Chickens by Easter .... Maybe

[45lk9p459gm-w]

Never heard of that one.
Did you find one?

Yes, everywhere I look now ....

Several times now the name of a _________ black beetle has been mentioned when someone rolls off a list of chicken pests. And of course now I can't find any of the posts/pieces that I read this in. Now I see black beetles everywhere and wonder .... Is that one of them???

 

[45lk9p459gm-w]

Best guess so far is this is some sort of attempt at camouflage, so it's a behavior more often seen in hens that are sitting on a nest or that have just gotten off of one.

Makes sense ,,, She was doing this just a couple of feet away from a nest box that I had just retrieved eggs from. One of the eggs was still warm and sticky of bloom.

 

[aart]

Yes, everywhere I look now ....

Several times now the name of a _________ black beetle has been mentioned when someone rolls off a list of chicken pests. And of course now I can't find any of the posts/pieces that I read this in. Now I see black beetles everywhere and wonder .... Is that one of them???

Catch a few in a jar, put jar in freezer for a few hours to kill bug, then take some good pics.
I really don't think it's a poultry pest.

 

[45lk9p459gm-w]

Now that I’m looking for black beetles they have disappeared.

Question …. I want to mount HN’s on 1” PVC. How far apart should they be for standard sized hens?

 

[cavemanrich]

Now that I’m looking for black beetles they have disappeared.

Question …. I want to mount HN’s on 1” PVC. How far apart should they be for standard sized hens?

I would go 12 inches apart

 

[3KillerBs]

The nipples on my buckets end up about a handspan apart, but a pipe would need more distance since the chickens line up differently.

How wide is your average hen? That's probably about right.

 

[45lk9p459gm-w]

The girls testing out the new waterer. Since I was using a lot of salvage parts, I wound up with an eight inch spacing for the four nipples. I’m feeding it with a five gallon bucket which is out of the picture. Most of the girls took to it within minutes.

 

[45lk9p459gm-w]

Update time ......
Still have ten very healthy, outgoing hens that hit the 300 egg mark today. Proud of them as they have been averaging 8 to 10 eggs a day for a couple of weeks. Or were until one of them got the brood's. Now its usually 8 or 9 a day.

I haven't done anything about little miss broody since she decided that the most popular nest box was hers to hoard, but several of the hens that like that particular box will push her out and take turns laying their eggs in it. If the broody has gotten back into it I will move her to the floor when I collect eggs. I realize that this probably isn't the proper way to handle it but it's working for the time being. If I had the second coop ready I would have gotten some fertile eggs from a neighbor and let her set on them.

Would RIR and/or Dominique be a good choice for a dual purpose bird for this area?

 

[45lk9p459gm-w]

Expanding. Adding 14 barred rocks (12 hens and 2 Roos) in May.

 

[45lk9p459gm-w]

One year anniversary is today. Still have ten healthy, happy egg laying machines.

Moving forward with this project should be easy now.