Arizona Chickens

[kukupecpec]

They were wonderful, great watch dogs. Poppa was very protective of Momma. A strange dog cam in the yard, an Irish Setter, Poppa had him cornered, with Momma clearing him on. The pure thing was terrified. Greece are not safe from predictors. Horned owls can take them out, if they are hungry enough. I need to worn you they have a karate chop with their wings. Poppa broke out one of my teeth, when Momma started laying the first time. I did not have the time to properly bond with them, he did not like me cleaning their nest or taking the eggs. My neighbor, Mrs. Retenhouse, loved them and they loved her. She cut the fence between our yards, they were very affectionate to her and could not get enough cuddling time. You give them the attention you will be rewarded. A male and female is best.

I'm trying to spend as much time with my little one as possible. It will be a lot easier once the diaper arrives. For now she can only hang out with me in a towel burrito ha

 

[City farm]

Do you have the broody separated? Do they have room to hide and get away? The other hens will kill the chicks if given a chance. How many eggs is she sitting on? I don't know about the rooster, I know my Roo would try to protect the pullets when they were being picked on. I have a broody, too. Chicks are expected on the 25th!

No not separated. We were going to build a small tractor to move her into.. Still haven't done that..we will need to do that tomorrow.. Will she be upset?

19 small to med size eggs.

We have the 2 week old chicks out front in a make shift tractor.. The hens have not tried to go up to them aggressively.. Or kent our roo..
My plan, whitch might not work.. Is to let her hatch out the new little ones. Then switch the older one with her new little ones???
Advice..


Day 21 is April 29th.. Our incubator eggs came early.. Like 2-3 days.. So we could be early as well..

Congrats in advance if I don't check in..

 

[Gallo del Cielo]

Quote:
My (limited) experience with broody hens and chicks interacting with the rest of the flock has been different. While I kept the first batch completely separated from the flock for the first four weeks, the other three batches have been reared either directly in the coop with the other chickens or the other chickens would go into the brooder tractor where the chicks were located. Maybe I've been very lucky, but I've never had anything but good interactions. My older hens never really pay much attention to the chicks and are typically very sweetly tolerant of them....that is until they are fully feathered, then the usual enforcement of pecking order starts. Up until recently, my birds free-ranged daily, so maybe that might make a difference in how aggressive they might be to small chicks, I don't know.

I probably wouldn't move the broody until the eggs hatch, unless it's very close to hatch day and the whole nest/broody can be moved together without disturbing her on the eggs. In one of my earlier batches I moved the broody (along with her nest box) and when she got up to to do her business, she couldn't remember where her eggs were and went to their original location. I'm not sure what you mean by switching the older one (chicks?) with the younger ones. Do you mean you want to remove the older chicks from the tractor and move the broody and her new chicks to the tractor?

 

[Gallo del Cielo]

I've always prided myself on my ability to resist chicken math. I went the Pima County Fair this past weekend to see the birds and started feeling a bit crazy with all the eye candy. Then I saw DesertMarcy's amazing Imperial Ringlet Barred Rocks and snapped. I had to have them! She wasn't selling her BR eggs for hatching so I wasn't able to add them under my broody hen. The good thing was that she had newly hatched BR chicks available just about 72 hours after my chicks hatched. So, yesterday I picked up three BR chicks and brought them to my broody hen. As I approached her with the peeping BR chicks she became agitated at the sound which I took to be a good sign. She was quite happy when I placed them with her clutch and they stopped crying out. I was glad to see that the chicks nearly immediately responded to the broody's come-eat-this-it's-good vocalizations. The thing was, they didn't associate the momma with heat. I had to leave them unattended for a couple of hours and nearly had a disaster. The momma and other chicks had moved back into the nest for the night and the poor tiny BR chicks were just standing outside the nest box. It was good it was so warm yesterday. I put them under the hen then and checked on them a few more times over the night. After a few hours they seemed to have figured out how nice and cozy momma can be.

I'd like to give a big thanks to DesertMarcy for putting up with my pestering and for her devotion to her heritage breeds. I would highly encourage anyone in the Tucson area that is thinking of adding to their flock or just getting started with chickens to check out her birds.

 

[MaddBaggins]

I'm not holding out a lot of hope for Button right now. He limp looks worse, yet I can't find anything wrong. Now she just sits around mostly because moving is difficult. Last night, my wife said she couldn't make it up the ramp to the coop so my daughter picked her up and placed her inside. She can't roost at all, not even on the 14" high roost I added for her.
I already told the wife I won't be taking any chickens to a vet. If they go south, I'm gonna cull them. I'll watch Button for another week and decide then.

 

[Mikey D]

Good morning Folks,

Seems to be water leak season. They're everywhere!

Flock is doing great - just clucking along.

Hope ya'll have a great Tuesday!

 

[Gallo del Cielo]

I'm not holding out a lot of hope for Button right now. He limp looks worse, yet I can't find anything wrong. Now she just sits around mostly because moving is difficult. Last night, my wife said she couldn't make it up the ramp to the coop so my daughter picked her up and placed her inside. She can't roost at all, not even on the 14" high roost I added for her.
I already told the wife I won't be taking any chickens to a vet. If they go south, I'm gonna cull them. I'll watch Button for another week and decide then.

I'm so sorry to hear that about Button.

 

[Arizonachicken]

No not separated. We were going to build a small tractor to move her into.. Still haven't done that..we will need to do that tomorrow.. Will she be upset?

19 small to med size eggs.

We have the 2 week old chicks out front in a make shift tractor.. The hens have not tried to go up to them aggressively.. Or kent our roo..
My plan, whitch might not work.. Is to let her hatch out the new little ones. Then switch the older one with her new little ones???
Advice..


Day 21 is April 29th.. Our incubator eggs came early.. Like 2-3 days.. So we could be early as well..

Congrats in advance if I don't check in..

19 is a lot...if you have most of them hatch, it will be a lot for the hen to look after. When I had a broody, I gave her 5 chicks. I let them free range with the other hens. She kept the chicks away from the rest of the flock and attacked any hen that ventured too near. She even attacked one of our dogs! The other hens learned (within minutes) to leave her and the chicks alone and I never had a problem. I would recommend moving her (if your coop is on the smaller side) if it was earlier on. Being this far into it, just be extra vigilant. It might upset her too much to move her now. I moved my broody a day or two into sitting on eggs. She was sitting on nothing before that. I moved her at dusk and she was frantic to get back to the coop...wouldn't sit on her eggs. But as it got darker, she settled in and has been committed to her nest since.

 

[Arizonachicken]

I'm not holding out a lot of hope for Button right now. He limp looks worse, yet I can't find anything wrong. Now she just sits around mostly because moving is difficult.  Last night, my wife said she couldn't make it up the ramp to the coop so my daughter picked her up and placed her inside. She can't roost at all, not even on the 14" high roost I added for her.
I already told the wife I won't be taking any chickens to a vet. If they go south, I'm gonna cull them. I'll watch Button for another week and decide then.

So sorry.

 

[LadyKotaDoria]

I am wondering? :/ From what I have observed over the years of wanting chickens, when I would watch a hen with chicks, and if there was a rooster, he would be circling them watching. One more then one occasion I would see him chase other hens away if they got close. I went to YouTub, and found a number of videos of roo's protecting. Is this in the roo's job description? Also I noted that when there was many roosters, each had between 1 and 3 lady's. when able to free range is this the normal ratio of Roos to hens? I never thought I would have them myself, so when I saw them in a field or yard I took as much time as I could to just watch.