FLORIDA!!!!!ALWAYS SUNNY SIDE UP!!!

[fl_deb]

Hey guys and Gals,

If you know someone just starting down the chicken path, and would like to own layers NOW, along with a coop and run, and are willing to come to the tampa bay area to get all this and more for an unbelievably low price, just tell them to IM me on this forem. First come First serve, this is gonna happen this weekend or sooner!

I now return you to your regular programmming

 

[finsfan7920]

Central ,FL Lakeland
small flock of 7 chickens, mixed, barred rock, light brahmas, americaunas

 

[Sunny Side Up]

I'm usually an avid weather report-watcher (an old habit since Hurricane Andrew) but somehow missed the last few days. So today's afternoon thunderstorms came as a complete surprise. It's been so DRY for so LONG I got out of the habit of watching for rain. Here in West Palm Beach it hit around 3:30 I think. Already there is 1.5 inches of rain in the gauge and it seems there is more on its way. Yay!

But my poor little chickies! Each spring I get a lot of schoolteachers wanting fertile eggs to hatch in their classrooms, they usually return the hatched chicks to me. So I have pens of chicks of all ages in the yard. I only keep the youngest ones indoors, and then only after dark, the rest stay in bottomless cages out in the grass. There was one pen with about 2 dozen of the youngest, from 1-2 weeks old that I thought was covered well enough against rain. But after seeing how hard the wind was blowing, how the rain was coming almost horizontally, I decided to run out in the storm to check on these chickies.

I'm so glad I checked them when I did, they were all soaking wet, completely chilled, cheeping miserably. I yelled to my boys to come out quick, we grabbed them all, carrying them in our shirtfronts to bring inside. I put them all in a box, put a desk lamp over them, rubbed them each with a towel. Then I added a jar with hot water to the middle of the box, and fixed my favorite chick booster, scrambled eggs with garlic powder.

I was afraid I'd lose some, the littlest ones were so pathetic, so cold, lying on the floor with their eyes closed. But they have all dried off nicely now, all fluffy & peeping & bippity-bopping around. Thank you Lord!

How did you & your flocks fare in this storm?

 

[ItsAZOO32]

Quote:
OH MY!! I am glad that they are ok

What types of babies do you have?

I had almost the same thing happen. I have two week old babies I put outside today in a dog crate. Figures that it would start raining and I had to run out and cart the big metal cage onto the porch. I was lucky.. they were still dry .. but I wasn't once I got in.

My husband and I are really wanting to come down and learn how to process. I am even planning to get some Faverolles because I hear they are good meat birds as well as layers..

Stay dry! Enjoy the rain.. I have some major gardening to do when it's over. Anyone have plants or cuttings they can give me for my dry, full sun, sandy back yard??

 

[Sunny Side Up]

These chicks are all mixes of my large production breeds. The pullets are attractive and will lay brown, green, or white eggs. The cockerels will be invited to dinner when they mature at about 20 weeks. I am tentatively planning to process 6 roos next Sat, 5/21, y'all are welcome. And I have lots of plants from which you can take cuttings to grow in your yard. That's how I got many of the things in my bird-and-butterfly garden here.

Please let me know if you or anyone you know wants pullets to begin or add to their laying flocks, I like to sell them early, as soon as I can tell for certain their sex.

 

[carolsaucier]

I have lots of oregano, hot peppers (unknown varieties), and culantro plants you can have if you want to come to Palm Bay. Anyone else want some of these plants, come and get them. I am on standby to work the floods and DH will be gone with granddaughters for good part of summer, so these will only dy of neglect. I have many, many, many more than I will ever use.

 

[carolsaucier]

forgot to say, plants are all in 4 in pots

 

[PattiS72]

Okay, so I know now that hens can start laying at around 5 months (or older). So when can they mate so we can get some fertilized eggs? We think we have two roos, but we aren't sure.

 

[TriciaHowe]

Glad to hear all is well there. We are getting ready for round 2 right now. The lightening is getting really close..... I didn't have time to bring one of the horses in from the pasture when it started to pour this morning and man did he give me the stink eye when I went out there this afternoon to get him...He also had a lovely roll in the mud

My ducks were swimming across the front yard if that tells you how fast it came down earlier....

 

[10xmama]

I'm a newbie in Jacksonville. We are researching building our coop ... and will be looking at getting our chickens in the next couple of months. Would love to find someone local to buy chicks from ...