D'uccle Thread

[mstricer]

These guys will have to be separated from the coop since all our other birds are LF, we have about 70 birds, and they have a mostly tarped pen and a warm doghouse full of straw. Think that will be fine? My other had that pen but i didnt have them in the winter.

That should do since they will have a house to go into and the run tarpped from the wind

 

[chickenkeeper12]

Is this a rooster? It is 5 days old

 

[jenifern]

usually fast feathering chicks are pullets from my experience. If you fan out their wing and the feathers are opposing lengths it usually means a hen, if they are all the same length it's quite likely a cockerel.

 

[chickenkeeper12]

Thank you so much. I already have too many roosters.

 

[Adele - East TN]

Just wondering if this is normal? I have a mille roo and 2 mille hens (age 11 months) in a portable chicken tractor. Just recently, it has turned cold temps in the 30 during the day and 20s at night. When I get home from work, I feed them some treats - scratch and shelled sunflower seeds. They are eating fine but about 5pm they cuddle in the bottom corner of the tractor. When then the sun sets about an hour later instead of going upstairs to sleep in the coop, they are staying on the ground. This has happened the past 2 nights after the weather changed. Prior to this the roo was always the first to head to bed and he would call the hens to come up. The coop has a heat lamp on a thermostat set to come on at 30 and off at 40. I am new to chickens. I have another coop that has Jersey Giants the same age and they did not change their sleeping pattern when the weather turned cold.

 

[QuoVadis]

I have found a lot of bantams like to pile together to sleep when it is cold. I dont know why exactly

 

[Sofarabbit]

Hello everyone. I had been following this thread ever since I got my two d'uccle hens at one week old. I figured I would add pictures of my babies. Their names are Bella and Luna and they love to sit on my arm and fall asleep. I also wanted to ask how much bigger did you guys think they will get? I love the size they are right now and I hope they will not get too much bigger haha. But thank you for all the information in this thread. It has helped me give a good life to these two hens so far.

These are the only chickens I currently own and are spoiled, but so much fun to watch. Currently they are almost 10 weeks old.

 

[K Epp]

You can look at the SOP to get their projected weights ,but to put it in sight perspective my 10 month olds are about the size of a Robin.

 

[fuzzybutt love]

To the piling question: first i would think really hard sbout that heat lamp. Do you have backup for if your electric goes out? If not your birds will die if you have a storm. We have already had it happen in MI.. so heartbreaking. Also the bulb can blow or fall down; then you have glass and fire on top of sudden temp change!!!! And frostbite can happen when they go into the run from the comb's getting cold after warming under the bulb.

I am not dogging you, i was not sure if you were aware of these risks. I have done it wheniwas getting started and learned the hard way.

As to them sleeping below; i would put them up top every night and check to see that there is nothing scaring them. I had a couple wild hearts that slept in the trees if i could not wrangle them into their coop by sundown. One
got a bad chill and though i put him under a lamp and hand fed and loved on died 3 days later. I think not all have proper instinct and once they have safely made it through tje night in a roost spot they will continue it unless you make them wake in a diff safe spot.

 

[mstricer]

Hello everyone. I had been following this thread ever since I got my two d'uccle hens at one week old. I figured I would add pictures of my babies. Their names are Bella and Luna and they love to sit on my arm and fall asleep. I also wanted to ask how much bigger did you guys think they will get? I love the size they are right now and I hope they will not get too much bigger haha. But thank you for all the information in this thread. It has helped me give a good life to these two hens so far.








These are the only chickens I currently own and are spoiled, but so much fun to watch. Currently they are almost 10 weeks old.

AMERICAN STATUS: Ranks within 16 top breeds.
Weight: Cock- 26 oz. / 740 grams Hen – 22 oz. / 625 grams
Cockerel - 22 oz. / 625 grams Pullet- 20 oz. / 570 grams
This the weight they should be, from the Belgian d'Uccle page