CHICKEN MATH STRIKES AGAIN

[proxieme]

This is for those who've "fallen victim" to chicken math:

 

[nicolets]

to you too, redemptionfarms!
I love that little dancing chicken...

 

[nicolets]

Whoops. And proxieme, while I'm here

 

[BullCreek]

I'm loving this thread! Definitely makes me feel "not so alone". lol

We meant to get an even dozen Buff Orpingtons. Then the cat got one. So, we took a look at the chicks at the feed store. Well, the Orpingtons were sorta boring. We ended up grabbing a couple easter eggers, a couple marans, and a barred rock. Then our dog busted down the barrier to the chick room, hopped in the brooder and murdered 4 of the 5 new chicks (Betty Barred Rock survived). We over compensated for our grief, and went a little crazy the next day. We ended up bringing home a mixed bunch of ELEVEN MORE chicks. Sigh...

Later that spring, we brought home 3 geese (impulse buy, now a year old and laying lots of eggs! Woohoo!), a gander a week after the girls (because he was in a brooder with a bunch of ducks and was covered in poop and I had to rescue him). The gander now viciously protects his ladies and is totally ungrateful that I saved him from the ducks.

We ordered pekin meat ducks this spring, and my guy threw in two runners "for the heck of it". Two weeks later we brought home a pair of swedish ducklings because he thought "the little girl duckling was cute". On top of that, the lady at the feed store talked us into upping our limit of 4 guineas to EIGHT because they were nearly ready to fly and she had to get them out of there. She did give them to us for half off. Hubby heard "make you a deal on all of them", and we were done for.

To top off the whole kit-n-caboodle, I have 4 of my own goosey girls' eggs in the incubator (due to hatch in 10 days! fingers crossed!), several more to go in after this batch, and a bunch of welsummer/maran X eggs to go under one of our broody buffs.

And to think... it all started with a dozen buffs...

 

[Yukyuks]

Hmmmmm. Chicken Math
something they sure didnt teach in school

For those that havent read my previous threads about sudden flock appearance, i shall elaborate once again

Last month we noticed a whole group of chickens at the back of our property, 4 roosters, and about 20 hens 3 of the roos and all of the hens are a mixed flock (full breeds not mixed) of Buff Orpingtons, and light sussex. however, one of the roos is a HUGE 3 ft fall all black hulk, never been able to get close enough to ID his breed.

we have been able to corral and get into a coop a juvie light sussex cockeril, a orp roo, and 3 buff orps.
everyone is doing great, laying 3 eggs a day but the roos have pulled all the feathers out of one orp hens back from attempting to mate, and another has fluff and down sprouting from her back from thier claws.

back to chicken math, as a result of our family enjoying our catch, I truly believe my son should experience bring up his own chicks so we have 7 chicks arriving on the 17th, 3 RIR, 3 BPR, and one random

Im really in love with the BO`s and wish i could get them as chicks up here

 

[horsymom]

I had decided we could handle 5 hens and 1 roo, poured over what sort of heritage breed I wanted to raise, and settled on Delawares. Unfortunately, my order was in the 1% that didn't make home in 3 days, 3 chicks were DOA and the rest very sick. The hatchery was very apologetic, and resent the whole order of 5 chicks at no extra charge, even though 2 chicks pulled through. Meanwhile, my DH ran out to the feed store and brought home 2 EE chicks, to console me and the kids. Then, after the 2nd shipment of chicks had been home 3 or 4 days, one chick died very suddenly. So, instead of having a flock of 1/2 dozen, I've ended up with 9, and of course, the one fatality was the rooster. So nine hens, no roo. And the hatchery upped the minimum # of chicks sent to my zip code, so I'm doing more chicken math to figure out how to obtain a rooster, as Delawares are not available locally. (Or, get a RIR roo and raise Red Stars to sell as pullets, and then I could get some BR and raise some Black Stars as well, then I'd have enough hens to get a Delaware roo, and raise Dels, and Stars, oh dear, somebody stop me!)

 

[chickenmanII]

Sorry horsymom, there is no help for us. I don't think it can be stopped once it's started.

 

[78Vette]

Plus 6 more today. 2 silkies and 4 ee. That makes 16 here now.

 

[DreadedMoonMama]

We planned to start with a dozen - we were boarding for friends, so the idea was I would own 6, and each of 2 friends would own 3. When we went to pick them up from another friend (chickens she'd hatched from her own flock, so just a barnyard mix of chickens about 3-4 months old) she was fairly certain one was a rooster, so they threw in an extra. Cool. So 13 chickens. 2 ended up being roos, so 11 layers within a few weeks of us buying them. Then a family got in trouble for their chickens (a lot of places around here don't allow them) and they needed a home. So we adopted 3 roos (a sultan and 2 bantams - black japanese and quail d'anver) and 2 bantam hens. So up to 5 roosters and 13 layers. Sultan got eaten by a hawk.

Had a hen go broody and just for fun I stuck 4 eggs under her. 21 days later I had 4 baby chickens! Pretty neat. Over a series of a few weeks, we lost 1 of the bantam hens, 1 baby chick, and 2 layers to the hawk. Had another hen go broody and bought 5 sebright eggs to put under her. Only 2 hatched, 1 died at 1 day old, the other got out of the run (squeezed through the 1" chicken wire) and froze to death because it couldn't get under mama. Mama was distraught, so I ran out to the hardware store and picked up 9 baby chicks - 2 light brahmas, 2 buff orpingtons, 2 gold laced wyandottes, and 3 silver laced wyandottes. Mama was happy again. Lost 2 of the wyandottes somehow (still no idea how).

Hit Southern States for their free chicks. Brought home 4 california leghorns, 3 gold-laced wyandottes, and 3 production reds (all for meat birds). Then added 5 broad breasted white turkeys. And 10 more sebright eggs in the incubator (although I'm only seeing movement still in 2 and we're at day...14?).

So all together I now own something like 34 chickens and 5 turkeys, with probably another 2 chickens in a week or so. The only consolation for my poor husband is that 15 of those are meat birds (10 chickens 5 turkeys).

 

[cherwill]

Quote:

When do you have to admit that you have a problem????

Ben

Redemption Farms

I don't see the problem (or maybe I'm just an enabler) ....