INDIANA BYC'ers HERE!

[pginsber]

Sad news--we have confirmed that we have 2 roos and they need to go to new homes.

They are both 5 months old. Would prefer they do not go into the stew pot.

Dali is a very large white silkie. He is as big as our Delaware hen. I had no idea silkies were this size, I thought they were smaller.
Virtually featherless legs. I chose the chick with featherless legs purposely to do best in the snow.
He's very sweet, and I have not heard him crow. I saw him 'hitch a ride' on the back of our Marans hen--I'm sure he's a roo, even though he's not crowing.
He's a gentleman, and calls the girls over for every little thing of interest he finds in the run.


Here's Cher. He's a Frizzled Sizzle. Blue Partridge color I think, could be blue with red leakage. He's on the small size. This weekend he 'hitched a ride' on the back of our Cream Legbar hen and she kept walking like she didn't know he was there.
Our Cream Legbars are little birds, and he is about the size of a legbar.
I'm asking $15 for him.


PM please if interested. They do not have to go to the same home.

 

[kittydoc]

@Mother2Hens LOL about your bantam roos! I was told by a lady who wanted me to take some of her Mille Fleur roos that they might not succeed at breeding LF, but they would sure as heck give it all they had trying! Can the hens stand/walk with their little suitors on their backs? If so, that would make a hilarious photo!!!!!

DH is commissioned to pick up some cinder blocks so we can hang a tarp temporarily from the coop roof. The two small bachelor pads just don't get squat for shade. We didn't really anticipate that. What little there is, they all crowd into. The girls in the big coop have much more (from a nearby tree, and now from having the bachelor pads blocking sunlight at the one end that used to get hot in there. It actually feels tolerable inside the main coop. I put a frozen 64 oz. water bottle in the 28 quart cooler we use as a waterer to chill their water a little. When I remember, I just take it out and keep refreezing it. I read somewhere "legit" sounding that keeping the hens' water cooler can boost egg production by up to 10%.

I also identified the current broodies who are both hogging the popular next boxes and driving their "sisters" crazy. I know it sounds weird, but with these two nest boxes, I cannot SEE who is in them without becoming Gumby or some comic book hero. I annoyed them until they came out. One already wears a saddle, so I know which one she is, and I had exactly one saddle left to put on the other girl to identify her. They will be sharing a wire-bottom dog crate together for the next several days. I've had it with broodies this summer! We've never had broodies this late in the year before. I had three eggs counted and lined up to come back and pick up from the bottom of the rollaway area after I finished watering my older chicks, and when I came back, the eggs were gone. Even from a rollaway nest, these determined broodies pulled all three eggs up with their necks and beaks and re-hid them under their wings. God love 'em for wanting to be mommies, but I'd rather they not and just keep laying. We used to just let them "do it" when they got broody, but we have had way too many broodies this year and it has cost us a lot of eggs=feed money.

 

[bradselig]

Now that summer is coming to an end, I finally caved and ordered some automatic watering cups. Hope this will save me some time in making sure everyone has water and that they won't run out especially on hot days. I plan to attach the run of waterers to a 5 gal bucket that has a toilet float inside. I will hook up the gardenhose to the float to maintain water in bucket but still allow the system to be ran on gravity. Hoping that the water doesn't get warm as that was my main concern. Hope it works and I haven't wasted money on those cups! I bought nipples last year and have yet to use them. I tried them on some older chicks and they wanted nothing to do with them.

 

[Leahs Mom]

Now that summer is coming to an end, I finally caved and ordered some automatic watering cups. Hope this will save me some time in making sure everyone has water and that they won't run out especially on hot days. I plan to attach the run of waterers to a 5 gal bucket that has a toilet float inside. I will hook up the gardenhose to the float to maintain water in bucket but still allow the system to be ran on gravity. Hoping that the water doesn't get warm as that was my main concern. Hope it works and I haven't wasted money on those cups! I bought nipples last year and have yet to use them. I tried them on some older chicks and they wanted nothing to do with them.

I was considering using a float system with a hose but after I got thinking about it, I realized that the water in the hose would be very hot as it is sitting in the sun. When I fill my waterers, I run the hose until the water is cold and it takes awhile for the water coming from the well to totally clear out the hot water in the hose.

Do your hoses get hot like mine do? If so, they will always be re-filling with hot water that has sat in the hose for however long.

 

[SallyinIndiana]

Now that summer is coming to an end, I finally caved and ordered some automatic watering cups. Hope this will save me some time in making sure everyone has water and that they won't run out especially on hot days. I plan to attach the run of waterers to a 5 gal bucket that has a toilet float inside. I will hook up the gardenhose to the float to maintain water in bucket but still allow the system to be ran on gravity. Hoping that the water doesn't get warm as that was my main concern. Hope it works and I haven't wasted money on those cups! I bought nipples last year and have yet to use them. I tried them on some older chicks and they wanted nothing to do with them.

my chickens would not use the nipples either. Now we use waterers that have easy to remove lids and just poor more water in each night. We do have to clean them about once a month on the inside and the drinking area daily. I would think the small amount of water that stays in the cup would evaporate quick enough to avoid getting extremely hot. I know our water in the pool evaporates without getting hot. I'm thinking the same thing happens in my chicken waterers as the water in the red trays is warm but never as warm as my child's bath.

If you see the heated dog water bowls on sale, let me know I need about 10 more to be able to put one in each area with the breader trios or sets.

Next question for those of you that use lighting to increase winter production, how bright of a light do you use and what kind of a fixture. I have Christmas rope lighting in 2 coops but i need to come up with a bit brighter lighting for the breeding pens I think.

 

[Leahs Mom]

@SallyinIndiana
Do you think those new waterers of yours would stay thawed if you put an aquarium heater inside them?

 

[hoosiercheetah]

Now we use waterers that have easy to remove lids and just poor more water in each night.

Fun! What is their name? I'm also curious about using an aquarium heater with something that can be filled from the top.

 

[bradselig]

I was considering using a float system with a hose but after I got thinking about it, I realized that the water in the hose would be very hot as it is sitting in the sun.  When I fill my waterers, I run the hose until the water is cold and it takes awhile for the water coming from the well to totally clear out the hot water in the hose.

Do your hoses get hot like mine do?  If so, they will always be re-filling with hot water that has sat in the hose for however long.

It doesn't get too warm. It's in the shade majority of the time. I will also be dropping a frozen water bottle in the bucket to help maintain temp in there. I will also insulate the bucket. The way my pens are set up, all my pens (10 total) will be supplied by the 5 gallon bucket. So hopefully it will be filled several times a day to keep water fresh. I'll be putting some ACV in the bucket to help keep it clean.

 

[ChickCrazed]

Fun! What is their name? I'm also curious about using an aquarium heater with something that can be filled from the top.

It seems like an aquarium heater would try to heat the water to an unrealistic temperature, plus i don't know if they are ok to use with plastic (would they melt the bucket?). I was thinking a stock tank deicer or a birdbath deicer for my buckets.

 

[kittydoc]

@bradselig Using water from a hose will not work in this heat. It takes quite a while for all the hot water to run out of our garden hoses and get to the cooler water before I can refill the chickens' waterers.

I'm a little surprised that people are having trouble to get their chickens to use nipple waterers. You have to stick their beaks up to them to activate the water a number of times and watch for them to swallow. Once one or two birds really get the idea, they teach the rest. You have to provide the "normal" water source during the brief transition. We even teach our young chicks how to use them by the time they are about 3-4 weeks old.

We use this large plastic cooler that has an extension of several feet with a number of nipples attached. That extension is wrapped with insulation to help keep them running longer in the winter. We have both a circulator and a bird bath heater in the cooler (the heater is obviously off now). The water actually circulates down to the end of the extension and back thanks to the circulator and the way the extension is constructed. If DH still has the link, I will post it later. I understand it, but am not a whiz at explaining its construction. All I know is we are happy with it.

We supplement the cooler/nipple waterer system with a tin can heater when it gets really cold. Those are awesome. We even used a 3-way bulb in ours so we could switch control how much heat we needed to keep the water from freezing. The best waterers to use on top of the tin can heaters (really not tin cans--decorative tins about 10" across is more accurate) are the galvanized metal ones that come from 2 to about 8 gallons but are the same diameter. They just vary in height. We may have to get a taller one this year. Last year we got by with refilling the 2 gallon metal waterer daily to every other day. We do not recommend using plastic waterers with the tin can heaters--we melted the base of one a couple of years ago.