Recent content by sBrickmanHouse

  1. sBrickmanHouse

    Sbrickmanhouses Page

    We live on a gentleman's farm in the Mid-Atlantic region, in a large, simple but very beautiful old farmhouse built around 1840. We try to live our lives with the utmost respect for our home, our land, our community and our world, and our new chickens have quickly become a (ridiculously) adored...
  2. sBrickmanHouse

    Tell me about your Barnevelders and Welsummers!

    Hope I'm posting this in at least somewhere around the right place-- if not, Mods, please feel free to move! We ordered 25 day old chicks from McMurray last February. It was a mix of heavy brown egg layers-- Speckled Sussex, Barred Rock, Buff Orp, Black Orp, White Rock, SL Wyandottes, and...
  3. sBrickmanHouse

    What beheads a chicken in broad daylight?

    Hi all, Our hens (and one rooster) roam a fenced acre (6 foot high privacy fence) during the day, and are locked in a secure coop at night. I went out the other day and found one of our barred rock hens laying in the middle of the yard, completely beheaded, in the middle of the day. No sign...
  4. sBrickmanHouse

    How often do I let my babies swim? New bath pics! pg 2

    We brooded 3 Pekins last May, and are expecting another order next month (of ducks AND geese-- can't wait!) Our ducks swam every day. We brooded them in our guest bathroom tub, and every day, we filled the master bathroom tub with a few inches of water and let them have a swim while we cleaned...
  5. sBrickmanHouse

    How much does it cost to feed 25 chickens?

    We started with 24 birds, and are now down to 17 (sold a few, lost a few to predators). In the last year, we've gone through on average 2 50 lb bags of feed a month (at about $13 per bag). They free range, and we've definitely seen a difference in consumption in summer vs. winter. They also...
  6. sBrickmanHouse

    raising day olds in the coop?

    We got our first batch of 25 in mid-February, and it was COLD! We put our chicks in the coop outside, but our coop is newly built, draft-free, and about as secure as Fort Knox! We put two heat lamps in there (in case one burnt out) and made sure the temps stayed where they should be. The...
  7. sBrickmanHouse

    Free Pekin ducks

    I'd be interested-- where are you located?
  8. sBrickmanHouse

    My girls are on 7 eggs- many questions & need many answers!

    No, we ended up deciding to brood them ourselves, what with the chaos in trying to move the hens to the maternity wing and all that. Plus the hen hopped off the nest and never looked back, so she probably wasn't going to make a particularly good mother at this point anyway. We also have been...
  9. sBrickmanHouse

    My girls are on 7 eggs- many questions & need many answers!

    Well, we've had two recent hatches with a couple of your issues, with mixed success. We didn't have two broodies sharing the nest, but we did have kind of a staggered hatch. It was our experience that the broodies stayed on the nest for a couple of days after the first chicks hatched, and then...
  10. sBrickmanHouse

    What do you DO with all the chicks?

    Hi All! One of our hens took off for a month, and came back with 5 unexpected babies in tow-- they're very cute, and we like having them around! We have a couple other broody hens, and I'd love to let them set some eggs, but the better half is telling me "no way!" I think he's worried about...
  11. sBrickmanHouse

    2 drakes, 1 duck-- do I have a problem?

    Hi all, Back at the beginning of May, we bought on impulse three Pekin ducklings from Tractor Supply. Even though we didn't plan the purchase, we committed to being good duck stewards, did a lot of research on this board, and built them a great little house and pond right by our hobby...
  12. sBrickmanHouse

    Need help with digs for surprise chicks!

    Hi all, We are newbie chicken owners, and have been doing great all spring and summer with our 20 hens and a rooster who run around a fenced acre of our property-- we love them! They have a small (6x8) secure coop that they only use to sleep in, and a fenced run with an open top (which, of...
  13. sBrickmanHouse

    Surprise chicks-- what the @#$%^ do I do NOW?

    Thanks for all the congrats and well wishes-- the chicks are VERY cute! Even though we got our batch just in February, you almost forget how tiny and cute they are! Interestingly, too, they all look completely different. Mama's a White Rock, and Papa's an Easter Egger, so we have a whole...
  14. sBrickmanHouse

    Surprise chicks-- what the @#$%^ do I do NOW?

    Oh, help! We are first-time chicken owners, and have 20 young layers and an accidental rooster we got as day-old chicks from MM back in February. We built them a total palace of a coop, and we've been having a blast watching them grow into shiny, fluffy hens, running around a large fenced part...
  15. sBrickmanHouse

    Play sand

    We dump a bag of that exact same play sand in our run every once in a while to dry it out, and our girls eat it, too! Hasn't harmed them a bit-- they're all shiny, happy and healthy. Still haven't convinced them to dust bathe in it, though...
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