CHICKEN MATH STRIKES AGAIN - Page 9

Isn't the bantam cochin cockeral, a rooster?  I think it is.  HaHa! 

I had read somewhere to plan on "about 25%" of my new chicks dying. As a Chicken Virgin/possible Chicken Idiot, my thought was that the loss would be more realistically around 50%. Ummmmm...at least not yet. All 22 that came on Monday are out in the brooder, peeping happily. (In one of life's little ironies, I have never liked/do not eat eggs. Just think chickens are cool.) My husband can't keep a straight face as I am sitting out there with my warm water, q-tips, surgical scissors, etc., watching them poop and looking for pasty butt. At what point are baby chicks out of the woods? Or can they just go at any time? I'm an RN, and would take it personally if one of them died because of my stupid mistake.

What surprises me most of all is that I am totally smitten with the "brooder drama", and have spent MANY MANY hours watching the chicks like they are a television show. They suck every bit of ambition out of my brain, and I sit there all day holding them one at a time, rather than doing something more practical (like ironing uniforms). Somebody made a joke about chickens being "the Redneck Aquarium"...they weren't too far off! Does this wear off after awhile? My husband is hoping so. No time to go grocery shopping around the corner, but plenty of time to drive out of town for special baby chicken feed. (!)

Love the Backyard Chicken website and have learned a lot. Thanks for the great ideas everyone!

misdaisi - I'm just got my first chicks and am also an RN, so thank goodness I'm not the only one with all the weird supplies hanging about! And today, I turned the chair in the front room to face the chick brooder instead of the television in there.  

   But don't worry...it will wear off a bit...you will do normal stuff, you'll just carry the fuzzy things along with you   

And start planning for a larger coop, hee hee

a little over a yr ago; we ordered 20..got 25, one roo (so that didnt count right..) so we are at 24...

then I had to have a brahma or two...then some EE'ers (or 5)...

so THEN the Pre-k class hatched out...so we had theirs....so we ended up with 41 total...we had to give 7 away (roos..) (and the one "not counted Roo he was MEANER THAN MEAN)..

then unfortunately about 3 wks ago we lost 25 of them...with an attack..so we were down to 13 hens/1 kind roo..

now chicks are here and we have 5 EE'ers, 1 polish, 2 bantams, 1 silkie (these last 3 kinds were my splurge cause hubby wasnt with me purchases lol), 10 speckled sussex, 6 Amberlinks..

sooo...we have 39 now..so technically I need to get 2 more to get back up to 41 right???

(But then the speckled sussex, bantams, polish and silkie are straight runs..so once I find out the roos with those...then they dont count..) and I would need more...just sayin'

All you people need some SERIOUS help! 

Is there a vaccination out there for this disease? 

Can it be cured once you have it? 

Is it .......TERMINAL?!!! 

I HOPE SO!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Quote:

Originally Posted by misdaisi 

I had read somewhere to plan on "about 25%" of my new chicks dying. As a Chicken Virgin/possible Chicken Idiot, my thought was that the loss would be more realistically around 50%. Ummmmm...at least not yet. All 22 that came on Monday are out in the brooder, peeping happily. (In one of life's little ironies, I have never liked/do not eat eggs. Just think chickens are cool.) My husband can't keep a straight face as I am sitting out there with my warm water, q-tips, surgical scissors, etc., watching them poop and looking for pasty butt. At what point are baby chicks out of the woods? Or can they just go at any time? I'm an RN, and would take it personally if one of them died because of my stupid mistake.

 

What surprises me most of all is that I am totally smitten with the "brooder drama", and have spent MANY MANY hours watching the chicks like they are a television show. They suck every bit of ambition out of my brain, and I sit there all day holding them one at a time, rather than doing something more practical (like ironing uniforms). Somebody made a joke about chickens being "the Redneck Aquarium"...they weren't too far off! Does this wear off after awhile? My husband is hoping so. No time to go grocery shopping around the corner, but plenty of time to drive out of town for special baby chicken feed. (!)

 

Love the Backyard Chicken website and have learned a lot. Thanks for the great ideas everyone!

Chicken watching is one of my favorite things to do. Granted, I've only had chickens for about 2 months now, but there is nothing better than sitting in the backyard and watching them forage for bugs in the yard. And the "brooder drama" only gets better once they are in their coop!

Someone else should have gone to get the dogs a new food dish yesterday.

OK so the rundown....

I wanted 6 BA

DH wanted some color in the coop..

I got 2 BA and DH chose 4 other chicks

I still wanted some SLW

Went to look at some...

She had none left BUT did have BO, GLW, EE and one lone Splash Hamburg...

They were picked pretty bad so they came home with us

Still no SLW and only 2 BA....

Time passes...

I go to the feed store and see SS chicks... DH says get some.. DH chooses 2 Delawares...

I go again to the feed store and see "BA" I get the last 3... They are in fact Jersey Giants...

The Splash Hamburg is still not laying eggs and is 10 to 11 months old... I move her and the GLW, BO and one EE to a small coop. She begins laying!

DH says she needs friends her same size.

I go to the feed store yesterday and find SSH pullets.. I bring home 4.

That makes 22 chickens here when we started out I wanted 6 just 6.

The JG will be sold as will a Delaware that is looking like a male.

That will put us at 18.

I now have 3 coops and not so much yard left for humans..... HEY less mowing!

So true! I started with 3 layer hens a few years ago and I loved watching them and being with them so much I've added one more layer hen (a rescue) and 18 bantams to my flock in the past year. Who knew they could be so entertaining? The next step in your addiction progression will be hatching. You think you've wasted time in front of the brooder? Wait til you get to lockdown with your first set of hatching eggs...

This chicken math thing has struck us too. We ordered 25 pearl leghorns and 25 Cornish x rocks. Thinking the x rocks would be in the freezer after 8 weeks, we would have 25 leghorns. Since the hatchery only guarantees 90% accuracy on pullets and some loss and roos we would have maybe 20 layers. Ha. Yea right we didn't know about chicken math. My wife was lonely while I was on a trip to Nevada, tired of waiting on the hatchery she goes to TSC and buys 10 black australorps then a local breeder sold her a dozen... 4 Americana, 3 Dominique's, 5 new Hampshire reds. Now we have 2 coops with large covered runs and lost one bathroom to brooding and the screened in porch has a 4'x8' pen right in the middle of the room as an intermediate stop before going outside. oh yea. did i mention this all started with a Christmas gift "a book on how to raise chickens" from the FFA. Next week I have 2 dozen hatching eggs arriving for the incubator I bought. Where does it end? Do we need counseling? Our English is turning into clucking and peeping as we cuddle and talk to them. We now consider ourselves  "chicken farmers"  LOL!!!

As we speak, my husband is outside, wiring the coop. Our initial building was going to be 6'x8', but it has since morphed into a 10'x14'. (The theory was that if I were an awful chicken owner and they all went belly-up, we could turn it into a potting shed. It's looking like it is going to be a coop.) After reading horror stories about neighborhood dogs, hawks, coyotes, etc. the "let them run around" idea has changed into figuring out what kind of run is going to keep them safe. It seems as though plans w/ chickens are not cut-and-dried...they tend to be a little more pliable!

Glad to hear someone else has "chicken tools". The table next to the brooder looks like a surgical cart. Discovered that an eyelash comb is great to get small bits of poo away from the vent. This is going to be an interesting summer!