INDIANA BYC'ers HERE!

[pginsber]

Figured I would post a couple pics showing what I have been working on.

Very striking!

 

[gunchief25]

Thank you for your response. She does look an awful lot like the cuckoo marans picture I have been looking at. I will try to get a couple of pictures tomorrow and maybe some one tell me for sure if she is a bpr or cuckoo marans. Thank you again for your help

No problem, yeah post some pics someone will be able to identify it. I thought my Barred Rock was a Cuckoo but turned out to be a Barred Rock.

 

[Little Ameraucana Mom]

A few years ago, I was talking to a friend. Her little daughter, about 4, was covered with sores. I asked about it. She said it was mosquito bites that she scratched because they itched. The girl loved being outside and the mosquitoes were particularly attracted to her. I told her about ammonia and suggested she slather the child with it each evening when she came in for the night. When I spoke to her a couple of weeks later, she said the girl no longer scratched the "itchies" and all her sores were gone. YEA!

John

Never heard of using ammonia, !! I'll have to try it. Thanks for the tip !1

Its been awhile since I've posted on here, although I do try to keep up with it. I however wanted to post a couple picks of my broody hen. She's a bantam oeg. She's sitting on 9 eggs 1 of which is hers. She's been sitting on them for a week now. I moved her to her own private nesting box today so that I didn't have to keep moving her to get the new eggs out from under her.

Eggs look huge for her !! LOL !!

My salmon favorelle went to bed early yesterday. this is her at 6:00 pm.





One of my silver duckwing OEGBs sprouted a second head


Here my only white bantam AM. She is still pretty young she is 10 weeks old. I cant wait to see what she looks like when she is full grown.

this pic makes her beard look funny

Love your pictures, what pretty birds !!

I've got a question for those of you with both chickens and ducks. Do you let both kinds of birds hang out in the same run or fenced area? What about sharing coop space? We have 16 ducks (still figuring out how many are drakes) and about 40 chickens (only 1 roo). Our birds are in separate barn stalls, but wondered if they would get along if they co-mingled. I've searched some other posts & it sounds like they could get along, but I did read a number of references to roosters trying to breed the ducks & drakes trying to breed the hens. That makes me have second thoughts about them sharing space/a run. Any thoughts?

My daughters rooster use to try to breed her ducks. I have some that all free range together, and none of mine try to breed each other. Of course, I have the smarter duck breed, Muscovy !!!

Figured I would post a couple pics showing what I have been working on.

Love the color, I have paints also.
Here are some of mine.

 

[SallyinIndiana]

Sally Long winded, sorry

A full-grown male turkey is called a tom. An adult female is a hen. Young males are called jakes, and young females jennies. Chicks are called poults.

BBW are BIG, mean, food aggressive birds. I have had several situations they have pecked me, my guinea keets and smaller chickens, grabbing the babies up like they were going to eat them!
One poor little keet I snatched out of a jake's mouth, he was shaking it!! That jake was the 2nd one to go,and that day

They do not free range with my flocks anymore.
I raised the poults the same way I do any other bird here. Integrated with the main flock once old enough to join.
There are young birds coming in to my flock every week from the brooder, as well as birds leaving to new homes (or the freezer). Any mean or aggressive bird is culled, period.
Fortunately my little keet was ok, kept it in quarantine to be sure, just one cut on its neck that healed well.
This jake was very aggressive to me also, and had bit me at feeding time on more than one occasion.
Still have 5 jakes, 2 jennies left, are the same. out of all of them, the one hen I may have kept has a pendulous crop, so she won't have a long lifespan anyway.
I started with 21, have traded some, processed several already. They get BIG, fast. The grow tall and then fill out. Biggest jake is already 3 feet tall.
Will try to get a pic, he is up to my waist!
The BBB are an even larger bird. Will try some next year, to see if they are the same. BBW also eat & act like a cornish cross meat bird. I know you have raised them.
They are fine if you just want a fast growing grocery type bird, still take 24+ weeks to be at processing age. (And keep them away from your regular flock.)
farm raised, they do have better flavor. You also know what they ate and how they were treated.
The plus is they are really easy to clean/pluck, and do produce a large breast portion. They are not quite as stupid as you hear stories about.
I have a heavily producing apple tree a few hundred feet from the coops.
I took them over to it in the morning while I clean the pen and change the water. Now, I just open the gate and they go. Learned in a 2-3 days.
This is a wild apple tree, I usually don't use them, they are bitter. Amazing how fast they clean up the apples

no bees collecting this year!
Heritage turkeys are night and day difference. I have palms and bourbon reds.

Love them! Calm & gentle birds. They grow slower, but its worth the wait for me.
My adult palms are from vickichicki and they are pretty special. We named them Buddy and Lila. Buddy is just that, my shadow, follows me everywhere.
Lila is quiet and shy, but I can pick her up, and she has never pecked once. Buddy is too big and heavy for me to pick up!
Their poults are sweeties, and love to cuddle and trill when you hold them.
My first BR, snoodles 4 mo. old, still sits on my lap and chirrups like a new hatch, just love hm. Snickers is 2 mo., from a different breeder and is exactly the same.
8 months of age would be the minimum to process one for a good bulky bird and flavor to develop. Toms of course get much larger than hens in most cases.
They are much less expensive to feed than the Broad Breasted, without a doubt! they also fly VERY well, so expect to clip a wing if you want to keep them contained.
I don't clip, and one jake likes the barn roof, 30 feet+ up

Only birds I clip are my peafowl.
Once the poults hit around 4-5 months they slow on their food intake, and its not a lot more than a big rooster. I do keep them on 24% chick starter til they reach 4-5 months.
From that point I use flock raiser feed, and give mealies and chopped eggs to help them grow strong.
Turkeys are an easy hatch, poults do well after the first week. They do better with a keet or chick tutor to teach food and water. Keep them warm and watch them close the 1st week.
I may not have got chickens had I started with heritage turkeys! JK

We used to have an apple tree like that. We had too many bees and DH cut it down then burned it. I was so happy. I can't stand bees. Come to think of it just about every real house I have lived in since I was 10 has come with one of those apple trees. They have all been cut down. But I did plant maples in my yard so at least the total tree population won't shrink.
Thanks for hte info about the turkeys. I was reading that the BBW Toms get up past 40 pounds and a large one could be 50 pounds. That puts a grown one weighing more than my 5 yr old. My 5 yr old can knock me to the ground with a running start when he wants a bear hug. I could just see the tom turkey running towards me. I decided on 2 lilacs and a tiger heritage turkey instead. At least to get started.
What 24% chick starter do you use? I think my meatbird grower has 22-24% protein but I know it has no meds. Also do the turkey poults like the same temps as the chicks?

 

[PeacefulWalls]

I have two female ducks with my mixed flock of roos and hens (about 25). I've never had a problem. I think they would probably be fine. The only negative is that I've read if your ducks have access to a water source like a pond or lake they could pick up disease from the wild birds (from the water) and spread it to the chickens. Sounds like that's not the case though. Mine are baby pool ducks

Quote:

Its true. And a drake can kill a chicken hen if he mates her, internal injuries. Rooster to a duck is not as dangerous, but the spurs can harm the duck. I have my scovies/pekin in my big coop until my goose/duck coop is finished and 1 muscovy drake, but he is too slow and fat to catch a chicken

I am still looking for a pekin drake, but now it can wait til spring.

i no longer have ducks but i used to and they were housed and kept togetjer with my chickens. First off they were raised from hatchlings together. My female ducks always got along with my cjickens. Now they males ducks did try to mate the hens. But they were also cery mean to them. they would grab onto a clump of feathers and not let go. It would be to the point where the duck wouldnt let go and the chicken would be freaking out and we would have to thriw a bucket at it to get it to let go! the chickens avoided the ducks as much as possible. i had a mean rooster at the time that didnt even mess with them. I decided to completly get rid of ducks a little ubde a year ago. O and i did have a male call duck that never dared to mess with the chickens. the mallaed deakes would chase the call duck and his mate. if i ever get ducks again i am only getting call ducks, and dont see me doing that anytime soon. IMO i would not house them together.

Quote:

My daughters rooster use to try to breed her ducks. I have some that all free range together, and none of mine try to breed each other. Of course, I have the smarter duck breed, Muscovy !!!

thanks so much for your input! I think it probably would be best to keep our separated. I think we have at least 4 drakes and while we probably have enough ducks to keep them occupied, I don't want to take chances with my hens!! If we end up with more than 4 drakes at least one of them will end up in the freezer.

 

[racinchickins]

Racin
What's the update? How does the situation look now that it's daylight?

Good news. Once the Turkeys started waking up and calling this morning, the missing one showed up. No idea where she was, but when I started banging around metal cans that I keep food in, the whole flock came running across the yard back to their run and it had all 9 birds in it. One thing I noticed that is different from the chickens is the flock order. With my chickens, my rooster is in the lead. With the turkeys, my two jakes always hang back and let the hens lead the flock.

So I did an official count this morning, and everyone was there: All 51 chickens and 9 turkeys. I also determined how the poultry netting got tore up. found the clip that attaches the netting to the electric charger on the ground. It looks like something was going around the perimeter of the run, and when they went by the charger, they snagged on the cord that runs from the charger to the net clip and pulled the clip off. This meant no charge on the net. I'm going to have to think about something to elevate the charger so that I don't have that vulnerability any more. I still think the culprit was my dog, especially cause there were no casualties. I can totally see him wanting to chase the birds, but not really be interested in killing them, since he has been around them for months now. I would think anything else determined enough to go through the netting would kill at least a chicken. They had access to the coop, since the auto door hadn't shut yet, but none of the birds have a scratch on them.

Bottom line, this was probably good for me because it pointed out some vulnerabilities and issues with my housing and protection without me actually losing a bird.

 

[Little Ameraucana Mom]

Good news. Once the Turkeys started waking up and calling this morning, the missing one showed up. No idea where she was, but when I started banging around metal cans that I keep food in, the whole flock came running across the yard back to their run and it had all 9 birds in it. One thing I noticed that is different from the chickens is the flock order. With my chickens, my rooster is in the lead. With the turkeys, my two jakes always hang back and let the hens lead the flock.

So I did an official count this morning, and everyone was there: All 51 chickens and 9 turkeys. I also determined how the poultry netting got tore up. found the clip that attaches the netting to the electric charger on the ground. It looks like something was going around the perimeter of the run, and when they went by the charger, they snagged on the cord that runs from the charger to the net clip and pulled the clip off. This meant no charge on the net. I'm going to have to think about something to elevate the charger so that I don't have that vulnerability any more. I still think the culprit was my dog, especially cause there were no casualties. I can totally see him wanting to chase the birds, but not really be interested in killing them, since he has been around them for months now. I would think anything else determined enough to go through the netting would kill at least a chicken. They had access to the coop, since the auto door hadn't shut yet, but none of the birds have a scratch on them.

Bottom line, this was probably good for me because it pointed out some vulnerabilities and issues with my housing and protection without me actually losing a bird.

Yeah !!! Glad everyone was ok !!

 

[julie0477]

i no longer have ducks but i used to and they were housed and kept togetjer with my chickens. First off they were raised from hatchlings together. My female ducks always got along with my cjickens. Now they males ducks did try to mate the hens. But they were also cery mean to them. they would grab onto a clump of feathers and not let go. It would be to the point where the duck wouldnt let go and the chicken would be freaking out and we would have to thriw a bucket at it to get it to let go! the chickens avoided the ducks as much as possible. i had a mean rooster at the time that didnt even mess with them. I decided to completly get rid of ducks a little ubde a year ago. O and i did have a male call duck that never dared to mess with the chickens. the mallaed deakes would chase the call duck and his mate. if i ever get ducks again i am only getting call ducks, and dont see me doing that anytime soon. IMO i would not house them together.

ahhh I guess I haven't had problems because my ducks are female. See? That's why I love the BYC . I know now NOT to add a drake. I was considering it.

 

[julie0477]

Hurray for the turkey! Last night my khaki Campbell did NOT want to be put up and I finally gave up chasing her. I had a dream a giant dog sized hawk came down and I had to fight it off lol. Morning came though and the duck is fine. She sure is stubborn.

 

[SallyinIndiana]

Quote: My girl ducks are a touch mean but in a mothering way. They spent lots of time scolding the young chickens they grew up with teaching them to forage then eat the food. The ducks would run the chicks away from the food until the ducks had finished eating bugs and what not and were ready to eat feed. But I still have doubts about adding new chicks in with the ducks, the ducks are younger than the chicks they are currently with and they still rule the pecking order.