California - Northern

[Happy Chooks]

Quote:
x2 So sorry.

 

[Happy Chooks]

Oh for Pete's sake..............I have yet another broody - a barnevelder. So that makes 5 broodies right now. 4 of them are in my big coop, and I only have 5 nesting boxes. So now the rest of the girls only have 1 box to lay in. Hopefully, Dusty hatches her babies tomorrow, so I can move her and the babies out to the "momma" area.

 

[lawatt]

Quote:
so sorry to read about Stuffing! my condolences...


and just in case of interest, snapped neck = most likely a fox or coyote -- feline species tend to grab by the throat but suffocate, and raccoons & skunks just bite bite bite...

 

[lawatt]

Oh for Pete's sake..............I have yet another broody - a barnevelder. So that makes 5 broodies right now. 4 of them are in my big coop, and I only have 5 nesting boxes. So now the rest of the girls only have 1 box to lay in. Hopefully, Dusty hatches her babies tomorrow, so I can move her and the babies out to the "momma" area.

i feel your pain! i had five broodies and only three nesting boxes... too much juggling.

 

[Hangtown Farms]

i feel your pain! i had five broodies and only three nesting boxes... too much juggling.

I have 3 and funny thing I took there eggs so they insist on sitting on nothing.
I kicked them out of the coop and shut it to try and help

 

[Hangtown Farms]

Is the Basin in a Home Owners Association? I did not find Chickens in the index when looking at the Tahoe Regional Plan, which seemed to have different rules for things based on the County.

Watch the Leghorn based chickens like the Cream Legbars. They seem to have noisy boys. Orlando was my Baby and got me busted by Animal Control.

Tahoe is funny. Landscapers have to stop moving dirt by the 15th of October I believe to keep run off at bay.

 

[debs_flock]

So today I had a "discussion" with a friend concerning poultry in the Basin.My girls were talking about our chicks and they said" What! You cant have chickens in the basin!"

I said "according to the el dorado county ordinance poultry are a gray area unless they violate the noise ordinance. So I can keep a rooster unless it drives a neighbor nuts. Since were on 3/4 of an acre and the few neighbors behind us are offset from our property lines its a pretty good distance away"

They said " the basin ordinance trumps the el dorado county ordinance. Poultry are livestock and not permitted in the basin unless you have over 2 acres and are grandfathered in"

I said " according to our friend at animal control poultry are considered pets until you participate in processing ,,, then they are livestock..he won't enforce livestock unless a judge tells him otherwise"

so now my husband thinks Im crazy (which is only partially true)to try breeding again, which is my entire fun in owning chickens. We LOVE to improve breeds and create fun cross projects . While in our previous neighborhood (1 mile away) we had between 2-5 roos crowing but waited until about 9 am to let them into the yard keeping it muffled until then. The neighbors were easily bribed with eggs. I think its just stressful because we dont know any of our neighboors since the only house on our street is empty but there are a few housed behind us that we never actually see the people just their dogs occasionally...

I have promised any extra roos and culls would be promptly sent to freezer camp at someone else's property. And I would limit my roos to two favorite breeds. I actually went so far as to tell him i would look into a quiet rooster.

Yes those words actually came out of my mouth. Those "Orlando " stories have me worried. 2 MILES?

If you want quiet, I'd develop an interest in silkies or seramas

I only know one person on here that did the decrowing, very $$$ and the roo died shortly post-op.

Quote:
I have two girls in the Egg House that have been sitting on nothing for a month, a BO and a SPPR. You'd think they'd cook in those nest boxes in this heat. We fish the eggs out from under them every day. It's my group of misfit hens covered by an Isbar roo.

My funniest is a turkey hen. She has been brooding for literally months. When the turkeys get let out of their pen in the morning, she rushes to the same spot, jumps up and settles in for the day. She is right out in the sun and pants all day. I originally thought she was on a nest (even though DH moves them all into the covered pen at night), until I went to investigate.

She is sitting on an unused Little Giant automatic waterer. Those HUGE red things. So her egg is hard plastic and about half as big as she is, silly girl. Maybe she can hatch out an entire watering system for all the birds?

http://www.southernstates.com/catalog/p-4998-little-giant-adult-bird-fount-waterer.aspx

 

[tommysgirl]

My funniest is a turkey hen. She has been brooding for literally months. When the turkeys get let out of their pen in the morning, she rushes to the same spot, jumps up and settles in for the day. She is right out in the sun and pants all day. I originally thought she was on a nest (even though DH moves them all into the covered pen at night), until I went to investigate.

She is sitting on an unused Little Giant automatic waterer. Those HUGE red things. So her egg is hard plastic and about half as big as she is, silly girl. Maybe she can hatch out an entire watering system for all the birds?

http://www.southernstates.com/catalog/p-4998-little-giant-adult-bird-fount-waterer.aspx

too funny!

 

[capayvalleychick]

Chiquita, you need a dog to scare off the predators or at least bark to let you know when they are stalking nearby. Sorry about Stuffing.

After wanting a broody since early Spring, I have 2. They always wait until it gets hot to go broody. I don't know why.

When I checked the temp, early yesterday, it was 110 again. I wasn't going to cook last night. When DH & I got in his truck to go to dinner, the temp in the mirror said 117. I don't know how accurate those vehicle thermometers are. By the time we got down to the highway, it had dropped to 110.

I moved my youngest chicks out of the coop brooder, into a cage on the lawn under the Mulberry tree, to stay cool. Had the sprinkler running all day, which the chickens stand under. The pasture sprinklers were left on, also, but one of the hens out there died from the heat. I actually consider myself lucky because the chicken farmers out here loose huge numbers of birds when the heat spikes. One farmer has much lusher pasture than I do, but he filled up his pickup bed with dead chickens from the past 2 days. They should get some of these UofA birds from Ron. I'm impressed by how well they are handling it.

 

[ChickNmamma]

Well we are on a gulch that carries noises
But I would be careful about breeds with a piecing crow.

The good thing about the gulch is no one knows where the noise comes from. They do have decrowing for roos but it is pricy. Supposed to be humane however some chicken vet invented it.

What breeds are you looking into? There are some quiet silkie roosters. And a single roo is quieter then a few who get into contests like the alum rock boys choir.

Stuffing got taken by a predator Friday night. She would not go in the coop and she was right under my window. Whatever got her snapped her neck instantly and did not make noise until she hit the ground so I was too late. It hung out in the gulch waiting to come back for about an hour but stayed out of flashlight range. This ha been a bad chicken last month or so here...

I am sorry about Stuffing, she sounded like a neat turkey. I had an escape artist chicken last year that would get out and not go back in at night until I chased her down and caught her and put her in. One night I couldn't find her, but I heard her about 2 am. By the time I got outside there was nothing but a few feathers. Next day I found the pile, two legs and an egg... poor girl. The sucker came back the next night but I set the dog after it - haven't seen it since. Big gray something - probably coyote.

If you want quiet, I'd develop an interest in silkies or seramas

I only know one person on here that did the decrowing, very $$$ and the roo died shortly post-op.

Quote:
I have two girls in the Egg House that have been sitting on nothing for a month, a BO and a SPPR. You'd think they'd cook in those nest boxes in this heat. We fish the eggs out from under them every day. It's my group of misfit hens covered by an Isbar roo.

My funniest is a turkey hen. She has been brooding for literally months. When the turkeys get let out of their pen in the morning, she rushes to the same spot, jumps up and settles in for the day. She is right out in the sun and pants all day. I originally thought she was on a nest (even though DH moves them all into the covered pen at night), until I went to investigate.

She is sitting on an unused Little Giant automatic waterer. Those HUGE red things. So her egg is hard plastic and about half as big as she is, silly girl. Maybe she can hatch out an entire watering system for all the birds?

http://www.southernstates.com/catalog/p-4998-little-giant-adult-bird-fount-waterer.aspx
My quietest rooster is my Sumatra. Hardly ever crows and his crow is soft. Next lowest one is the Isbar - he has such a low crow it almost sounds like singing. Then the SFH and the Marans. The one Silky roo Jazz has a hoarse crow, the other (Owl) is higher and louder. The bantams are the noisiest - and they seem to crow all the time... setting off everybody else.

Oh, speaking of Isbar - Deb, Izzy is a daddy!

I had an EE go broody in his pen and I kicked her off - but not before 9 eggs had started forming. I put them in the incubator to give them a chance.. and 8 hatched. I have 6 fuzzy black chicks and 2 blue ones.. they are adorable! They got the fuzzy faces from their moms and the color from their dad. I want to keep the two blue ones.. but if anybody wants any black birds with fuzzy faces, dark legs, pea or straight comb that lay green eggs and came from blue/green eggs, I have 6 fluffballs available...

Those, plus the eggs I set on purpose that have already hatched (BV, Wellie,SS, SFH & Silkie), plus the 4 broodies in the Silkie coop (its contagious - I only had one originally), plus the broody who hatched out 4, plus the next set in lockdown in the incubator (Silkies, Sumatras & SBEL EEs) plus the "last" set that went in 8 days ago (Black AMs, Purple Eggers, random Sumis and SPPR).. I am going to be overrun... Maybe buying the big incubator wasn't such a good idea