2018 Newbie Chat!

[llombardo]

My Diamond (bantam Cochin) has been broody for a week. She's been in a small crate all set up like it's supposed to be. I let her out 2-3 times a day for exercise, closing the door to the run or else she'd go right back in the nest box. She'll eat a little, drink a little, and poop. Then she runs around the outside of the enclosure jumping up at the hardware cloth, trying to get in.
When she's in the crate, she doesn't perch on the 2 x 4 that's in it, she sits on the grate like she's sitting on a nest. I tried putting her on the roost in the coop a couple nights when she seemed like she was getting better. But she jumped right off and went into the nest box, even when I tried at midnight hoping she'd be sound asleep and wouldn't notice!
Today when I picked her up I thought she felt light, so I checked and I can feel her breast bone. I made her some scrambled egg and she gobbled it down. She'll be getting more tomorrow.
I let her go into the nest box tonight since the crate isn't working anyway. I left a bowl of moistened feed in with her and put the feeder and waterer from the crate next to the nest box. Plus this morning when I opened the crate she just sat there instead of running out. Then when I took her out and set her down outside, she just sat there too. I thought she looked depressed but maybe she was just weak from not eating well. So I didn't want to put her in the crate again. She did eventually start walking around and ate a little. I'm also concerned about her feet since she's sitting on the grate instead of the 2 x 4.
She's lowest in the pecking order and the others have been absolutely horrible to her when I let them all out together. They started being horrible to her a couple months ago. She has no feathers on the front of her neck and she has very thin patches on the top and one side of her head from them pecking at her. She doesn't run from them, she just freezes in place. This past week she has started running away so maybe the pecking will get better.
Poor Diamond!

Maybe try the ice pack method to break the broody?

Is it possible to maybe get a couple babies and put them under her?


Last night I jntroduced my older golden to the chickens. What a wonderful dog. After about 10 minutes they were all mingling. Chickens still scattered if there was a sudden movement but a few were just very curious about him. It went well.

I also have a resource guarding girl. She has decided that no other girl can be by me. If I stop petting her she pecks me. Never saw anything like it.

 

[No More Empty Nest]

Maybe try the ice pack method to break the broody?

Is it possible to maybe get a couple babies and put them under her?


Last night I jntroduced my older golden to the chickens. What a wonderful dog. After about 10 minutes they were all mingling. Chickens still scattered if there was a sudden movement but a few were just very curious about him. It went well.

I also have a resource guarding girl. She has decided that no other girl can be by me. If I stop petting her she pecks me. Never saw anything like it.

Not possible to put chicks under her. I can't have roosters and have no one to take them. Plus I'm just not set up to keep them apart from the others till they get bigger. Small coop and run. Believe me, I thought about it, lol.
I started a thread under Behaviors too and a frozen water bottle was suggested. I'd forgotten about that.
I love goldens! They're so sweet. I so want another dog! I want a puppy this time. My other 2 dogs were about 2 when I adopted them and being rescues one of them had a few more problems to work out than the other. I'd like a puppy so I can give him a good start. But I'm having a double knee replacement in September so I have to wait till I'm all recovered from that. Puppies take a lot of time and energy and my husband is not a dog person at all so I won't make him take over for that long of a time. I just don't understand not liking dogs but that a whole other subject, lol.

 

[llombardo]

I had him out there again tonite. I have to watch him with the chicken poop, he seems to really like it...lol

I have noticed that the last two nights the chickens blended more together to roost. Usually it's the bigger ones on the one side and the other's on the other side. 2 or 3 of the small ones made it to the big girl side. I had to add a roost on the one side, so they all have a place to go and they lay their eggs on the bottom part in the corner where they made a nest, which is fine. The eggs stay clean. It's tight right now but they are doing good. I installed a fan so if they are to close, they won't get hot. I am still hoping to build the bigger coop but I can't get rid of the pool where it needs to go. My next option is to extend the coop I have. If I do that then I want to make sure I cut the pieces so I can use them on the bigger coop--double work but no waste. I'm thinking to enclose it with that play thing(in third picture) in it, so they have room to walk or roost when they don't come out. The addition would be about 7x7.

Looking for poop--oddly the skiddish polish are really trying to figure him out

Checking out the living situation.

 

[CannedMonster]

Not possible to put chicks under her. I can't have roosters and have no one to take them. Plus I'm just not set up to keep them apart from the others till they get bigger. Small coop and run. Believe me, I thought about it, lol.
I started a thread under Behaviors too and a frozen water bottle was suggested. I'd forgotten about that.
I love goldens! They're so sweet. I so want another dog! I want a puppy this time. My other 2 dogs were about 2 when I adopted them and being rescues one of them had a few more problems to work out than the other. I'd like a puppy so I can give him a good start. But I'm having a double knee replacement in September so I have to wait till I'm all recovered from that. Puppies take a lot of time and energy and my husband is not a dog person at all so I won't make him take over for that long of a time. I just don't understand not liking dogs but that a whole other subject, lol.

I can have roos but I find raising a bunch of cockerels can be chaotic.
My poor, poor pullets.
I won’t do it anymore.
Although my favorite way to “break” a broody is to give her eggs to hatch and raise chicks, the cockerels just ruin it.
We don’t live in a large enough property to grow them out as meat birds.
Layer breed cockerels take many months to mature and the crowing of several can become obnoxious.
I’m trying to be a nice neighbor.

I have discovered a solution though.
There’s several people that have auto-sexing breeds near me.
I just bought four 55 Flowery pullet chicks.
You can tell the sex of the chicks by color when they hatch.
The difference between auto-sexing and sex-linked is that the sex-link is a cross of two different breeds based on color.
An auto-sexing breed is produced by breeding the same specific breed of rooster and hen.
Cream Legbars, Beilefelders and 55 Flowerys are all auto-sexing breeds.
I’m going to put these pullet chicks under my broodys in the hopes they’ll adopt them.
When the pullets are at POL, I’ll either keep them or sell them.

 

[No More Empty Nest]

I can have roos but I find raising a bunch of cockerels can be chaotic.
My poor, poor pullets.
I won’t do it anymore.
Although my favorite way to “break” a broody is to give her eggs to hatch and raise chicks, the cockerels just ruin it.
We don’t live in a large enough property to grow them out as meat birds.
Layer breed cockerels take many months to mature and the crowing of several can become obnoxious.
I’m trying to be a nice neighbor.

I have discovered a solution though.
There’s several people that have auto-sexing breeds near me.
I just bought four 55 Flowery pullet chicks.
You can tell the sex of the chicks by color when they hatch.
The difference between auto-sexing and sex-linked is that the sex-link is a cross of two different breeds based on color.
An auto-sexing breed is produced by breeding the same specific breed of rooster and hen.
Cream Legbars, Beilefelders and 55 Flowerys are all auto-sexing breeds.
I’m going to put these pullet chicks under my broodys in the hopes they’ll adopt them.
When the pullets are at POL, I’ll either keep them or sell them.

I don't have room in my coop to separate a broody and chicks from the other 3. I can barely fit the crate I have Diamond in inside the coop. I could probably make the roost a bit smaller, I originally was going to get LF, but then decided on bantams.

So I tried putting a cold pack under the crate as suggested in my thread about her. She simply pulled some feathers out and put them on the floor of the crate, then sat on them. I'm stumped, she certainly is persistent. I'm almost thinking of posting on the Wisconsin thread, asking if anyone needs a broody bantam to hatch eggs for them. I would hate to lose her, she's so sweet, but I don't know what to do with her. Tomorrow will be 9 days that she's been in the crate. That's no life. Although now that she treats the crate like a nest box, she doesn't seem upset about it. I do let her out with the others a couple times a day. She runs around a little then wants to go back in the coop.
I'm going to be gone for 4 days next week and I won't leave her in the crate while I'm gone. So whatever happens happens. I do have someone to get the eggs and watch over them, plus I have a camera in the coop and the run. But I don't want them to have to move the crate from the run in the daytime to the coop at night and back again in the morning.

 

[No More Empty Nest]

I had him out there again tonite. I have to watch him with the chicken poop, he seems to really like it...lol

I have noticed that the last two nights the chickens blended more together to roost. Usually it's the bigger ones on the one side and the other's on the other side. 2 or 3 of the small ones made it to the big girl side. I had to add a roost on the one side, so they all have a place to go and they lay their eggs on the bottom part in the corner where they made a nest, which is fine. The eggs stay clean. It's tight right now but they are doing good. I installed a fan so if they are to close, they won't get hot. I am still hoping to build the bigger coop but I can't get rid of the pool where it needs to go. My next option is to extend the coop I have. If I do that then I want to make sure I cut the pieces so I can use them on the bigger coop--double work but no waste. I'm thinking to enclose it with that play thing(in third picture) in it, so they have room to walk or roost when they don't come out. The addition would be about 7x7.


View attachment 1842583

Looking for poop--oddly the skiddish polish are really trying to figure him out
View attachment 1842585

Checking out the living situation.
View attachment 1842590

What a beautiful dog! I'm glad the chickens are all starting to roost together, that must make you happy.
I'd love to extend my run a bit. It looked big enough when I built it and according to space requirements it's big, but it seems so small now that there are chickens in it!

 

[llombardo]

So it's been rough here for the last couple weeks. My oldest dog that will be 15 in November can't use her back legs anymore. She is drinking fine but I have to feed her with a turkey baster(I think she may have a tooth issue) I inquired about the vet coming to the house to put her to sleep but I haven't gone through with it yet. It needs to be done and my heart is shattered.

Meanwhile my male duck has had an eclipse molt and now looks like a girl, the chickens keep finding frogs and killing them--I can't watch. I got the first one away from them. I have 12 toads in the house to keep them safe from them. Today my son came over to help with the dog and about a 1/2 hour in he goes there is a chickem over there. It was Willow--she snuck out if the safe area--I swear I counted them before putting them back in the run. My heart just sunk--now I'm counting and counting again.

 

[No More Empty Nest]

Anyone still around? I've been gone quite a while, I had a double knee replacement. Diamond FINALLY stopped being broody after 2+ months.
She started molting...in December argh! Luckily it's been a warm December so far. She's lost way too much weight with her molt. I hadn't picked her up in a while, my husband had been letting them out and caring for them after surgery and then she got ornery with her molt. Going to get her a higher protein feed and give her some scrambled egg tomorrow.

 

[CannedMonster]

Anyone still around? I've been gone quite a while, I had a double knee replacement. Diamond FINALLY stopped being broody after 2+ months.
She started molting...in December argh! Luckily it's been a warm December so far. She's lost way too much weight with her molt. I hadn't picked her up in a while, my husband had been letting them out and caring for them after surgery and then she got ornery with her molt. Going to get her a higher protein feed and give her some scrambled egg tomorrow.

Hopefully Diamonds molt will be quick.
I had pretty much every bird I own molt this fall/winter!
Feathers everywhere!!
I lost over half of my chicks from July.
None of the broodys accepted them and I had two separate illnesses hit my flock causing many losses.
I lost my little D’uccle cockerel, Jack.
I also lost our wonderful matriarch Red the sex link.
One of my barred Rocks, Shadow, succumbed as well.
Then later the chicks began to get sick.
I lost all but 1 of the 55 Flowery’s and out of 8 Olive Eggers I now have only 4 left.
These last five young ones are at POL and we’ll hopefully see eggs soon.
These five are the ones who never seemed affected by the illness and have always been alert and energetic.

This is Flower:

This is Blue:

These are Dash, Copper and Blackie:

 

[No More Empty Nest]

Hopefully Diamonds molt will be quick.
I had pretty much every bird I own molt this fall/winter!
Feathers everywhere!!
I lost over half of my chicks from July.
None of the broodys accepted them and I had two separate illnesses hit my flock causing many losses.
I lost my little D’uccle cockerel, Jack.
I also lost our wonderful matriarch Red the sex link.
One of my barred Rocks, Shadow, succumbed as well.
Then later the chicks began to get sick.
I lost all but 1 of the 55 Flowery’s and out of 8 Olive Eggers I now have only 4 left.
These last five young ones are at POL and we’ll hopefully see eggs soon.
These five are the ones who never seemed affected by the illness and have always been alert and energetic.

This is Flower:
View attachment 1990369

This is Blue:
View attachment 1990370

These are Dash, Copper and Blackie:
View attachment 1990371

Oh no! I'm so sorry! You lost so many, you must have been devastated! I can't imagine. Did you figure out what the illnesses were? I still have my 4: Pearl, Opal, Jade, and Diamond.
I made scrambled eggs for mine today, giving Diamond her own bowl separate from the others. She's lowest on the pecking order. It's nice to see new feathers where the others had pecked them off on her neck and head. Hopefully they'll stay there. She gobbled down the eggs which made me feel better about her. I also put some vitamins in their water. When she was broody for so long she lost a lot of weight too. I gave her softened food daily. I'd take her out of the coop before the others and put her up on a table with the food. Then put some out for the others on the ground. The others had become very annoyed with her and I think they were chasing her away from the food in the run just compounding the weight loss problem.