To: The Chickens
Love, The Dog
(Project is still in the works 4-29-10)
Approx cost of building doghouse from scratch is planned.
We designed this for 2-6 chickens based on the following "rule of thumbs."
Roost: 6-10 inches of space per bird.
Nest boxes: 1 nest box per 4-6 hens.
Space: 1...
Well we stopped by the feed store today and I checked out their chicks... they had a bunch of RIR's about the same age as ours, and it looked like they had stolen our chicks! I have had RIR's before but for some reason it never clicked that they looked like our chicks had LOL (They change so...
I did find one place that sells dorking chicks... in many different colors here:http://www.sandhillpreservation.com/catalog/chickens.html#dorkings
You can also order them from here: http://yellowhousefarmnh.com/content/508 but it's pick up only and they're in NH
Lots of hatcheries have...
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I actually wanted white Dorkings for that reason, they're just hard to come by most hatcheries have the silver-gray only and we haven't had a lot of luck with our incubator... I found someone who lives only an hour away that sells hatching eggs on ebay but I can't contact her about...
I bought a straight run mix from Ideal-poultry... already posted once but only got a couple of breeds ID'd I didn't post those guys here (and I didn't have comb descriptions) I'm hoping now that they are older and I took more pictures and uploaded them here that I might be able to get more of...
I could take them out for a romp, but I'll wait till they've got all their feathers in LOL They do have some dirt in the brooder now to practice dust bathing & for grit. I'm thinking that it is just growth and looking raggedy. I can't think of why else it wouldn't be spread to all of the chicks...
@ wenlo
I hope BA stands for black australorp. I posted in another forum (what are these buggers) trying to ID the breeds we got, and the general consensus seems to be that the black ones are australorps!
@ ddawn & others with brooder questions
No, it is not a wire cage. It is one of those...
@kittymomma
Okay, well I'm thinking I'm probably just overly concerned since I haven't seen this before. I looked pretty close at all the birds and it doesn't look like any of my yellow ones are having this issue, so maybe it's something peculiar to the black breed ???
I'll continue keeping an...
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I thought maybe they brought the mites home from the hatchery or somehow we brought some from the feedstore when we brought home their feed or ???.
They're in a large rabbit? cage, it's something like 4ft x 2ft it has 2 heat lamps, 1 on either end but they are well dispersed along the...
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Put it in an old sock and dust them that way? I still don't understand... do you beat them with the sock? doesn't that still put dust in the air? Do you just sprinkle it on their backs and that is what they call "dusting"??? (Okay I don't mean BEAT them with a sock... I'm laughing so...
Okay, maybe it is the feather thing. He does show signs of his adult feathers starting on his back... Most of the other chicks seem just fine with only a couple having thin spots.... If it was some sort of parasite I suppose they'd all be showing more symptoms of it since they've all been...
They'll be 2 weeks on Tuesday (so 12 days old?) The little guy in the picture is not the smallest chick in the bunch but he is on the smaller side. We have a mixed set of chicks (same age) and all the yellow/brown ones are about an ounce heavier than the black chicks. The one in the photo is...
Just seems weird a picking problem would decimate the feathers on the little guys chest as well. I haven't noticed them picking at each other and I've been trying to keep my eye on them often to be sure, but he doesn't seem to have any wounds and I haven't actually seen anyone picking at him. I...
This little guy is the worst, but a couple of my other chicks are starting to show thin spots now too!
I'm assuming this is from mites (I've never had this problem with chickens before but I haven't raised many!)
I figured if it is mites DE should do the trick... problem is I'm worried about...
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Does the partridge rock have a comb? The two brown ones I have (totally the same breed) both have flat smooth heads.
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Sorry if I got that mixed up. I thought Ameraucanas were the "mix" and Aracauna was the "true" kind. I didn't realize Easter Egger was the name of a third...
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Wow super helpful thank you. You're probably right on the black chicks. I'll look closer and take pictures of the combs next chick pix day (Monday).
The black chicks all seem to have single saw-tooth combs. (Black Australorps)
The Buff chicks have single saw-tooth combs. (Buff...
I ordered a mix from ideal and brought home 26 babies. I'm totally lost as to trying to figure out what these guys are. I started by taking pictures of all the chicks (at about 3 days old) and organizing them into groups (these look like the same...) then going through ideal-poultries site and...
Unfortunately we lost the whole flock (7 birds). One leghorn got squished during a thunderstorm by debris when they were still little babies. We lost a couple to the AZ heat and to finish us off we had a coyote come and visit. We have since moved the coop from the back field pasture into our...