UK Member Please Say HI

[MandS]

Hi.

Not ignoring you regarding the photos. Our picture is of the three brown hens and although I have taken more photos of the others and a clearer one of the brown hens I am currently having problems uploading. My laptop is not playing ball.Hoping to fix the problem soon.

 

[GGBEAR]

ROFL

@the name bowie

 

[GGBEAR]

Noya is the speckled/laced wyandotte

Ginger is the Columbian black tail

Hope everyone is well

 

[mrmotherhen]

Hi Fellow UK members, we are over in Wickham Market, Suffolk.. Only just starting out chicken adventure, 10 eggs in the incubator, awaiting the arrival of chicks on Saturday! Fingers crossed Steve.

 

[Yorkshire Coop]

Noya is the speckled/laced wyandotte

Ginger is the Columbian black tail

Hope everyone is well

They are very nice GG
I'm ok thanks, hope you are too? Have they all settled down now? I sold 2 of mine yesterday evening, hope they are going to settle at their new home ok.
Seemed a nice fella who came for them so I'm hoping so.

Hi Fellow UK members, we are over in Wickham Market, Suffolk.. Only just starting out chicken adventure, 10 eggs in the incubator, awaiting the arrival of chicks on Saturday! Fingers crossed Steve.

Hi & welcome to the thread
What have you got cooking in the incubator? I've done 2 hatches this year and I'm eagerly awaiting my next set of eggs to arrive at the end of the month. It gets a bit addictive!

Good luck with your hatch

 

[GGBEAR]

I'm all good their still being bullied a bit mainly by my black rock now my Columbian black tail seems to be taking it on chin where as speckled/lace whyndotte keeps hiding poor thing I'm trying not to interfere as it seems to make it worse

 

[scifisam]

Hope the bullying stops soon, GG.

Silly question: how do chickens get up to high perches? I need to make a new coop in a slightly awkward part of the garden and am considering buying a small shed to adapt because I can't find a coop of the right proportions. I'm considering this: http://www.wayfair.co.uk/2.5ft-W-x-1.5ft-D-Wooden-Storage-Shed-01-0053-OSNN1051.html Would the chickens be able to get up to roost on the upper shelves, esp if I adapted them to proper roosts?

They'd have a decent sized run attached to it, very foxproofed (that's one of the reasons I want to move them - this part of the garden is easy to foxproof), of course, and hopefully I'd be attaching an automatic door to the shed so they'd have a lot of easy access to the run. But they still need a decent amount of space in the coop itself. 3 chickens, 2 brown (one of which is HUGE) and one RIR.

 

[rebrascora]

@scifisam

Hi Sam

Personally I think that's probably not an ideal shape for a hen house, being so tall and narrow.

Perhaps if you split it in two and maybe use the lower area for your feed storage bin and put a pull out drop board in half way up to separate the two areas and catch poop and put roosts in the top. Then you could build them a ramp up to their roosting area. If you cut a pop hole in the back (you would probably need to frame around it before cutting) and put the ramp on that back side and leave the two stable doors as your access for cleaning out and feed. You would need a pretty long ramp though to make it easily accessible for them, depending on how agile they are. My birds including a RIR, roost 5 1/2 feet off the ground but there is plenty of length and width in the stable where I keep them for them to get down safely. They can get up in pretty small spaces but coming down they need more (crash) landing room.

Good to hear Elvis now has some new companions but worrying that the fox is being tenacious. Good luck keeping them safe.

Regards

Barbara

 

[rebrascora]

@mrmotherhen

Hi and welcome to the crazy and addictive world of chickens. How exciting to be starting off with eggs in an incubator. Hope it's just on loan, otherwise you will soon be battling with a very serious disorder called chicken maths. It's difficult enough controlling the numbers when you are just relying on broody hens, but incubators give you too much free rein to be feed the addiction, unless you are very disciplined.

Yes, do tell what flavour eggs you have cooking? Do you have a plan for the excess cockerels that unfortunately are an unavoidable drawback of the whole process? I rear them to eat but it's not an easy path and the meat is quite different to supermarket chicken as well as not being nearly so much of it for the effort to process them.

Anyway, enough of the drawbacks, lets look forward to seeing some photos of your first fluff balls soon.

Best wishes for a successful hatch and more pullets than cockerels.

Regards

Barbara .

 

[rebrascora]

@GGBEAR

Hi GG

Belated Happy Birthday from me too and congrats on your new girls. I remember my first girls were exchequer leghorns and then I got two red sex links and a RIR and a Bluebell. The leghorns and sex links did not get on at all and even though I had them separate in a cage for a couple of weeks they drew blood through the wire on a daily basis and still had major dust ups for a few days after I released them. It was a bit of a baptism of fire for me as I was quite frantic about them ripping each other's combs to shreds. Thankfully, the larger the flock the less agro there seems to be so I had less problems as I added more but it helps that they free range too. Anyway, I hope yours settle down to a peaceful coexistence soon.

You can't fool me about ducks not being messy. I've had them before. Even if you only give them a dish of water or a babies bath as I had for them. they turn the surrounding area into a muddy pond. They are also easier prey for the fox and since | free range, they probably wouldn't survive long. Anyway, I now have my new bantam pekins to satisfy my need for cuteness! Can't believe how many tiny weeny eggs these ditzy little girls are churning out!