Never had one like this before. It's a pretty dark greyish blue over pink. Have no idea which pullet it was. Have so many possibles coming online it will be hard to tell. So cool though!!
...when I saw it but I watched it make it's sweeps and once it came towards the direction of the hen house I stood up, arms out (I may have yelled F*** O**, LOUDLY) and it flew right away off in a different direction, a beeline to the woods.
So far still no more losses. I was worried because...
That is fantastic news!! Congratulations!!
Also I just want to add, It's been 99% smooth sailing for my two broodies as well. Just yesterday the little 2 week olds RAN out when I opened the door with everyone else and it just cracked me up.
After about 1 minute they were screaming for...
Update; the chickens have gotten back to a slight semblance of normalcy after much harangue from a Cooper's Hawk. 0 losses, unfortunately that one earlier loss a couple weeks ago of the one Dorking apparently taught everyone a valuable lesson.
A sidenote to this as well; this harassment by the...
That's Darwin for ya!
Thing is, these are not wild fowl anymore, they have good instincts, but they are often too chonky to really get away like the wilder breeds. Shame.
I've had my share of hawks as well, 1 loss (out of sommat like 70 chickens) so I will count myself very lucky.
Again...
I'd be curious to see what happened, to be honest. Not all my birds eat much of the feed at all, some absolutely spend all day foraging and seem to exult in it and come back with fat crops at the end of the day.
Then I have some lazy turds who just sit in the hen house and run all day, with...
The US layer feeds are anywhere from 8-16% and the "all flock" is 20% and that is rare, because hardly anyone keeps roosters, it's tucked away off the mainline advertised feeds.
The 8-16% layer feeds are produced simply because that's what industrial farming practices produce. It is "what's...
Royal Chick - the answer is penny pinching.
The less protein a feed has, the cheaper it is.
People don't want to spend $25-35 bucks on a 40lb bag of feed when they can spend half that for scrimping on the protein.
Considering the consumer bags of feed are all based off practices of...
Things are just trucking along. Babies are doing well, Ginger and Tilly are exceptional mothers. The little white one isn't white, it's Ermine :) and looks like a cockerel, which will be nice - I could breed them I got 3 girls out of the other bunch. Something to consider.
We have had visits...
Yes, fwiw, I'd highly recommend the Brinsea candler, with that housing it's peerless -- you can spin the egg around and view it 360 in there. It's awesome.
It might be $100 bucks but it's not gonna break and it's a one-time purchase.
Trust Brinsea to make an expensive, but excellent one;
https://www.brinsea.com/p-392-ovascope-high-intensity-egg-scope.aspx
I bought this and am glad I did - I can take it out to the hen house and it still candles perfectly in broad daylight. The high intensity blasts through dark eggshells...
Cracker is so chill I forget he's a Cockerel - he doesn't crow when we're around, he's the first Cockerel to do that. He doesn't just 'show up' when I do chicken chores, either - he stays with the hens in the hedge. He doesn't 'mind' me being around.
I got a video yesterday of him taking...
We removed Cream to exile today - he was ambushing hens, and the real kicker was when I went to fill up the food bins today, he was pecking EVERYONE to get out of the way so HE could eat.
Nope. Bye. He went in the bachelor pen. Cracker's up!
Yeah, the chick died overnight in the incubator.. Not at all surprised. I think the yolk it was supposed to absorb got eaten.
This hatch has been very strange -- as the eggs that are laid are completely left alone.
I don't go gather until 3pm - they're basically all done by that time. I...
Yes, but about four times that much - it was large, about a third of the shell, I'd say.
more news;
I went to check and it smelled and stank to high heaven, I opened the incubator to give the chick an ant's fart of nutri-drench and realized it was STICKY with yolk.
So I gave it a warm toasty...