Crazy Chickens Daily (hopefully)

[Callender Girl]

Catching up on your posts, and in your Sept. 29 post, I spotted one of my favorite nest box options -- the large size Tidy Cats litter container!

 

[Cloverfluff]

Catching up on your posts, and in your Sept. 29 post, I spotted one of my favorite nest box options -- the large size Tidy Cats litter container!

I've only had one hen decide to lay in it so far.

 

[Cloverfluff]

The girls were not happy this morning. Apparently someone decided to cut down most of the trees behind my yard. They were "shredding" most of the day and it was definitely noisy. Most of the chickens noped out to the far side of the yard and took refuge in the older coop and run area. Crown was the only one to hunker down in the tree. While the open space definitely makes my yard look larger, I lost most of my early morning shade and tree cover.

 

[Cloverfluff]

Welp, this clutch was a bust. Went out to do a life check this morning and the broody hen wasn't sitting her nest. I opened the door to check the eggs and she made a break for the main area. One egg broken open with no chick in site, and the other two eggs felt too light to have any chick inside. Currently she's running the yard with the rest of the hens, so I think she is done being broody for now. Oh, well maybe next time.

 

[Cloverfluff]

Welp, this clutch was a bust. Went out to do a life check this morning and the broody hen wasn't sitting her nest. I opened the door to check the eggs and she made a break for the main area. One egg broken open with no chick in site, and the other two eggs felt too light to have any chick inside. Currently she's running the yard with the rest of the hens, so I think she is done being broody for now. Oh, well maybe next time.

Well, now she went back and nestled in again. Guess I'm going to have to order chicks online and hope for the best. I would prefer to wait for November. Any thoughts on placing another egg underneath her to tide her over until then, or leave off and see if she breaks without any eggs to sit?

 

[cavemanrich]

Any thoughts on placing another egg underneath her to tide her over until then, or leave off and see if she breaks without any eggs to sit?

Not a reliable broody,, I would not do it.
If you do choose to,, there is not much to loose.
Most peeps choose to break broodies, so they get back into egg production.
Other reason, ,some broodies do go thru a semi starvation diet doing such.

 

[Cloverfluff]

Not a reliable broody,, I would not do it.
If you do choose to,, there is not much to loose.
Most peeps choose to break broodies, so they get back into egg production.
Other reason, ,some broodies do go thru a semi starvation diet doing such.

She's done very well for the last month and was only off for about 10 minutes before going back. Not too worried about production since I have three others that have never gone broody before and meet my current needs for egg supply. I know she comes out to eat, so I wasn't too worried about starvation. I might need to add some of the all flock formula to her mix. She was primarily on a chick feed diet for a more nutrient dense formula, but seemed to be more interested in the all flock this morning.

 

[Cloverfluff]

It's official. Broody has broken. She was out with the rest of them in the yard this morning. That at least eases my worries on having to come up with chicks in the "off season." A new "pecking" order is being worked out. It is unfortunate that I will be interrupting this tomorrow as it is moving day for some of the twins. They will be heading for their new home in the afternoon. Oh well, it was starting to get a bit crowded in the run with everyone being nearly full grown anyway.

 

[Cloverfluff]

I wonder if catching greased pigs would have been easier? The first hen went mostly quietly. She was about hip high and an easy grab. The others though..... The second and third were fairly simple to grab from the corners after I had everyone locked in the run. The last one though, she zigged while I zagged and then slipped on something (we don't think too hard on what) and crash landed on the branches I set up for their perches. No major damage to me, but the branch cracked in half. I do think I have a bruise on my right thigh that I felt when I sat down today. Transport was fairly uneventful and they transferred to their new home pretty peacefully.

 

[Cloverfluff]

Why do chickens do what you least expect? I looked out my window yesterday morning and saw two chickens free roaming the yard. Now, while this wouldn't normally surprise me the problem was that I hadn't been out to open up the run this morning. Apparently the twins decided to sleep in the grow out coop. I did a bed check for Franny and Crown because Franny had just recently been returned to unrestricted access to the yard and the broody nest was opened up. I've not had issues with the "Tree" twins sleeping in weird areas, so I assumed they were in the big coop and didn't bother in checking. Silly me.