ltacoleman
In the Brooder
Hi all! My name is Tisha. I live in SE Iowa with my boyfriend and our family of furred, hooved, and feathered friends. Currently we are raising free-ranging chickens for eggs and natural insect control. Eventually, we will raise for meat, as well. I work on a small organic dairy farm handling processing and delivery.
I have been a long time browser of the site and have found it very informative and helpful. I do wish that it were a little easier to search through the enormous breed list, though. Lol
I had wanted chickens for a long time. Finally, about a year and a half ago, I started my flock with some gifted chickens from a friend.
The first chickens that I bought to add to my flock were Iowa Blue chicks. Being from Iowa myself, I had to support our only breed. Lol. I do want to help bring it back and into a recognized breed. What interested me most about them is that they will fight off predators. I'd had a hen get eaten by a opossum early on and it really irked me that the roosters I had been given did nothing to protect her. I looked for a breed that was known for standing up for themselves and came across the stories about Iowa Blues.
One of my IB hens raised a clutch of 15 eggs. 100% hatch rate! This is a hen that chose to live in my big barn with the horses instead of the safety of the coop. You do not dare touch an egg under her if she's on the nest! She is vicious, bites hard and aggressively, and shakes her head like a dog with prey. Great momma, though. Her chicks are almost mature now and just beautiful (if you like black birds). I am fairly certain that the father is one of my Australorp roos. My plan is to breed the hens back to one of my Iowa Blue rooms and see how those chicks look. I'm hoping that the Australorp will help add size back to the IB. I will be posting a thread on this later to get opinions.
I bought four Ameraucana girls around the same time, but the hen would not accept them. I had to brood them under the watchful eyes of my Border Collies. (The are obsessed with chickens. Lol) Very lovely ladies and I'm excited for them to start laying.
I had three other IB hens become broody.... two (and even all threes few times) were trying to set the same clutch! I ended up dividing eggs and trying to get them to each set a nest instead of one. At hatch time, a lot of the chicks didn't make it... I'd find them stuck to the egg shells... I'd read that it could have been from a change in humidity and it was extremely humid during that time. I ended up with five IB chicks being raised by two mom's. They chased the third hen away so I brought her a few eggs from the dairy. She hatched three, but one chick was squashed by a goat (I think) during a thunderstorm. They are IB cross since the dairy roo is one I took out there. One may be from a Ameraucana, but no guess on the other. That will be my third post. Lol
Well, this is much longer than I experienced expected. Lol. I look forward to meeting and talking with you more.
