INDIANA BYC'ers HERE!

[Mother2Hens]

I once had a beagle mix Sniffles that my cat Groucho didn't like--he had been really attached to my previous beagle mix that had an unfortunate incident on the road. One day Groucho brought a mouse and laid it in front of Sniffles, who in turn brought one of his toys to Groucho. Calling a truce?

pbirdhaven~ Haha That's pretty cute! Sometimes our cat Lionel carries his stuffed toy mouse to our bed and we find it in the morning.
Speaking of cute, here's our cat, Tiger, who adopted us five years ago. Yesterday, he climbed right in a small box that had arrived in the mail.
No, Old Salt, Tiger is not dead. He has a smile on his face.

Today, Tiger decided to be part of my Halloween decor. My black cat, Diablo, would have been a better model!

Just got home from our second trip to turkey run in a month. It's almost a 4 hour drive for us so we are whooped. My in-laws were nice enough to take care of the animals for us for the weekend, and I am happy to report no casualties and no rooster attacks lol. Lavender did really well, and I candeled her eggs to see how the weekend went. I am seeing a lot of movement in quite a few of them. One is very dark and hard to see, and a few are questionable, so I am going to wait and see. Suki the silkie sat on hers all weekend also, except when we got home she was sitting on 15 eggs. Little turd. I am fairly certain most of those aren't going to hatch, so I'll let her go. Sneaky little fluff ball. Hope you all had a good weekend!!! One week from tuesday is hatch day for lavender! I hope all goes well.

kabhyper~ Your photo is beautiful. Glad to hear your in-laws took good care of their little feathered granddaughters who are expecting. Haha!

Too Fast posted: We had a great time camping at Turkey Run, we've been away from that place way too long.

kabhyper & Too Fast~ Sounds like fun! My niece's husband is a Naturalist at Turkey Run.
EmSteele~ Glad you all had fun at the Lville Zoo. Yesterday afternoon when I left Louisville, I had just started to pull out on the highway when a red tailed hawk decided to take off from the ground by the highway. I had to brake a little to avoid it hitting my windshield! Its talons were so close to my windshield as it slowly lifted higher. I was trying to avoid hitting it while checking my rear-view and side mirrors.

 

[Mother2Hens]

finally caught up.

You must be out of breath! That's all you could post! Haha
OK, everyone, was it really necessary to repeatedly post CCCHICKENS's nauseating eggtopsy photo??!!

I caught this little guy the other day. Isn't he so cute? I have never had any problems with coons. I rehomed him down by the creek.

CCCHICKENS~ Good for you for letting him go! Raccoons are adorable although I can understand when people like vickichicki have to kill one that is in her chicken coop! The adult ones can be especially vicious when cornered, so I'm glad vickichicki wasn't attacked.

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

CCCHICKENS~ Good for you for letting him go! Raccoons are adorable although I can understand when people like vickichicki have to kill one that is in her chicken coop! The adult ones can be especially vicious when cornered, so I'm glad vickichicki wasn't attacked.

Guys, just so you understand the risks with raccoons. DNR explained to me that if you relocate, a male raccoon will travel as far as 30 miles or more to return to his home.
they can smell where you take them, and will be back.
When I was in animal control, DNR passed the mandate that we could no longer release at state preserves, or parks. No state properties, period.
Many that you see on the road dead are "relocated". They are exceptionally dangerous if cornered. They bite deep, and hold til they tear.
Peoples pet raccoons have been known to turn on them during a breeding season, and shred arms and legs! Its a truly horrible thing to see.
And they can carry canine distemper, and a whole basket of diseases besides. Rabies, Cocci, distemper, intestinal parasites and so many other issues.
They can carry a strain of parasite that enters the eye canal and will eat brain tissue. No kidding, dangerous stuff.
I love raccoons, the kits are precious, I learned the hard way, in the ER, bleeding internally from trying to save kits. I contracted parasites from them.
I am extremely careful about hand washing. the Dr at the ER pointed out it may have been from the steering wheel of the animal control truck.
We had 2-3 officers driving the trucks on shifts. Antibiotic wipes weren't heard of then. I seriously cant warn enough how bad this is.
Took a few weeks to recover. They are overpopulated and becoming a huge health risk to people, pets and livestock.
I love all animals, snakes, skunks, coons, squirrel you name it. Overpopulation of nuisance animals is dangerous to us too.

hey guys! Wanted to throw in about eggtopsies.....
If you want to know, use a good quality ziplock bag, blow air into it .put the egg in question in and zip it shut. be sure to leave some of the bag flat so you can open the egg.
Then you avoid a lot of the stench, and mess involved. It personally gags me immediately

That's the most horrible odor there is! so I have done this to avoid most of the odor.
My biggest frustration is a pipped chick that dies. I want to know what is wrong, how can i correct this, and hope to save the next one.
I lost a guinea keet that pipped this week, partially zipped, and died. after examination, it had severely deformed legs. One foot missing altogether.
Mother nature knows best sometimes. I would have tried to save it, but the end result is always so tragic.
Chippy my crossbeak EE was painful to lose, he was a severe case. Crossbeak seems more common in that breed.
I still have his wry neck brother, crook, who hatched the same week. steals my fries any chance he gets

All of the chicks from my EEs eggs that week had issues, so I feel she was lacking something in her diet, or had a bad scare.
Crook is a "house chicken" till he passes naturally.. All the polyvisol in the world hasn't helped him, so he is a pet.
Any of my birds that show an issue never join my main coop. He is my only permanent "pet bird" right now.
He will tuck his head in his wing and get stuck, cry pitifully till I help him! He hops on my foot every morning when I let him out of his crate.
He gets mealies as treats and flock raiser, fermented since he is a roo. I also let him out with the babies to "free range" so he feels he has a "rooster job".
The new hatches get to go out at 2 weeks in a 25 foot panel of hardware cloth 4 ft high. I make a large circle, for about an hour if its warm and dry.
ONLY if i can stay right there with them. I usually do this for a few weeks as they feather out, to prepare them for joining the flock they belong to.
And of course Butters is always the rooster in charge!

 

[Too Fast]

I am soooooooooo pleased to have you back. I am worn out from carrying the insanity load all by myself.

John

It's a tough load, but someone has to do it. We had nice weather until Sunday morning. Putting bikes on top of a pop-up in the drizzle and taking the camper down is not fun. But Saturday was perfect, the and the rain held off until early Sunday. And we had the Colts on DVR, watched them smash the Jaguars.

Chickens were happy to see us, especially when I let them out of the coop so they can run off the cat from her food! They squawk, jump/fly and run to here food bowl and generally go crazy. Had a friend come over and get the eggs, he was happy but did say the eggs were 'poopy'. Not sure what he meant by that since the nest boxes were and still are clean. He washed them and refrigerated them, but he's not sure if he can eat them. He is a little be off anyway, we once sent him 3 letters with cut an pasted poems on paper. We were on our way back from New Orleans so all the envelopes had different post marks. Drove him crazy for about 3 weeks.

 

[Too Fast]

Watching my mousers at work, stalking a victim. It's that time of year when field mice come looking for a cozy winter berth. With this old house, it isn't difficult to find a way in. The mice probably have directional signs pointing the way to our place. They won't find a home here though, with Joey, Leo, and Macaroni on the job!

HA! Sometimes we think those directional signs point to our house, glad to know you have them pointed your way also!

 

[gunchief25]

Morning all... cockadoodledoo

 

[Too Fast]

DH and I worked a little on the new coop today. I did the hard part of holding the wood still while he cut. Then I refilled his supply of screws. The floor is done and a wall framed out but not up.
It is amazing how plans change around here. First I wanted a hoop coop but DH decided to make it like a box. Then we were going to winterize it, but then we got thinking as long as we free range the birds we don't really need a mobile coop. So the plans changed to convert the cube looking box coop to a raised floored coop. Then Dh realized he was going to have to take apart the box coop, I guess after all of his effort making it, he was heart broken. After he finished the floor made to fit the box coop he tells me he is framing up a new coop instead of converting the box coop. He asked if I had any plans made for windows and such. so of course I showed him coop pictures and more coop pictures. Lots of coops and window options. Then we went to Lowes. I sure could use some lowes discounts. Hardware cloth and wood are pricey. Ohh and the bucket of screws wow who would have guessed those would cost over $50.
But the great news is that I should be getting a new coop in a month or so. The bad news is that DH is requesting I draw him pictures of the coop walls with windows and the 2 x4 framing. Took me a while but I have 2 walls laid out in diagram form instead of words. once he saw the pictures he was happy.
Our new coup will have a shape similar to Quinstar's and a few others on here that have the slant roof and raised flooring. The high side will have venting all across the high part of the wall. I need to get a hinged covering, for the extremely cold days but that will wait. I'm thinking of something like Patrick's fold down sections on his coop.

Since I'm still in the planning stages, all suggestions are welcome for coop designing. I'm debating adding real limbs for roosting bars. We do the deep litter so all doors and windows are at least a foot off the floor but I'm thinking of making a section of the back wall drop down. I'm also thinking of putting the chicken door right next to the person door. Then I will be able to see it from my bedroom window.
I'm also looking at the auto open doors. I really want a remote control door. I have not found one yet.

Sounds like you are on the right direction with your coop. You will like the raised flooring. We have doors on our tall side and the short side, for easy access when cleaning.
Here's one from August, you can see others in this thread by the link with the everyone's photos:



We also have a slide out for the poop under the roost area, but the girls mostly roost outdoors. That may change this winter, maybe. Make sure you have plenty of easy access for the humans!

Just got home from our second trip to turkey run in a month. It's almost a 4 hour drive for us so we are whooped. My in-laws were nice enough to take care of the animals for us for the weekend, and I am happy to report no casualties and no rooster attacks lol. Lavender did really well, and I candeled her eggs to see how the weekend went. I am seeing a lot of movement in quite a few of them. One is very dark and hard to see, and a few are questionable, so I am going to wait and see. Suki the silkie sat on hers all weekend also, except when we got home she was sitting on 15 eggs. Little turd. I am fairly certain most of those aren't going to hatch, so I'll let her go. Sneaky little fluff ball. Hope you all had a good weekend!!! One week from tuesday is hatch day for lavender! I hope all goes well.

Maybe we saw you? That's a great shot of Sugar Creek, we were at Turkey Run this last weekend also. Love that place.

 

[vickichicki]

Morning all... cockadoodledoo

Wow... I certainly have not heard that at all this morning. Hahaha.. Who am I kidding, I have been hearing that since 5:30

 

[vickichicki]

Very envious of everyone and their trips. Would love to buy a camper somewhere on a lake for quick get aways.

Since moving to the states we have never had a vacation. Makes me feel bad for the wee one. With us both being self employed, work is a 7 days a week thing. If its not me it's DH. His mother is going on her yearly trip to Myrle Beach in two weeks and I am covering for a friend at the florist who is taking her grandson or Disney next week.

One day.... Maybe... We can. Just a nice cabin on a lake for a long weekend.

 

[lilmizscareall]

DH and I worked a little on the new coop today.  I did the hard part of holding the wood still while he cut.  Then I refilled his supply of screws.  The floor is done and a wall framed out but not up.

It is amazing how plans change around here.  First I wanted a hoop coop but DH decided to make it like a box.  Then we were going to winterize it, but then we got thinking as long as we free range the birds we don't really need a mobile coop.   So the plans changed to convert the cube looking box coop to a raised floored coop.  Then Dh realized he was going to have to take apart the box coop,  I guess after all of his effort making it, he was heart broken.  After he finished the floor made to fit the box coop he tells me he is framing up a new coop instead of converting the box coop.  He asked if I had any plans made for windows and such.  so of course I showed him coop pictures and more coop pictures.  Lots of coops and window options.   Then we went to Lowes.  I sure could use some lowes discounts.  Hardware cloth and wood are pricey.  Ohh and the bucket of screws wow who would have guessed those would cost over $50.

But the great news is that I should be getting a new coop in a month or so.  The bad news is that DH is requesting I draw him pictures of the coop walls with windows and the 2 x4 framing.  Took me a while but I have 2 walls laid out in diagram form instead of words.  once he saw the pictures he was happy. 

Our new coup will have a shape similar to Quinstar's and a few others on here that have the slant roof and raised flooring.  The high side will have venting all across the high part of the wall.  I need to get a hinged covering, for the extremely cold days but that will wait.  I'm thinking of something like Patrick's fold down sections on his coop. 


Since I'm still in the planning stages, all suggestions are welcome for coop designing.  I'm debating adding real limbs for roosting bars.  We do the deep litter so all doors and windows are at least a foot off the floor but I'm thinking of making a section of the back wall drop down.  I'm also thinking of putting the chicken door right next to the person door.  Then I will be able to see it from my bedroom window.

I'm also looking at the auto open doors.  I really want a remote control door.  I have not found one yet. 

Ah yes the struggle is real.
My husband and I are going through the same thing. It's been three months, 8 + different drawings, and everytime we do some thing it changes other plans... It's been a blast!
I suggest googling "top rookie coop mistakes"
It'll return with a lot of posts from here, but I found it pretty helpful. Don't build anything thinking you can change it later, you'll lose more money that way. Use the right tools/supplies everytime, otherwise you will mess something up(totally what I do.) Ask questions, because your perception of how something should work or look is going to be different than his.
Good luck!
Aynie