We've got 33 hens and 2 roosters. We have one RIR hen who lays her egg every day inside a chicken tractor, and our Polish Crested rooster stands over her every single day while she lays. Isn't this odd? The romantic in me would love to think they have fallen madly in love and can't bear to be...
Interesting observations! We have a polish crested that we thought was a hen, until my 6 year old daughter came in saying "Dizzy was jumping up and down on top of a Red's back!" Uh..wasn't sure how to explain that one to her!
We had the same problem with a group of polish we purchased (on impulse) from the feed store, and our larger flock. We had them in a chicken tractor in the main yard for weeks, and just couldn't get them to take to each other. One problem could have been how totally different in size they were...
Thanks for the tip! We have some polish hens, as well, and one of them is a little "off" - her name is dizzy and I bet a haricut would do wonders for her!
We have done this as well. We didn't have trouble with our dog (our dog leaves the chickens alone but goes for the eggs!). However, we have always found that eventually the chickens' range gets larger and larger, and starts to interfere with my neighbors - most recently to the detriment of his...
We just FINALLY succeeded in joining four polish hens (reduced from 4 hens + 2 roosters) into our larger flock of 30 hens + 1 rooster (recently reduced from 5 roosters). It was NOT easy, and we had several failed attempts. We had them in a chicken tractor inside the main yard for a while, but...
We finally have succeeded in joining our "impulse buy" polish hens with our larger flock. It was NOT easy, but much advice from this forum was helpful. It required the unfortunate demise of several roosters, but our four polish hens are now integrated with our larger flock, and seem to be very...
Yep, our feed store had the most adorable polish chicks and before I even knew what I was doing, there I was in the chekcout line with 6 of them. Now I've got them separated because my larger group of chickens won't allow them into the flock. Oh well, they're still beautiful, and I probably...
Thanks Arklady -
I just looked on the bag and it says "feed 1 day old to finish" - it's medicated for coccidiosis, so I guess the company feels it's not a concern in meat birds?
Hello there everyone! We have our entire flock of heavy breed birds on chick starter medicated chick feed. It's about time to start processing the meat birds - is there a problem with them having eaten this feed? Should we take them off of it for a time before processing and eating the meat...
Thanks for all the advice. We hadn't thought of trimming the feathers, that may help a lot. I think we'll keep the polish in the tractor for a while, at least until processing the meat birds.
Someone on this board once said that the best way to get a chicken to set is to line up people to buy your eggs!! I thought that was great!
Honestly, I've never seen a rhyme or reason for why my chickens set or not. My last flock I had barred rocks, RIR, and white rocks and the white rocks...
Hi there everyone! I could use some advice. We've got a flock of about 43 chickens - 31 hends and 12 red star males that will be processed for meat in a few weeks. All of these chickens are about 10 weeks old. We also have a group of 6 polish (2 male, 4 female) that are about 8 weeks old and...
We have a doberman and she does very well with all the birds we have had over the last 7 years. She loves to make them all run, but they do like her and will lay with her in the yard. It really is how you train/ love your dogs. They will respect what they know you love and will leave the...
Andy, I got the same breed of males from them and they told me that at about 10-12 weeks they will make good fryers and weigh around 5lb dressed, the way they eat i was beginning to think they were cornish rocks! I've had mine 3 weeks and they are around 1 lb now. Not sure on the crowing.
Yes, I'm addicted to it now. We got our 45 from MM 2 weeks ago, and I then went out for feed sunday and ended up bringing home 2 buff laced polish chicks! Yikes!! I loved seeing the look from my daughter when I brought them in. There is actually a funny story to this. I got them set up in a...
That is going to be alot of fun to watch the ducks grow up with chicks. Wait til they beeline to puddles and the chicks will think they're crazy! Have fun!
We got ours from Mcmurray last week and all 45 are doing just fine. It seems to come down to luck on the little guys. I was very worried also after hearing some of the bad stories. Good luck cockadoodlemom!!
We got ours a week ago, and the little buggers are doing the same thing. It's a riot. They go one by one from one end to the other flying into the piles of sleeping ones. They are just so fun to watch.