Arizona Chickens

[ejcrist]

@ejcrist, here are some pics of a California White cock and some of his pullets. On the pullets, check out the sparse black spotting. At hatch, this is how you tell the difference between the boys and the girls.

Thanks for the pictures. They certainly are nice looking birds!

 

[ejcrist]

Just keep in mind that if you don't give her eggs or break her broodiness, she could starve herself to death. A broody hen will eschew feed and even water most of the day while she sits on her eggs. One of my broodies literally didn't leave the nest for three days, not even to poop! Another would leave for a total of 5 minutes max per day. It was amazing to watch her fly off the nest and run full speed through the yard, first pooping, then gulping down food and water, then a quick dust bath and finally back on the nest, growling her warning to other birds to stay out of her way. The flock was terrified of her! A good broody will only eat enough to allow herself minimal nutrients while sitting, but in our desert heat it's all too easy for them to die of starvation as maternal instinct combats with environmental influences.

If she's not a truly devoted broody, breaking her could take as little as a day or a few days of removing her from her preferred environment....say to a dog kennel, broody box, etc. with minimal bedding in which she could build a nest. I've even brought one into the air conditioned house in a dog crate for 24 hours, which was distressing enough to break her of her broodiness. Provide her with food and plenty of cool water. Her "tone of voice" will change once she's no longer broody.

Another trick is to give her 1-2 baby aspirin per day in her water. Broodiness resembles a fever as the bird's body temperature actually increases in anticipation of incubating eggs. Crushing up a baby aspirin and either putting it in her water, or forcing her to drink liquified aspirin water via a syringe or eye dropper often yields results in 24 hours.

The longer you permit her to be broody the harder it will be to break her. I have one girl right now who's been broody and sitting on a golf ball for a couple weeks, but I've allowed her to remain broody because her poor body was nearly completely devoid of feathers. She'd gone through 2 molts and a whole lot of mating without ever even slowing in her egg laying until finally her body seemed to scream, "Enough! I need a break!" I remove her from her nest multiple times per day to ensure she drinks and eats while new feathers grow in. During the hottest part of the day she also removes herself form the nest for an hour or more to tend to her needs...which is what makes me suspect she's NOT a devoted broody, but simply allowing herself some much needed R & R. Her crop is always nice and full at night, and her feathers are now about halfway in. Once she's mostly feathered I'll isolate her and give her some aspirin water to break her.

Good luck!

Also, I forgot to ask, but I read somewhere, I think it was The Chicken Chick, that you should remove them from the coop/run when you put the broody in the cage. Is that necessary too or would it be ok just to leave the cage inside the run? I'm not sure why that would make a difference.

Gene

 

[cyborg]

@ejcrist Stick with the wire bottom, it cools their belly and breaks the broody fever faster. Dont know about removing the cage.

Here is another CW cock pic this morning that i cropped. The pullet in the background shows her spots pretty well in this pic.

 

[DesertChic]

Good info - thanks for the details. I didn't think she might end up malnourished and starve herself - certainly want to avoid that. The other think I don't like about it is she's sitting in that nest box all hours of the day, and of course it gets mighty toasty in there. That alone worries me. Anyway I have a large dog crate I bought to transport my rooster so I can put that to good use. It has a removable plastic floor. I've read elsewhere that you should put them in a container with a wire-bottom floor to allow air to circulate under her and elevate the crate. If that's the case I'd have to remove the plastic floor and probably put in hardware cloth because the wire cage might be too wide for her to walk on. Is it absolutely necessary to have her on a wire floor? It'll be a lot easier if it's not necessary but if so I'll get her done. I'd rather start with the cage method before trying aspirin.

It's not absolutely necessary to have a mesh floor, but it can help break the broodiness more quickly. As an alternative though, you could try freezing some water bottles and slipping them in there with her to keep her cooler. I did that with one of my more stubborn girls....a frozen 2-liter bottle that was so large she had no choice but to at least lay next to it. Not only did it help cool her down more quickly, she developed an affinity for that method of cooling off on a hot day and is the only hen I have that will snuggle up to one willingly. Silly chickens.

 

[ejcrist]

It's not absolutely necessary to have a mesh floor, but it can help break the broodiness more quickly. As an alternative though, you could try freezing some water bottles and slipping them in there with her to keep her cooler. I did that with one of my more stubborn girls....a frozen 2-liter bottle that was so large she had no choice but to at least lay next to it. Not only did it help cool her down more quickly, she developed an affinity for that method of cooling off on a hot day and is the only hen I have that will snuggle up to one willingly. Silly chickens.

Ok, got it - I'll take yours and Cyborg's recommendation and go with the wire bottom. I went home for lunch and measured the dog crate width and it's exactly 36", and I happen to have a 36"X50' roll of 1/2" hardware cloth left over from when I built the coop and run, so when I get home this afternoon I'll wire the correct length of hardware cloth to the bottom of the crate. While I was home I also checked the nest boxes to fetch eggs and expected to see the gal in her usual spot but she wasn't there. I looked in the coop and out in the run and everything looked completely normal. Unfortunately I don't know exactly which BR she was because I have 16 of them. I put bands on their legs a while back so I can ID them but I never could lift her up long enough to look at her band because it would really pluck her nerves and I'd always end up getting bit and pecked pretty good. So hopefully by some miracle maybe she wasn't committed and came out of it herself. I'll check again when I get home but I'm going to prepare the dog crate floor just in case anyway because I'm sure I'll run into this again.

 

[ejcrist]

@ejcrist Stick with the wire bottom, it cools their belly and breaks the broody fever faster. Dont know about removing the cage.

Here is another CW cock pic this morning that i cropped. The pullet in the background shows her spots pretty well in this pic.

Yep, I see the flecks good in this picture. Hey let me ask you, my leghorn pullets have black flecks that look a similar to those. Do regular leghorns have them too occasionally or would mine be mixes of some sort?

 

[cyborg]

[@=/u/385173/ejcrist]@ejcrist[/@] Stick with the wire bottom, it cools their belly and breaks the broody fever faster. Dont know about removing the cage. Here is another CW cock pic this morning that i cropped. The pullet in the background shows her spots pretty well in this pic.

Yep, I see the flecks good in this picture. Hey let me ask you, my leghorn pullets have black flecks that look a similar to those. Do regular leghorns have them too occasionally or would mine be mixes of some sort?

Leghorns shouldn't have black spots. You may already have some California Whites. Let's see some pics! BTW, CW's are excellent white egg layers.

 

[ejcrist]

Leghorns shouldn't have black spots. You may already have some California Whites. Let's see some pics!
BTW, CW's are excellent white egg layers.

Here ya go....

The Leghorn in the first image has a black spot on her tail. The 2d image look at the Leghorn on the left in front of the red pan.

 

[cyborg]

Quote: Yup, they look like CW's.

 

[ejcrist]

Leghorns shouldn't have black spots. You may already have some California Whites. Let's see some pics!
BTW, CW's are excellent white egg layers.

Ya know what cyborg, I betcha I have Ideal 236's because I went to Western Ranchman's website and it indicated they buy from Ideal. The Ideal website lists White Leghorns and Ideal 236. It also states unless you specifically say you only want white leghorns that they have the right to substitute 236's (http://www.idealpoultry.com/item.html). The 236 is a hybrid of 3 strains of White Leghorns and a white egg barred breed cross. I'd bet money that's what I have. I'm not at all disappointed in them since they lay really well, but it would be nice if Ideal only sent you exactly what you asked for. Well, at least I know not to breed them because I don't know what I'd end up with, and they are predominantly Leghorn so Ideal gave me mostly what I asked for. I'm happy with my birds but since getting into it more I only plan to buy from breeders in the future.