California - Northern

[OR4-hmom]

I would guess it's a boy. My Hans has red wattles but no crowing yet.

 

[ronott1]

It is too soon to tell if this is a boy or a girl.

Quite the attitude though!

 

[Deerling]

Oh how flippin' cute is he! (Or she). Such a pretty shape.

One of our EE's hatched some babies under our house a while back. It is so cool! She was our first broody. She hatched four but one disappeared. Three still healthy! I want to get pictures, they're cuties. One girl, one boy and one that could go either way. Their daddy is a very handsome partridge cochin. He actually attacked a coyote a few months ago! Good roo.

 

[Kikwi]

So it's been days and days since I last checked in, but the vintage trailer restoration is done, it's being featured on Airbnb's wish lists, and everyone who's stayed with us are totally charmed by the chickens outside their window. The girls finished their last partial molt, turn 20 weeks come Monday and I'm checking the best boxes every day just in case. We're at 10+ hrs of daylight, no supplental light. Switched to layer feed the other day. They get a little BOSS and mealworms too, but not too much. Status so far:

Cream legbar: comb and wattles started shooting up a couple weeks back and they haven't stopped yet! Finished molting and got her tail back first. Definitely getting friendlier.

Basque (Euskal oiloa): some comb/wattle growth but still more yellow than red. Getting slowly friendlier.

Welsummer: always had the biggest, reddest comb/wattles from week 8, but after a growth plateau have started growing again. She and cream legbar have about the same size now.

Swedish flower hen: small, but steady comb/wattle growth, nice and red. No change in her extreme friendliness.

Blue english orpington: last to finish molting. If there's any change to comb/wattles, it's too slow to notice. No change in friendliness. Has always been the slowest to mature.

And finally, here's our poor grey cat who sneaked into the run to test his mettle against the girls. They cornered him behind the lavender bush, lol.

 

[AmyPaperlady]

The girls all integrated in the coop, with sunflower stalks in the way.



First time out (on purpose, anyway) enjoying the sunshine.

 

[juststruttin]

gotta say, dogs/canids don't tend to leave puncture wounds, they tend to tear -- nor do they focus on the throat the way felids do. speaking from wildlife ecology perspective rather than lots of chicken experience, though.

hope it was a one-time thing!

When the dogs attacked our sheep and goats they went after the neck and hind quarters. Our sheep Spot had $600 surgery to repair her neck and the wounds in her hind quarters. Perhaps when dogs work in a pack they do damage to both ends.

 

[lawatt]

When the dogs attacked our sheep and goats they went after the neck and hind quarters. Our sheep Spot had $600 surgery to repair her neck and the wounds in her hind quarters. Perhaps when dogs work in a pack they do damage to both ends.

that sounds about right, dogs in packs definitely go for a variety of spots on the animal -- if you watch one of those nature programs of a pack of wolves chasing a caribou or elk, different members of the pack are targeting different spots on the animal -- and hindquarters are often where they start eating, because it's the "soft underbelly," easier to tear into.

a cat, hunting alone, holds the prey at the neck until it suffocates -- then starts working on eating, often the entrails first (again, easier to access). that's why Kim's description sounds felid to me -- a tidy neck wound, then partially eaten elsewhere. depending on the size of bobcat and lamb, it's not clear to me that a bobcat could eat a whole lamb in one sitting, so would eat part, & leave it, perhaps hoping to come back later. especially if the carcass was partly hidden in leaves or etc., that's very cat-like.

but there's no way to tell for certain, other than to see it happening!

 

[ronott1]

So it's been days and days since I last checked in, but the vintage trailer restoration is done, it's being featured on Airbnb's wish lists, and everyone who's stayed with us are totally charmed by the chickens outside their window. The girls finished their last partial molt, turn 20 weeks come Monday and I'm checking the best boxes every day just in case. We're at 10+ hrs of daylight, no supplental light. Switched to layer feed the other day. They get a little BOSS and mealworms too, but not too much. Status so far:

Cream legbar: comb and wattles started shooting up a couple weeks back and they haven't stopped yet! Finished molting and got her tail back first. Definitely getting friendlier.

Basque (Euskal oiloa): some comb/wattle growth but still more yellow than red. Getting slowly friendlier.

Welsummer: always had the biggest, reddest comb/wattles from week 8, but after a growth plateau have started growing again. She and cream legbar have about the same size now.

Swedish flower hen: small, but steady comb/wattle growth, nice and red. No change in her extreme friendliness.

Blue english orpington: last to finish molting. If there's any change to comb/wattles, it's too slow to notice. No change in friendliness. Has always been the slowest to mature.

And finally, here's our poor grey cat who sneaked into the run to test his mettle against the girls. They cornered him behind the lavender bush, lol.

Everything looks very nice!

The Basque hen is pretty near perfect too. It will be great to see how she turns out.

 

[Chickengirl1304]

How long can eggs sit at room temp, unwashed and still be edible?

 

[ronott1]

How long can eggs sit at room temp, unwashed and still be edible?

weeks!

The Bloom coating protects them. In Europe they do not refrigerate eggs.

I keep them on the counter for three days and then move them into the fridge.

If you found a nest, float test them. Floating flat in the water is fresh. Sinking is rotten. The more it sinks and tilts in the water, the older the egg is.