Chicky Whicky's 2024 Adventures

[ChickyWhicky]

Starting my 2024 thread! Mostly a photo dump thread but will try to share updates as well.

Kicking off Spring with 37 chickens. Mixed flock of layers. Let's see if I can remember what I have... Maran, easter egger, sex link, saphire gem, orpington, brahma, silkie, australorp
Everybody made it through our brutal Winter. The only issue we ran into was our rooster got injured and ended up stuck in the snow, his comb and wattles ended up frostbitten. He has healed and is fine, just a shorter mohawk now.
I may or may not have picked up 4 silkies from TSC today...... Chick pics soon!

 

[Debbie292d]

Beautiful chickens!!

 

[Callender Girl]

Fortunate that your rooster survived with only a shorter comb to show for his predicament (the second blizzard in January pushed snow into coops where it had never been before, and one of six pullets ended up, like your rooster, with a frostbitten comb that is now much shorter)!

Great mix of layers! And, um, how about those new chicks you MAY or MAY NOT have picked up? I'll look forward to seeing their photos. All this unseasonably warm weather makes me eager to add a few fluffy babies, too.

 

[ChickyWhicky]

Fortunate that your rooster survived with only a shorter comb to show for his predicament (the second blizzard in January pushed snow into coops where it had never been before, and one of six pullets ended up, like your rooster, with a frostbitten comb that is now much shorter)!

Great mix of layers! And, um, how about those new chicks you MAY or MAY NOT have picked up? I'll look forward to seeing their photos. All this unseasonably warm weather makes me eager to add a few fluffy babies, too.

2022 (our first winter with chickens) we had snow come in through ventilation on the coop due to abnormally high winds & went out the next morning to find nearly all the chickens covered in snow. I felt SO TERRIBLE! We spent a good couple of hours drying everybody off and blow drying. Lots of frostbite that year but no loses. We learned with high winds we have to cover up the ventilation so now we use furnace filters! They don't allow the snow to come in while still offering ventilation.

I wasn't going to even look at the chicks. I went in for scratch and cat food. I wasn't even going to walk by those dang chicks.... But here we are.

 

[Debbie292d]

2022 (our first winter with chickens) we had snow come in through ventilation on the coop due to abnormally high winds & went out the next morning to find nearly all the chickens covered in snow. I felt SO TERRIBLE! We spent a good couple of hours drying everybody off and blow drying. Lots of frostbite that year but no loses. We learned with high winds we have to cover up the ventilation so now we use furnace filters! They don't allow the snow to come in while still offering ventilation.

I wasn't going to even look at the chicks. I went in for scratch and cat food. I wasn't even going to walk by those dang chicks.... But here we are.

This is why we do not have much for ventilation here. We get by with it as our coop's humidity will be in the 60% range while it's 80% outside. There's no ammonia as between the horse pellets and stall freshener, there isn't any. There's no reason to have so much ventilation if there's no ammonia and low humidity. We do have a digital fan in there and a vent on the human door so that sometimes runs, but that's all we have. Our first year, we had to make MAJOR changes as it dang near rained in our coop it was so bad! That was 7 years ago.

 

[Callender Girl]

@ChickyWhicky, I have made so many of those "I'm not looking at chicks" trips, too. If only they didn't stock the feed in the same aisle as the chicks. Okay, honestly, if I can hear peeps anywhere in the store, I HAVE to go look. And, I rarely stop with just looking.

I've never considered using furnace filters over the ventilation. I might need to try that. During that last blizzard snow was coming in from EVERYWHERE, even the teeniest cracks in the coop itself.

In fact, I had snow inside MY house. It pushed through a weather-stripped door in the mudroom, slipped under a second door and collected on the landing going to the basement. That's NEVER happened before, and I hope it's a once-in-a-lifetime event!

 

[ChickyWhicky]

In fact, I had snow inside MY house. It pushed through a weather-stripped door in the mudroom, slipped under a second door and collected on the landing going to the basement. That's NEVER happened before, and I hope it's a once-in-a-lifetime event!

Holy cow that is scary! We had snow get inside our windows during the blizzard this year, thank goodness we plastic up all our windows for winter time... Otherwise we would have had snow in the house, too!

 

[ChickyWhicky]

As promised..A few chick pics

I think I am keeping this rooster from last year's hatch. His dad was 1/2 australorp & 1/2 maran and his mom??? Where did that comb come from? Has to be a brahma or easter egger!

The watering hole. They love this heated bucket. Most of them seem to prefer this over the heated poultry drinker.

 

[Callender Girl]

Sweet, sweet babies! Looking at fluffy little chicks is a great way to start the day!

Not surprised your flock is enjoying a heated bucket. The weather the last couple of days has jumped around so much; record heat, then there was snow yesterday morning. Today, there's another red flag warning. Even for Iowa, this is kind of crazy.

 

[ChickyWhicky]

Happy friday! Popping on to drop a few pictures and an update... We have now added 6 guineas, 2 turkeys and 10 cornish cross to the flock. We have got to stop walking by the chicks at the store. Thankfully we had a momma go broody on Monday, so we were able to give her the cornish crosses. Will plan to butcher once ready, our first round of processing a big batch. We have sent a few roosters to freezer camp but these will be our first true meat birds to process, so that is exciting!
The brooder babies are doing well, growing like weeds. The 2 turkeys are the most friendly and curious babies I have ever raised! I absolutely adore them. Will try to get some photos of the brooder babies this weekend. The silkies are too stinkin cute with their fuzzy feet, I can't get enough of them!

Gris giving me the stink eye for not bringing her any snacks..

Mama Fuzz! Waiting patiently for her to go broody so we can hatch some mixed breed babies!

Mama PJ keeping the cornish cross babies toasty warm. This is Mama Fuzz's daughter, 1/2 maran & 1/2 australorp. She is one of our top baby raisers!