Delawares from kathyinmo

[rancher hicks]

We put broodies in boxes we originally built to brood chicks to keep them organized. Each box is about 3' x 6.5' with lid doors at both ends. The boxes go right on the ground in the coops.

We can put a double nesting box at one end and food/water at the other end ... the nesting boxes are double ... with a divider. We line the top with empty feed bags so the broodies don't get pooed on. We also wrap the nesting box end in feed bags for broody privacy/seclusion.

We start two hens at once in the same double nest box. If one hen gives up we can start another, or we can combine the clutches under one hen. By having two hens brooding together and hatching at the same time we have two hens co-parenting one shared clutch of chicks. I think that's good during integration. We haven't lost a chick yet.

We have three boxes like this. We can start them in one box and later pick up the nest box with the hens in it and move it to another box. The hens tolerate this move very well. We have other cages we could use in a pinch, but we prefer these long narrow cages for brooding.

As soon as the chicks are up and around and the broodies are cooperating, we chase all the other birds out into the run and close the coop door, then roll the broody box on its side and get the chicks/hens to explore he whole coop. The rest of the flock comes to the wire side of the coop to check out the babies through the wire. Then we put the box back in place, empty, and open the coop doors for integration.

That sounds like quite a set up. Do you have pics? I'm considering a coop just for broody use.

 

[finnfur]

I believe broody hens are one of my biggest assets. I don't discourage broodies, I leverage them. I'm sure each broody saves me hours of labor and lots of electricity. But maybe I'd feel differently if my best looking breeding hen went broody on me ... I'd for sure want to hatch her eggs, but she wouldn't be giving me any as a broody. That would be a frustration. So far it's only the mutts that have gone broody here, so I haven't had to face that dilemma.

Yes - thats the problem I had this year - with only 5 F4 hens the two best type went broody and before I had the choice cock in with them.
So I put the Cock in the pen and kept discouraging them from sitting on the nest. They don't like that either . Talk about old hen's cackling .They got right nasty about it too LOL

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

That sounds like quite a set up. Do you have pics? I'm considering a coop just for broody use.

Hmmmm. I take CRUMMY photos, but I think I might have enough to give you an idea ...

Two photos of the Broody Cages back when I was using them as Brooders inside my house. This is my "office." and the first year we had chickens it was the brooder room. Ugh. Yuck. Nope. Not brooding birds indoors EVER AGAIN if I can help it, and certainly not in my Brain Rooom. Uh uh. No way. Nuh uh. But at the time, we only had chicks, and no coop, and ... we were dumb dumb dumb. And it only got worse when we got the poults. Eeeeeeeyuck!

Annnnd, this is the improved version. For the first big batch of chicks, we tried the large tupperware containers (

... hard to imagine how few chicks that might actually "work" for, certainly not the 50 chicks we impulse bought when we were only supposed to get 6 ... I'm the poster child for Chicken Math, but luckily we have a farm, so it wasn't the animal cruelty hoarding disaster it could have been), so we ended up just turning the chicks loose in this room. This room shares a wall with my bedroom, so it was easy to know when the birds needed attention.

See that platform under the water & feeder? It's the same thing we use for our Nesting Box Trays, but in this iteration it is upside down and used as a raised wire platform for brooder water. Helpful, but not perfect. No, that's not where we set the feeder when in use.


When we use this type of cage as a Broody Cage, we just staple feed bags across the top, on one end, and far enough down the two sides to create a little secluded spot around the tray. Birds LOVE to march around on top of these cages, pooing. Right now these cages are looking pretty yucky on top. We just take them out, remove & toss the feed bags, and hose them down & scrub off any remaining poo when not in use.


Here is the cage in use as a Broody Cage, set up right on the floor in the corner of the Delaware Coop. I opened the lid-door to take this photo of freshly-hatched Delaware chicks with foster broody hens in the double nesting box tray. The only problem with setting the cage down in the deep litter/soil floor of the coop is when hens scratch/dig next to the edge of the cage, either the broodies inside the cage or curious hens outside the cage, and we have some pieces of fire wood we keep handy to wedge around the edges if that becomes an issue (firewood is a great shape for this!).





You can see the nesting box trays are a good size. This is a photo of one of the trays ... found in one of the barns ... free! ... had been used to ship daffodil bulbs ... kinda cool ... fine-mesh wire bottom ... sturdy ... could make a great "Broody Busting" tray, too ...



And we also sometimes set these trays upside down off the ground a bit to put the chick feeders under so the feed doesn't get buried in litter when the hens scratch and so the babies can eat in peace. It kinda works, but now that the weather is gorgeous we're feeding outside on a bare patch of ground.





Here is a photo of a nesting box before it was installed in the side of the coop. The dividers are removable. The trays slide out the front, there is a hinged lid on the roof of the box so eggs can be collected from outside the coop. If a hen is in here at night instead of up on the roosts, she's probably broody.

As if it's hard to tell. When a hen is especially attached to "her" tray, the whole thing can be moved, hen and all. The lid-doors on the Broody Cages are JUST large enough to fit through one of these trays containing hens & eggs without spilling. It's best to use four hands for this operation.



I think there is a link to my coop page over there on the left in my user info ... The coops are built from salvaged greenhouse frames and have hardware cloth sides with Shade Cloth & Greenhouse Plastic roofs. The plastic is loose down the side walls like a skirt. The skirts can be raised or lowered depending on the weather ... but we live in a mild area that doesn't get too cold for too long, and our coops are well shaded in summer so the birds don't cook in the sunshine. Deep Litter helps keep things cozy in winter.


I'm going to have to extend the Delaware coop a bit. It feels a little to "friendly" in there for 3 mature LF Delawares, something like 11 mutt Foster Broodies, and so far 41 Delaware chicks of various sizes. Pecking order is keeping DelaRoo pretty busy, he is a very good & gentle & proud flock leader. I think I'm going to add a couple sections of Hoop Coop out the back door ... it's summer, so it doesn't have to be "perfect" yet. A friend made a fabulous hoop-coop style run by pounding some stakes into the ground and bowing the cattle panels between them ... but also it's a good opportunity to test my new "Breeder Coop" hoop-coop idea, which is a smaller version of Zanna's fabulous hoop coops.

 

[rancher hicks]

That's really nice and the greenhouse coop is very nice.

I converted my garden shed in to two coops but had to build runs on them. I cover them in the winter so the birds can be outside and they do stay out most of the time.

I also have hoop coops. One with a double cattle panel run, that I cover mostly with plastic each winter. It's not situated in the the best location cuz it gets wet and is in the open so summers get very hot. I have no doubt brooded eggs are lost to being over heated. It will take some work to take it apart and rebuild. I think deep litter floors are a good idea though I do get mice here. We have no Cats of our own, but I did see a strange cat mousing in my garden.















I trade pullets for hay to stack so they have room to play. The young ones can get under and hide out. When the rope breaks I just let them have it to tear apart and spread on the floor. Keeps things dry.

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

...
I also have hoop coops. One with a double cattle panel run, that I cover mostly with plastic each winter. It's not situated in the the best location cuz it gets wet and is in the open so summers get very hot. I have no doubt brooded eggs are lost to being over heated. It will take some work to take it apart and rebuild. I think deep litter floors are a good idea though I do get mice here. We have no Cats of our own, but I did see a strange cat mousing in my garden.
...

We trenched around our coops, and besides extending hardware cloth down into the trench, we also installed drainage pipe. Our big coop is also on a slope to encourage water to run away from the coop, not into it. The Delaware coop is more flat. The top end of the big coop is under a huge Sequoia tree for year-round protection, and under deciduous trees for summer shade. The Delaware coop is a bit more exposed, but has good shade in the summer. The cool thing about Deep Litter is you don't really want/need to keep it bone dry.

There are a few small gaps in the hardware cloth of the larger coop where rodents could sneak into the coop, and we are addressing that this weekend. We hadn't had any sign of rodents the whole first year, but this winter we did. I'm also going to try to scatter cat hair all around the coop & storage shed as that is said to repel mice at a genetic level. I've got an endless supply of cat hair in my central-vacuum canister ... we shall see if that helps.

 

[Zanna]

Out of 20 - 30 young F'5 pullets from this years hatches starting in March I don't think I have one with a correctly coloured tail. All have barred tails. Three cockerals used were all overcoloured and all four pullets used had no barring in the tails. Any thoughts? What are the rest of you seeing? If I deem these all culls, how to move forward???

 

[LindaB220]

I believe broody hens are one of my biggest assets. I don't discourage broodies, I leverage them. I'm sure each broody saves me hours of labor and lots of electricity. But maybe I'd feel differently if my best looking breeding hen went broody on me ... I'd for sure want to hatch her eggs, but she wouldn't be giving me any as a broody. That would be a frustration. So far it's only the mutts that have gone broody here, so I haven't had to face that dilemma.

Hi Leslie, maybe you could put in a few mutt eggs and take hers. She won't notice the difference.

 

[desertmarcy]

Out of 20 - 30 young F'5 pullets from this years hatches starting in March I don't think I have one with a correctly coloured tail. All have barred tails. Three cockerals used were all overcoloured and all four pullets used had no barring in the tails. Any thoughts? What are the rest of you seeing? If I deem these all culls, how to move forward???

I am seeing the same thing. I find it rather frustrating plus my breeders are not as big and beefy as they should be and comparing the youngsters to Black Copper Marans of the same age, they are small. These are just a couple of reasons why I'm not going to keep them. I am struggling with too many birds right now and have to cut back. I have had no luck rehoming the whole group, so in the next few days, I plan to butcher all the cockerels. I have had a few people wanting pullets (just for layers) so I'll hang on to them for another week to see if the sales go through and then they will have to go as well. Sales here are pitiful this time of year because of the heat, but I can't afford the space to keep them until fall when it cools down and people are thinking about buying poultry again. It is too easy for me to get burnt out on this hobby with no break and with as many birds as I have right now, it is a bit overwhelming. I don't know why I thought I could manage as many breeds as I have but it is not working! A lot of it is the Black Copper Marans---they just need SO much work, I felt compelled to hatch out a ton of them.

So what do the rest of you do to get away on vacation?? Or don't you? I'm having trouble finding a reliable person to mind the farm.

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

I have the last few chicks hatching from the Delaware coop today/this week. It is probable there are some mutts in this last batch as some of the foster broodies raising the chicks in the Delaware coop had started laying when I was gathering these eggs, and it quickly became impossible to tell who was laying what. That's why I decided to stop gathering eggs to hatch. I could have divided the coop up a bit and kept the trio more confined, but I prefer letting them interact with the chicks & broodies.

My birds are still too young for me to tell what the tails are going to be like. Even with my lighter male, I think I'm going to have a fair amount of extra color on the chicks' backs. The chicks seem to be growing well enough (compared to the Freedom Mutts, which sprung ahead with feathering early on), but even the oldest Delaware F5s are all fluff (like petting angora rabbits) at this stage.

Vacation? We're a farm family. We don't do many vacations. Even fewer hours away from the property now that there are animals on it. The trick is to build pleasure & "escape" into your daily routine so you don't feel the need to get away from home as often. That probably sounds more small-minded than it is ...

 

[desertmarcy]

I have the last few chicks hatching from the Delaware coop today/this week. It is probable there are some mutts in this last batch as some of the foster broodies raising the chicks in the Delaware coop had started laying when I was gathering these eggs, and it quickly became impossible to tell who was laying what. That's why I decided to stop gathering eggs to hatch. I could have divided the coop up a bit and kept the trio more confined, but I prefer letting them interact with the chicks & broodies.

My birds are still too young for me to tell what the tails are going to be like. Even with my lighter male, I think I'm going to have a fair amount of extra color on the chicks' backs. The chicks seem to be growing well enough (compared to the Freedom Mutts, which sprung ahead with feathering early on), but even the oldest Delaware F5s are all fluff (like petting angora rabbits) at this stage.

Vacation? We're a farm family. We don't do many vacations. Even fewer hours away from the property now that there are animals on it. The trick is to build pleasure & "escape" into your daily routine so you don't feel the need to get away from home as often. That probably sounds more small-minded than it is ...

That is easier here in the winter time. Unless you have been in southern Arizona in the summer, it is hard to imagine how brutal it is. And as I get older, my body tolerates the heat less and less. A break from the heat is necessary and a change of scenery for a mental refreshment.