INDIANA BYC'ers HERE!

[Chaneys Ranch]

Quote: I put the truck cap in there about 3 years ago, could be! I notice that some of my younger birds and less dominant will hide in there too, sleep at night. We have 3 more I am adding to the new pasture areas. Its also offered a place for them to run if they see a hawk. The ducks really like them too. Its a pain if my ducks decide to lay eggs under it tho. I have had to use a garden rake to get eggs out from the ducks.
Not off topic at all, BYC has never said a word to me about our thread discussions regarding livestock, etc aside from discussing prices on the thread. Prices need to be posted on buy/sell/trades or by a PM to the person selling. So you did exactly what they expect!

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

One last post, forgot to mention I will have Coturnix quail quads available. I have had some pm's so I wanted to share that the JMF birds are old enough to sex.
If you are ready to try quail, they are super easy to raise, care for and process. Hens will lay daily pretty much, lots of eggs. Easy to process, I can do 1 bird in 5 minutes. They are a great winter project if you have a warm building or area to keep them. They are cold hardy, but like most birds will slow down laying without full spectrum lighting. I let my quail live naturally and don't add artificial lights.

 

[chick rookie]

In the wise words of The Offspring, "You have to keep 'em separated." You will get mixed breeds; it's inevitable. Make separate pens and stick 'em in there when you feel like hatching eggs. You'll want to wait three weeks or so to hatch any eggs because the little wigglies keep pretty well once they get in a hen.

What she said...

Geez take it easy

I tried to work on my coop yesterday woke up at 8 am ate breakfast then my dad calls an says he will be here shortly with a bed he bought me... Never shows up never calls or text so I lost about three hours of time waiting on nothing go out side get two boards screwed on and it starts to rain... Been raining ever since

Nope can't take it easy right yet... wish I could, almost done though!!

I think the old saying you are looking for is birds of a feather flock together. For the most part I have fount that works true for species not breeds. So ducks like to be with the ducks while turkeys really prefer the turkeys and chickens like chickens regardless of size. If you are wanting pure breeds you will need at least one breeding pen for each breed, a layer pen for the backup hens and a pen for the back up roosters. If you have plenty of hens you might be able to combine the backup pens into one pen but you will need 6-8 hens for each rooster.
Then if some of your breeds are blue feathered you may want more than one breeding pen to influence the percent of blue and splash offspring.

Becoming a breeder is not cheap. It takes time, effort, space, and money. Also lots of planning. I really recommend you search on this site for various breeding pen setups that you like and can make. Once you know how many pens you can fit on your property then consider the breeds you want and get the best stock you can find. Show quality and healthy. I would not recommend grabbing up craigslist chickens then trying to think of how you can pen them and get your hatchery going. The bulk of your money that gets put into starting a hatchery will be for the various coops, the incubator, and the hatcher. The birds individually are going to be the cheaper part of the business in the long run. Get them slowly. start off with 2 breeds and make sure you can breed them to standard or it will be a waste of money to buy the rare birds.

I'm out of Ovations so..

@jchny2000 you asked about which breeds I'll be keeping after the move:

I have some EE's, Wyandottes, Welsummers, Mille Fleurs, RIR, a Barred Rock, Sumatras, Ayam Cemanis, and a small variety of roosters I am taking with me, along with some Birchen Marans and Sulmtaler chicks I got from @Brat_Flock this weekend (moment of weakness).

My parents (who started the whole chicken thing, but I took over and got #crazychickenlady with...) asked if I was going to leave any at their place. I chuckled and had a Ha! I knew it, you do love them! moment and figured out which ones I could part with.

I have decided to leave them the leghorn girls (because my dad prefers white eggs, even though I have explained the whole color doesn't matter thing) and a few roosters that I don't want to get rid of, but don't want to take with me either.

I am leaving Chewy, the Black Cochin Roo I got from @ChickCrazed a couple years ago. He is like a puppy...literally hanging out with the dogs for protection. The poor boy doesn't have a mean bone in his body and the surplus of roosters I have had lately has been tough on him. My mom has fallen in love with him and he gets special treats and gets to go in the garage a lot to hang out while we're in there working.

All in all, I have around 40 birds that will be having a big change in the next week!

As for what I am hoping to acquire after the move: more Leghorns, Swedish Flower, Lavender Orpington, more Marans, Cream Legbars, and there are many more on the Bucket List! And then hopefully more turkeys and maybe some peafowl...

ETA: What I am most excited about is that I will be able to have my dog/child live with me. She was mine since the day she was born, but I couldn't have her in my apartment. For the last 2 years I have had to look in her sad eyes as I left to back to my home and she stayed with my parents. I can't wait to let her snuggle with me every night!!!

Your ETA: made me cry, so happy for the both of you.

I love how sweet and social your rabbits are.
Am so sorry to hear your doe lost the kid. I hear ya, I have started working on winterizing, and downsizing here. Put 8 more roosters in freezer today.

Wow, sounds good! I am getting hit and miss on eggs now.

Thank You, I hate to say it but it's probably for the best really. With tox being in my ground I don't want any babies, but I didn't know about it till they were already breed.

I am flat wupped from the last few days. Getting lots of things done towards winter. Have another load of hay coming Thursday, and that will be it until spring. Have more coops built and bought a few so I can get more of my breeds separated.
I will have 2 "feeder pigs" for sale if anyone is looking, PM for price. Both are Yorkshire barrows. (neutered males, Yorks grow fast). Around 35 pounds.
Downsizing, so if anyone needs Muscovy drakes, please PM also. 2 extra Rouen drakes, 1 Silver Appleyard drake. Have at least 1 EE rooster super cheap to who needs one, both muffed and bearded, feather legged due to the dad being a BCM. He may produce olive egger chicks. Several Sumatra roosters, BLRW roos and heritage RIR roos.

I totally understand the being " flat wupped " the last of our hay will be here Friday it looks like. Will be so glad, No fighting for hay in the middle of winter this year!!!! It's a great feeling!!

 

[chick rookie]

Well Yesterday afternoon about 1 pm I went to check on the tarp that we had over the roof of the unfinished shed coop..... It was a mess!! The tarp had blown off and the metal sheeting was scattered all over the yard and pasture, the floor was soaked as was all the tools and hardware that we left inside cause we THOUGHT we had it tarped off well enough that it would be ok. and it was about to rain again!! The sky was warning me!!!
So I got on the phone and called in the troops..... DAS and DAD ( adopted son and daughter ) and we got to work on the clean up and putting the roof on... ever tried that in the wind??? NOT fun at all.
We got all the pieces and parts picked up and wiped off

DUMB move!!! wiped the part numbers right off!!

This thing wasnt hard enough already I had to go and make it worse!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So we had to do the trial and error thing......... had that roof on and back off again 3 times!! DH got home from work early and only after we had finally figured it out.


check out that sky.
As you can see we had to put shavings down to soak up all the water, it worked real well too. But 3/4 of my shavings are now gone that I was going to use on the floor WHEN it was done. So now got to get another bag.

once again we worked till after dark ( thank goodie for work lights ) But we got it on, and we got the doors together and on and we have extra parts!! That can't be good! they were to anchor to a concrete floor so we'll all good. DH says he will find some use for them. I think this is how we got 2 dumpsters of junk in the garage!!!!!

Anyway will get pic's of the finished shed in the daylight. Now for the coop part.. got to be easier than putting this thing together. NEVER NEVER again!!!! The next one will be already put together or I will HIRE someone to do it FOR us!!

You might have noticed the floor not painted... we are going to coat the whole thing with that spray on truck bed liner stuff, the traction kind, DH's ideal, I wanted paint and then linoleum, but... oh well!! he will see after hearing me complain about cleaning it...

I am SOOO VERY GLAD this part is over!! I cant wait to get the perches and all in it and put the kids in their new home....

 

[ChickCrazed]

What she said...

Nope can't take it easy right yet... wish I could, almost done though!!

I'm out of Ovations so..

Your ETA: made me cry, so happy for the both of you.

Thank You, I hate to say it but it's probably for the best really. With tox being in my ground I don't want any babies, but I didn't know about it till they were already breed.

I totally understand the being " flat wupped " the last of our hay will be here Friday it looks like. Will be so glad, No fighting for hay in the middle of winter this year!!!! It's a great feeling!!

I think that I also have enough hay to get through winter, first year ever! My awesome new neighbors offered to let me store 200 bales in their barn since I couldn't get enough in mine, so I no longer have to worry about a mid winter buy! City people do not understand how stressful hay worries are!

 

[Leahs Mom]

Sigh....totally behind and not going to have time to read everything to catch up. Probably going to get behind again as I'm solid booked until after Sunday - morning to bed time.

Just stopping in to say hi

@Mother2Hens
Such a collection of fun ideas! Does it make you wonder how you had the time to put them altogether.... (I guess I'm feeling a time crunch over here so that's what I'm thinking of

)

 

[SallyinIndiana]

My children made a tiny Jack o lantern this morning from a pumpkin from Sherri. She was kind enough to help babysit my children all day Monday and give them a pumpkin. My girl is now wanting me to save the seeds to make more pumpkins. I've washed the seeds and they are now drying. While gardening is not my thing, I think my girl loves it so maybe we will be planting a pumpkin patch next spring. I know she wants to plant flowers in two broken wheel barrels. She is my little gardener.

 

[Faraday40]

My children made a tiny Jack o lantern this morning from a pumpkin from Sherri. She was kind enough to help babysit my children all day Monday and give them a pumpkin. My girl is now wanting me to save the seeds to make more pumpkins. I've washed the seeds and they are now drying. While gardening is not my thing, I think my girl loves it so maybe we will be planting a pumpkin patch next spring. I know she wants to plant flowers in two broken wheel barrels. She is my little gardener.

That's so cute. We tossed our old Jack-o-lanterns into the garden. I figured the chickens would eat them - which they did - but some seeds escaped. I try to recycle when I can, so when "mystery squash" started growing in the spring, we allowed them to continue. I was hoping it would be butternut squash. Instead, the kids were tickled to have their own pumpkin patch. Boy did those vines spread! Two pumpkins ended up in our neighbor's lawn. LOL Our neighbor is such a delight & ended up mowing around our sprawling pumpkin vines so the kids could continue to watch them grow.

 

[ChickCrazed]

I saw a post on facebook about a herd of American Milking Devons (very rare breed of dairy cow) for sale in Missouri. They will be taking them to auction if not sold by the weekend. Drop me a line if you want the contact number (not sure if it is allowed to be posted here). 8 cow/calf pairs and 5 cows/heifers.

 

[tmarsh83]

My children made a tiny Jack o lantern this morning from a pumpkin from Sherri. She was kind enough to help babysit my children all day Monday and give them a pumpkin. My girl is now wanting me to save the seeds to make more pumpkins. I've washed the seeds and they are now drying. While gardening is not my thing, I think my girl loves it so maybe we will be planting a pumpkin patch next spring. I know she wants to plant flowers in two broken wheel barrels. She is my little gardener.

I planted pumpkins, and had last years decorative pumpkins thrown in the garden last fall. Couldn't stop the seedlings from coming up this year. Pumpkins took over my melons. I had 26 pumpkins between volleyball and large kickball size.

It was crazy town. Going to do the same next year, since I'm planning to have a feeder pig, it will be some good forage for him once the vines start dying.