Colorado

[Mtn Margie]

Meatie Update- Totally not scientific.....
24 Red Broilers are 7 weeks old and have eaten 2 bags Purina Medicated Chick starter, 2 bags of Flock raiser, lots of greens and I just bought 2 bags of Broiler Grower/ Finisher.
They are growing like crazy and run around and play, sometimes I let them out to free-range. My 3 egg layer babies have been hanging with them, but soon I will need to move them back over into the layer pen so that they do not get too many calories. It is looking like 10-11 weeks will have some nice chickens to process.
Tomorrow I am picking up some quail eggs to incubate and just see if they hatch and go from there.

Yes, medicated starter because I am not going to have that many chicks in the house more than three days and I do not do anything more than sweep out a space in the coop for the brooder area and add fresh shavings.
Enjoy the beautiful weekend!

 

[Chick345]

Does Grown up in Colorado springs count!?

 

[trsturself]

We lost our BR today. :-(
She was one of our first and super friendly. I noticed yesterday she wasn't acting quite herself. She was up on the top roost in her normal spot last night. This morning she was breathing really heavy and rattling. Within hours she died.
My daughter is devastated, she is very attached to our original birds.
I think her immune system was lowered from fighting off lice for a few months. No matter what I did she always seemed to have them even when no one else did. Plus it has been really wet here.
We completely cleaned out the coop today, removed the stupid chicken wire in there, turned the roosts to the wider side up, sprinkled DE everywhere, and gave them a new water dish with probiotics and electrolytes.
No one else is showing any signs of feeling bad. Hopefully it was just her.

Then as we are doing all that I turn around and notice our pugs weren't around. DD and I searched the neighborhood for over an hour with only a few paw prints at the end of the driveway to show for it. Then as we are sitting at home we hear some baking that sounds like them. DD and I run outside but it's the neighbors pug. We are about to go back inside and I glance over at our driveway (which is 2 acres long) and there they are half way down it! We were so happy to see them!

 

[Mtn Margie]

and I am glad the pugs came home. Those first chickens do hold a special spot in our lives....

 

[COChix]

My Spring chicks are now pretty girls & are giving me eggs daily...hurrah!
Our main predator here is the local fox population and coyotes. I had a flock of 24 nearly wiped out one nite when a coyote dug thru and took 18 of my hens. It is discouraging when something like that happens to say the least.

:cd

yea on the eggs, I forget how old yours are? Just curious as we should be getting eggs soon. Oh and our main predators up in North Boulder are raccoons and coyotes. We hear the coyotes at night in the open space across from us, but they don't come near the house as we have 4 dogs,. The coons are a different story, my bf lost 5 hens last year to coons, so this year we buried the coop wire with concrete. We are still vigilant and have traps set for them.

I know a shepherd who puts out an electric line with strips of aluminum folded over the line. She smears peanut butter on the aluminum strips so when the coyote licks it it shocks him full force. After that they don't challenge the fence.

nice, smart!

I have decided to downsize my layer flock, I have five hens for sale, Buff Orpingtons, RIR, Barnie cross,

So pretty all of them! Why are you downsize?

Drat it, you guys!  I lost my first bird (that's her as my avatar) since this flock moved here 1/31.  To a fox.  I had the north-side-of-the-house radio off cuz it had rained.  I thought she was I-laid-an-egg clucking and looking for the other birds.  The other 4 and I were in the coop, renewing their water...then my neighbor, who came down to help look for her, said I think I'm going to go put mine up (she's down to 7 from 25), as she's walking, she hears squawking, runs and sees the birds scattering and a fox running through them.  One bird was missing.  We looked for hours for my bird or feathers, and for her bird, and for the fox lair.  We did find 3 piles of feathers from her bear rout the other night.  Do the bears eat and then go back for more, and the birds are catatonic and just let it happen?

we both get our remaining birds back in the coops and the phone rings at 4:30 or so.

Joanne is excitedly yelling "my hen just showed up!"

I guess when Jo started screaming at the fox, he must've dropped her and it took 5 hours, but she ventured out of the forest squawking like a banshee.

No injuries.

I'm just about over the drama 'round these parts the past 2 days.

Now I'm leaving a radio on very low in the coop (which I normally play at normal volume when the birds are outside of their run) over night.  I think the sound of murmuring voices would be a further deterrent to the bear.

That, and the Alaska Bear Mats he'll be walking on.

geez, you guys are going through some **** right now. Glad her hen was ok, where are you located?

Wow again! I'm so sorry for all of these losses. I can't imagine what it must be like to have raised your chooks and cared for them and rejoiced in the eggs and entertainment they provide and then to lose them to such devastation.

People say there are predators in Denver, like fox, raccoon, coyote, and skunks. But I've never seen them, and so have been increasingly careless about closing the coop door until late and long after my five chooks have gone to roost. I think I need to learn from your story and pay more attention to the hazards there are here in the city - dogs, cats, and even the two-legged kind - because I would be devastated to lose my babies .

Thank you for the wake up call.

I lived in Denver for years (13) and I always saw coons. Foxes and skunks. Yes please take precautions.

On. Funny side note, we have a coon trap in the free range area as we have had some coon activity this week. Well I forgot to close it this am when I let the gang out and went to check on them later and found we had trapped two girls! Silly girls!

Also I am started to lean towards a rooster decision, the RIR roo is brutal on the girls and is always pulling feathers out of them. He is trying to control by brute force and I don't like it. The buffs do it some but not to the extent that Rojo does. So decisions are round the corner. Oh and is everyone else experience a ton of ear wigs this year?

 

[COChix]

Does Grown up in Colorado springs count!?

sure, noticed your out of Washington, I have family in the Tacoma area, so green and lush there!

We lost our BR today. :-(
She was one of our first and super friendly. I noticed yesterday she wasn't acting quite herself. She was up on the top roost in her normal spot last night. This morning she was breathing really heavy and rattling. Within hours she died.
My daughter is devastated, she is very attached to our original birds.
I think her immune system was lowered from fighting off lice for a few months. No matter what I did she always seemed to have them even when no one else did. Plus it has been really wet here.
We completely cleaned out the coop today, removed the stupid chicken wire in there, turned the roosts to the wider side up, sprinkled DE everywhere, and gave them a new water dish with probiotics and electrolytes.
No one else is showing any signs of feeling bad. Hopefully it was just her.

Then as we are doing all that I turn around and notice our pugs weren't around. DD and I searched the neighborhood for over an hour with only a few paw prints at the end of the driveway to show for it. Then as we are sitting at home we hear some baking that sounds like them. DD and I run outside but it's the neighbors pug. We are about to go back inside and I glance over at our driveway (which is 2 acres long) and there they are half way down it! We were so happy to see them!

so sorry for your loss but so glad your pups were ok. I am sure the first loss will be a hard one for me, but it is bound to happen.

Meatie Update- Totally not scientific.....
24 Red Broilers   are 7 weeks old and have eaten 2 bags Purina Medicated Chick starter, 2 bags of Flock raiser, lots of greens and I just bought 2 bags of Broiler Grower/ Finisher.
They are growing like crazy and run around and play, sometimes I let them out to free-range.  My 3 egg layer babies have been hanging with them, but soon I will need to move them back over into the layer pen so that they do not get too many calories.  It is looking like 10-11 weeks will have some nice chickens to process...

so is this your first time raising broilers? I am curious about those as well and might be something we consider down the road, like next year.

 

[Pozees]

For some reason I can't see any of suncatcher's pics, but I'm sure all are lovely

trstur sorry about your hen, but glad the Pugs turned up!

Mtn Margie I can't wait to hear the conclusion of the Meaties! What kind of quail are you setting? Do they incubate fewer days than chickens?

 

[trsturself]

I'm sorry for everyone else's losses. It's the hard part of raising animals.
I was just talking with DH about adding more predator proofing to the coop. Right now the run has the wire buried (2x4 welded wire with chicken wire around the bottom also) but I still feel like the back sides of the actual coop are a weak spot. We already had a skunk in the run when it was closed, and it got back out somehow too, so I know we aren't secure enough. We have a lot of foxes in the area so we were talking about burying the expanded metal we so graciously got from Percheron Chick, around the outside of everything.

We were also talking about what we need to do to keep the rain out of the covered area next to the coop. The roof leaks like crazy. It was supposed to be their nice dry area during storms but it ends up worse than the run. I think the wet ground is really starting to take it's toll on the birds. I think that contributed to the loss yesterday then today while spending time with them I noticed our D'Uccle was standing with one foot up. Sure enough she has a sore on the bottom of her foot. Luckily it looks like it just happened, so no swelling or bumblefoot symptoms. I'm going to soak it, clean it, coat it, and wrap it for her today.

Another project once the covered area is rain proofed, is to separate it into a bathing/dry area and a breeding area. Ah the projects!

 

[Chickenpood1]

Greetings Coloradoans (and others!)- am new member to the site but have been referring to it for anonymously to educate myself on chickens. Thank you for all the advice and tips that I have been pilfering I have three chickens (1 year olds) and will be adding a couple more next year. We live outside of Durango.

 

[iluvchessies]

Hey everyone!

We live in the foothills west of Denver. We're new to raising chickens and to this site. It's been a wealth of information for us!! I'm glad I happened upon this thread - seems like some great information specific to our beautiful state! I will have to check back often and catch up on the information that's been brought up here on all these pages.....

We adopted 6 hens from a friend about a month ago. We have two Orloffs, two Ideals, an EE and a Red Sex Link. They are all great layers (at least at this time of year). I never realized how much fun raising hens could be!!

We also have two chesapeake bay retrievers - trying to train them that the girls are NOT the birds they are bred to hunt!