paloozaparty
Songster
(1) Are you new to chickens / when did you first get chickens?
>> Bought 5 chicks for first time, on youngest daughter's birthday, June 2019.
(2) How many chickens do you have right now?
>> SO sad, one died VERY unexpectedly at about 8 months old--we all cried for 2 solid hours. Buried her in the back yard. The next day, when her siblings were let out of their coop to roam--they all literally ran over to her burial spot, and sat on it, pecked on it most of the day. She is survived by her 3 sisters and BROTHER (um, did NOT expect one to be a boy).
(3) What breeds do you have?
>> Not entirely positive--but: Red Sex Link, Black Sex Link, Brahma, Easter Egger (of course, the boy--so no colorful eggs), and, our precious one who died was I thought a type of bantam leghorn--or maybe not bantam--but, smaller than her sisters, and red like a leghorn (I'll post pics somewhere in here)
(4) What are your favorite aspects of raising backyard chickens?
>> Mostly all the random experiences that I've had with learning unique aspects of their personalities that NO ONE ever talks about--or shares as common traits--rather, they describe their chicken's traits as unique to their chicken.
• First of all--all of our chickens literally put themselves into the coop the VERY first time they were let out for most of the day. This blew my mind. They do this every single night now too--at dusk--we ALWAYS go out to lock their coop--but, I was just sure we'd have a flock that's constantly leaving the yard, trying to escape, wandering all over the neighborhood, etc. Ours--even when one (in particular) gets out, always walks around the house and to the other side gate to be let back in
• The rooster (though, violently mounts and inseminates the girls many times every day) is the MOST chivalrous boy I've ever seen! He literally feeds the girls before himself--makes SURE That they know it's snack or dinner time--takes food TO them, and now always attacking us (including the small children)--as is his natural inclination to protect his flock. We are going to have to rehome him pretty soon--I've got a lot of guilt and anxiety about this, but not only are we NOT supposed to have roosters, I work from home and he kills me with his CONSTANT crowing, and increasing attacks. He needs to be on a farm.
• I'm trying to hurry up and incubate some VERY fertile eggs before we rehome him (yes, I understand we could end up with more roosters), but, this rare opportunity to learn about incubation and animal husbandry reproduction has become an important experience for me to learn and with my kids, before we have to rehome. I'm 0/7 though--as of tonight--which is why I decided to join on here... I've read about every post with questions about what could be going wrong, but now have video and pics to share about my/our experience so far--that I haven't already come across on here, so I thought I'd share (reciprocate since there's so many wonderful posts on here--PS thanks to the website host AND every member who takes the time to ask and answer questions!!!)
(5) What are some of your other hobbies?
>> I have dozens. In addition to having 4 kids, 4 chickens, 4 fish, 2 cats (this explains my headline)--I also dry needle felt, microbead and microbead weave, paint, crochet, sewing, home improvements, have a huge garden that I torture myself with maintaining and making bigger each year (on 3rd round of seeding due to the one hen entering and burglaring my garden :0, constant landscaping, pickling and canning (when available), making all kinds of things from scratch (butter, bread, ice cream), etc...
(6) Tell us about your family, your other pets, your occupation, or anything else you'd like to share.
>> I basically already included this info already
I'm self employed, 3 businesses that I run from home.(7) Bonus: How did you find BYC, how long have you known about BYC, and what made you finally join our awesome community?
>> I ran across your site up to several years ago, but though I've wanted backyard chickens for about 10 years now--I just couldn't get around to it till last summer. And, that wasn't even really well planned out. So, like everyone else, as I am now an actual hands-on hen mother--we're having way more unexpected experiences than I'd have ever anticipated, so I find myself googling every day, this or that, and always end up on your website
As of late, though, the failure of our 2nd batch of incubating eggs has me over searching your site--as today marked hatch day, for our ONE last viable egg. This morning, we were all so thrilled to hear chirping and watch the egg rock back and forth for almost 2 hours, then noticed immediate lack of movement and chirping. I broke down after 4 hours--as my intuition kicked in, and I intended to merely make a small hole into the egg to "help" the chick along (though NO movement, or chirping), noticed no blood movement either, so, I continued to carefully remove shell, to eventually observe that the chick was upside down in the egg, and either or both suffocated, or just couldn't get out. I took pics and will share in a post that I dedicate to this loss. SO unbelievably frustrating AND so sad that we had life this morning and because it was our first time--I was literally too chicken to try and help as MOST of the comments I've found insist that you LEAVE IT ALONE no matter what, during the last 3 days... Anyway, more in the post...Attachments
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