Any one want to join me in waiting for eggs, posting and comparing notes?

[debbie_nibbles]

oh one of our EEs layed her first egg while we were gone happy and sad. Not there to see

 

[debbie_nibbles]

oh one of our EEs layed her first egg while we were gone happy and sad. Not there to see now we have 7/8 girls laying

 

[kacklinkelly]

So sorry Brooster to hear and I have done the same thing you are attempting to do when my daughter was younger.
She's now 26 and raising her own son. She was devastated when her first hamster died. So when #2 went, the old
switcher took place. It worked until #2 kicked the bucket. Hamsters are not known for their longevity in our family.

Hoping the rest of your hatch will help your daughter with accepting if you choose to tell her. (at least she still has the
"real" Mr. O'Hurn)

Happy belated birthday ladies.

MB - I am right there with you on the tears thing. Must be a full moon or something. I was in a meeting today and went from
frustration, anger to tears in about 1/2 an hour. Luckily the 3 people i was in the meeting with know me very well and just called
me a cry baby and I was able to get over it. We all ended the meeting laughing. So glad to hear about Duke's happy ending.

 

[Spikes Chooks]

MB - So glad to hear Duke has found a new place, what a relief for you.

Brooster - Serious downer situation for you. I hope the switching works. Some life lessons can wait till your daughter is older, I think.

Me? Facing my first serious broody.

Beetle the Australorp has picked off the feathers from her stomach, which I believe they do to keep the eggs closer to their warm, dry skin. And takes to the nesting box after no more than a few minutes eating and free ranging. I have been chucking her out every hour or so and she gives me the serious stink eye. If looks could kill...... I take all eggs out as soon as I see them (I'm lucky I work from home so I can visit every hour or so) and there are no dummy eggs there any more. She waits till I have left and just goes back in the nesting box. Day 2 of this battle.

I guess if she's the same tomorrow she needs to go in the sin bin. I have a dog crate ready for the task, and can raise it on bricks to keep the cool air flow going under her to put her off. My challenge now is where to put it. If I put it in the run, there's no room in the covered bit and if I leave her in the unroofed bit she'll get rained on. Forecast is for occasional showers over the next few days. If I put her in the garage, it will be dark till we get up and I open the roller door. And she'll be away from the other 3 and I guess the pecking order will need re-establishing.... Maybe I could put the dog crate next to the run so they all still see each other and rig up a tarp to protect her from rain.

I am silently pleading with her to get over it! We are in the suburbs and can only have 5 hens and I already have 4 so it's not really an option to get fertile eggs for her. I'm sooooo not up to the processing roos challenge or finding them homes, and I can only keep one more from a new hatch anyway.

Sigh..... Thank you for being the place I can share my irrits!

Katrina

 

[CatSol]

MB, that's great news about Duke! Don't worry about the new roo. It often takes a few weeks for the girls to accept a new roo's advances.

So we had a terrible tragedy here. One of the cats somehow got into the room with the brooder, and killed all 3 chicks, including Mr. O'Hurn. It was so, so horrible. This has never happened!! We're so careful about leaving the door closed! My daughter will be crushed. She's with her dad until Monday. How am I going to tell her what happened? I'm desperately searching all of NC for another silkie chick. Yep...I'm the parent who's trying to pull off the whole dead pet switch-a-roo apparently. But I'm that desperate. I really am.

In the meantime, there's one hatched Light Sussex running around in the incubator, and lots of pipped eggs, but there hasn't been any progress for hours.

Oh no.. so sorry for you and your daughter. I wish you luck in finding a chick .... Good luck on the other eggs.

MB I am thrilled and happy for you and Duke. You named him and to me... I would have a hard time with putting down anything I had named. I am happy that he found a place that is just perfect for him. So sorry for the Poison Ivy/oak... we don't have much of that out here. A little but not much in my area. My friend had some on her property and had a some issues getting over it when she dug it out. So sorry for you... I hope it clears up soon.
I was outside putting things away for the night. I hear wings fluttering in the chicken run so I go over there to make sure all is well. Amber is on the ground.... She is fine. But there is a broken egg under the perches. It looks like a soft shell (shelless) egg. Either she fluttered down to lay it and was too late or she flutter down after. Either way... It was a little after 10pm when she did this... I did not think that they would do this at night. But she is new to laying. I guess she didn't know to hold it This was only her 4th egg.

 

[Spikes Chooks]

Oh no.. so sorry for you and your daughter. I wish you luck in finding a chick .... Good luck on the other eggs.

MB I am thrilled and happy for you and Duke. You named him and to me... I would have a hard time with putting down anything I had named. I am happy that he found a place that is just perfect for him. So sorry for the Poison Ivy/oak... we don't have much of that out here. A little but not much in my area. My friend had some on her property and had a some issues getting over it when she dug it out. So sorry for you... I hope it clears up soon.
I was outside putting things away for the night. I hear wings fluttering in the chicken run so I go over there to make sure all is well. Amber is on the ground.... She is fine. But there is a broken egg under the perches. It looks like a soft shell (shelless) egg. Either she fluttered down to lay it and was too late or she flutter down after. Either way... It was a little after 10pm when she did this... I did not think that they would do this at night. But she is new to laying. I guess she didn't know to hold it This was only her 4th egg.

You're right that they wouldn't normally lay a normal shelled egg so late at night. But I think it doesn't really feel like an egg to them, being so soft and malleable. It almost drops out of them, often straight off the perch. It is so common when they first start, she'll work it out soon enough. Maybe it startled her, dropping out of her vent, like that, and that made her flutter to the ground. It must be so hard for them to understand what is going on.

 

[Melabella]

oh one of our EEs layed her first egg while we were gone happy and sad. Not there to see

that stinks! but what a beautiful egg it is! I think we have to have our blue/green eggs professionally photographed,, when I took a picture of my first blue egg the other day, I couldn't get the right shade of blue to come through. I love the color of your EE egg, if that indeed is the true color. Hope your vacation is going grand, are you still in Vegas? Have fun with the rest of your time, don't worry, your EE will give you lots of wonderful eggs when you get home!

So sorry Brooster to hear and I have done the same thing you are attempting to do when my daughter was younger.
She's now 26 and raising her own son. She was devastated when her first hamster died. So when #2 went, the old
switcher took place. It worked until #2 kicked the bucket. Hamsters are not known for their longevity in our family.

Hoping the rest of your hatch will help your daughter with accepting if you choose to tell her. (at least she still has the
"real" Mr. O'Hurn)

Happy belated birthday ladies.

MB - I am right there with you on the tears thing. Must be a full moon or something. I was in a meeting today and went from
frustration, anger to tears in about 1/2 an hour. Luckily the 3 people i was in the meeting with know me very well and just called
me a cry baby and I was able to get over it. We all ended the meeting laughing. So glad to hear about Duke's happy ending.

Sorry for your tears, I think mine have to do with this week, I absolutely hate tax time, and all that goes on to preparing for it. I hate the feeling of bottoming out the account to pay whatever we owe, I hate it all! I think there must be a real phobia name for it, because I have it. Long story that doesn't need to be told, but just simply hate it! I am a cry baby! Sending you a big cyber hug Kelly!

MB - So glad to hear Duke has found a new place, what a relief for you.

Brooster - Serious downer situation for you. I hope the switching works. Some life lessons can wait till your daughter is older, I think.

Me? Facing my first serious broody.

Beetle the Australorp has picked off the feathers from her stomach, which I believe they do to keep the eggs closer to their warm, dry skin. And takes to the nesting box after no more than a few minutes eating and free ranging. I have been chucking her out every hour or so and she gives me the serious stink eye. If looks could kill...... I take all eggs out as soon as I see them (I'm lucky I work from home so I can visit every hour or so) and there are no dummy eggs there any more. She waits till I have left and just goes back in the nesting box. Day 2 of this battle.

I guess if she's the same tomorrow she needs to go in the sin bin. I have a dog crate ready for the task, and can raise it on bricks to keep the cool air flow going under her to put her off. My challenge now is where to put it. If I put it in the run, there's no room in the covered bit and if I leave her in the unroofed bit she'll get rained on. Forecast is for occasional showers over the next few days. If I put her in the garage, it will be dark till we get up and I open the roller door. And she'll be away from the other 3 and I guess the pecking order will need re-establishing.... Maybe I could put the dog crate next to the run so they all still see each other and rig up a tarp to protect her from rain.

I am silently pleading with her to get over it! We are in the suburbs and can only have 5 hens and I already have 4 so it's not really an option to get fertile eggs for her. I'm sooooo not up to the processing roos challenge or finding them homes, and I can only keep one more from a new hatch anyway.

Sigh..... Thank you for being the place I can share my irrits!

Katrina

I know that must be difficult Katrina, sounds like the crate with the tarp is the way to go. It's difficult when we don't have a lot of space to do what we want! I also hear you loud and clear about the re homing thing! Hope I never have to go through that again! How old is your BA that went broody? I have a confession to make, I am hoping one of mine does go broody, I have 4 blue eggs sitting on my kitchen counter I would throw in an incubator if I had one or under a hen if I had one turn broody. These eggs are from the pullet I brought from breeder I bought the new pair from, ,and she was in with a lavender roo from John Blem which is apparently a good thing in the Ameruacana world. I discovered from my roo switcheroo that what i had thought is correct, my BA Dahlia is head girl around here. She looks awful as she was Dukes favorite girl, bare headed, bare backed, and just looks awful. I can't imagine what the gang will look like when they molt. Please keep us posted as to how it goes, as I will learn from your experience, good Luck!

Oh no.. so sorry for you and your daughter. I wish you luck in finding a chick .... Good luck on the other eggs.

MB I am thrilled and happy for you and Duke. You named him and to me... I would have a hard time with putting down anything I had named. I am happy that he found a place that is just perfect for him. So sorry for the Poison Ivy/oak... we don't have much of that out here. A little but not much in my area. My friend had some on her property and had a some issues getting over it when she dug it out. So sorry for you... I hope it clears up soon.
I was outside putting things away for the night. I hear wings fluttering in the chicken run so I go over there to make sure all is well. Amber is on the ground.... She is fine. But there is a broken egg under the perches. It looks like a soft shell (shelless) egg. Either she fluttered down to lay it and was too late or she flutter down after. Either way... It was a little after 10pm when she did this... I did not think that they would do this at night. But she is new to laying. I guess she didn't know to hold it This was only her 4th egg.

Cat, you are so right, since he had a name, and we raised him from a day old, I must admit, i was having a tough time. Even though he chased DD across the yard, and flew up at my nieces, not to mention the countless times he went after me and DH,, having him that dog crate in the feed room really wore on me. I put a towel over the top of the crate so I didn't have to see him every time I went in there. He was like Charlie Manson, calling his girls from the prison of his dog crate, and they were like a flock of Squeaky Fromms gathering around the outside of the barn door looking for him. It was a rought two days....

Ditto about what SC said on the soft egg,, I found 4 or 5 of them under the roosts... I am happy no one ever messed with them, just found them on top of the poo from overnight... yuck! Funny the things that go on in the coop at night!

MB

 

[Spikes Chooks]

MB - the BA is 10 months old, pretty much exactly. I hear they make great mothers. She has laid an egg almost every day since she was 5 1/2 months old in late November. I am so sorry we don't have space, coop, time, or permission to have more chickens. As I think she is shaping up to be a real serious mom hen. But we have to deal with our own realities. I am in surburbia, not a rural property. I have no room for a broody coop, let along capacity to have more chickens. So, I steel my heart, and prepare myself for the sin bin in the morning. Anyone would think it was me going into it!!!

I console myself that, as there is no hope of putting fertile eggs under her, it is cruel to let it go on as she can damage her own health and all to no avail. I tell her this as I take her out of the nesting box, but she still gives me the best stink eye I've ever seen. My job is to be the grown up, right? Fifty-something and I'm still a sucker for a "poor me" look..... I'll toughen up by the morning.

Katrina

 

[BroosterSpringsteen]

Was anyone else in that crazy line of storms that crossed the Eastern Seaboard last night? I love a good spring thunderstorm, but that was insane!

So I'm still a little upset this morning. I've never cried this much over a lost chicken. And I can't even look my cat in the eyes. I love my cat, and he was just doing what his cat instincts told him to do, but still. And he knows I'm mad at him. 3 more chicks hatched last night, and more are zipping, so I do feel a little better about that. I have another Cream Legbar, and this one's a girl!

I've gotten a lot of responses in my search for a silkie chick, but they're all at least 5 weeks old. I don't want my daughter to miss out on that first adorable week. So I'll probably have to tell her the truth, or some version of the truth, and order more eggs. She's cried over lost chicks before, but this is different. It's Mr. O'Hurn.

Katrina, sorry to hear about your broody hen problem! I'm glad I've yet to deal with that. I hear it's pretty difficult to break them out of the broodiness.

 

[Crafty chick]

MB~ so happy about Duke!