San Diego Chicken meetup and Chat thread

This is my first time having a broody hen, and it is soooo cute! My buff brahma has eggs under her, and tomorrow I am going to check out how many. I'm not sure, but the other lbuff brahmas are either laying in the box with her, or have stopped laying. I have three EE's in the coop with them, and they are all laying in a different box, and it's easy to tell which one is there/s!

ide question.... I have an Easter Egger that is laying quite the few double yokers.... do they always do that, or do they grow out of it?
 
For anyone having trouble with gophers, I had a major problem with them in January/February. I was desperate to get it under control before planting my garden because obviously, I didn't want to lose plants like I did last year. I tried non-toxic deterrent. I tried those vibrating stakes. I tried smoke bombs for gophers. Didn't work, didn't work, didn't work.

What DID work, finally, was the "Black Box" gopher trap I got at Home Depot. Gophers do not leave open holes they don't access. I went around and scraped my shoe over all the holes so I could find so I could see which ones opened back up quickest. That showed me where any active gopher was (Per google, gophers are solitary and only get together to breed. Babies leave moms relatively early and all go off their own way.) So whenever a hole would open back up, I would dig right there where the hole was, big enough so I could place the trap in it flat with the opening of the trap facing the tunnel. Then I covered it back up with dirt. The "irked" (BYC edited the p-word) gopher would go back to open up his hole and would walk right into the trap. I caught many within 20 minutes of setting the trap. A bar pops up so you can see when it's been set off and you press it down to release the dead gopher into the trash and reset the trap. Once I caught 3 in one day. It took about 2 months to completely erradicate the gopher population. I think I got about 12 gophers during that time. The traps aren't too expensive and are reusable. They also don't make the gopher bleed so there's no deterrent smell to unsuspecting gophers. I have to admit I got such a thrill seeing the silver bar sticking out of the ground. I hate destructive rodents!!
 
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Aumlet, so exciting! Please post more fuzzy pics!
6 babies hatched so far, 3 under each mama. They are very tolerant and let me check a million times a day, and handle the babies. With my last batch I saw a huge difference in friendliness between those that were handled a little on day 1 and those that weren't, so I decided to handle these babies if the hens would let me. As we checked up before twilight, we found an egg half zipped and my daughter was able to hold the chick while it hatched.
love.gif

All-American-Chick
Man, I wish we could have goats. :( My son can only drink goat milk and I would love to be able to have it fresh and unpasteurized.

Dfdesigns:
Dana, how is Piper? I am so excited about your Isbars!


Well, we have hilarious teenage crowing over here. I am not sure if it is the Blue Cochin or if it's the Red. Either way, I am sure that means it's time to think about moving them along. How long do they have the funny/not annoying crowing? In other words, how long do I have?
 
I just had a followup question to my earlier post.....
Thanks for the clairfication.....

The broody hen I have, I don't think I can block her off from other hens without blocking her from water. So that leaves the moving her option. If I move her, what is the best way without making her want to leave the eggs. The box isn't moveable as it is.... something I am going to remedy in the future..... I could take a tote in there and transfer the eggs... then her, and then take that to another place. Would that be the best way?
 
craigslist link
http://sandiego.craigslist.org/csd/grd/3118253884.html
Aumlet, so exciting! Please post more fuzzy pics!

All-American-Chick
Man, I wish we could have goats. :( My son can only drink goat milk and I would love to be able to have it fresh and unpasteurized.

Dfdesigns:
Dana, how is Piper? I am so excited about your Isbars!


Well, we have hilarious teenage crowing over here. I am not sure if it is the Blue Cochin or if it's the Red. Either way, I am sure that means it's time to think about moving them along. How long do they have the funny/not annoying crowing? In other words, how long do I have?
 

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