California - Northern

[MonsterClucker]

Thanks for all of the help from everyone. Its hard being a New-Bee chicken owner. Not knowing really anything lol. Hopefully we might have all girls! I don't knowANYTHING at all about the blue EE.
Is anyone familiar with this breed? They are EE x barnevelder?

 

[Happy Chooks]

Thanks for all of the help from everyone. Its hard being a New-Bee chicken owner. Not knowing really anything lol. Hopefully we might have all girls! I don't knowANYTHING at all about the blue EE.
Is anyone familiar with this breed? They are EE x barnevelder?

EE's are crosses, so they could be just about anything. It was either a blue/black mating, a blue/blue mating or a black/splash mating for the chick to hatch blue.

 

[Adriennesmom]

Congrats! I don't have NN's, can't help you on sexing. If it's a male, you should see saddle feathers coming in soon.

All pullets. By that age, cockerels have bigger combs. Orps can be tricky to sex. Here's a splash cockerel at 8 weeks.

Thank you Happy Chooks.

I will keep an eye out for saddle feathers. I hope that I do not find any

lol

 

[chiqita]

Does anyone know how much sulfed for turkeys before I go looking around? I've got some bloody stools, so out comes the antibiotics.

 

[capayvalleychick]

Sad news, the sick Marans chick I got last week died. I hope the rest are OK. Then one of my 4 week old WCB Polish (one of the nicest) drowned in a small water tub today. They've been drinking out of this water tub since they were tiny. Not sure why it got stuck in it today.

I'm sorry to hear that, Pam. I've had a young chick die in a dog's water dish, so I try to keep any deep water out of reach of chicks. Then I had an older pullet almost drown in a stock tank. Luckily I found her in time. Sometimes chickens are stupid.

Deb, was that the region up by Plymouth? I never realized that there were so many vineyards up there until recently. Someday, I want to try them out.

 

[zooweemama]

Injured chicken question. Yesterday I was bringing the chickens some chopped kale and while they were eating one of my Marans cockerels dive bombed one of the Orp cockerels (2 weeks younger and a little smaller). Knocked him clean over and skidded and rolled. Then when he (Orp) tried to get up he kept flopping over. He eventually did get up. Loses balance sometimes and def favors his left leg. This morning he is getting around fine but I do notice him still favoring his left leg. Should I leave him alone? I looked at his leg and didn't see anything amiss but I am not really sure what I would be looking for anything in the leg. Didn't seem swollen but I haven't inspected closely this morning. I def notice the cockerels becoming more aggressive with one another now. The cockerels are all now 13 and 15 weeks old. I should be culling soon right? (freezer camp, I mean)

Also I have this one cockerel who is TOTALLY wrong as a BCM but he is really starting to look kinda cool.





He is looking even more tan around the neck now too. This image is 2 weeks old.

He is starting to look more like this...
http://www.google.com/imgres?hl=en&...175&start=0&ndsp=43&ved=1t:429,r:11,s:0,i:110

Should I hang on to him? He is getting big, feathering nicely and his coloring looks a lot like the birchen...seems a shame to eat him for some reason! LOL

 

[zooweemama]

I only know of NN genes through my showgirls, but usualy that much wattle would be a boy. But I'm sure the silkie genes make the wattles on my girls more subtle. He is so cute however, looks like little iggy! Ill have to post a shot of baby iggs.

Zoo, do you know if the people living at your house before you had chickens? I'm wondering if there is something in your soil. And how are the duck eggs going? are you dredging the pond for extra eggs?

We went to the passport weekend in Lodi Saturday, it was heavenly. That place is my new favorite wine destination.

Hope everyone had a lovely weekend!

Actually yes the people before us must have had chickens. We reused the coop that was here. We gutted it, reinforced the bones of it, fresh fencing, new dirt...duck eggs are doing wonderful! 3-4 a day right now. Wish there were more but we have 18 saved up which is nice. Today we got our first HUGE egg. So big I cannot close the jumbo sized chicken egg carton. Score!

I had thought about the soil before. There just isn't anything I can do that I know of. I was telling Ron that I have wracked my brain. I have done just about everything right. From the start. I don't think it's anything I am doing, or brought here. We have another chicken dying now. Hope is almost dead. She was eating and drinking yesterday but def low (I quarantined her). I put Sleepy chicken in with her (the other chicken doing poorly) last night for warmth. Sleepy who has been the poorer of the two, was pretty alert today and raring to go forage which I let her do- she ran off pecking at the ground. I know something is wrong - it's a matter of finding out WHAT. It's not some of the more obvious things- no one really has any symptoms that fit mericks nor some of the poisonings nor most of the respiratory illnesses I have looked up. There is a person behind me that has chickens- our roosters sometimes crow off each other.

Won't know until the necropsy. Which I am sending off today. I am (sadly and witha heavy heart) hoping Hope dies before I have to go so I can send a fresh sample to Davis rather than the week old one sitting in my fridge.

 

[zooweemama]

I'm sorry you lost a Marans chickie, Pam!

 

[debs_flock]

Deb, was that the region up by Plymouth? I never realized that there were so many vineyards up there until recently. Someday, I want to try them out.

Yes, it's less than a half hour from our house, so generally where we go for wine tasting. There must be at least a hundred different tasting rooms. I haven't made a dent in trying them all yet. Lots of things to do there, pizza night, music, etc. Of course, lots of tasting rooms right here in El Dorado County too, including one less than a half mile from our house.

The best thing.......................all of the wine tasting in this area is FREE,

Unless you arrive by limo, then they know you are just there to drink, most of those people sample, sample, sample and never buy. Not really fair to the winery.

Deb

 

[Happy Chooks]

Sad news, the sick Marans chick I got last week died. I hope the rest are OK. Then one of my 4 week old WCB Polish (one of the nicest) drowned in a small water tub today. They've been drinking out of this water tub since they were tiny. Not sure why it got stuck in it today.

So sorry you lost a chick.

Injured chicken question. Yesterday I was bringing the chickens some chopped kale and while they were eating one of my Marans cockerels dive bombed one of the Orp cockerels (2 weeks younger and a little smaller). Knocked him clean over and skidded and rolled. Then when he (Orp) tried to get up he kept flopping over. He eventually did get up. Loses balance sometimes and def favors his left leg. This morning he is getting around fine but I do notice him still favoring his left leg. Should I leave him alone? I looked at his leg and didn't see anything amiss but I am not really sure what I would be looking for anything in the leg. Didn't seem swollen but I haven't inspected closely this morning. I def notice the cockerels becoming more aggressive with one another now. The cockerels are all now 13 and 15 weeks old. I should be culling soon right? (freezer camp, I mean)

I'd give the injured one a few days to recover. Chances are he'll get better on his own. If for some reason he takes a turn for the worse, then I'd bring him in and give him the pamper treatment until his leg improves.

As for processing, I don't go longer than 20 weeks as the meat gets tougher after that. I do try to get close to 20 weeks though, because they put on size pretty rapidly between 13 and 20 weeks. All depends on how filled out you want them.

That Marans boy sure is pretty. Depends on your goals - if you are just breeding for your own likes, then it wouldn't hurt to keep him. But if you are wanting to breed to SOP, then I don't think you would want to keep him. I'm not all that familiar with breeding Marans as they are not a breed I am working with.