UK Member Please Say HI

Good morning everyone

How is everyone? All good I'm hoping for you all.

If anyone is interested I have a couple of polish cockerels looking for new homes. One of them is a frizzle. They are both black with some white splash on them. Also I have some blue polish pullets for sale, will do a deal on 4 or more. If anyone is interested please PM me.

@rebrascora Are you back yet? How's things?
Bad news for Harry, he has lost his elderly field companion a couple of weeks ago and is now depressed. That's the only way I can describe him. He's not stressing as in going crazy screaming or flailing around but looks so miserable. Should be getting a new friend end of September so I hope he does pine away before then. I really think he is in mourning. Hope all yours are well and that are enjoying those new stables!!

We're sitting on a huge hatch atm, 275 eggs in the incubator! The idea was to have Pol hens for springtime. We've got some nice show quality lines in this time as well as a few new breeds just for my interest lol.

We're hoping to get a dozen hens of each breed out of this lot. The hubby is busy building a huge brooder and a growers tunnel for them. Hatch date is around the 18th, wish us luck!

Hi Kim and everyone else.

So sorry to hear that Harry has lost his companion. I don't doubt that horses grieve a loss. They are social creatures and certainly form bonds with particular companions, so it's not unreasonable to assume they suffer when they lose that pal. I'm sure it's not just as a result of death either. Those horses that change hands a lot must find it traumatic too although they are often distracted by the need to fit into a new herd. I do think that horses get a really raw deal in this respect. I'm sure lots of tlc from you will help him to cope until he has a new friend.

I have two more broodies sitting on 10 eggs each. They are both first timers so I'm not overly optimistic although one of them is Tasha's daughter so I'm more confident of her. The other is a leghorn!! It's the second time she has tried.... I foiled her first effort.... but she seems determined and has found a place outside the hen house that seems pretty safe, so I'm indulging her this time. She's on all her own eggs too, so the other hens obviously didn't find her stash and add to it. Both nests had 17 eggs in when they decided to set, which was far too many for them to cover, so I took out the cooler ones from the outside and they seem to be managing OK with what's left. All will be farmyard mutts if they hatch, as I have too many cockerels running around, but that will get sorted as soon as I have my stables finished... yes, still not quite done although I have the feeling the builder thinks they are! I guess some chasing up and complaining needs to be done.... not my favourite pastime!

Cora still has mastitis despite 3 different lots of antibiotics but thankfully is not sick with it.... just swollen solid. Rainy decided to choke on his feed the other night which was pretty scary. I've had others suffer mild choke but this was a rolling about and refluxing down nose and mouth job. Thankfully he managed to dislodge it before I landed another big vets bill! I wouldn't ordinarily feed them but have had to do so to get medication into Cora and easier to give both a bucket in the field than try and just feed one. She's also slightly lame and having had the farrier check for an abscess without success, I'm now concerned that the antibs have triggered mild laminitis. I remember (and long to return to) the time when I didn't see the vet from one year to the next apart from vaccinations! This year has certainly been an expensive one!

Anyway, that's all my news for now.

Hope everyone else and their chucks and ggs are doing ok.

Regards

Barbara

I'm sorry you've had such a rough year with the vets and all! I hope your broodies work out well! I have one that ids sitting on ten eggs atm, she's actually my nephews chicken but when she wouldn't come out of her brooding we brought her here and gave her some eggs to sit on. Totally new experience for us, we've always used an incubator, but she seems to be doing well. One day maybe i can talk my hubby into letting me have a horse too!

Thanks for the sympathetic reply. I've had more than my share of good luck, so it's only fair I get some rough times too..... as long as they come to an end soon!!

Broody hens are amazing. I don't have any experience of incubators but I find that you develop a special bond with broody hens and an amazing appreciation for how wonderful a mother's instinct is.. Shy, low pecking order hens seem to become titans once they have chicks and seeing them snuggle ten or more chicks under their feathers, with heads and feet and tails popping out through their down in all sorts of unlikely places, is just so cute.

I hope you have a successful hatch and get more pullets than cockerels.

Hi Barbara

That is sounding a lot of bad luck especially seeing the vet as much as you have H still the same down in the doldrums I just can't wait for the end of September so he cheers up. I've had him the last 12 years and at the same place but when he was racing he had about 4 different trainers so had been about a bit. His companion he lost was his field buddy for about 8 years so I'm not surprised he is missing him.

Good luck with those broody hens, I've got nothing cooking right now. Just have not got the room with still having the chicks out in the shed, well not chicks, 11 weeks but at least I know the girls now and I have culled 6 boys already. Well I didn't the other half did it for me as I'm chicken!! Farmyard mutts will be great I love the mixed ones as you don't know what you will get and they are always something different to look at I think anyway.

Cora's mastitis is sure taking some time to shift, I really do feel for her!! Thank goodness she is not sick with it And it stays that way. Choke, yes H has suffered this and it was so scary. I was in a real panic over it and even more so when I got the bill, £600
He got it on Sunday morning, my vet came out three times that day to try and shift it and she dare not give him any more sedative. He too was refluxing back and we had to put a bucket under him in the end as it was flooding the stable out. He got very dehydrated so had to have a drip. There was just no shifting it at all. Had to wait for the sedative to wear off some and into the wagon and off to Minster vets at York. £100 referral fee there so after that I registered with them just incase for future. Got to York and the choke had cleared, typical isn't it. Still had the camera down though to check and it was a real mess in there from being tubed so many times during the day. Red raw and bleeding so he had a load of antibiotics and some like lubricant stuff to administer like a wormer three times a day to ease things. Thankfully he was ok after that and no more of it since, touch wood.
I've got new phone so can upload some other better pics of him, this is him a couple of winters ago, ignore the bad wonky line clipping in his head ~

Hope things turn a corner for you soon, they sure have to!!
Good luck with the broodies and speak to you soon.
Kim

hensanity said:

We're sitting on a huge hatch atm, 275 eggs in the incubator! The idea was to have Pol hens for springtime. We've got some nice show quality lines in this time as well as a few new breeds just for my interest lol.

We're hoping to get a dozen hens of each breed out of this lot. The hubby is busy building a huge brooder and a growers tunnel for them. Hatch date is around the 18th, wish us luck!

Click to expand...

hensanity said:

I'm sorry you've had such a rough year with the vets and all! I hope your broodies work out well! I have one that ids sitting on ten eggs atm, she's actually my nephews chicken but when she wouldn't come out of her brooding we brought her here and gave her some eggs to sit on. Totally new experience for us, we've always used an incubator, but she seems to be doing well. One day maybe i can talk my hubby into letting me have a horse too!

Click to expand...

@hensanity I'm so jealous of all those eggs What type of incubator do you have? Bet it makes my 24 egg one tiny!! Good luck on your broody, I've had my first one this year and I have to say it's been a wonderful experience. It's an amazing thing to watch a hen hatch and raise them naturaly. I've really enjoyed it but the four my little hen hatched of are all suspected boys. Two of them have been crowing already and the other 2 are looking very suspicious to me.

Good luck with all your eggs

Lol bloody men !!!!!
Just a bit curious how does she feed them when they hatch??

This is our new incubator, it's a Brinsea 380. Fingers crossed we get some nice pullets!


This is the little broody mama.

That is my dream incubator
I have the octagon 20 advance EX and it's a great, reliable, set and forget incubator.



GGBear ~ Chicks live off the yolk sac they absorb before they hatch. They can live off this for up to 72 hours before they need food and water. They do this so mother hen can stay on the nest until hatch is complete. She will then get up and the chicks will follow her, she will show them how to eat and drink by clucking them to the food and water.