California - Northern

[sol2go]

Years ago (8?) I was given a pair of bright yellow crocs. Until recently they looked brand new. I'm usually barefoot around the house and some of the yard but since what goes into chickens also comes out of chickens ...

Well, I finally remembered that bright cheerful vintage yet NIB pair of crocs

yes, I now wear crocs around the house. Bright yellow crocs. In case you're wondering NOTHING else I wear is yellow. Nothing.

I did say bright yellow, right? Easy to see, almost blinding, bright yellow.Apparently several of The Ladies (the chicken The Ladies as opposed to the dog Ladies) LOVE those crocs. They peck at them, sit on them, follow them. One falls asleep on them. I know parrots see color very well (just change the color of something on an African Gre- Danger Will Robinson, Danger!). But how well do chickens see color?

Apparently chickens see color very well. Much better than humans. Interesting explanation about rods and cones and why chickens don't see well at night. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100216101159.htm Most mammals during the age of the dinosaurs had to become nocturnal. Dinosaurs didn't. So mammals developed rods to see at night. Chickens, as descendants of dinosaurs, never had to develop rods. Fascinating.

The Flics, Crevecoeurs, pay more attention to the crocs but it might be that The Flics notice things more anyway than the Cochins.. Flic 1 will heel next to my left foot better when I'm wearing bright blinding yellow footwear. Or it could be as he gets more practice he does better at heel. LOL- Teaching a chicken to heel

HI from not-quite-northern-california =)
That was a great article, new information for me. Thanks for sharing. Plus the more my husband thinks chickens are the next iteration of dinosaurs, the better he likes having them around.
ps I missed 2 days and it only took 10 pages (?!!) to catch up...

 

[dldolan]

I'd like to see if anyone else has had this situation. I have two six-month old cochin bantams, one of which went broody last week after only laying six eggs. Now her "sister" is getting into the nest box with her, laying her egg, but then staying there all day as well. What's up with that?

On top of that, the two of them are scooping up all the golf balls/fake eggs from the other nest boxes and bringing them under their wings into their "shared" next box. Hysterical!

Here is the broody golf ball stealer come out for treats...


oops...can't get it to turn with this iPad! ARghhhh

 

[chickee]

Candy, they are all beautiful, especially the d'Anvers.

Maybe I could invest in a crate of earplugs and pass them out to all my neighbors! Somehow I still don't think it would work. We have one Serama rooster and 3 little cockerels, 2 of which have started crowing, so I am pushing neighborly goodwill as it is.

The Ameraucana sisters are doing great! The buffX has gotten very friendly and is a family favorite. They are both still good layers, while most of my older hatchery girls have really fallen off production.

Hope you are well,
Lynda

Thanks Lynda

The d'Anvers are great little birds. Next time your Seramas go broody you should get some eggs from me.

Glad to hear the Ameraucana sisters are doing well and giving you lots of eggs.

I am in the process of designing a new chicken house that will make it easier for my chicken sitters to take care of my chickens when we are away. Also cutting back on my numbers which means less breeds I will be working with.

Hope you are doing well too.

 

[chickee]

Thanks for posting your rooster pics! I can appreciate the downsizing trend...I have a few breeds of hens without roosters because, well, because I have plenty of other roosters but never enough hens. Consequently I don't necessarily know what the roosters look like, for example I had no idea my Wheaten Ameraucana hen matches up to such a dark roo. And your Golden Cuckoo Marans looks so much like a Crele Penedesenca or a Crested Cream Legbar with too much gold. Hope you find the homes they need!

It is interesting how different the wheaten Ameraucana roosters are compared to the hens. Makes for a pretty flock

The wheaten and blue wheatens are my favorite Ameraucana colors.

 

[SpringPeeper]

I'd like to see if anyone else has had this situation. I have two six-month old cochin bantams, one of which went broody last week after only laying six eggs. Now her "sister" is getting into the nest box with her, laying her egg, but then staying there all day as well. What's up with that?

On top of that, the two of them are scooping up all the golf balls/fake eggs from the other nest boxes and bringing them under their wings into their "shared" next box. Hysterical!

Here is the broody golf ball stealer come out for treats...


oops...can't get it to turn with this iPad! ARghhhh

My hen who's currently raising chicks kept bringing black walnuts into the nest box to sit on. I also once had a black Swedish duck with no drake who stole chicken eggs and hatched herself some Black Australorp 'ducklings'. I've heard of broodies competing for one batch of eggs, but never dealt with it.

 

[The Yakima Kid]

I think the only poultry regulation in the unincorporated sections of Santa Clara County is for roosters, and that says four is the limit.

-Kathy

As I was limping through the long and tedious section on rural residential zoning at municode, there seemed to be some rural residential zone types that did not allow pea fowl and certain other birds. One could have more than the legislated number of roosters with a permit.

I wonder how Farmer's Feed stays in business - I'm pretty sure there are a heck of a lot more than four roosters roaming around over there. Maybe they automatically permit anyone raising poultry?

 

[The Yakima Kid]

I'd like to see if anyone else has had this situation. I have two six-month old cochin bantams, one of which went broody last week after only laying six eggs. Now her "sister" is getting into the nest box with her, laying her egg, but then staying there all day as well. What's up with that?

On top of that, the two of them are scooping up all the golf balls/fake eggs from the other nest boxes and bringing them under their wings into their "shared" next box. Hysterical!

Here is the broody golf ball stealer come out for treats...


oops...can't get it to turn with this iPad! ARghhhh

Yes, they are sitting in the nest all day and rounding up all objects that could possibly be eggs in order to have a nice clutch in their communal nest. When our Dominique pullets first started laying last year, one went broody within a week, so I brought her in, broody caged her for a few days, took her back out, and she immediately went back into the nest and started arranging things. So I brought her indoors, caged her, and subjected her to the chicken third degree - 16 hours of light from a natural light wavelength fluorescent bulb (the bulb was in a ceiling fixture.)

Three days of this brought her completely out of it, not on trace of the Trilby-after-meeting-Sventgali trance state common to broody biddies.

 

[Audio51]

I ordered some syringes too, but needed some other stuff for my dog too,so ordered the syringes from the same place. I got 35cc and 60 cc but only a few of wach. Hoping I won't need to use them often. I think TSC carries some too...

I soak my syringes on alcohol in between using them. cant really boil them. They last as long as the rubber stopper holds pressure, a LOONG time if you dont loose em! I get em from Tractor casuse its easy. But does anyone know where to get small needles? Cant get diabetes ones from the pharmacy anymore. The ones I have for vaccinating chicks are bigger then i like.

I soak mine in a Nolvasan solutions. That is what we use to do to disinfect the feeding syringes and some instruments we used for non-surgical purposes at the Vet Hospital I worked at years ago. I even bought a soaking box dor them when I was hand feeding finch chicks. It works well and doesn't expost things to heat, but kills the bacteria/yeast

Chicken Math strikes again! Since I only had 1 BCM hatch I went to pick up 6 more from a local breeder; so of course I came home with 15 mostly blue and splash coppers. If this doesn't yield a few pullets I'm going to have to give up on copper Marans.

I got 3 FBCM and on Blue Copper to add to the 3 CCL chicks for my broody.

The Flics, Crevecoeurs, pay more attention to the crocs but it might be that The Flics notice things more anyway than the Cochins.. Flic 1 will heel next to my left foot better when I'm wearing bright blinding yellow footwear. Or it could be as he gets more practice he does better at heel. LOL- Teaching a chicken to heel

What are "Flics"

Quote: LOL!!!! I only have 1 named one...stubby the 1-legged Ameraucana.

Quote: That is where I got my 4 new Marans chicks. I went up to get them the day there was a head-on collision about 1/2 way up. I was about 5 cars back from the accident fortunately. THe road was closed for about 2 hours so I went back to Chico. Did some shopping and had lunch, them headed back up about 2 PM. It was all cleared by then. I was going to get all BC, but opted for 1 blue. She tries to feather sex them, but we shall see how good she is! I have always made my guesses after the tail feathers start to come in. Longer ones = pullets. Shorter or none= cockerels. It has worked very well so far.

Quote: I have come back here after a few days and had 25-30 pages so you got off easy!

Quote: My last 2 broodies I didn't want to give chicks to took 3 days in a wire cage together. That was only about a week back and one is aready laying again.

How do they actually "carry" eggs or golfballs? That has always stumped me....

 

[casportpony]

Quote: I think you're right, I forgot about the different zonings in rural county. Maybe Farmer's is zoned ag?

-Kathy

 

[ronott1]

How do they actually "carry" eggs or golfballs? That has always stumped me....

The tuck the eggs under the wing--against their neck. They will also roll the eggs with their beak. They can jump up with them like that too.

Yes, they move them from one nest box to the other. I can tell when one is going broody when all of the eggs are nicely arranged in one nest box.

They will clean the eggs too.