SO LONELY. Is there anyone in the Seattle area who would be willing to sell a baby chick to keep my little chickie company? Don't care what breed, just want to give him a buddy.
From what I've read, you can stick chicks under a broody at night and they'll think they hatched them. Then they'll raise the chick. Maybe that's an option?
FINALLY!!!!
Barnevelder first egg--50.5 excruciating weeks.
Egg size: small. I can't measure it because she laid it in the run, and it got smashed.
Keep your fingers crossed for me that I didn't wait this long just to turn her into an eggeater.
Oh thanks you guys! You're so nice to compliment Attila. She's a blue birchen marans. I confess that I think she's pretty gorgeous too. Her egg color has been very disappointing though--my production red lays darker eggs.
I really think it depends a lot on the chicken. My one and only BR consistently produces big, almost perfectly round eggs that are over 2.5 oz. OTOH, my RIR--supposed to be large eggs--is only a medium and my speckled sussex has never gotten much bigger than a small to medium.
My RIR that laid faithfully through the winter is taking a bit of a break now; instead of 6 eggs a week., she's producing about 3. I figure she earned the rest.
I don't thnk you can predict, and I don't think it's related to breed. For instance, I have three buttercups. One makes zero noise; one coos softly; and one screams. And when I say she screams, I mean she SCREEEEEAAAAAMMMMMS
Mine are all laying in the nesting boxes now too after I stopped letting them free range. Now, I can let them out for a few hours and they will return to the nesting boxes. I use plastic eggs. Some of mine scratch them out of the nesting boxes too--but I leave them in because some also like to...
I know! I was so afraid that she was going to do bad things to them. This is my first time letting a hen raise chicks, and it's amazing to watch. She started out being very protective and not letting them do much of anything or go anywhere without her. As the days have gone by, they are getting...
Just a slight hijack here, because the topic of antibacterial soap came up. I just wanted to say that using regular soap is, for the most part, just as effective as killing germs as antibacterial soap, and the overuse of triclosan and triclocarban (the most commonly used antibacterial agents) is...