calling any one from missouri

[SueT]

Hang some curtains on the Royal Suite so they can have some privacy.

That's a good looking girl in the Royal Suite looks just like one of my RIR with the big floppy comb.

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JT

She's a brown leghorn. Well I had it more closed in w wood, It was popular then lost appeal so I opened it up. And today it had a customer. We may yet try a curtain, that's a good idea.

 

[jeria]

Just get some milk crates, they're all the rage, lol

LOL They have wooden fruit/veggie crates at the moment so a bit nicer than milk crates. Have a nest box planned off the side of the coop and a nice roost but the bronchitis stopped my building project three times last year for about 6 weeks each time. No one else to do the work. UGGG So right now they have basics: a safe coop and no run. I want them to be safe from the local predators including my dogs. I feel so badly that they can't get outside.. Its not safe.

Now getting over a respiratory infection. Might have to recruit some grandsons to help me out once the weather is nicer.

 

[microchick]

Howdy fellow Missourians!
I haven't checked in for awhile. It was past windy here in north eastern Missouri also but today was beautiful. I'm hearing cock robins singing all ready but I'm afraid that they are birds that winter over in our timber and are just confused by the 50+ degree weather we have been having.

I tried hanging curtains in front of my hen's nesting boxes. They stood outside, looked at them like 'what the heck are those' and promptly retreated to a corner to lay their eggs. Curtains came down and business went back to normal.

Some hens just don't appreciate interior decorating.

 

[Crooked Chicken]

Howdy fellow Missourians!
I haven't checked in for awhile. It was past windy here in north eastern Missouri also but today was beautiful. I'm hearing cock robins singing all ready but I'm afraid that they are birds that winter over in our timber and are just confused by the 50+ degree weather we have been having.

I tried hanging curtains in front of my hen's nesting boxes. They stood outside, looked at them like 'what the heck are those' and promptly retreated to a corner to lay their eggs. Curtains came down and business went back to normal.

Some hens just don't appreciate interior decorating.

I'm nearly certain that if I were to hang curtains on the nest boxes, my girls would rip them down. And if not them, the ducks surely would.

I FINALLY got the in-coop brooder cage done (99%) enough to move the 4 pullets and 10 cockerels out of my kitchen. Now that they are in there it doesn't look as roomy as I thought. Oh well.... best laid plans. Since they aren't used to roosting yet, they mostly sat on the floor. I put several up on the roosts and held them a bit while they got their balance and settled in. I put the 2 Sweeter Heaters above the roosts since it's supposed to be very cold again. Went to TSC and got some water nipples with the little cups and put them on a tall, narrow pretzel container. They quickly found out how to use them.

Red Rider, the girls and the ducks all stopped in front of the cage to stare at them. One of the little cockerels jumped feet first at the wire when my EE girl hung around too long. I think I'm going to have trouble integrating these boys. They are only 2 months + 1 week old and definitely a handful. If the 4 pullets can't cope I will have to move them to one of the smaller cages. They were separated in the house except at feeding/play time.

 

[microchick]

You have youngsters ready for a brooder pen? Whow, Crooked, you are way ahead of me.

DH gave me a coop kit I have been wanting for Christmas that I plan to use as a broody pen/grow out pen. Right now, it's together and sitting in our workshop just waiting for somebody to go broody or for Orscheln's to get some bantam chicks for it to get broke in.

The truth of the matter is that no matter how much room you have, you always need more.

 

[jeria]

Crooked Chicken, 10 cockerels!!! and 4 hens, that's a lot of cockerels! I'm new at this but what are you going to do with 10 cockerels?

 

[microchick]

I've got 18 standard sized chickens and 40 bantam/bantam crosses. 4 of the standards are roosters as are half of the bantams. I've been fighting Marek's for over a year now and 90% of the birds that I've lost have been roosters or cockerels. Last year I hatched a lot of males and most of them are in a bachelor pen waiting to see who is going to survive until July. In the mean time the boys and the standards are going to be free ranging for bugs and earning their crumble that way. If I still have a lot of them left come fall I will have them butchered for consumption by either me or our dogs.

It's going to be hard. I really love my roosters.

 

[jeria]

Sorry yo are having those problems I can't help you as do not know enough.

 

[microchick]

Thanks, @jeria. Marek's is one of those things that you always think 'Gee I hope I never get that in my flock!' Then one day you realize it's what's been killing off your birds and you think 'Crap! How did this get in my flock?'

I'm still trying to figure out that one. We have a lot of Amish around us, this past year we have also been having a lot of problems in our are with foxes. My bantam crosses came from eggs that I bought from one of our Amish neighbors and so far they have fared better than the Standard sized birds have. I have lost three of 43 bantam crosses to Marek's and over 15 Buff Orpingtons and Welsummers. The die off from the initial infection slowed and then stopped by last July. I have three Buff Os with ocular Marek's but holding their own. It's been very heartbreaking.

I managed to talk to one of the vets down at Mizzou's veterinary science lab and he told me the moment that I told him about my losses that it sure sounded like Marek's to him even without a necropsy. After that I noticed the three birds with grey eye and asked my husband who is a retired eye doctor if he would look in their eyes and give me a diagnosis. Bless, him, he's a trooper. He took his portable slit lamp microscope out to the coop and looked in the bird's eyes for me. Sure enough. He said one word. Herpes.

I really suggest that everyone familiarize themselves with the disease. It's everywhere and no flock is 100% immune, even vaccinated birds can succumb and there is no cure.

I did everything right. Bought chicks from an NPIP breeder, practiced good biosecurity but all it takes is one wild fox dragging it's kill in the form of a neighbor's Guinea fowl or hen through the property and all bets are off.

 

[jeria]

Oh my so sorry you have lost so many chicks. FYI Amish usually means no vaccinations and antiquated traditions. DD lives in Amish county. I admire their love of tradition but have learned to question it.