Colorado

[Double Kindness]

My ladies are all laying well, yesterday was an 8 egg day out of 12 pullets.

My bf said something about a place in ft Lupton that specializes in barn kitties, I'm trying to get up there to snag me one. But yeah, the mice are super awful atm!!

I need to sell off some of my chickens and I'm expecting to hatch babies from my eggs any moment now

I saw one wiggle! I'm so eggcited! Wiggling egfs, my first hatch, too much coffee!! Itty bitty peep peeps! ! #chickenmath

 

[trsturself]

This morning was a bummer for me.
Overnight I lost a silver laced cochin bantam. She was named Ditty Bird. I failed to do a head count at lights out last night or I would have known she was not in the coop. I found her in the run this morning.
She had been fine yesterday. I had been out with them for over an hour while I cleaned the coop and petted the little stinkers.
I do not think the cold killed her since it was only down to about 30 here. I think she had passed before I went out to close the coop up. Weird that I did not see her there when I was in the run closing the windows. It was dark though and she was in the far end of the run.
That makes 5 birds I have lost now. Four of them were from Welp. I do not know which hatchery the other came from. All have died way to early.
Ditty was not even a year old.
There were no signs of injury on the bird nor did I find any weird lumps or bumps.
It really bums me out since I do really like the little bantams.

I am going to go forward with the plan to cull most of the flock and get the cackle hatchery surprise. I will be hoping for some new little bantams in the mix and some BA. Honestly I do not want to go through finding bird after bird dead. I would rather have it all at once. Such a waste when the meat is lost too.

I wish I knew which hatchery the birds I had years ago had come from. In 5 years I had only lost 2. One went broody in January (Japanese black tail bantam) the other my ex said had jumped into the stock tank. I still think he drowned her since he hated her.

Oh no! That's a lot of losses of young birds. We've only lost one after the chick stage (knock on wood). I have an order from Cackle in with some bantam cochins, D'Uccles, and D'Anvers if you are interested in any of them. I am also getting 25 of the rainbow pullet pack. Most will be for sale.

Another beautiful spring day and less wind today as well. I've heard maybe snow coming later in the week. Forecasters - BLAH! Colorado weather - Who knows/knew??? Next five days looks like highs in the 50s then 40s. May be the calm before the storm, so to speak? Hope we DO get snow in the Feb-April time frame as we always need/can use the moisture. Been looking around at the city/state water retention/holding lakes (along the So Platte river corridor) here and most of them are near full at the moment. Even Barr lake (a major irrigation source here), which was down to a third of its normal size late last year, is nearly full again.

Today, in about an hour, I'm going over to an apiary dealer's place to purchase and pick up my bee hives! Pretty excited! Won't get the bees till April or May, but that will give me time to place the hives and get intimately familiar with them. Maybe I'll get really lucky and this spring a swarm will move into one and I'll get bees earlier than planned (after the weather warms continuously of course)! I'm beginning to realize this is gonna be a really cheap/inexpensive hobby... just like keeping chickens

At least I won't need to buy feed and feed them daily! Hope everyone has a GREAT day!

Enjoy the football games! GO !!!

<--- my team for 40+ years!

I was reading up on hives and in my beekeeping book the last few days. Trying to make plans for where I want to put the hive. My bees come in late april so I've got awhile to get it figured out. I'm going to try building a warre hive probably in feb or mar. Can't wait.

 

[suncatcher]

Is a nice day here at 8700 feet too!!! Still lots of snow out in the pastures, but is to be expected this time of year, it rarely melts off completely.

I will be doing the five gallon water bucket this spring, no way do I want water outside so the wild birds can drink out of it. Thinking ahead in case we have Avian bird flu end up in Colorado, as we too are a migratory path for wild birds and waterfowl just like Utah.

Cool on the bees pretty much taking care of themselves, and you getting honey combs for free!!!

Rocking eggs, very exciting!!!

Samsr, I may have a few Bantam Cochins still for sale if and when you are needing some, or even hatching eggs.....

Two eggs yesterday,

maybe they will keep laying now that the days are getting longer!

 

[Double Kindness]

We ordered our bees yesterday from dakotabees.com and I think we're going with 2 langstroth hives, I wanted warre, but I was outvoted by my bf and our beekeeper guru guy. We ordered the dvd on beekeeping.

We're so excited, we got in our order from baker creek seeds this week

 

[21hens-incharge]

Very exciting to have littles hatching soon! You must show pics of course.

Trst,
I am still not sure what I want to do about the main flock. DH and the DS are for some odd reason resistant to me culling the flock and starting over with better quality birds. For me roosters are an issue. I am not allowed them in this area. If I got chickens from Northern Colorado feeders supply the origin is murky since they get so many in they must be using various hatcheries.

The thing that really stinks is most of my birds are from Welp.

I really need to just go outside and stop feeling bad since there is nothing I can do now about it.

 

[suncatcher]

Is hard culling those that are not producing for you....... but, is a fact of life. Maybe ask those who don't want to cull them to start paying for their feed and taking care of them in a separate coop. That frees up your current coop to add the ones you want.

I have always been happy with Kiowa and Elizabeth Country Corner chicks, they have always been healthy and I have yet to get a rooster from them, unless it is SR. Not sure how close they are to you, but is an option to Whelp, I have always heard good things about McMurry though......

Cool on the Baker Creek seeds, they have a great selection this year, and the seeds are very good quailty!

 

[Latestarter]

Have the hives in my garage now

Next month I'll get the cinder blocks and 4 x 4s to build platforms up off the ground to install them along the northern back fence line kind of under (but not completely) the cottonwood trees there. They'll be facing almost directly south so get sun all day and during the summer when the sun is scorching right overhead, the trees will give them mid day shade. Found out where she gets her bee packages from; Maryland and PA, so they are cold weather adapted already

She said she'll have them at the end of April and I'll pick them up from her, 30 minutes away from me

Man this is getting exciting!

 

[megshenhut]

Bummer about the deaths 21hens. I don't know what I would do.

I am so happy to start back feeding fermented feed again. I'm sure it will get too cold and I'll have to stop for a while, but just to have it for a few days makes me so happy.

Does anyone want some Japanese bantams hens? I have a friend getting a divorce and she has 5 one year old Japanese bantams she is probably going to have to give away. I said I would ask if there was anyone interested, just put out feelers.
They are healthy and pretty from what I can tell.
I will probably take them for the summer if no one wants them.

Have a great day. The weather looks great.

I might be interested in the Japanese bantams. My daughter has been looking at Japanese for a while and so far I haven't gotten any for her. But if your friend has to get rid of them, I would be interested in seeing pics of them.

 

[COChix]

Hi gang, thought maybe we could have a little fun today. If you got a funny post it.

 

[Mtn Margie]

Awesome!

21- Not to be an eggstinator, ?, sounds good anyway, but now that you have fed the girls all winter during their layoff, shouldn't you just get this seasons eggs out of them and then cull in the fall when they slow down and go into molt? Your new chickens aren't going to be giving you any eggs until then anyway... The two pen idea is a good one. They may also stop laying earlier and then you can cull in groups and maybe it won't be quite a shock to your family. I still have two of our original flock that got named and that was the deal. Each kid got to choose and name one chicken that would live out her natural life and all of the other ones have been on a budget.