Illinois...

[Faraday40]

Quail are now 4 weeks. They're still growing, but not as many significant changes this week. Just a little bigger & more head feathers. I believe they are fully feathered now.


The runt is on right. He/she is getting harder to spot among its siblings.

 

[Molpet]

well I have an infestation of possums!! I had been seeing one set of tracks lately.
Seen one yesterday before 1 pm in the chicken yard... he was very aggressive and so small his head fit through the chain link fence.. and almost his shoulders...I caught him .
When I went to lock up the chickens there was an itty bitty one in the old dog pen, where I feed the labor day BJG. He got through the 2x4 wire before I could grab him. by the time I got around the fence he was out of sight. I tracked him to under a log and since it was 30 min after sunset I couldn't find him...I poked but nothing was soft.
this morning there were at least 3 sets of various sizes I tracked back to grandma's old place where a vehicle had been pulled in up to the fence...
gee i think someone left me a early Christmas present...

time to get the box traps out.

 

[Molpet]

Quail are now 4 weeks. They're still growing, but not as many significant changes this week. Just a little bigger & more head feathers. I believe they are fully feathered now.


The runt is on right. He/she is getting harder to spot among its siblings.

Glad the runt is growing..they look so cute

 

[Faraday40]

Glad the runt is growing..they look so cute

Thanks.

I hope you can rid of the dropped off possums & they don't eat any of your poultry. That's such an awful Christmas gift. Too bad you can't track the vehicle to "return to sender." LOL

 

[rfreedlund]

Another reason that chickens aren't necessarily the smartest birds around...

After some bitterly cold days, yesterday was a nice enough day that I was finally able to shovel enough space so my birds could get out in their run again. Today most of them were out and were able to make it to their favorite daytime roosting spot, which is a group of wood pallets that I have set up for composting bins.

It then begin to snow again late this afternoon. When I went out around 7:00 PM to gather any late eggs and shut them in, I found six of my girls and one boy still roosting outside getting covered with snow in the dark as they remained there.

The new snow wasn't very deep, but I assume it was still foreign enough to that small group that they were afraid to jump down and head back to the coop for the night so they just stayed right where they were even though night had fallen. I was easily able to grab each one and put them all where they were supposed to be. I was caught with a reaction somewhere between sad for the birds getting covered with a light snow (it still wasn't too cold) and humor at the sight of them hunkering down for the night with that "lost chicken" look I am sure many of you are familiar with.

When I let them out again tomorrow, I will make sure I check on them a little bit earlier next time.

 

[chickendreams24]

Another reason that chickens aren't necessarily the smartest birds around...

After some bitterly cold days, yesterday was a nice enough day that I was finally able to shovel enough space so my birds could get out in their run again. Today most of them were out and were able to make it to their favorite daytime roosting spot, which is a group of wood pallets that I have set up for composting bins.

It then begin to snow again late this afternoon. When I went out around 7:00 PM to gather any late eggs and shut them in, I found six of my girls and one boy still roosting outside getting covered with snow in the dark as they remained there. 

The new snow wasn't very deep, but I assume it was still foreign enough to that small group that they were afraid to jump down and head back to the coop for the night so they just stayed right where they were even though night had fallen. I was easily able to grab each one and put them all where they were supposed to be. I was caught with a reaction somewhere between sad for the birds getting covered with a light snow (it still wasn't too cold) and humor at the sight of them hunkering down for the night with that "lost chicken" look I am sure many of you are familiar with.

When I let them out again tomorrow, I will make sure I check on them a little bit earlier next time.

Funny you mentioned this story. Yesterday the flock was let out as it was quite nice and the sun was wonderful out. They had to be coaxed out with treats and snacks as the younger birds seem to have influenced the older against the snow. After about half of the flock came out and began enjoying the freedom and the sun it was wonderful to see them find a bare spot on the ground and begin mud bathing. lol Despite their accepted dirt bath(the favorites being covered in snow) being wet they were undeterred and after a few hours I had quite a few dirty dirty chickens including two mostly white silkies! Oh goodness. Lol the dirt was not mud enough to worry about just damp enough to stick to their feathers a bit. Aka not dust lol.

Another hen, an EE named, Belle, wandered off to an outbuilding(Quonset Hut that's missing both ends) last year there were places in there that didn't receive snow but that was before they tore down the back wall when it blew down in a bad blizzard late last winter. I believe she was either looking for a place to play out of the white stuff or hiding her light blue egg on me lol.

Evening cane and seeing no birds out when he got home my dh2b locked up the flock. When he told me I of course thought he checked birds. Suddenly we heard a very loud crow that was quite clearly our black Oegb roo Mickey. We threw on our coats and ran outside. There we found quite a few birds in quite a similar state to yours. Most huddled on that three foot square of bare ground. Others in the barn yard and standing on snow drifts. The birds that had been left out unknowingly(thankfully only for an hour or two in rather mild weather) included my favorite EE, Pebbles, a buff orpington, my black Oegb pair Minnie and Mickey, my self blue oegb Crocket, a SLW pullet and cockeral, a black split to lavender Oegb pullet, a silkie pullet, and our Delaware Eloise.

After rounding up- more or less picking up birds and stacking them in my arms as they had cold feet and had hunkered down and didn't want to walk- all if them we then discovered Belle had not come back to the cooler. I feared the worst although our four guineas haven't let us down yet, which is why they aren't in the freezer mostly, they also help keep the up and coming cockerals in check which is hilarious to watch. We plan to get some guinea keets next year and raise them so they're used to us. While ours have calmed down a lot they are still very flighty as they were raised by a friend of mine and allowed to be wild. So we went searching for Belle. Sometimes in the summer she prefers to roost in a few different places rather than the cooler coop. We expected to find her there and I began to fear the worst. I called and called as we got flashlights and swept the property. Walking into the Quonset I called more and heard a faint reply. Belle came hoping over jumping from one piece of exposed item to another like a child playing the floor is lava. Her feet were obviously cold and I'm assuming she didn't want to traverse the tundra to get back to the coop so she waited for rescue. I clutched my chicken and hugged her telling her what a good pretty girl she was as I carried her back home she bawked and purred at me and we had a nice little chat. Her in chicken me in English with a few unknown words spoke back to her in chicken. Lol grateful they're all okay we put them to bed. No one was the worse for the wear after their fiasco last night and more importantly no one stayed out past curfew tonight lol I can't imagine what would have happened if Mickey hadn't crowed and they had been left out all night. I'm not sure they could have survived. Enough if that though because everyone is okay. More importantly we have two new blue egg layers. One is the EE we bought this year. The other I'm not sure yet but she may just be a bird coming back into lay idk. Pebbles lays a blue green aqua egg sometimes more blue sometimes less. Belle lays a light blue that faded to almost white before she molted. We also got a new olive layer! Which is awesome but I've no clue who it is yet but I'll find out.

Egg count was great yesterday 16

Today the count was four with about 9 or more that were soiled or crushed in a nest box fiasco. Apparently someone used a nest box as a launching pad which flipped it. Crash!! Oh well better that than egg eaters. Which we are having a little trouble with eggs that are getting broken from the new layers in spite of oyster shells. Thankfully the flock doesn't go out of their way to break eggs and they better not start.

Goodnight all. Final preparations for Christmas tomorrow. I probably won't be on Merry Christmas everyone drive safely and stay warm.

 

[rfreedlund]

Another new experience... Yesterday was chickens stuck outside night. This afternoon was possum in the nesting box day. I didn't think I would ever get it out. It looked quite comfortable in the nesting bucket. It doesn't appear it got any eggs. It looked like it just wanted shelter. It took me 10 minutes before I was able to grab its tail and throw it out of the area. Hopefully that's the last I'll see of him, but who knows.

 

[NotAFarm]

...and in case any of you in southern Illinois know any of the Boy Scouts that were serving free coffee at the Coalfield rest area between Springfield and Litchfield, tell them that was a wonderful thing they did for travelers!!

 

[Molpet]

Another new experience... Yesterday was chickens stuck outside night. This afternoon was possum in the nesting box day. I didn't think I would ever get it out. It looked quite comfortable in the nesting bucket. It doesn't appear it got any eggs. It looked like it just wanted shelter. It took me 10 minutes before I was able to grab its tail and throw it out of the area. Hopefully that's the last I'll see of him, but who knows.

when I was a kid the chickens were disappearing and we were blaming coons. After a dozen were missing and one night they refused to go into the hen house, we couldn't find any coons but found a possum eating one and figured it was eating a dead one a coon killed.... got rid of the possum and chickens quit disappearing .. FYI they can travel several miles looking for food.. so if you relocate it, it becomes a problem for someone else.... also illegal to release w/-land owners permission.

 

[rfreedlund]

so if you relocate it, it becomes a problem for someone else.... also illegal to release w/-land owners permission.

I only relocated it a couple hundred yards away from the coop and run. Very much still on our property. I will be watching closely, though. He was nowhere I could see today.