Arizona Chickens

[Arpey]

Now that you mention it...that is a fantastic suggestion! I keep my heat lamp on 24/7. I bet the light had something to do with it.

I'll give that a try tomorrow. They have a heat lamp in the coop, but it has a red bulb... I bet white would be better for them. The new polish girls have the night time routine down pat!

 

[itsredcandy]

Whoop Whoop

Cattatorie laid her first egg in our hen house. I was surprised since it was her first night and morning here. She laid it sometime after 6:30 am. My husband found it when he got home from work. The egg looks kind of cream colored until you put it next to a store bought white egg. By the weekend we should have enough for the whole family to try. I am so so so excited. I had to tell everyone at the gym that I had to hurry home because I had my first egg. Not her first egg, but my first egg.

 

[Mikey D]

So I have been letting all my chickens free range all day to peck and scratch together for the past week, both the bigger chicks and the smaller chicks together. Twice now, I have had to herd them into their seperate respective brooders at dusk. I have 1 bigger brooder/coop for the bigger chicks, and a smaller brooder for the smaller chicks. Why two brooders? Because Kentucky (my red star sex-link) is a dominant one and likes to peck at the smaller chicks when in an enclosed area, such as the coop/brooder. She doesn't do that to the chicks her age though, and doesn't do it when they are out and about in the yard. Two nights ago, I was late getting home. It was dusk. I wondered to myself, what did they decide to do? When I got home, I went straight to them. Guess what I found? They were all neatly nestled down for the night in each of their own respective brooders! WOW! Tonight is the second night that they corralled themselves in their own brooder, waiting for me to shut the door for them for the night.

I love my chickens! They make my life so easy

I agree! They are wonderfully cool!

I couldn't believe it when I first started letting them out. I'd manually round them up if I was leaving - not a big problem but occasionally someone didn't want to "go home".

After I got used to them being out - they rounded themselves up at dusk.

Automatic pets!

 

[Mikey D]

Whoop Whoop

Cattatorie laid her first egg in our hen house. I was surprised since it was her first night and morning here. She laid it sometime after 6:30 am. My husband found it when he got home from work. The egg looks kind of cream colored until you put it next to a store bought white egg. By the weekend we should have enough for the whole family to try. I am so so so excited. I had to tell everyone at the gym that I had to hurry home because I had my first egg. Not her first egg, but my first egg.

Wahoo! First eggs are the best!

 

[Fuzzybird]

Cut the bottoms of an egg carton and stick them in that. It gives the chicks something solid to push against while hatching, and keeps any with extra fluid from accidentally drowing themselves.
It also makes it easy to count # hatched.

WOW what a super idea! Truely tho which is best cardboard or styrofoam?

 

[Mahonri]

took an hour, but I'm caught up with this thread.

spread some chicken joy to a family that are patients of mine.

They got 6 NYD hatch chicks... should be fun to see how many of those turn out to be roos.

 

[LarryPQ]

WOW what a super idea! Truely tho which is best cardboard or styrofoam?

Because it is so dry here, it doesn't matter. However, fluid from the hatched eggs can make the paper cartons weaker and maybe rip. I always use styrofoam.

 

[Mama Hen Chris]

Day

 

[Novaleigh]

Happy Valentines Day fellow BYCers!!!

For a few days now, I have been racking my brain to think of a way of keeping the tweety birds out of my chicks feed. They gobble it up so fast! But this morning, Sweety, my barred rock in whom I thought was a girl up until a few days ago, was chasing them all away! He was keeping guard on both feeders! He kept tweeties from the bigger chicks feeder in their coop/brooder, and keeping tweeties from his in his little brooder's feeder. SO CUTE!!! I laughed so hard watching him!

Who needs a comedy show when you have chickens?

 

[Novaleigh]

Itsredcandy, Congrats on your first egg!!!