INDIANA BYC'ers HERE!

[browncow15]

Poor chicks.  This is so frustrating.  Have you set any traps outside of the coop?

I've had a live trap set outside for a couple of days and then caught a skunk. My neighbor I borrowed the trap from said he caught a raccoon the other night. Apparently neither were the culprit though I set it inside the coop last night we will se if I got anything.

 

[browncow15]

This is a random idea, but could you go spread a bunch of flour all over to see if you can get a footprint from the varmint?  I wonder if it is something small like a rat/mink/weasel?  That would maybe explain why it is going for the small/easy prey and not the larger birds yet.  Another idea would be to borrow a trail camera and set it up in the coop until you get a picture of it.

I'm so sorry :/

The flour is a good idea! I'm thinking it might be a rat but I don't really know. I was thinking about a camera, it would be great if someone had one I could borrow!

Sorry for the multiple posts, phone is being dumb this morning!

 

[ellymayRans]

I'm just smitten by this babe! Unlike any chick I've ever raised. For those of you that missed it, this is my lone Peachick at the moment. I have 3 left, 2 with external pips. One has been pipped since the one that hatched pipped but it wasted no time. 3 hours and it was out! This one is working on 32 hours with a pip. It's still alive but I'm not sure why no progress.

@racinchickins. .see don't they look a lot like your poults? !

 

[dennislambert79]

I think I know what kind this is but want to make sure got it same day as my silkie.

here's my first hatched. Mix ISA Brown and americauna.

and here's the three of them hanging out like always

 

[ellymayRans]

I think I know what kind this is but want to make sure got it same day as my silkie.

here's my first hatched. Mix ISA Brown and americauna.

and here's the three of them hanging out like always

Sweet. My guess on the first is a gold laced seabright pullet

 

[bearbottom]

That sounds interesting. I'd love to find someone a little more local so I can get some anytime, but if I can't Then that would work.what is the price of your hatching eggs? And if you aren't coming down when I need them would you be willing to ship them?
Thanks, I know the pictures aren't great, I was taking them through the hardware cloth on the window. I'll have to get some better pictures soon.
If it is too hot to keep them in the coop what should we do? I don't want them to run away or not find their way back home. And they are not used to us yet so they are not easy to catch even in the coop. I'm not sure if we could catch them outside.

Is the reason the chickens and turkeys will sleep in separate areas because you don't have room or is it bad for them to sleep together? We only have one coop and it is plenty big (7.5' by 11.5') so we would love to house all of our birds together. We have considered turning half of our garage into a coop for meat birds / possible winter coop, but we are not sure on that yet.

Thanks for the information about blackhead, I will definitely call before I get any.

for trying to keep your chickens by the coop, if you have some garden fencing. That will keep them by it till they learn were it at. So, you don't have to chase them, every time you give them their food or treats say here chick chick or something like that and they will come running every time you call them. They pick up in no time.

 

[Ol Grey Mare]

for trying to keep your chickens by the coop, if you have some garden fencing. That will keep them by it till they learn were it at. So, you don't have to chase them, every time you give them their food or treats say here chick chick or something like that and they will come running every time you call them. They pick up in no time.

X 2 - a temporary enclosure with step in posts and any ol' light barrier you have available will help to keep them more *gathered* for you and enable you to start with some recall training. I like to use an empty water bottle with a handful of grit in it. Give that a shake and the noise is really quite audible - teach them to associate the shake of the bottle with the tossing of scratch. Shake, treat, repeat. Then start moving away from them, let them become focused on something and shake the bottle - they will come towards you and you can toss the scratch. This is when it clicks for them and soon you can go out, not see a chicken in sight, give that bottle a good shake and see them come from every direction at top speed. The shaker bottle is a universal sound so that no matter who goes out to gather the birds the sound is the same (very helpful in multi-people families or if you ever have a chicken sitter keeping care of your flock)

 

[kabhyper1]

Well after some thought and discussion, we have decided to considerably cut back on our flocks. We want to be able to get away from home more often and with 80 or so birds right now, we just can't. I am having a really hard time with this, as I have favorites that I'm not wanting to part with. For example, my black bantam cochin roo Oliver, the therapy chicken, I have had him longer than any others and he was one of my first. I was going to keep him and Blueberry, but after over 2 years together, Oliver has started chasing blueberry and attacking him. Blueberry doesnt fight back, but I found him sitting in a water bucket today. He was fine, but it's stressing me out. Ronin my LF black cochin roo, is being just as awful to him. They are tag teaming him all of a sudden. Blueberry is the only one I need to keep due to still wanting to have lf cochin eggs available. I have about 40 hens in my egg flock. 7 of which are bantam girls, I will likely keep them, they don't eat much. Most of you know me and my idiosyncrasies, so it won't come as a shock when I say that the homes my birds go to need to be forever homes. No processing. When I say forever, I mean pet for the most part. Also I would prefer they go to a small farm. I am considering selling a roo with 9 hens each as small flocks. That would drop 20 birds. I will also be carefully going through my silkies. This is really hard.

Anyway the way it looks now is I will have

a trio of Khaki campbells
A bantam polish roo white crested blue with 9 hens of various breeds. All under 2 years old. And a Black LF cochin roo and 9 hens of various breeds.
I will either have pairs of silkies to go, maybe some chicks.

All potential homes have to have good biosecurity measures in place, and secure housing. I have rehomed way too many birds that shortly after were taken by predators. I havent lost a bird to a predator since I got them 3 years ago. SO I am going to be particular. I know this sounds picky and probabl rude, Im just trying to put my birds in the best places I can. I would keep them before putting them somewhere I am not comfortable with. Pm me if you are interested. lol after the restricions I put on here, I wouldn't blame any of you from not responding LOL

 

[kittydoc]

Poll for the group. I asked about this neighbor once before, but things have gotten worse (for her chickens and quite likely for ours) since then.

Our neighbor, the one who had two roos taken Friday night by what now have been determined to be coyotes (seen on OUR property the next morning), has apparently gone away for the weekend and left her two outside chickens unattended. No food. No water. In a chain link dog fence for the hen, and in a small cat crate for the roo (he can't even lay down or stretch his wings). I brought her hen in last night because I was certain she'd be picked off otherwise--she perches on top of the chain link fence at night, but of course can't see, and I know my neighbor is too ill-informed to know this.

This morning as I returned the hen (having left the neighbor a note on her front door about what we learned about the coyote, and why I brought her hen in my garage overnight), I noticed the hen's pen had no water, and the roo had no food or water. I watered the roo through the crate, but he's been crated HIS WHOLE LIFE since a chick, and I have no idea what his mental state is, so I didn't feel comfortable reaching back to grab his bowl. Oh, and his crate is left in full sun all day. Every day.

I'm obviously bothered about all this for a multitude of reasons, but what I want to do when she gets back is talk her into signing over her remaining chickens to me in exchange for me not turning her in for animal neglect. (Her dog and cat are in the house, with her banty and possibly two other hens--if they didn't get eaten first.) I don't have a problem with her keeping them inside as long as they have food and water they can't knock over--the stink is her problem--but I don't think she is mentally "right" and shouldn't have chickens at all. Her dog and cats appear healthy. I've handled her dog and seen her cats from a few feet away. I don't know why she didn't put the crated roo inside the pen with the other hen, since the roos that picked on it are now dead, but in any case, she does not use food/water containers that are appropriate for chickens. They get knocked over all the time.

She assured me she was going to bring ALL of them inside Saturday when I told her about her roos being killed. She didn't. And she apparently left town with someone else and made no arrangements for their care, and there is no way she filled up the hen's water container (which is huge) because it was still upright and bone dry. It's an underbed storage box that did have a good bit of water in it a few days ago, but it's all since evaporated in the heat.

The owner is not an evil person, but she is one of the most braindead people I've ever met. She was also too cheap to get anyone to mow her 1 acre lawn until we and her other neighbor finally shamed her into it, and she has NEVER contracted for trash service, which is vital where we live. We have no tax-paid service, so trash just keeps piling up outside and I suspect inside her garage, since her car is never parked in there.

What would you do:

Nothing
Call authorities (we now have an animal neglect statute here)
Try my plan to just get her to give me her remaining 4-5 chickens (which I will promptly rehome)--adding that she admitted to me that she cannot afford even a small coop.
Something else??

In the meantime, what are some ways we can protect our birds from coyotes when they run out of her easy-grab McNuggets next door?

THANKS!

 

[SallyinIndiana]

I love my pet sitter. I can't express enough appreciation for her. I'm away from home for work, and she's taking care of all our critters. Not only that, but she knows how I hate to leave the chicks, so she texted me this...how great is she?


While out here for work, DW is with me, we went to the SanFran Ferry Bldg which houses their main farmers market. Saw eggs there for sale for $12.00 per doz. Went to Marin County cheese trail and found eggs for the bargin price of $10. I'm not charging enough!


Plus, all the creameries out here made me want to learn how to make cheese!
Home at the end of this week to pet and kiss the sweet chicks! Chickcrazed--can you tell yet which is the Bielie girl?

I'd start selling eggs again if I could get those kind of prices. I'd even start selling them again for $4 a dozen, but around here $2.50 tends to be the max and people really don't want to pay more than $2. To me that's not worth it. I'd rather give the eggs to people I know than feel like I'm underselling them. We should all get together and list a bunch of farm fresh eggs on Craigslist for $10 maybe the prices would go up if everyone formed a small group that agreed on a minimum price. Wait, I'm not entirely sure that would be legal

I'm still having no luck finding any heritage breed turkeys!!!

Have had ads on Craigslist and Facebook groups posted for a month and nothing. Can't even find anyone interested in splitting an order from a hatchery. I don't even need people interested in turkeys as most hatcheries will mix with chicks. But no interest. Ack!!!!

If Janet can't get you what you need, feel free to think about a trip down south. I have a SMALL number of heritage palms for sale. The eggs are from blue palms but as I'm sure you know blue does not breed true.

Well after some thought and discussion, we have decided to considerably cut back on our flocks. We want to be able to get away from home more often and with 80 or so birds right now, we just can't. I am having a really hard time with this, as I have favorites that I'm not wanting to part with. For example, my black bantam cochin roo Oliver, the therapy chicken, I have had him longer than any others and he was one of my first. I was going to keep him and Blueberry, but after over 2 years together, Oliver has started chasing blueberry and attacking him. Blueberry doesnt fight back, but I found him sitting in a water bucket today. He was fine, but it's stressing me out. Ronin my LF black cochin roo, is being just as awful to him. They are tag teaming him all of a sudden. Blueberry is the only one I need to keep due to still wanting to have lf cochin eggs available. I have about 40 hens in my egg flock. 7 of which are bantam girls, I will likely keep them, they don't eat much.

Most of you know me and my idiosyncrasies, so it won't come as a shock when I say that the homes my birds go to need to be forever homes. No processing. When I say forever, I mean pet for the most part. Also I would prefer they go to a small farm. I am considering selling a roo with 9 hens each as small flocks. That would drop 20 birds. I will also be carefully going through my silkies. This is really hard.

Anyway the way it looks now is I will have

a trio of Khaki campbells
A bantam polish roo white crested blue with 9 hens of various breeds. All under 2 years old. And a Black LF cochin roo and 9 hens of various breeds.
I will either have pairs of silkies to go, maybe some chicks.

All potential homes have to have good biosecurity measures in place, and secure housing. I have rehomed way too many birds that shortly after were taken by predators. I havent lost a bird to a predator since I got them 3 years ago. SO I am going to be particular. I know this sounds picky and probabl rude, Im just trying to put my birds in the best places I can. I would keep them before putting them somewhere I am not comfortable with. Pm me if you are interested. lol after the restricions I put on here, I wouldn't blame any of you from not responding LOL

Have you thought of trying a local but unconventional school? I've had a few schools buy birds from me and their coops from Agrarian or a different place near Bloomington. They all seem like they care a lot for their birds. So far the different kinds that have got birds from me are an autism school, a boys school I think, and a couple of private elementary schools.
But really having a few birds around would be a great project for science in any grade, just make sure you specify not biology since you want them to live long and happy lives.