2018 Newbie Chat!

[CannedMonster]

They'll be fine. I recently took away heat at a week due to the high daytime temps we've been getting, they all did just fine. With previous batches I took away the heat at 2 and 3 weeks with no issues.

Thanks! They were fine this morning.

 

[CannedMonster]

He is a german shepherd. None of the dogs have access to the chickens and they don't bother the run. He doesn't like when they mate, he thinks they are being hurt.

I have dogs, cats, rabbits, fish, chickens and ducks.

All the dogs

View attachment 1502493

Are those all the dogs you have now?
And who did that fabulous lovely painting?

 

[Kat2141]

I’m concerned about broken or injured legs myself because we never thought our birds would take flying leaps off the top of their ladder roost!
The very top rung is 7-8 feet high.
We used to just open the pop door to let them out in the morning.
But after we built the ladder roost my husband noticed that the birds at the top had to jump all the way down and they were crashing into the closed man door.
So now we open it and they will land several feet outside of the coop!
All except my sex link, Red.
She’s smart enough to jump down to each lower roost until she gets to the bottom. That one is only 2 feet high.
I haven’t noticed anyone limping or anything so hopefully they’re fine.
My Silkie goes all the way up to the 8 foot cross beam! A lot of my bantams do.
But I always heard how Silkies don’t roost and can’t fly.
Lol apparently mine can.
View attachment 1501977 View attachment 1501978

I like your coop... mine like to go up high too and they did a lot of crash landings. Then I had one girl that had gotten stepped on accidentally and was sore. Not broken but limping. I didn't want her to crash land on her sore leg so I put a 2x4 ramp in so she could get down without getting hurt. All of them used the ramp! so I left it in even after she was healed. Now there are boards all around at different heights for them and a couple ramps. I just wrapped Vetrap around them a few inches apart to help with sliding. They typically go down the ramp until they are about 3' above the floor and then jump. I never see them come straight off the high spots anymore.

 

[Kat2141]

I want to add, what I've decided another female Peking. I just have to find a younger one that is close to the size of mine. I can't do that until I'm done integrating the 4 smaller girls(chickens). It has been the longest integration in the history of integrations. I've been working on this since June. Still some chasing and bickering. Enough that I won't leave them together if I'm not here. Then I have a family of raccoons that are living 25 ft from the enclosure. I put up electric fencing and cut back branches today in one area. While I was putting up the fence I found dried blood and scratch marks by the gate. Thankfully when I put the gate up I left the sharpest hardware cloth extending out, just in case they tried getting in and they did, but they got no where. Instead they got ripped up in the process. So now I test my electric fence every night. Now I need a better option for the top--I have a heavy duty net and I'm putting chimes around the run so that I can hear if they are climbing. It's not easy outsmarting a raccoon. I'm exhausted. I even put vents up on the duck house over the hardware cloth. It's been a crazy month.

Here are the smaller girls
View attachment 1502140

your chickens are beautiful! I sure don't envy you on your raccoon problem. That would be so stressful.

 

[llombardo]

your chickens are beautiful! I sure don't envy you on your raccoon problem. That would be so stressful.

They are driving me nuts. I put up an electric fence and used 8 strands. Someone said it was overkill, I say I wish I could could go all the way around--the top and bottom.

 

[Kat2141]

Wow! How do you get your birds feathers to shine like that - the almost glisten! All your birds have that shine to them, even your ducks.- Great name choices, I like the name Rain, wouldn't have thought to use that as a name but it really suits. They are real beauties as are all your birds and is a pleasure seeing your pictures of them. I really hope things get easier for you real soon, you deserve a break.
My hens are RIR Hybrids, my 16 week old resembles yours but mine has a lot of black markings along her back and tail, my younger hen (approx 13/14wks) is an off white with tints of red and has the same black marking as my elder hen, they were hatched from the same flock so might be related but that flock has two RIR cockerels and too many hens to be able to count so not possible to tell. I've tried putting pictures on BYC before but for some reason they won't load, other wise I'd show you a pic. We are new to poultry raising. We took my grandson to a local farm park where one of the gimmicks is to hold a baby chick - the farm hand did a talk whilst the little kiddies held the chicks - my grandson wasn't much interested he was more interested in playing on the bails of hay we were sitting on, so not to disturb the talk my daughter held the chick and that was it, she couldn't let her go so we bought her and a duckling, we were told they were anything from 3 to 5 wks old so I only have an approx age. That night the little duckling died, we later found out it had a malformed beak and hadn't been eating/drinking properly so would have died where ever it was. None of the birds were sexed so my daughter just chose names she likes and we decided they'd keep those names regardless of gender. Not wanting our little chick (Pedro) to be alone we went the next day and bought another duckling (Napoleon) again 3/5 wks old, then we realised they needed same breed friends so my daughter went back and bought another chick (Jellybean) and another duckling (Jughead) both 1 to 3 wks old - it didn't take us long to realise we have two drakes because I'd read about the whispering sound of a drake and both did it, then when we saw the first sign of a green feather we knew for sure - they both are Indian Runners x Mallard could be relate as hatched from the same flock. Realising they are males we recently added the two Khaki females Midnight who is about 8wks and Aroura who is about 7wks - we are hoping the drakes and ducks will pair, if they do we will get two more chicken hens, if not we will get two more duck hens as we can only manage 8 birds in our garden. I adore them.

Just a thought about you not being able to post pics. It's possible that your pics are too large. with most digital cameras now have high MP capability, the pics are typically quite large. There is a cool program that can make them into thumbnails of any size you want and it can do several at a time. It is called Easy Thumbnails and it is free. It is on Fookes .com.... I didn't know if I could post the actual link, so you would have to take the space out before the .com part. But it is handy, you can set it up to make your pics 600pixel on the shortest side and that is plenty big enough for the forums. (and it's FREE!)

 

[Kat2141]

They are driving me nuts. I put up an electric fence and used 8 strands. Someone said it was overkill, I say I wish I could could go all the way around--the top and bottom.

View attachment 1502579

I wouldn't say it's overkill - it's be cautious. BTW, I love your "support beams"... I never thought about using pipe for the supports... I've always used wood... but that looks good, should really last and looks pretty easy to put together. Great idea

 

[Kat2141]

Rain got her name because when she was little she was the first to do everything and I said she is going to reign the roost..the khakis are Lucy and Ricky and the 4 younger girls are Dorothy, Rose, Sofia and Blanche

I have a Midnite to, but he isn't a chicken
View attachment 1502363

Midnite is beautiful! I love shepherds.

 

[llombardo]

I wouldn't say it's overkill - it's be cautious. BTW, I love your "support beams"... I never thought about using pipe for the supports... I've always used wood... but that looks good, should really last and looks pretty easy to put together. Great idea

It took me over 100 hours to put that together. Something like 35 pieces of hardware cloth hand cut and I won't lie when I say the wire kicked my butt all the time. I got some pieces that lean because of the ground and that is driving me nuts. I can't anchor it because the raccoons might use that to climb up--it all goes back to those darn raccoons

 

[Anna Ranieri]

He is a german shepherd. None of the dogs have access to the chickens and they don't bother the run. He doesn't like when they mate, he thinks they are being hurt.

I have dogs, cats, rabbits, fish, chickens and ducks.

All the dogs

View attachment 1502493

Wow you have quite a menagerie there! We only have our birds and a couple of fish as we don't have the room for more. I really like what you've done with this picture - you've got yourself some very lovely looking dogs there. May I ask if you have a farm? - Just curious