INDIANA BYC'ers HERE!

[CCCCCCCCHICKENS]

John- I went to walmart today and bought 2 packs of fly trap things. My walmart also had packs of 10 for $2. What a great deal, I have a lot flies.

 

[MillerBirds]

Help.....bought 8 new birds on Monday. 6 Blue Ameracanas and 2 BCMs. Cannot get them acclimated to my flock for anything. They just stay huddled in my coop. The bad thing is they stay in the nesting boxes, and my established layers are not able to lay because these guys are just staying there.
Do not know what to do. I paid a lot of money for these chickens and want them to be 'part' of the group.

Thoughts??

 

[CCCCCCCCHICKENS]

Help.....bought 8 new birds on Monday. 6 Blue Ameracanas and 2 BCMs. Cannot get them acclimated to my flock for anything. They just stay huddled in my coop. The bad thing is they stay in the nesting boxes, and my established layers are not able to lay because these guys are just staying there.
Do not know what to do. I paid a lot of money for these chickens and want them to be 'part' of the group.

Thoughts??

Have you tried setting them outside in your run. Just a thought, it probably wont work, but worth a try if you havent already.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Here are Lightening McQueen and Eliza. Lightening is the one that bit me this morning...little bugger. If anyone tries telling me that Eliza is also a cockerel instead of a pullet, I'm going to lose what's left of my feeble mind.

Sorry, there are no pullets in that picture. :/ Pullets will never grow the shiny / pointy saddle feathers that these two boys have.

I have one blue ameruacana hen and a blue wheaten ameruacana roo. They are both 20 weeks old but I realized they seemed to be small for their age. So I was thinking what may have caused theire small sized and then it hit me. I put them on layer feed way to early for there age (they were six weeks old when I did that) and now I feel really stupid of why I would do that. My main question is are they small because I put them on layer early or is it something else? And if it was because of me switching the feed is the damage already done or could I put them on starter again?

Any thoughts?

The damage is probably done, but switch them to grower or an all flock feed anyway. Layer is only good for laying hens and can be as damaging on adult roosters as it is on young birds. As long as you provide oyster shell for the laying hens, they are fine on a grower or all-flock diet for their entire lives.

Help.....bought 8 new birds on Monday. 6 Blue Ameracanas and 2 BCMs. Cannot get them acclimated to my flock for anything. They just stay huddled in my coop. The bad thing is they stay in the nesting boxes, and my established layers are not able to lay because these guys are just staying there.
Do not know what to do. I paid a lot of money for these chickens and want them to be 'part' of the group.

Thoughts??

I winced when I read that. No quarantine?

You've taken an establish flock out of its territory and thrown it into unfamiliar territory with another established flock. They are going to be shy. What I would do is fence off an area with adequate food, water, and shelter for the newcomers so that they can get used to their surroundings and their new flockmates. After a few weeks of 'see but don't touch', the flock should integrate fairly smoothly.





I'm sorry if I sound short in this post. It looks like I'm going to lose my dog and I'm a bit out of it trying to cope with this. It's been a pretty lousy summer for me.

 

[MillerBirds]

Have you tried setting them outside in your run. Just a thought, it probably wont work, but worth a try if you havent already.

Yes, I have made them go outside. They walk around looking lost and then come in at night and start the whole process over again. They had never free ranged before. Were just contained inside a barn. They initially did not even know how to walk up my plank. I am not forcing them to do anything. Have both the coop door open for them to go play with the big girls and the back door open for then to play with the babies.

No, I have never quarantined any of my birds. Mainly because I do not have the facility to do that. I only have one coop. I could put them in cages, but that does not seem very humane so I dont.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Cages would work perfectly for the job as you would be able to observe the new birds up close and individually to see if there is anything wrong with them that may have gone unnoticed when you bought them. It may sound cruel, but to me that would be better than introducing unfamiliar birds that may be suffering from or carrying any number of diseases into my flock. It doesn't matter, anyway, because it would be too late to quarantine now even if you wanted to.


Again, not trying to sound short, so please don't take it the wrong way.

 

[DarthLayer]

MillerBirds- Where did you get your birds just by curiosity?

 

[MillerBirds]

MillerBirds- Where did you get your birds just by curiosity?

A lady in Trafalger. She had them on Craigslist. She breeds marans and ameracanas.

 

[DarthLayer]

Ok because there's another lady in rennsalear (I don't think i spelled that right) where I got my blue ameruacanas and she also breeds rare marans. In case you want more I think that place got mine from was called Carlburn Farms.

Here's my blue wheaten roo I got from there. I got three from her but my favorite was killed last month by something and now I'm left with the one above and his half sister. Sorry for poor photo quality.

 

[Old Salt 1945]

I've done the same. So far so good. There were pretty happy to see me when I got home from work yesterday though. They had drank all of their waterers dry. I refilled those and freshened up the duck pool and all was right with the world again. I'll be happy to get a break from this over the weekend, but then it looks like chance of storms nearly every day next week. Can't win. Is 75 degrees and sunny every day too much to ask?

Don't forget the gentle rain from midnight to 2 AM.

John