INDIANA BYC'ers HERE!

[Leahs Mom]

I've seen red-tails picking doves off our powerlines a lot of mornings, so it has to be full-time containment for us! I'll try to get some pics of the coup/run project up some time.

Looks like the government is protecting the wrong birds.

 

[hoosiercheetah]

Looks like the government is protecting the wrong birds.

Naa, doves are everywhere. There's a reason they are the poor man's offering in the OT. ;-)
Its kinda miraculous that we have birds if prey in Marion co. and they can eat all the doves they like. They also save me having to dispose of squirrel carcasses, I just leave them out in the yard and the falcons pick them up.
If I fail to protect my chickens, that's shame on me, not the wild predators.

 

[hoosiercheetah]

So...at the very least...be very careful where you get your birds.  Many of the CL sales are not reputable and untrustworthy as to the health and even the breed they are selling.

oh, absolutely! I don't have direct chicken experience, but I grew up in Farmer City Illinois, and I can tell clean healthy animals from dirty sickly ones. obviously I know you can't see a lot of hidden diseases and such, but I know to ask a breeder about problems they've had, and what their biosecurity is like. As a newbie, I'll be rolling the dice any way I go, to a certain extent, and someday I'll raise my own birds. For now I'll vett the area breeders best I can, and I feel pretty good about it.

 

[Leahs Mom]

Quote: Unfortunately, in most the rest of the country, there's a hawk on every fence post.

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

Hey kabhyper1 ease your worries! cricket gets along with everyone and I think Si (Muscovey drake) are going to be best buds!

Here is most of the bigs, eating together

And I a new hanging feeder and waterer in the pallet palace tonight! They love it.

Looks pretty happy with his new flock!

Speaking of my chicks, I think my hens have seen the writing on the wall about having additional flock members because the hens have been fighting amongst themselves. My EE, Roadrunner, used to be at the bottom of the pecking order and was very timid for the first year, but has increasingly gotten more determined about moving up. She's been so upset that she quit laying for a couple of weeks, but she laid one of her beautiful, large green-blue eggs today. When I was out in the yard with the hens today, Roadrunner surprisingly started pecking my BR, Tweedy, who has been one of the top hens. Then my little Chocolate Orp bantam Bonbon (my avatar) kept starting fights with her big best buddy Adeline, a Jubilee Orp, who is at least twice her size. I even looked over and saw Bonbon standing on Adeline's back attacking her! Then I noticed that Bonbon had some small bare spots on her head from Adeline pecking her away. My smallish, scrappy crazy RIR Nene is still the head hen. My SLW Lacey has become the least aggressive, but she had her "sister" BR Tweedy who watches her back.

While I was working in the yard, it occurred to me that although my three kids have flown the coop, I'm still breaking up arguments between siblings! Those hens need to settle their differences so I can enjoy my outdoor time.

Lol, I am seeing it in my hens, and the roos too. My old guy Red is less worried about being the big man, and more worried keeping his girls away from the young roos. I see the girls choosing their guy, and sorting out the pecking order every day.

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

Almost finished painting the boards for my run. I think I have two "side" ends that'll take about 5 min to do, then they can dry overnight.

Tomorrow we get to start hammering things together! *fingers crossed*

I am so grateful it is finally spring for REAL.



My publicist asked about my next release, if I wanted to do it on May 4th. I realized that if I did that, I would have 3 crazy days in a row: release day, son's birthday, then chicks coming, boom-boom-boom. We'll also have soccer practice that week, soccer game, school, you name it. I'm going to lose my mind, aren't I? I'll have to push the release to the Friday before, I guess, because there is no way I'll be able to get any work done with fluffy butts in my "office."

thats going to be crazy!

I'm out of place here, but don't know what else to do but reply to a recent post.
I don't "get" how to start a topic or ?, nor if I'm actually registered as being in NW Indiana, or how to just jump in, meet others, find someone near me, get help, or automatically get to recent activity. Seems to always send me to things years old. Thanks for Any help, Anyone.

and our thread

You found the place to make it happen!
There's a ton of helpful people on our thread, no worries. Don't hesitate to ask any questions you have, we will be happy to help you get started!

 

[Ol Grey Mare]

Stray season has begun....and I am reminded again of the illogical way our county works.....came home tonight to find a cute little "mini Mojo" (he literally looks like a 1/2 sized replica of one of our cats) on the back porch, with a badly injured tail. Called A/C but it was after 5 on Friday so you get the SD dispatch instead. They can't sent an AC officer out to pick him up until Monday, but would gladly send a deputy out to "dispatch" him for us tonight....um, no - he's an otherwise healthy cat (I've given him a once over already - no discharge, bright and alert, friendly, reasonably good weight, good vitals) who will make someone a great pet, I'll just let him hang out here until Monday when AC can come get him and make a donation to the shelter to see that he gets the treatment he needs (a little more than 1/2 of his tail will need to go - possibly the whole thing) so he can be adopted out.

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

Quote:
Good post...and very interesting.


I had a good idea that harassing roosters could cause enough stress to result in such a thing. Thanks for the confirmation.

Glad it helped! I learned it last year the hard way, hens were hiding and stopped laying!

Do any of you have a local (within an hour or so of Indianapolis) source for white broiler chicks? We just received our first batch of the year from Meyer and lost 12 within the first 48 hours - 6 were DOA. Frustrating.

I have another batch on order from them, but if I could find a local source that would be better.

TSC won't have them after Easter, which is when I need to get them in order to maintain the timeline I have set up.

Thanks for any ideas.

Rural king has had them recently too. Orschleins may be another one to check.

I can't remember if I've ever introduced myself here, so I guess that means it's been long enough that I can get away with doing it again. ;-)

My name is Aaron, I live on the West side of Indy, just outside the loop on Rockville (that's US 36 to the rest of the state). I am brand-new to chicken ownership.

I've been planning to start a flock for about two years, since we bought our house. This place came with an old 12' x 12' garden shed in the back yard, and once I cleaned it out I realized it would make a fantastic coup. I'm almost done with the conversion, and I'm going to set up a small hoop-house style run. I wish I could just fence the yard and let the birds roam, but we have a lot of hawks and even some falcons around here. I've seen red-tails picking doves off our powerlines a lot of mornings, so it has to be full-time containment for us! I'll try to get some pics of the coup/run project up some time.

The only problem I'm having so far is finding chickens. Part of the reason for this is I'm being kind of particular - I really want Australorps. If it comes down to it, I'll get over myself and be content with RIRs or Orpingtons. The other bump in the road is that I really don't have time to raise chicks, so I'm looking to buy pullets. I don't mind if they're not laying age, but they need to be old enough that I can move them straight into the coup. I'm going to put a post in the buy/sell/trade area. So far I've had a really difficult time finding information about breeders in the area - I figure there have to be some around central Indiana, but they don't seem to be online.

I have really appreciated having this website as a resource; it's been tremendously helpful in planning and executing this project. I'm looking forward to being part of the community!

welcome to our thread! I do raise BAs but am down to just breeding stock right now. If you need some grown to pullet size I can help you with that too.
If you don't find what you want send me a PM and we can work it out.

A lot of people around here use Mt. Healthy including the local 4h. I personally .have not used them but I thought I would pass it along.

Mt Healthy is great! I have used them, and didn;t lose a single chick, even the extras sent.

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

I'm not to happy with mypetchicken! I'm not sure if this is the norm, but if I ran a company I would not do this. I bought 14 SLW hatching eggs. They arrived today. They were all in good shape (have not candled yet). I un wrapped them from the bubble wrap. I noticed on two of the eggs they are cracked and it seems they have been fixed!


They have def. been fixed. So is this normal? I know you can do this but why ship eggs in this shape? To me it don't look good. But this is only my second time ordering shipped eggs.
On a better note I made a make shift run for the pallet palace after work. Using our pet pigs kennel!! They don't know what to do yet lol

that's ridiculous! I would be burning their phone up for sure....

Great idea on the piggy coop

Here was Bacon with LilX a year or so ago... Pigs like chickens if they are raised around them.
Bacon would let her eat out of his bowl. Oops almost 2 years just saw the date.

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

Quote: I feel like they need to lift it on red tails. We have tons of them here, and no rabbits or squirrels left. between them, the fox and coyote. I haven't seen chipmunks in years now. I am all for wildlife protection, but they need to keep an eye on the prey animals too! The species will starve themselves out at this rate and the prey animals will be extinct too.

Stray season has begun....and I am reminded again of the illogical way our county works.....came home tonight to find a cute little "mini Mojo" (he literally looks like a 1/2 sized replica of one of our cats) on the back porch, with a badly injured tail. Called A/C but it was after 5 on Friday so you get the SD dispatch instead. They can't sent an AC officer out to pick him up until Monday, but would gladly send a deputy out to "dispatch" him for us tonight....um, no - he's an otherwise healthy cat (I've given him a once over already - no discharge, bright and alert, friendly, reasonably good weight, good vitals) who will make someone a great pet, I'll just let him hang out here until Monday when AC can come get him and make a donation to the shelter to see that he gets the treatment he needs (a little more than 1/2 of his tail will need to go - possibly the whole thing) so he can be adopted out.

Our AC won't take cats period. Its pretty sad, we are "gifted" strays all the time. (Grrrrrr!

Hey its a farm, they need our unwanted cat

) It is a HUGE peeve of mine to find a kitten dumped out that has no chance of living here. I don't want and can't have house cats with moms health. I have them spayed and let them live here, in the barn. If they make it, then all is good. Many are even declawed and just have no chance. Right now, there are none left of what's been dumped. Just wrong!