Colorado

[COChix]

Thought this was helpful, how to sex chicks

 

[lomine]

@COChix this is how I understand it (but I could be wrong)...

An olive egg is a blue egg with a dark brown bloom (think that's the term). Green eggs are blue shell with light brown bloom. Blue eggs are blue shell with blue bloom. Brown eggs are white shell with brown bloom.

An OE chicken would have a gene for a blue egg and a brown egg. And I believe the gene for the blue egg shell is dominate over the gene for a white egg shell. That's why fewer EEs lay brown eggs. So my guess on the crosses would be:

OE x EE - olive, green, blue, brown (though not as likely) Though these possibilities would depend on the genes the EE carries.
OE x Welsummer- olive, brown (though not as likely) I believe OE are often breed back to darker drown layers to get a darker olive.
OE x brown layer- mostly green, maybe olive or brown

ETA: Cute chicks by the way.

 

[argonne]

Hi All-

I am new to BYC and chickens. I have five 3-week old pullets (2 BR, 1 Buff Cochin, 2 Blue Cochin). They are doing really well. We are working on their coop/run right now and I have a few concerns/questions. We live up near Red Feather Lakes at 7500'. There have been a lot of bears in our neighborhood, however we have never seen one by our house. What we plan on doing is building their coop within a 5'x10' welded wire (not chain link) dog run. I plan on running 1/4" hardware cloth around the outside and roof of the dog run. As for the bears, do I need to run electric wire around as well? The coop/run will be very close to our house on flagstone (no way a fox could dig in) and partly under the deck. If I need to do the electric wire, what spacing should I do? I was thinking three wires total at 6", 24", 48". Also, for those that have done the electric wire, what did you do about grounding in our dry CO soil?

 

[Mtn Margie]

Hi All-

I am new to BYC and chickens. I have five 3-week old pullets (2 BR, 1 Buff Cochin, 2 Blue Cochin). They are doing really well. We are working on their coop/run right now and I have a few concerns/questions. We live up near Red Feather Lakes at 7500'. There have been a lot of bears in our neighborhood, however we have never seen one by our house. What we plan on doing is building their coop within a 5'x10' welded wire (not chain link) dog run. I plan on running 1/4" hardware cloth around the outside and roof of the dog run. As for the bears, do I need to run electric wire around as well? The coop/run will be very close to our house on flagstone (no way a fox could dig in) and partly under the deck. If I need to do the electric wire, what spacing should I do? I was thinking three wires total at 6", 24", 48". Also, for those that have done the electric wire, what did you do about grounding in our dry CO soil?

and here! Bears! Don't even get me started..., still have nightmares from last year!
But seriously, the bear issue depends on the year, however it seems to be escalating in frequency of attacks on coops and other livestock. I have wired my coop and livestock for grizzly and if you water your grounding area, it works great. The issue we have is grounding in snow/ winter and we are working on that. The fence will not keep out bobcats in the winter as we found out but it works GREAT on bears when you need it. Here is the link that I used and I bought a plug/ battery/ solar system because we always lose power for various reasons.
http://www.patriotchargers.com/p30.htm

Here is the fence set up info for bears that I used. I put in 5 strands.
Spacing from the ground in inches 8,18,24,32,40 give or take...
http://bearsmartdurango.org/bear-smart-fact-guides/
There is one there for electric fencing.
One thing that I read about the electric fences is that if the bear gets shocked in front of his ears, he will back up. If he gets shocked behind the ears, he will bolt forward.

 

[argonne]

and here! Bears! Don't even get me started..., still have nightmares from last year!
But seriously, the bear issue depends on the year, however it seems to be escalating in frequency of attacks on coops and other livestock. I have wired my coop and livestock for grizzly and if you water your grounding area, it works great. The issue we have is grounding in snow/ winter and we are working on that. The fence will not keep out bobcats in the winter as we found out but it works GREAT on bears when you need it. Here is the link that I used and I bought a plug/ battery/ solar system because we always lose power for various reasons.
http://www.patriotchargers.com/p30.htm

Here is the fence set up info for bears that I used. I put in 5 strands.
Spacing from the ground in inches 8,18,24,32,40 give or take...
http://bearsmartdurango.org/bear-smart-fact-guides/
There is one there for electric fencing.
One thing that I read about the electric fences is that if the bear gets shocked in front of his ears, he will back up. If he gets shocked behind the ears, he will bolt forward.

Thanks for the info! I have an energizer already (Speedrite with 1.0J output). Do you think I can get away with 3 strands? I am not doing a gate, so I'd like to be able to sneak through the 2nd and 3rd strand when I open the door inward. If I space them something like 8, 20, 40" apart? Also, I've read that some people have "baited" a bear to come to the fence with a piece of bacon, thus, giving the bear a shock when he takes the bacon and teaching the bear to stay away. I don't know that I need to be baiting bears into my yard, though. We've successfully had hummingbird feeders and bird seed feeders without a bear accosting them and we also left our garage open one night with all our trash sitting there

with no bear. There have definitely been bears about a mile away from our house, though. I know it only takes once.

 

[Latestarter]

Greetings @argonne Welcome to BYC and the Colorado thread. Here's hoping you don't have tho deal with bear issues.

 

[Mtn Margie]

Thanks for the info! I have an energizer already (Speedrite with 1.0J output). Do you think I can get away with 3 strands? I am not doing a gate, so I'd like to be able to sneak through the 2nd and 3rd strand when I open the door inward. If I space them something like 8, 20, 40" apart? Also, I've read that some people have "baited" a bear to come to the fence with a piece of bacon, thus, giving the bear a shock when he takes the bacon and teaching the bear to stay away. I don't know that I need to be baiting bears into my yard, though. We've successfully had hummingbird feeders and bird seed feeders without a bear accosting them and we also left our garage open one night with all our trash sitting there

with no bear. There have definitely been bears about a mile away from our house, though. I know it only takes once.

The only thing I can say is that it depends on the bear. I have seen one push on the fence taking the shock until it grounded it out on the coop, my neighbor's , and then she upgraded and fortified and bought a 6 joule zapper with about 7 wires. The term loaded for bear is a real thing. I don't have a gate yet either, I just make sure to unplug before doing chores and I have a fence charged indicator hanging near where I climb through.

 

[COChix]

Big day for the Three Amigos....they are 3 and 4 days old already and they got kicked out of the house and outside into their brooder set up. The last two nights they had put themselves away in the house and everyone is eating and growing.

First I had to block the area from the flock, you can see I had helpers and observers.

Don't mind the make shift roof. It's not pretty but should keep them dry

Little One - the friendly EE kept going into the kennel when I was setting up their cave, guess she wanted to give it her approval.

At dusk they stood in the middle of the brooder huddled together chirping. I put them under the cave and they stayed. Last check of brooder temp is was 88. Will check again before bed, but it does feel good to get them outside. They also have started on fermented feed today and had a plug of sod in their brooder.

They are in a dog kennel brooder, in the covered run with their heat pad cave.

 

[COChix]

Enjoying first sun this am, also I order of hatch from left to right. The middle one I believe is an OE cockerel but we will see.

Tiny Tina as we have been calling her for some reason. She is unique in her coloring. @Percheron chick says that is how her OE mamma's look but they started out as chipmunks when they were chicks.

Everyone survived their first night outside in the run. At 7 the chicks were all out in their brooder huddled together. The hygrometer says it didn't drop below 80 last night so that is great.

 

[Latestarter]

Wasn't 80 here last night, but warm enough that the heat was turned off and one bedroom window was wide open all night. I slept pretty good when I slept