Icelandic Chickens

[The Sheriff]

Quote:
The last baby is hanging out at Jake's place! He'll have to answer that!

 

[Happy Chooks]

Quote:
The last baby is hanging out at Jake's place! He'll have to answer that!

Oh that's right, you sent him to Jake! I forgot. It's the Icelandic musical birds!

 

[Mahonri]

I don't think I've ever had to go to page two to find this thread.

Busy people.

 

[AK Michelle]

I really don't remember the last time I was this busy. Judging by the page count I'm missing out on lots. I have taken extra days off on both sides of the holiday weekend, hopefully I will have some time to catch up.

Cheers!

 

[Jake Levi]

The 'last' chick is a SHE !!

I have pics on the ________ site, and cant figure how to get them to thread !!!

About 8 are being rehomed this week, two familys, one of them is a 4 H leader so I am really hoping for good things there.

The others go to an Amish guy I know who has many grandchildren , he is a part owner of the feed mill I buy from. He's the one who put me on to the Turkey starter for the chicks.

I have been looking these younger ones over real closely, more then half are crested, the pullets that I am keeping range towards the lighter colors except for the silver girl. There are two beautiful splash roos. But I am leaning towards a crested mottled one to join Blau and Skjotur. Probably another one. Isison is continuing to look like his parents except no blue yet but there are two pullets that are starting to show some blue, very faintly. They are keepers even if not as they have beautiful wheaten tops and one has a bright white breast.

Life is good and Icelandics make it better !!!

 

[NotAFarm]

Kella is living up to Stella's fine escape artist reputation.........as I posted earlier, I put the young girls in their own coop on Sunday night. It is an 8 x 8.5 hoop house with plywood ends and a tarp covering most to the top/sides. They have a free-ranging area within a 4 foot tall electro-net fence that is about 50 ft away from the fence to the main flock's yard (four foot tall board with mesh attached and electric strand on top). I left them in the coop in the morning to get them used to it and then when I came home for lunch at noon I opened the door to the coop so they could be out for the rest of the day. When I came home from work, Kella, along with Kinna and Kleo, were back in the other yard.

After supper, I went out and started putting Mamas and babies away and they went into their old coop with the two boys they were hatched with. I caught them, clipped a wing and put them back over their fence and went back to clean waterers, etc. Next thing I know, here's Kella, back looking for me to open the coop door to let her in. Then Kinna came up also!!

I opened the door and let them in and closed it behind them. Caught them again and took them back to the other coop. It is nearing dark now and I take my can of corn (whole kernel canned corn) and bucket over and sit in the door of the coop to feed them some treats and then watch as they went onto the roosts. The roost are four/five feet off the ground. While many of them use a "ladder roost" in the corner as a launch to get up, Kella stood on the floor just in front of the roost, looked up, held her wings out and JUMPED, with a single flap at the peak, to the roost. The group of teens were all on one roost and the Week Before and Easter Hatchalongs were on the other one. We'll see how today goes...........I have to work again so I won't be here to see how she gets out, but I can't put a "roof" on the moveable electro-net so I may be fighting a losing battle...........time will tell! Love 'em anyhow!!

 

[AK Michelle]

Watching my Icelandics is better than watching tv. I don't have an automatic door so I go out every morning and open the door to the coop, then I stand back and watch as everyone hops, leaps, flies and falls out of the coop. The Icelandics do a quick recon to make sure I haven't delivered any treats before they duck under the gate and disperse throughout the pasture. My coop is 8X8 and sits inside of a 23' X 25' pen. the Icelandics used to go under the chain link but now that they are bigger they squeeze through the gap between the gate and the post (still not a very big space).

Anyway, they spend almost all day out and about, scratching and hunting for tasty bugs and bits, then are the first ones to bed, promptly at about 8:45.

It doesn't get dark this time of year. I can go out at midnight and it is just like 1/2 hr before sunset in other parts of the country. The sun dips below the horizon and it gets dusky about 1:30 am, but then the sun comes back up by 3:30 so the dusk doesn't last very long and then it's brightening up towards sunrise. On week nights I go to bed in daylight and wake up in daylight, yet the Icelandics know when bedtime is. They put themselves to bed, and my confused turkey goes with them. The others, he egg layers,

not so much. I often get to collect them from places they can't find their way out of (the gate is standing wide open, use it) or they are just wandering aimlessly, oblivious to what time of day it is, and I have to herd them to the coop.

I have seen the Icelandics drink from the various water dishes but I haven't really seen them at the feeders much. They show up for the treat bucket that brings all the kitchen scraps for the day out to them, but otherwise we see them out and about making the pasture their own.

When my layer roo sounded the alarm about a raptor flying by, the other birds went to the coop the Icelandics disappeared in the grass and trees, one second they were there the next - poof - they were invisible. I am feeling better and better about their survivability here.

 

[cedar post]

I finally got the camera out here are some pics of what I have hatched from March. I love this breed they are so different.
Here are my three roos

Her are some of the hens

 

[tazcat70]

Wow! They are just lovely! The mottling gene is really expressing itself!

 

[NotAFarm]

cedar, If I recall correctly, you got your eggs from Lyle Behl, right? Very beautiful pullets and handsome cockerels. Is that an Auburn Java pullet facing and cockerel from the rear in the fourth and fifth pics? They look very nice too!