Chicken math

[21hens-incharge]

I started off with 6 one day old chicks 18 months ago. As of today I have 13 laying hens and 4 one day old chicks. I'm not sure what happened!

You must have blinked and missed it lol. It is some kind of magic.
I wanted just 6. This year I had 43 and sold 10. One old lady passed away so I now have 32. SO MANY EGGS!

 

[JRNash]

I've been down sick for the last 6 days,my wife has been taking care of the flock for me. Made it out this evening and immediately noticed i was missing my only dark Brahma. More counting showed me to be down 3. So aggravated.

 

[21hens-incharge]

You have some predator getting them JR?

Man that stinks. I really like the dark brahmas.

I hope you figure out what the heck happened to them and can stop it from happening again.

 

[JRNash]

I'm pretty sure the chicks went under the wire..Ponyo,the dark brahma was gonna be my first experiment with the meaties. I have a Cx,Trixie that I was going to pair him up with. I know. Don't count your chicks before they hatch.

 

[jak2002003]

This month was sad for me as my rooster had to be put to sleep because of an unexplained injury.

I bought a new half grown rooster.. but he was sick when I got him.. and died after several days... lucky I kept him separate form my hens.

Then one of my pigeon squabs which was due to fledge suddenly became ill.. with impacted crop and digestive problems.. and died after 2 days. despite treatment......

I was very upset about all this happening in such a short time.

But yesterday I went into the coop to hear faint cheeping sounds coming from behind the feed bin I keep in there... and to my surprise found one of my hens had squeezed behind it and had a secret nest and had 7 cute multi-coloured chicks as various stages of hatching.

But the very best and amazing part for me was, when moved the bin and inspected the hatching chicks... I found one newly hatched pigeon squab!!!!!!!!!!!! One pigeon must have laid her egg in the hens nest... and it must have been pure luck that it hatched around the same time as the chicks... and lucky every more that I spotted it in time (as hens can not feed pigeon squabs).

I put the baby pigeon in with a pair of broody pigeons that always lay unfertile eggs (they are both female).. and today they accepted it straight away.. and today its strong and doing very well.. will a full crop.

All this seems a great miracle... and reminds me that despite the problems we often have with out birds.. nature has a way to balance it out with good times too!

I hope one of the new chicks will be a rooster with the same colours as the one that died. I still miss him and its very quite without him around.

 

[Peeps61]

You are so right! We have our downs, but we have our ups too! My husband laughs at me when I tell him about some new antic the chicks or chickens have gotten up to!

 

[JRNash]

That Dark Brahma was gonna be apart of my meat breed project. AND it was my 16 yr old daughter's. So to make her feel better i just ordered 8 standard white cochins from Ideal. They ship on the 12 th.

 

[21hens-incharge]

I am so sorry for the ones that have been lost. I am happy along with you all that have new ones hatched or on the way.

My population is down but it is due to having sold some. I now have the number that my coop can hold. Tonight I need to try and help my old crippled chicken with a new issue. She has bumble foot of all things. I check her feet regularly due to her infirmity so hopefully it wont be to bad. The longest it could have been going on is 5 days. I usually only check her once a week but for some reason I checked her last night.

There is a bird swap tomorrow. My ever enabling son told me I need ducks. LOL DH would have a heart attack. I must resist the cute little monsters.

 

[JRNash]

Ducks are the only thing I've struck from my list. Good luck on the foot

 

[blkjak]

Ducks are wonderful. Love my ducks. I have 25 various water ducks and 15 muscovies.