I have silkie chicks that are now 2 weeks old. We have temps in the 60-70's during the day and 40-50's at night. I let the hens decide when to take their babies out. Amazingly they are always okay. They usually leave the coop around a week of age and before they have developed any feathers...
Roosters make the hens feel more secure and my experience is that they like their guys to be around. I have 3 separated flocks, each with one rooster and the guys always watch out for their girls. If you don't mind the crowing, roosters are great! Mine are a silkie, a brahma, and an...
We have raised several chicks from the day of hatching with food grade DE and they have all grown up to be fine. It is awesome for fly and odor control.
I would provide a small roost for them. I have had silkies the would roost at night and some that never roost. It seems to me that the roosters always roost and the hens prefer the coop shavings on the ground, but I have one hen that has always roosted. It's kinda nice to let them have a choice.
I had 3 silkies go broody together and they did great. I tried a couple of times to separate them, would go back into the coop and they had rolled the eggs back so that they were all sitting together. I finally just left them alone. They hatched 11 out of 12 eggs, they all mothered them and...
I use DE all over my coop, and don't seem to have a fly problem, which is very unusual here in the South! I also hang a few fly strips. DE and the deep litter method seems to work for me.
I use the deep litter method (GREAT) and layer DE with shavings. I've done this since I got chickens and have no mite, pest, or smell problems. I would highly recommend DE ( food grade ONLY). It seem expensive at first, but a 50 pound bag goes along way, and works. I only completely clean...
I have 3 roos, a silkie, a brahma, and a americana. All three are great! Protective of their girls and me. the silkie and brahma even know their names. Just got rid of a polish. Don't go there!
Poultryfan 73 Just wanted you to know that we had 10 chicks Sunday, all the moms are "mothering" and everything seems to be fine. Whoopie (my partridge silkie) has always been dominate hen and seems to be very tolerant of the other 2 moms. Let them outside today for sunshine and grass and...
I feed eggs to the girls (cooked only) and they LOVE them. Great source of protein for them. Don't let them eat raw eggs though, or they may start eating their own eggs. Also I take all my eggs shells and toast them in the oven, crunch them up and feed them too. Great source of calcium.
Thanks, I usually go with mother nature's way of things. I usually try to tell myself, what would happen if I wasn't in the picture? Just would like to see others experience with this situation, since I've only had chickens for about a year now. Always willing to learn and listen to those...
I have 3 silkie hens that went broody at the same time, and have all continued to stay beside each other (I read recently that this is a mistake).....They have hatched 11 babies last night and today and seem to all be doing fine. The chicks move around from one fluffy butt mom to the next, and...
What is the best way to dust chickens? I keep DE in their nesting boxes and throughout the coop in the shavings, but was curious to find out the best way to dust?
glad to find everyone on this forum. I live in south east Ga and the girls are---- 3 barred rock, 3 buff orpington, 2 RIR, l leghorn, 1 cinnamon queen, 1 black sexlink, 1 black cochin, 2 silver polish, 1 light brahma, 7 silkies (all colors), and the guys include 1 americana, 1 light brahama...
We recieved our first order from Welps Wednesday. We ordered 31 chickens and 16 of them were wrong. When we called them, they were very curtious and corrected the problem immediately and put the 16 correct birds in the mail the same day. All the babies arrived very healthy looking and we were...