Consolidated Kansas

[Hawkeye95]

Haven't checked on posts for a few days. Now that I'm all caught up on the last 200 or so posts I might as well leave a couple of my own.

My little backyard barn is 'functionally' finished. Spent last weekend building & hanging the 'people' door & building the nesting boxes. Still have to finish & paint some of the trim, but it's ready for the chicks to move in.


David

WOW-- this looks fabulous!! Good job! It all turned out great! I'd keep that little run, too. It will come in handy for separating out birds or for moving them around later on.

rvroman, if you have been following this thread you know how chicken math goes, so you need to tell your DH it's better to err on the larger side than have to build something else later. If I was building for the first time I definitely would build bigger. We started with only saying we were going to have 6 chickens & I now have like 20 plus 15 chicks coming at the end of the month & a few more later in the summer. I also have turkey eggs I'm trying to incubate & I'm waiting in peacock eggs. My DH didn't like the chickens at first, but he does now. He gets aggravated at how much time I spend on "chicken stuff", not his exact words, but you get the gist of it, but he spends all of his free time running, so I told him he shouldn't give me a hard time for what I enjoy.

Which marathon is he running this month? My DH does all the local small runs, too-- he just did the Easter Sun Run. He enjoys doing them, he gets to meet up with all of his friends and have an excuse to do an event with them.

Hawkeye- Congrats on your gorgeous new baby and proud mom!! That silkie hen is gorgeous!!

Ivy- So, so sorry about your dog and the loss of your birds. I have a dog that killed one of my bantams a year ago and I was heartbroken. I can only imagine how upset you must be.

Danz- SO good to meet you today! My goobie gosling is so excited to have new duckling friends! They were scared of each other for a while but are sleeping together now. Thank you so much and it was fun seeing your gang. sorry to hear about your mom.

I missed so many posts I can't even remember what I read anymore so hi to everyone and hope everybody is doing well!

Thank you!! I'm tempted to breed that broody hen (later when she's not broody) too. But she has a bit of gold leakage on her chin-- left side. I'd hate for that to come out on chicks. But I hate to let such a good looking bird otherwise, go un-tried! Sigh. Either way, I am soooo excited about my baby!! LOL

How is your new baby doing? (dog) And Molly, is she getting the hang of things?

 

[HEChicken]

David, you really did a great job. As someone else said, definitely hang onto the little pen. Mine don't have a pen - the whole backyard is their "pen". Even so, there have been times I've needed to segregate some and having a little pen like that is really useful. When my hen went broody last year, I was able to put her in her own little coop and pen so that she could still see and hear the others but they couldn't get in and lay eggs in her nest or bother her. Then, when the chicks hatched, they had an area they could learn to get around, and Mama Hen could show them the feeder and waterer, without concern about the rest of the flock trying to get in and hurt them or eat their feed. I've never had to set up a hospital pen but in the event it was needed, that would be a good solution. Last, each year I add a few chicks to my flock in the spring and when they are old enough to spend days outside, having a little pen like that is an easy way for them to have outdoor time, while staying safe. The big girls interact with them through the wire and by the time they are big enough to be allowed out of the pen, they are all used to each other. I've never had any issues with integration, or little chicks being picked on by the older hens.

KarenS - it was great to meet you and see your set up. It really is amazing! I loved meeting your kids too - thanks for having me!

Josie - they are so cute! What are the ages, that they are all roughly the same size?

Tweety - how is that duckling's wing healing? Hopefully the time out will help them all to get along better. That Blu-Kote is something, isn't it? The first time I used it, my hands were blue for days. A couple of weeks ago, my Cuckoo Marans had a bleeding toe and the others were very interested in it so I brought her in and asked DH to run downstairs and get the Blu-Kote. As he came up the stairs, he called out "Do I need to shake it?" as I heard the bottle being shaken violently. When he popped off the lid, well, yeah, it was EVERYWHERE. Fortunately he had gone out on the back deck to do so - I fear it would never have come out of carpet. As it is, the wood deck is still a little blue even though we've had a significant amount of rain since then. However it is very effective. As soon as it was on the toe, the others left it alone and she was able to heal.

 

[Hawkeye95]

My little goober with his new friends from Danz! When I first put the ducklings in they were scared to death of each other! Silly babies.

Awww, they are adorable!!

Today's (4/11) Zits comic is hilarious and appropriate for this list. I can't post the picture because it is copyrighted, but you can find it at http://www.seattlepi.com/comics-and-games/fun/Zits/

Sharol

Cute!! Guess that's one way of doing it! ha!

 

[chicken danz]

That is a version of duck and goose math. I hope I gave her two of opposite sex so she can have a little troop of them some day. The ducks are probably 2-3 weeks old. The goose will out grow them but they will probably remain buddies for life.
My incubator is popping with babies this morning. I have another batch of eggs to go into the hatcher tomorrow. These are some of those huge groups I found in the barn. At least I have someone coming Sunday to buy some chicks.
It is so cold out this morning. I should probably gather eggs and run to town early so maybe I could take advantage of warmer weather this afternoon if it isn't pouring down rain.

 

[pikeman94]

David,

As others have indicated you will need to keep the kids separated from the adults/older kids. Your kennel run works great during the day, but if you want to keep them out at night you will need a way to give the kids a safe haven in the coop at night. I have an ark and when I need to integrate new birds I put a divider made of plastic chicken mesh up inside so that 1/4 of the coop is dedicated to the new birds. I maintain this for about 2-3 weeks. When I start see the older birds roosting on the new birds side and vice versa I take the divider down.

Let me know if you have any more questions about this as I learned the hard way a couple of years ago about this subject.

Now to figure out how to combine the 2 groups of chicks together. I have about 6 weeks to figure that out, but any advice on what works/doesn't work in this area would be appreciated.
Hope everyone has a good week!
David

 

[JosieChick]

The gosling is about 2 weeks old and tragically lost his hatch mate. He was so sad it was awful so Danz's ducklings came to keep him company!! The ducklings are pretty wild little things still!! They are just starting to let me pet them this morning which is good. I guess I got spoiled because the gosling is sooo friendly because he was lonely. He even likes the barn cat.

Hawkeye- I really think you must breed the broody hen. She is too gorgeous not to. I love the crest on her and she looks like she has nice overall shape gold leakage or not! I had a hen with a huge comb and a well respected breeder told me her type was too good not to breed even though her comb was less than desirable. You could just cull out the chicks with gold leakage and retain the type. AND you could send the chicks with leakage to me, I love a good looking splash silkie and mine are just clumsy pets around here and occasionally incubators.

Molly and Lucie are doing really well. The pup is growing like a weed! Molly goes out twice a day to check her property and Lucie goes for a walk on the leash and does chores with me. We are getting an invisible fence for the property which will make me feel a lot better about keeping them close to home. I have done lots of reading and we have a lot of experience with electronic collars already from our house dogs going through sit means sit training so I think it will work well with some training and maintenance. I don't want anything to happen to the girls and the school buses go by our house going 50 on the gravel so this will make me feel better about leaving them loose.

 

[chicken danz]

Pikeman, maybe you'll be suckered into taking a few chicks home with you when you come this weekend. then you can get more practice integrating birds!

Josie the ducks have never been messed with. It will just take them a while to trust you.

 

[Hawkeye95]

Hawkeye- I really think you must breed the broody hen. She is too gorgeous not to. I love the crest on her and she looks like she has nice overall shape gold leakage or not! I had a hen with a huge comb and a well respected breeder told me her type was too good not to breed even though her comb was less than desirable. You could just cull out the chicks with gold leakage and retain the type. AND you could send the chicks with leakage to me, I love a good looking splash silkie and mine are just clumsy pets around here and occasionally incubators.

Molly and Lucie are doing really well. The pup is growing like a weed! Molly goes out twice a day to check her property and Lucie goes for a walk on the leash and does chores with me. We are getting an invisible fence for the property which will make me feel a lot better about keeping them close to home. I have done lots of reading and we have a lot of experience with electronic collars already from our house dogs going through sit means sit training so I think it will work well with some training and maintenance. I don't want anything to happen to the girls and the school buses go by our house going 50 on the gravel so this will make me feel better about leaving them loose.

Yeah, the gold came out after I got her. It didn't really show up until she got older. It's unfortunate, but it's very small. She has a better crest than my black hen-- but they are both great on type. OKay! Fine, I'll breed her when she is done being mama! LOL I had pretty much decided not to, and I keep her separate now. That is great the girls are working out so well. We use electronic collars here, too. Our dogs picked up on it pretty quick. It was only about 3 days into it that they knew where NOT to go.

 

[Hawkeye95]

Okay-- I have baby pictures!!! Be prepared... I might take a lot of pictures in the future! LOL

Here s/he is sticking out from Yoda (BELOW)

(BELOW): Then I decided it was time to dunk her beak in the water and show her the food. She only drank the water I dunked for her. She didn't do it on her own. She is SO TINY!!! She can't really even reach the chick water! I'm not sure what to do about that. But I do think I better fill it with marbles, she could drown in it. I've never had a chick this small. I'm keeping mama and chick separate in their own kennel.

(BELOW): Okay... then I decided to take a couple of silly pictures--- here they are---

 

[tweetysvoice]

OMG, Hawkeye - those are the most adorable mama/baby team I've ever seen. I just had to email my DH and tell him "This is the kind of chicken you are getting me next". And he even admitted that they were "overly cute". You got me really wanting a silkie now!!