Chicken breeders or Folks in South Africa?

[zuluchicken]

I have pure bred Buff Orpingtons as well as B/Orpingtons crossed with Rhode Island Reds - all good layers.

 

[Nadene]

I have a mixed flock lol. I don't really know what I have everything. Aparently i have a b/orpington pullet and rooster (Rooi-Jan), a Marans rooster, a turken hen, a koekoek cross hen, a black australorp rooster (father of most of our flock at the moment) and then mixed breeds. I got all my chickens at really low prices though; at a smallholder in Sundra, swopping chickens and buying from another guy in the area. All R60 and lower per chicken.

 

[Nadene]

I got 40 eggs last week (saturday-friday) Yeah! I'm glad to see my hens are starting to produce now. 8 hens laying now. But now i don't know what to do with the eggs lol. We only eat about 6 eggs in 2 weeks. I want to sell them to cover the food expences, but now nobody wants to buy them lol. The workers usually bought a half dos now and then. But they want to pay later. My rule is cash first, then you get the eggs. So they don't buy from me anymore. Waiting for the other 5 pullets to start laying. Want to get chicks from the orpingtons

 

[Macksy]

I wish my spoilt girls would start laying!!! They are 21 weeks old now (roughly) and are stunning ladies. But I am not truly expecting eggs for another couple of weeks. I am just so over buying Spar eggs that are pale and runny/old. Threw a wobbly as out of 6 bought yesterday only 2 were edible. Yuck! Come on girls. Start repaying the kindness.

 

[Gwyllm]

Hi everyone, my chooks are coming home in the next couple of days and I wanted to find out, does anyone know anywhere is Jo'burg where you can get good feed at reasonable prices in fairly large quantities?

 

[Nanna34]

Find your nearest Alzu or Kaap Agri, they sell different types of chicken feed. I buy 50kg bags of layer feed, growing mash and normal feed. Per bag I pay around R160

 

[Nanna34]

So I had an iguana in my coops today, ate the australorp eggs and grabbed my one silkie hen, she is fine just got bruised a little. Any advice fir keeping them away they are looking fir food because the veld burned down

 

[Gwyllm]

@Nanna34 thanks, I'll see if I can find that not sure what to say about the iguana problem, other than have some going fencing which I'd imagine you have, perhaps lay stones or bricks along the bottom of the fence to stop it from going under or bending the fence? Hope you come right with it.

 

[Nanna34]

Thanks the electric fencing wasn't working because of the veld fire that is how it got on the compound. We have placed cans along the fences not sure if it will help but my neighbour says the noise will keep them away.

 

[Nadene]

I got a bag of about 60kg whole mielies at a guy in Bapsfontein for R100. I don't really give my chickens growing mesh or whatever (they look for their own food lol). I usually only give them a scoop full of crushed mixed foul food in the morning when I open the coop. The rest of the day they eat berries and greens and goggas and anything they can find. I get a 10kg bag at NWK for R55, which lasts me a month and a half (depends on if I have chicks or not. If I have chicks, I feed them alot more). I tried giving them laying mesh once... Waste of money. They don't want to eat it. I just mix their eggshells in with the mielies, and they eat that. A new thing I still want to try, that they say is very good for your chickens, is picking mulberry leaves, cutting it up and feeding them to the chickens at noon. We have 3 trees here. I gave them a handfull as a test run, and they chomped it up.

Sorry to hear of your loss nanna. Glad to hear though that your hen is okay.

I am realising more and more that my little flock is protected by a supernatural power, even though I lose a few chickens here and there. Newcastle disease is making it's rounds here in the area. Yesterday I heard about one guy that lost like thousand chickens A DAY! About 6 other people that I know of, inclucing my neighbour, lost their whole flock. It's terrible! I only had one chicken that got ill, and he's doing quite fine now (I'll try and post some pictures in a bit).
Our landlord's dogs killed about 10 of our chickens over the past 2 years. I prayed about it. And since then, even though they catch the chickens, they didn't kill another one after that (my poor rooster got half of his feathers pulled out. 2X! But he is still going strong that ol' Diehard!).
The cats and mongoose stay away from my chickens, although people on the same property lose their geese and ducks to them.
One month we didn't have the funds to buy chicken food... We woke up one morning and outside our gate, on the sidewalk, a truck stopped and lost a whole heap of mielies, drove away without picking it up. We had enough mielies for 3 months! Prayers really work lol. Even in the smallest things we take for granted.