Colorado

[PirateGirl]

I think it was the "farm innovators" brand heated dog bowl. I think I'm just going to buy another black rubber bowl. The ducks seem to be doing fine with their plain old bucket, but they are in and out of the water a lot more and with a lot more force than the chickens.

 

[lomine]

I’ve got a green dog bowl and buckets in with the chickens and ducks. I don’t remember the brand. The dog bowl is on winter number three. The birds seem to prefer the dog bowl. The top of the bucket was frozen over this morning. The nonheated bucket is completly frozen. For the quail I got a large gravity feed heated waterer. Only got it this year but it seems to be working well.

I also bought a heated one that is a small bucket with horizontal nipples. It was meant for the quail. Been moving it around but no one uses it. Won’t be getting one of those again.

 

[PirateGirl]

even when it's not freezing I think the chickens like the dog bowl better than their bell waterer... I'm not sure why, and the two hold virtually the same amount of water. The dog bowl is easier to clean and fill too. Shouldn't have spent any money on a special waterer for the chickens, spoiled brats. I'm sure if I bought a fancy heated bucket with nipples they would turn their beaks up at that too!

 

[uzisuzuki]

I have two of those tall heated waterers and even they get slightly slushie when it gets as cold as it’s been this weekend. I also just refill the smaller hanging waterers in the main aviary every morning since everyone in there has been getting on each other’s nerves lately. I wish the taller ones were easier to refill! Such a pain in the rear every time.

I would like to go back to the weather we had this time last week!

 

[aliciaplus3]

For my ducks I use a stock tank heater in Big rubber tub..... they seem to love it. Still have to empty it out once a week and rinse it out..... Ducks are a mess!
Edited for spelling

 

[HBRRanchCO]

Hi Colorado peeps! I am a chicken Newb in Sheridan, CO. I have 6 hens (my limit here): 2 BAs, a buff Orpington, an EE, a gold Hamburg, and a Red Star (sex link). The Hamburg and BAs are 7+ years old and not really laying anymore, we mostly got them to learn about chickens and as pets. Then a friend gave us the other 3 that are a year or 2 old just a few days ago. They have already given us 5 eggs! I’m having fun learning about chickens and had no idea that there was so much to learn.

 

[lomine]

Welcome to the Colorado thread @HBRRanchCO Nice looking eggs. It doesn't matters how many eggs I get, I am always excited to find eggs in the nest box.

So my SLR Wyandotte has been trying to sleep in some of the nest boxes ever since she started molting. Every night I have to pluck her out and put her on the roost. I often don't get home before dark and my chickens seems to lay late morning/afternoon so I wasn't blocking the boxes. Yesterday I figured I would just keep them blocked until she gets the point. There are four other boxes the others can lay in that she hasn't tried to sleep in. Well this morning one of the Ams was making a racket. She wanted to lay in her regular box and wouldn't go in the others. She was just pacing back and forth squawking. So I just unblocked it all. Guess I'll go back to pulling the other one out every night again. The worst part is she tosses all the straw out of all three and poops in them too. If she just picked one and kept going to it it wouldn't be so bad but she has to switch it up every night.

 

[PirateGirl]

@lomine they certainly can be particular sometimes can't they!?!

 

[PirateGirl]

@HBRRanchCO welcome welcome! That's great that your girls are laying so quickly after moving in with you! I'm still waiting for my ducks to lay after their move. Trying to be patient. They are definitely less stressed. I'm pretty sure they coyotes were lurking again last night, every dog for a mile was going off and my dogs were running circles around me and the chicken coop barking when I went out to check on things. This is not normal behavior for my dogs.

 

[HBRRanchCO]

@HBRRanchCO welcome welcome! That's great that your girls are laying so quickly after moving in with you!

I was super surprised that they didn't take a week or longer to start laying. Got them Friday night and Sunday we got 2 eggs, the BO didn't give us one, then yesterday we thought it was just going to be the 2 again but my fiance came inside and mentioned that the BO was in the nesting box making weird sounds when he was cleaning the coop and I told him "I bet she was laying an egg!" and sure enough went out awhile later and there was a cream egg from her! Today we got brown and blue (way more blue than the two previous ones), have to see if BO does another one too

How fast can something be corrected or change with food/circumstances? For instance they started eating different food, water, etc with us less than 4 days ago. The first blue egg was pretty soft so I assumed she hadn't been getting enough oyster shell or it was from stress. I made sure there was access to oyster shell. Her egg today seems much harder. Was it because she got the oyster she needed, or because she's settling in? or nothing I could do would change that quickly?