Colorado

[colowyo0809]

Lol
Our birds are apparantly loving the wind

they hate it if it's blowing snow as well as wind, but they love the stupid wind. Just for the record, driving through that wind was not pleasant

my stepfather is on his way "out the door" and i drove up to montana to be here for me mum while he passes. I've only been gone one night and I already miss my birds! sheesh, who knew I'd be like this? bleh

 

[Wifezilla]

Sorry about the stepdad Matthew.

Not surprised about the birds though. I worry about mine when it gets cold or if I am away from home too long. Then I go check on them and they get cranky because I woke em up

Ingrates!

 

[ShysCreations]

Welcome Stacy! A hello from Golden--I know what you all mean about wind...this is a wind tunnel here sometimes. Seems to gain speed coming down from the foothills. When the snow came & we reached zero degress... I put a heat lamp in the coop. There are silkies, couple bantam cochins, Ameracaunas, & a Wyandotte in there and I felt it was just too cold. Earlier this fall, I put additional insulation in the form of the silver rolls from Home Depot. Just stapled it all up on the ceiling. We also put a type of weather striping (wide wide strips with half a side of adhesive) around the door to close up drafts. They are also getting evening treats of shelled sunflower seed chips.
Last year a vet suggested more foods with Vitamin A during the winter. So I cook butternut & winter squash halves for them and offer watermelon & cantelope as available in grocery.

 

[Coopa Cabana]

Just trying to catch up with everyone - Happy New Year to All!

Shylee - Great to hear you're showing at the Stock Show - best of luck - your Splash Silkie looks awesome. Are you taking any Cochins? I sure hope that guy from the RMFF show stays away.

Matthew - So sorry to hear about your Stepdad. Sounds like the MF's have been doing their job brooding for you. Any MF chicklets yet? Or are they just working for the other hens?

Stacy - Welcome to BYC! I'm down in Arvada now, but grew up right over the hill from you in Winter Park. My Mom still lives up there. I do the same thing you do - just keep an extra water font on hand, and switch them out morning and night. I also have heat lamps that go on at night. My coop is heavily insulated and always stays about 15 - 20 degrees warmer than outside, but every little bit helps. This time of year, I supplement their staple commercial feed (for gamebird/showbird) with my own scratch mix - equal parts BOSS, whole corn, kitten chow and alfalfa. I think the extra protein has also helped them thru their molt a bit better this year.

Me - I'm just getting ready to separate colors out in the coop so I can start spring breeding in another month or so.

 

[dak]

Quote:
Coopa, how many varieties are you planning on?

 

[Coopa Cabana]

Quote:
Coopa, how many varieties are you planning on?

Hi Clare! How's the weather in NM? Any chance you're coming up to Denver for the Stock Show? It's really a great time! My focus this year is just on 3 Bantam Cochin varieties: Golden Laced, Mille Fleur, and F2's for my Blue Laced Red project.

~Gail

 

[dak]

Quote:
Coopa, how many varieties are you planning on?

Hi Clare! How's the weather in NM? Any chance you're coming up to Denver for the Stock Show? It's really a great time! My focus this year is just on 3 Bantam Cochin varieties: Golden Laced, Mille Fleur, and F2's for my Blue Laced Red project.

~Gail

No, I'm too busy here trying to keep my waterers thawed, and none of my Cochins are show ready. I'm trying to patiently wait the three weeks since I set up my breeding pens to set eggs in my new Brinsea 190.

Do you have any plans on going to Indy or Shawnee next year?

 

[Coopa Cabana]

Quote:
Hi Clare! How's the weather in NM? Any chance you're coming up to Denver for the Stock Show? It's really a great time! My focus this year is just on 3 Bantam Cochin varieties: Golden Laced, Mille Fleur, and F2's for my Blue Laced Red project.

~Gail

No, I'm too busy here trying to keep my waterers thawed, and none of my Cochins are show ready. I'm trying to patiently wait the three weeks since I set up my breeding pens to set eggs in my new Brinsea 190.

Do you have any plans on going to Indy or Shawnee next year?

Thought maybe you'd be coming up to see the Livestock - I love checking out the different breeds of cattle, horses, sheep, hogs, llamas, etc!
It's so hard for me to travel anywhere - I really don't have anyone close to care for not only the birds, but also the dogs and cats. It just costs too much to board them. Luckily, I can cash out my unused vacation time at work - I'm accruing 3 weeks a year - last year I took one day off, and cashed in the rest!

I think I'm going to "purify" my hens for a full 30 days this year. 3 weeks just didn't work for me last year!

 

[colowyo0809]

Quote:
Thanks Gail. Actually, only one hen, Ginger, has done anything in terms of babies. She laid an egg, decided to go broody with one egg

, so we put five others under her, and she hatched out hers and two others. an MFxEE and an MFxBA. The two crosses are doing great, the MF drowned in the waterer

. She still hasn't laid another egg yet, the babies are doing good, and several days ago CJ went out to the coop to give them fresh water when he got home from work and Nutmeg was stone cold dead. We figure it was a combination stress from the cold, the frozen waterer, and the fact that she hasn't really been herself since her "sister" went broody and stopped hanging out with her. The other two are doing good, and the three roos are doing good. Now we just need to figure out which roos to keep, and which to cull in one way or another (who am I kidding, if we get rid of them it will be to a different home) especially since not only do we have your three, we also have the barnvelder roo, possibly a wyandotte roo, and one of these two babies, the MFxBA, looks to be a roo. sporting an impressive comb for the age

Honestly, what I would like to work on is an EExC (easter egger x cochin cross). I think it would be different, and maybe even nice to have the large bodied and full feathered standard cochin crossed with the blue egg and cold stamina of the easter egger

I figure alot of the current breeds were mixes of several, why not do another?

 

[dak]

Quote:
No, I'm too busy here trying to keep my waterers thawed, and none of my Cochins are show ready. I'm trying to patiently wait the three weeks since I set up my breeding pens to set eggs in my new Brinsea 190.

Do you have any plans on going to Indy or Shawnee next year?

Thought maybe you'd be coming up to see the Livestock - I love checking out the different breeds of cattle, horses, sheep, hogs, llamas, etc!
It's so hard for me to travel anywhere - I really don't have anyone close to care for not only the birds, but also the dogs and cats. It just costs too much to board them. Luckily, I can cash out my unused vacation time at work - I'm accruing 3 weeks a year - last year I took one day off, and cashed in the rest!

I think I'm going to "purify" my hens for a full 30 days this year. 3 weeks just didn't work for me last year!

Yeah, that is worrying me too. I keep hearing 3 weeks is sufficient. Then I hear of it not being adequate. I put the GLC cockerel in with the black girls, and don't want anything from the previous black boy at this time.