Illinois...

[Pixie]

In Will and Kankakee county the roosters have been $5 or free

I would take $5 each.

 

[MeepBeep]

In Will and Kankakee county the roosters have been $5 or free

Last time I was at the Kanakee show, many of the dealers would not sell they 'better' pullets unless you also purchased at least one $5 rooster... That or they would say a pair was $20 or $25 if you just wanted the pullet... It was comical, as we heard it so many times that day...

We actually brought home our first bantam rooster from there, we nick named him 'The $5 Rooster'...

 

[ChicagoClucker]

I just want to pass along a great group I came across on Facebook. It is called the "Chicken Vet Corner" and all concerns and questions are answered by Vets that work with poultry. I have discovered that Marek's is not a death sentence for your entire flock. Because in fact, all chicks have been exposed by 2 weeks old, if not vaccinated. It just presents itself within weakened immune systems. There are also many different strains of Marek's. You have to wait to be added to the group, but very glad I did.

 

[Faraday40]

So how are all the spring hatches dealing with their 1st snow? Mine are wimps as usual. I left the run door open but none ventured outside for over 48 hrs. (1-2 birds stepped onto the patio when I cleaned out the coop but they went right back inside their covered run & coop.) Mine are also trying to sun themselves in whatever rays they can get. Today, I saw several hawks soaring above, so it's not all bad that they decide to stay inside.

 

[MeepBeep]

My birds are taking the snow in stride...

On the other hand it's been highly annoying to me... Spent most of the week getting ready for my daughters 6th birthday at our house, put all the stuff outside on hold hoping the snow wouldn't be as bad as predicted... I still have piles of leaves in the yard that are supposed to be in the coop... Snow fence wasn't put up because I had to wait for the farmer to harvest the corn so I could get proper fence setbacks and he didn't harvest until this week, so that has been on hold...

Basically I was caught a little off guard, trying to clear the driveway and enough parking space of 16" of snow in a hurry wasn't exactly fun, especially when the snow blower that I had prepped for winter decided to trough/shred a belt shortly after getting going, requiring me to track down and get a replacement as well as working to replace it with the cold covered in snow/ice steel... The only joy in it was watching the procession of people at Ace Hardware bringing in their blowers for service, at least I wasn't alone and better mine was back in running order in short with just a $9 belt and some foul language...

Lost a few small trees, bushes and lots of branches so lots more clean up as soon as the warmer temps get rid of the white stuff...

 

[ChicagoClucker]

None of mine are caring for it one bit! I don't blame them either. They are staying in the enclosed run. The girls that are molting are trying to stay warm in the coop, and I have been giving a little extra cracked corn in the evening.

Is anyone else having issues once in a while with the site? Not being able to type, scroll or anything. Just keeps stalling I think because of the stupid video ads on the right.

Update on my splash orp, she is still unable to walk. But is eating and drinking just fine, but she is not growing at all. Her brother and sister are 4 times her size and healthy and happy. The Isbars are getting big also, I have 1 boy and 4 girls. I am going to have to find out the sex of the 2 I gave to the young man with the broody.They are very flighty, and fast. Tried cleaning the brooder tonight, and I had Isbars flying all over the basement. Don't know if I will like that outside, I sure don't want to have to go chasing chickens.

Hope everyone has a wonderful Holiday this week, probably won't be on much.

Happy Thanksgiving!

 

[Faraday40]

Is anyone else having issues once in a while with the site? Not being able to type, scroll or anything. Just keeps stalling I think because of the stupid video ads on the right.

Yes, I had similar problems when I used Internet Explorer. I switched to using Chrome when I want to access this site. For some reason it just works better with this site.

 

[Faraday40]

ChicagoClucker
Sorry to hear about your splash orp. I'm not sure if there's anything else you can do for her.

If you have the time, try training your little Isabars. If they learn to associate you with treats, they'll come running when you call. All it takes is saying, "Chickens" then handing them a treat. Repeat 100s of times. Orps are the easiest to train; they LOVE their food, but I'm having very good luck with my Sebright. She's an excellent flyer, so I figured I needed to train her or I'd never get her out of a tree. So far I've trained her to fly up to a roost or branch if I tap it & step up onto my hand when I put it next to her. She's very independent & not as obedient as my orps. When she's in the right mood, it's very cool to see her fly across the yard & onto my arm.

 

[Molpet]

Very unhappy spring hatch...not liking their first snow.

The slackers just come out of the coop to eat. The 3 best layers are out the most, and the roos.

 

[chickendreams24]

They're all absolutely hating the snow on my end. We got 17-18" in some places and then it drifted in some places on top of it too. Up to my knees, here and there the drifts we up to 2.5-3' so they had a lot to contend with when I let them out of their run for foraging on Saturday morning. Our little oegb flew out of the run made a u-turn midair and flew back to the door. Lol a couple of our silver laced wyandottes flew out and landed smack in a drift sinking in almost to their shoulders lol and went stock still BC they were so scared about this new world... And they all kept looking at me as if to say "what happened to the green?" Poor babies. I had to help the wyandottes out of the drift. Theyve never been very friendly but let me tell you as soon as i put down my arm and went to pock them up they just about cling to me and climbed me like a tree. Their water had frozen solid so we've been bringing buckets of warm water out for them to drink(warm to help them keep warm and to try to avoid frost bite and so it doesn't freeze as quickly) well before I could bring the water out Saturday morning our golden sebright, Lacey managed to fly all the way from the run to the hydrant by the house; where we always keep an extra water bowl or two(which were also frozen) Well she had nowhere to land but in the snow. Poor baby. Luckily it wasn't deep in that area. Well she was quite upset by it and kept jumping on the water bowl confused as to why there was no water. I brought the bucket out to her first, but she kept going back to the frozen water bowl. By this time she was freezing it was super windy on Saturday here and combined with her little frame wet feet and the wind she was shaking like a leaf in a high wind. So I had to catch her(something she wasn't thrilled about at first until I tucked her in my coat and started stroking her head she quickly fell asleep as I soothed her and carried her and the bucket of warm water back to the warm dry run. After one of the EEs started drinking she realized that was where the water was and drank well.

They've been getting lots of food and warm water and treats galore(hard boiled eggs, cooked broccoli, cooked carrots, scratch, whole kernel corn-which they dont care for much suprisingly as they ate it when they picked the field, banana chips- the jury is still out on them, fat off a roast, a hot dog, basicaly anything I can give them that might keep them in the run and or keeo them busy) and today they have finally walked through the snow to the other buildings something they should have done a couple days ago as most of the out building got very little or no snow.

With as cold as it has been getting in the sun porch we have been heating it with a space heater as the sun sets and turning it off before we go to bed. The littles have all been staying pretty warm in this way although of course they all don't understand why they're not getting let outside. Today with the sun shining its been warm enough to let the biggest of the littles out on some of the yard that the sun melted all the snow. Hopefully this week our permanent winter coop will be finished if not this week next(we have the angles for the roof decided just need to cut one more set of rafters and everything should go really quick after that)although we have completely enclosed and insulated their run which stays quite nice in fact the nest boxes in their run have only had three eggs freeze and only one of the three eggs was actually layed in the nest box. Once the permanent winter coop is finished the largest of the littles(the silkie/bantam group) and the big girls will all be moved in and an area will be partitioned off to add the rest of the littles as well.

I'm very excited to be seeing our dream coop taking shape. Lol being that we have designed every aspect ourselves based on barns its going to be very very cool now if only we had known what we were getting ourselves into. Our first coop should probably have been off blueprints.