INDIANA BYC'ers HERE!

[Minminme]

Morning all cockadoodledooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!

Mornin Gunchief cluck cluck baaaawwwwk!

 

[jeepgrl]

That's just mean for a newbie to introduce themselves, then tease us with only a few details.

Pictures are a must, and we like details, too. Show and tell how you got to the chicken lifestyle, what your set-up is, what's your flock aspirations, etc.

Welcome to the Indiana board! Before you know it, the influence of this board will have you obtaining fancy chickens like NN (naked neck), or show silkies, ducks, be teaching your little ones how to play piano, and building an electronic coop door!

DW and I live in Indianapolis, on a city-sized lot, have 8 hens and 2 two-week old coronation sussex chicks. We've been raising chickens for pets and eggs for over 2 years.

Left is Cupcake; Right is Princess
These two are Tweety and Miranda!
We recently moved to Indiana from Cincinnati (suburbia), and are in a rural area/neighborhood (the best of both worlds we feel). We decided to get chicks for Easter, but I am an instant gratification person ha ha, so we got them this past weekend. And we are learning so much already! I have been doing research for about 2 weeks, and now my husband is really getting into it. We have 4 y.o and 2 y.o daughters, that already love the chickens and want to see them all time. We have been touching them/holding them a lot to try to get them used to it. This is our first time owning anything like this, so right now we just wanted hens for the eggs, and to learn how to care for them before we get into the rooster and reproduction part of it. We are very excited about the whole journey!

Is that better pginsber ?lol

 

[pginsber]

That makes sense, those two are built like wide little spark plugs so that would align with a cornish cross. The legs are massive and the combs are pink on both, I guessed pretty early that they were both boys and was unfortunately right. I can't complain too much, I have had a very high pullet ratio on chicks in the past. I too am interested in seeing how they feather out, but will only be able to keep one of them.

So Dark Cornish/Legbar cross cockerel available to a good home!

Yes, they are super meaty little things! I had to catch them both yesterday and they were both surprisingly fast (and loud when I finally caught them) and very heavy for their relatively small size. I am calling them the chicken nuggets. LOL.

Have you given thought to taking the plunge to processing? The pro-processing persons on this board indicate that nothing goes to waste, and your rooster and cornish experiences may be destiny's way of leading you...

 

[ChickCrazed]

Have you given thought to taking the plunge to processing? The pro-processing persons on this board indicate that nothing goes to waste, and your rooster and cornish experiences may be destiny's way of leading you...

I'm way too squeamish for that! I am theoretically fine with them being eaten but I don't want to know that is what is going to happen to them when they leave. Ignorance is bliss. I realistically realize that most cockerels don't live to see old age, but would have trouble KNOWING I was sending them off to be killed.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Hey guys, I'm on my way out to class, but I thought I'd pop in and give a public service announcement! I'm out of feed this morning so Mom ran out and got some Purina Flock Raiser. There was nothing on the outside of the bags to indicate there was a problem, but the feed was filled with chunks of mold. Here's the lot number thingy:

I think I'm through with Purina feeds, between this and the grain mites I keep getting from them. The girls are super happy, though, because they got lots of scratch grains instead of feed today. Anyway, off to class!

 

[Leahs Mom]

Quote: @pipdzipdnreadytogo

Take a look at this feeder setup by @RonP :


Quote:

 

[bradselig]

Saw this at Big R yesterday. Never saw these before. They werent priced yet so no idea what they run.

 

[pginsber]

I'm way too squeamish for that! I am theoretically fine with them being eaten but I don't want to know that is what is going to happen to them when they leave. Ignorance is bliss. I realistically realize that most cockerels don't live to see old age, but would have trouble KNOWING I was sending them off to be killed.

Okay--all you REAL chicken-persons cover your ears. I don't want you making fun of a city person.

One vacation in the early 90's, I went to a working dude ranch (like in the movie City Slickers). We did cool stuff--prairie wildflower harvest, herbal remedies (tincture, teas, etc), made paper, rode horses, learned about buffalo soldier history, animal tracking, animal acupuncture demonstrations, etc. Lots of foo-foo stuff.

Then, there was real rancher stuff you could opt-in to do. Things like castrating bulls, herding cows, milking cows, harvesting chickens, etc. We harvested chickens. No fancy-ness. A stump with 2 nails (neck width apart), sharp old double-sided ax, big drums of boiling water over an open fire, processing tables, and lots of neighbor women. (No men were there--maybe they were out castrating bulls--dunno.) I bet we harvested around 50 chickens.

As a life-long city person, it was a life-changing experience. To experience the sense of community in the participation of neighbors, the responsibility of each person to the hands-on process, the participation of even young persons in bringing food to the table, the reverence for the importance of each chicken. That really gave me an appreciation for eating meat. An appreciation for the raising, care and treatment of stock animals.

Okay--chicken-persons--you can uncover your ears now.

 

[Leahs Mom]

Saw this at Big R yesterday. Never saw these before. They werent priced yet so no idea what they run.

I looked into the ones for cats and dogs and they look just like that. I came to the conclusion that they wouldn't work for chickens because they are weight activated...meaning that they don't heat until the cat or dog lays on them and it senses their presence. I had considered using one for a broody box one year and then thought better of it.

Not sure if these work the same way or not. If so, I have several questions:
-In a "non-broody box" situation....If the chicken doesn't know it's a warmer because it isn't on until there is weight on it, what would draw the chicken to sit on the mat?
-Will the weight of a chicken trip it to come on?


-

 

[MnMPoultry]

slow day today on the thread.
I'll add a question.  Anyone have a good recommendation for roll out nesting boxes for larger birds?   Right now we are using our wooden homemade nesting boxes. 

Another question, anyone know of someone local who makes the roll out nests?


Last question of the post.  Anyone looking to buy 2 white splash sumatra chicks.  They are about 2.5 weeks old.

If you ate talking about the nest boxes where the egg rolls into an out of reach compartment, I'm about to make a few for myself because some of my ISAs like to bust open eggs and it turns into a free for all on the broken ones. I can post pics and stuff when done and may be willing to make some for people if there's interest.