INDIANA BYC'ers HERE!

[ellymayRans]

What kind of incubator are you thinking about?

I really liked the idea of the one @sallyinindiana sent me but will have to search for it when the time comes! Oh what I wouldn't give to be getting the GQF cabinet bator ... And if I could "hide" it somewhere I would but my DH would have a coronary (sp?)!!!! Hahaha!

 

[browncow15]

Taste the [COLOR=FF0000]R[/COLOR][COLOR=FF8C00]a[/COLOR][COLOR=FFA500]i[/COLOR][COLOR=FFD700]n[/COLOR][COLOR=00FF00]b[/COLOR][SIZE=13.3333330154419px][COLOR=008000]o[/COLOR][/SIZE][COLOR=0000CD]w[/COLOR][COLOR=4B0082]![/COLOR] Our stash from the last few days. It's going to be really pretty when all 37 are laying!

Very pretty! I've been getting more blue and green eggs as they start laying again. I need some if those chocolate marans eggs still though

 

[wheezy50]

Springtime planting question:

I'm going to try growing potatoes this year in one of the 4'x4' verticle towers. All the plans I've found online so far seem to be for "regular" brown potatoes. I plan to build one box for them and possibly a second.

My question: Would sweet potatoes and/or red (russett) potatoes grow in the same manner? Would they handle growing in one of these "build as they grow" type boxes?

I've never grown potatoes at all before so this will be a first.

 

[minmin1258]

I spent some time out with my girls today...so you get t spend some time looking at them too...lol

This is Earl Jr. From Diamonds first hatch (pullet egg).

this is Lee and Crystal from second hatch (they hatched in August)

. Meet Topaz she has bitty babies a week old today

(Topaz's bitties): 1st pic is "white shikkee
Named by the 3yr old I babysit

Second pic is "Yedda"

Emerald and Mr Woo (they go to a. New home on Friday)

Diamond hatched Mutt three weeks ago
It's a RIR/EE cross.

Sebastian and Miss Ellie's tail feathers lol

some of the LF. The Roo is an EE

more big girls.

ETA:Sorry for the poor pics and that there's so many of them...Chicken math got me last year! Lol

 

[ChickCrazed]

6x6 would be tight for more than three turkeys, and may even be tight for them. I would make sure they had a perch in the run too. Mine would rather perch in their run than in the coop. As for the perch, Even for chickens, I use a 2x4 flat side up instead of short side up. Turkeys and Chickens prefer a wide flat perch to sit on so they can huddle down and cover their entire feet with their feathers. For my turkeys I use 4x4's. Even my midget white toms can get up to 15-16lbs. Palms toms can get 20+. When you are talking a tom and two hens, you are looking at 40-50lbs easy. I'd prefer overkill on the perch to it not being enough. Turkeys will roost as high as they can get. When I let mine free range, they like to sleep in the barn rafters! My perches are about 45" (in a 72" pen). You need to make sure you leave plenty of head room so they don't crash into the ceiling trying to get on the perch.

Another note - if you decide to let chickens and turkeys live together, make sure the chickens have plenty of space to get away. Turkey hens can be rough on them if they can corner them. They chase my roosters a lot, and even my hens on occasion. So when they get penned up for the winter where they won't get to free range, I separate mine from the chickens just to be safe.

My chickens will walk by a pristine, just cleaned waterer to drink from a puddle they pooped in earlier. The only solution I see is to make sure you don't have any puddles, and we all know that isn't possible.

Count me in! We planted quite a few sugar maples last year and I think we lost several that will need replacing, and we are always looking for conifers to plant for wind breaks.

I appreciate you and SallyInIndiana helping me plan for the Turkeys! I am going to upgrade their perch a bit and try to raise it up a bit higher. I think I'll also try to figure out how to get them a bit more space. Even bumping that pen out 3 feet would give them quite a bit more room. Luckily I will have some time before they are out there and big enough to feel crowded so I can take my time to figure it out. I will probably process the extras to get down to 3 or 4 at most for winter. There is a jungle gym in that run but I will add a high perch as well.

And you are more than welcome to trees! Just PM me the ideal #'s that you want and I will get as close as I can!

 

[ellymayRans]

Very pretty! I've been getting more blue and green eggs as they start laying again. I need some if those chocolate marans eggs still though

I haven't seen yours since they were babes. How many girls/boys did you end up having? My Marans don't start laying until about 6-8 mos old! You got a blue too if I remember. Boy? Love to see pics.

 

[kittydoc]

So the last week or so of our chicken world has been interesting to say the least.

Our two Jubilee cockerels, raised together, finally decided that one would bloody the head of the other one so badly that the blood splashed into the next pen, and I had to give one of my Lav roos a bath to make sure he wasn't hurt, too. The injured Jubilee roo is recovering nicely (no permanent damage done), while we now have the instigator isolated with no girls until we figure out what to do. Today, it seems like Placido, the one who was injured, was feeling his oats and might decide to breed the flock himself (the other one did most of the breeding before). So there's one problem that is resolving itself except for the fact that I'd really rather not send a valuable bird to freezer camp, especially since he is a proper gentleman with the girls.

While we were in flux, we moved the cockerel in our main layer coop, Cogburn (a black/lav Orp split) into the breeding pen/apartment formerly occupied by two lav roos. Cogburn is now living with four lav females, and while they aren't laying as much as they did (yet), they are laying.

So where do the two lav roos go? Into the layer coop for now. Their black/lav girlfriends aren't laying quite yet, but we have plans for a fair-weather breeding pen for the four of them to be built soon. The boys will spend part of the day with the two girls, and the rest servicing anyone else they can catch. The lav roos are in heaven now that they get to do what roos do. However, our egg numbers have fallen off since we did the trade. Any ideas about how long it will take for everything to settle down and the girls to get back to laying normally? A week? Two weeks? The switch was made on Saturday. The boys are actually being pretty chill about it, but they are breeding and seem very "happy" to me. We have about 25 girls in the layer coop, so it's more than enough to keep them busy.

The good news is that they all shared visual space with each other since much of our coop, at chicken eye level, if constructed of hardware cloth and not solid materials. The upper levels are solid for roosting/sleeping/egg laying.

Any thoughts on how long for it to take for things to settle down would be appreciated, and if any of you (or a friend) is interested in a lovely Jubilee cockerel who will be a year old in March, please let me know. He and his "brother" are almost identical. Placido is about half an inch shorter, otherwise their markings and color patterns are identical. I am concerned about putting them back together ever again since Placido is a mellow boy and his brother is definitely more macho. Meanwhile, macho is sitting in our garage and barely bothering to crow. Placido, on the other hand, is crowing his heart out. It's good to be Number One!

 

[kittydoc]

@kabhyper1 Very nice assortment of eggs you have there!!

 

[browncow15]

I haven't seen yours since they were babes. How many girls/boys did you end up having? My Marans don't start laying until about 6-8 mos old! You got a blue too if I remember. Boy? Love to see pics.

I'll try to get some pics when I go out this morning. I ended up with 3 boys and 4 girls. One of the girls is blue! Another is defiantly a cross because she has a beard we processed two of the boys last weekend, they were good sized!

 

[kittydoc]

One more question for the more experienced than myself: I know it is much better to use nice clean eggs to incubate, but have any of you successfully incubated cleaned eggs? If so, how did you clean them and what did you use?

I am used to cleaning layer eggs for sale with just hot water and a scrub brush. Do any of you ever incubate eggs that you've washed, and if so, did you use any kind of disinfectant (like dilute bleach) as a dip to help replace the natural bloom?

THANKS!