Australia - Six states..and that funny little island.

[Anniebee]

To ChristieB and sjturner79 .....

So sorry to hear that each of you have lost a chicken. Always very sad.

,,,,,,,

Meeka3 .... I understand your reluctance to clip your guinea fowl's wings. They sound like a bit of a challenge, but they are lovely --- with beautiful feathers ( and painted faces - that's what they look like ). Mother Nature is quite extraordinary ....

I must say I didn't think further than lowest rungs of trees for any birds with clipped wings, but silly me - a tree is like a ladder to birds ( especially I would imagine, the Guinea fowl ) .... so, as you
said - not really an option. My girls have never attempted such a thing. Even if they could fly a little way, I doubt they'd do it.

If your birds are comfortable and happy and roost high, then all is A1 ok I would think .... Good onya Meeka ..

Cheers ......

 

[satay]

And now suddenly our big boss chook is dead. Noooo! Only 1 hatched out of 2 dozen eggs last March.
One minute she's mating with the rooster, next minute she's flopping around the yard, then closed eyes and dead.

 

[RodneyRooster]

You can never have too many.
I've only got 163.

xxxx   M

Only?!?! Sheesh! Yes i agree how on earth do u count them all lol

And now suddenly our big boss chook is dead. Noooo! Only 1 hatched out of 2 dozen eggs last March.
One minute she's mating with the rooster, next minute she's flopping around the yard, then closed eyes and dead.

Sorry to hear that, sounds awful

 

[Teila]

** Teila pops in to check if it is safe … no chatter about free bubbies

lol

Good morning Friends

RodneyRooster those pics of your fluff balls roosting are gorgeous! So tiny compared to the big chickens and so cute!

tandykins Oh dear, Grendel does sound like she is being a tad naughty … love the “loudly complaining and PMSing dinosaur toddlers”

While I consider myself Australian, I was actually born in England to English parents and my fair skin does not like the Australian sun either

sjturner79 I am so very sorry to read of your loss

Coop and run size dictates that I can have 6 bantams; Council dictates that I can have 6 hens and Hubby dictates 6 also! I actually do not mind having a ‘limit’ as it does keep me grounded … I have enough trouble with 6 with broodiness, squabbling and bug control

So, while I thought KiKi had done a wonderful job on breaking Blondie .. not so much.

Blondie is full on Blondzilla!

She is screeching; doing ‘chicken who swallowed blow fish’ impersonations; chasing chickens and people across the yard and trying to remove toes .. guess who is now in broody jail?

Last night I blocked off two of the nest boxes with a dividing wall and put a flat timber cover on the other one.. at bed time, I found Blondie pancaked on the timber cover because that was the closest thing to a nest box she could get

Finally, after removing her, I do not know how many times, and putting her on the roost, she finally stayed put at 07:45pm .. when I got up this morning she was back on the nest box cover, pancaked … broody jail!

Fancy how often can I use the Surface Spray on the coop? I am guessing too often is not good? On the Wednesday I first spotted them, I sprayed the coop with it; then on the Saturday I stripped everything down, washed with hot soapy water and when dry, sprayed again; treated the chickens with dust and replaced nesting material also. This Saturday gone, cleaned the coop again and because I did not want to overdo the spray, gave it a dose of Yates 'Success'. Note: I spotted a couple of bugs after the initial Wednesday spray but none after the following Saturday one, including last weekend; until now ....

Sadly, when I took the cover off the nest box Blondie was pancaked on I found one bug on it .. OK, only one but where there is one … *sigh* My colleague is bringing in some wood ash for me on Friday so I can call into the office and pick it up Saturday and add it to their dust bath .. probably going to have to do another coop strip and clean on Saturday also … I sometimes wonder if it is a battle we can ever totally win.

 

[Fancychooklady]

Teila , if you are using the spinosad ( success ) you should have it covered . The surface spray is more of a trouble shooter. The risk of over using the permethrin and pyrethrum products , is that the bugs will eventually build an immunity to them. If you are only seeing the odd mite, I'd say you were winning the war.

 

[Teila]

Thank You Fancy, yep, I probably am winning the war and being a tad paranoid

I will just keep an eye on it until the weekend and if things have worsened, select my weapon of choice at that time .. by then I should have the wood ash in my arsenal also

*Sigh* Summer and broodies

 

[sjturner79]

Thank You Fancy, yep, I probably am winning the war and being a tad paranoid    

I will just keep an eye on it until the weekend and if things have worsened, select my weapon of choice at that time .. by then I should have the wood ash in my arsenal also 

*Sigh* Summer and broodies :/

Yes. I need more of those. I guess I need more of them to get old enough to start laying first. I have 4 out of my 17 that have lain

 

[tandykins]

Having my worst incubation ever. I started with 6 eggs. One never developed. Two broke when I was candling them *sigh*. One quit at ~10 days.

Two eggs made it to hatching day.

Sunday was hatching day. Monday morning I woke up and found one chick had pipped through, missing the air sac and pipping through. There was some oozing red liquid coming out but it wasn't much. I left it alone and kept an eye on it. I knew that chicks who missed the air cell could take a long time to hatch and there could be some blood. I started to think the chick was dead after only a few hours. It wasn't moving -at all-. But I left it until this morning - about 36 hours after it had pipped through. I could see no movement at all. I finally cracked open the air cell to get a look at what was going on and found a dead chick. It's now Day 23 and the remaining egg has not pipped through. I suspect it is also dead.

I'm not sure what happened. This is a new incubator with poor instructions and no hygrometer. I'm going to leave the remaining egg another day or so and maybe open the air cell on it and see what happened.

I'm going to wire up a hygrometer before I run another hatch in this incubator. I feel like I'm groping around in the dark not knowing what my humidity is and it would be a simple addition. Still, I'm less than impressed with this incubator. It holds 7 eggs and requires that they all be upright (or it won't fit more than 4-5). It makes turning them impossible. The best I could do was tipping the eggs in one direction and then tipping them in the other direction but it was fractional. I may just toss the tray for holding eggs and see if I can't get my husband to design and 3D print another one which holds fewer eggs and holds them at an angle so they can be properly turned. This is a stupid design.

Meanwhile, we're moving the birds to a new block of nesting boxes (8 instead of 3) in the garage instead of in the coop. This is confusing and terrifying to them and they're putting all of their energy into booting Tetra off her nest in the maternity cage every chance they get. So far we're managing this by removing her from her nest once or twice a day so that she eats/drinks/poops and then letting her back in manually. It's a pain, but it means we can close the door after her and leave only water in with her. Poor girl's cranky as but her eggs will be safer this way.

 

[Teila]

I slip into a nice peaceful and calm sense of normality during winter but have been abruptly reminded of the joys of Spring/Summer also

While not confirmed, Cilla may be broody again and for those keeping track .. 11 eggs; 4.2 weeks!

She was picking on everyone last night and has been in the nest box all morning; I am giving her the benefit of the doubt but I am not thinking she is laying an egg

I never thought when getting chickens that I would actually need more broody breakers than nest boxes and at this rate, that might just be the case.

Plan B is to just take the nest boxes out of the coop and put them in the broody breaker with the non broodies who are shortly to be outnumbered

 

[Fancychooklady]

I slip into a nice peaceful and calm sense of normality during winter but have been abruptly reminded of the joys of Spring/Summer also 

While not confirmed, Cilla may be broody again and for those keeping track .. 11 eggs; 4.2 weeks!

She was picking on everyone last night and has been in the nest box all morning; I am giving her the benefit of the doubt but I am not thinking she is laying an egg 

I never thought when getting chickens that I would actually need more broody breakers than nest boxes and at this rate, that might just be the case.

Plan B is to just take the nest boxes out of the coop and put them in the broody breaker with the non broodies who are shortly to be outnumbered   

Haha she didn't hold out for long. It's blowing a gale here. Forecast for snow on Thursday.