California - Northern

[PetRock]

The automatic doors are worth every single penny. I have the one from Foy's and it's fabulous.

I need to buy an automatic door but I can't make up my minds which one to order. I would love to hear the pros & cons of certain brands from those of you who have one.

 

[ronott1]

Out of 16 eggs I set (chicken) - 1 was fertile. 1. One. Uno. ONE??!!!! GAH! What in the world??? It was THE one egg from my favorite hen. She is an EE, that lays dark brown eggs with brown speckles. Covered by a CL roo. ONE egg. Dude. Somebody better go broody in the next 2 weeks! I saw it doing flippy doodles, there is no way I can destory a baby Dumpling (hen's name). I only set one of hers thinking - no way would hers be fertilized.

I set about 8 bantam (4 diff hens) eggs- that means my bantam roo is NOT doing his job. At all. And the rest were large fowl chicken eggs from about 6 other hens, covered by my CL boys (still young yet, not even 7 months old). They are mating, or attempting too. Mostly it looks like a WWF match with the roosters losing.

Anyone ever have that happen? ONE egg? :\

I just set 14 Silver Appleyard eggs. I need to test their hatchability. I am SO hoping I can sell these babies off once they hatch. I do not want to brood anything right now. lol

Did I mention ONE egg? Rooster fail!

Do you need to trim feathers on the Boy and the girls?

If he is not mating, try separating them for several days and then putting them together for one. You could cycle this way--two days apart and one together. Absence makes the heart grow fonder...or whatever the equivalent is for chickens.

If there seems to be one that is his favorite and he ignores the others, separate the favorite to another pen.

If the eggs developed and then quit early I would look into nutrition.

 

[zooweemama]

The automatic doors are worth every single penny. I have the one from Foy's and it's fabulous.

Ugh. Better be looking for a feedstore nearby if that baby hatches. Otherwise it's gonna drive you batty!

Seriously!

And question for anyone? I appear to have gotten a CL X Sizzle (or Silkie) cockerel- now I know I don't want him at all. But would he be useful to anyone (not here but just in general)? (I am trying to decide if it's worth CLing or just culling him soon)

 

[PetRock]

Out of 16 eggs I set (chicken) - 1 was fertile. 1. One. Uno. ONE??!!!! GAH! What in the world??? It was THE one egg from my favorite hen. She is an EE, that lays dark brown eggs with brown speckles. Covered by a CL roo. ONE egg. Dude. Somebody better go broody in the next 2 weeks! I saw it doing flippy doodles, there is no way I can destory a baby Dumpling (hen's name). I only set one of hers thinking - no way would hers be fertilized.

I set about 8 bantam (4 diff hens) eggs- that means my bantam roo is NOT doing his job. At all. And the rest were large fowl chicken eggs from about 6 other hens, covered by my CL boys (still young yet, not even 7 months old). They are mating, or attempting too. Mostly it looks like a WWF match with the roosters losing.

Anyone ever have that happen? ONE egg? :\

I just set 14 Silver Appleyard eggs. I need to test their hatchability. I am SO hoping I can sell these babies off once they hatch. I do not want to brood anything right now. lol

Did I mention ONE egg? Rooster fail!

I had 2 Bresse eggs hatch along with the rest of the shipped Langshan eggs that didn't hatch back in April or May. I was worried about having just 2 so I got 4 RIR chicks from Ron. I never planned on having RIRs but I love them now and so does my farm friend. I guess we might be adding them to our list of breeds!

 

[zooweemama]

Do you need to trim feathers on the Boy and the girls?

If he is not mating, try separating them for several days and then putting them together for one. You could cycle this way--two days apart and one together. Absence makes the heart grow fonder...or whatever the equivalent is for chickens.

If there seems to be one that is his favorite and he ignores the others, separate the favorite to another pen.

If the eggs developed and then quit early I would look into nutrition.

All blanks. Unfortunately the bantam really loves the Buff Orpington hens. He is completely 100% unable to fertile them. Their butt fluff + his teeny size have result in no fertile Orp eggs. Unfortunately they seem to be the only ones he is now interested in mating. I am not really worried about him now though- I don't want anymore BBLRWs and I only have 1 sizzle left after the predator attacks last week. I had just hoped the bantam eggs would have been fertile- it's all I had left of my sweet pet silkies and sizzles.

So now I am waiting for the CL boys to get busy. I chalk up their hits and misses to inexperience and age for now? They did fertilize some bantam eggs about 2 months ago and also the EE egg I am hatching now.

Everyone is on organic layer, a mix of grains, some scraps...should be pretty darn healthy- I hope! LOL I am still getting a decent supply of eggs. Gotta love backyard blues!

 

[debs_flock]

Deb has that ever happened before? Wild! I got 10 yesterday and I only have 11 layers at the moment.

Yeah, sometimes they just all molt at once.

Keep in mind, when I say I have hundreds of chickens, that includes dozens of males, dozens of juveniles that aren't POL and dozens of chicks.

If I went back and counted older pullets and hens, the number would drop drastically (although six eggs is pretty low, LOL). There's probably more in the bantam pens, I was mostly just talking about nice big eating eggs (and the ones I sell).

 

[zooweemama]

Yeah, sometimes they just all molt at once.

Keep in mind, when I say I have hundreds of chickens, that includes dozens of males, dozens of juveniles that aren't POL and dozens of chicks.

If I went back and counted older pullets and hens, the number would drop drastically (although six eggs is pretty low, LOL). There's probably more in the bantam pens, I was mostly just talking about nice big eating eggs (and the ones I sell).

We have about 20 laying ducks. More than half are molting. It hurts to feed them while getting like 6 eggs a day...some days NONE lol. Par for the course right? Sold off a few that money bought more feed. They are started at different times to. My yard looks like a pillow. Our bird count is only up to 50 now, so I am grateful that I'm not feeding more! Whew! Hope they start putting out for ya soon!

 

[ronott1]

Deb has that ever happened before? Wild! I got 10 yesterday and I only have 11 layers at the moment.

Brinsea question...I want one. The Mini Advanced looks good to me but I was wondering about stacking eggs in one. If I order 6, like I did this last time and the breeder sends me 12 can I just double stack then toss the no good nicks after candling? I would mostly use it only if a broody gave up mid way or if I wanted eggs that were only available for a specific time and I had no broody.

Thanks and I realized that poultry show is in Red Bluff, not Chico

So let me rephrase my question. Is that show open and is anyone planning to go. I seem to remember that several of you went to it last year but I wasn't sure.

The show in Red Bluff was in March last year?

I want to go to the next one.

It was an open show last year. I remember that Debs_flock showed one of her Standard Bred Rhode Island Reds.

 

[eculver]

To my No. Calif neighbors...I'm about 40mi North of Sacramento in Yuba City and we are fairly new to the raising of chickens we have two hens....this will be our first winter was wondering how you all protect them from the weather. Our is in a coop...I attached a picture

 

[zooweemama]

To my No. Calif neighbors...I'm about 40mi North of Sacramento in Yuba City and we are fairly new to the raising of chickens we have two hens....this will be our first winter was wondering how you all protect them from the weather. Our is in a coop...I attached a picture

We keep ours dry. We make sure they have shelter from the rains and for us that is pretty much it. We increase the grains a little bit for extra energy = stay warmer. My chickens usually only sought shelter when it was flat out raining, otherwise they were happily foraging in the drizzle lol!

Our open coop (3 sides are all chicken wire/hardware cloth) had to be covered with tarps. Fancy I know but it kept them dry. If you don't want to tarp - maybe put up one of those canvas type over heads to offer some protection from the rain? The wind also pushes the rain around some. We seldom, see snow here so it's not much of an issue for us in my particular area. Just lots of cold rain.