INDIANA BYC'ers HERE!

[wheezy50]

Also, did you see the video on you tube of how to modify the electric thermostat? Basically just drilling extra/larger holes in it. It works great, mine is much more sensitive this way.

 

[chick rookie]

@jchny2000 i thought all of the females looked at the least 2 years of age but it can be difficult to gauge, just because she acts scared doesn't mean she's not of age. My hen was like that her first year, this year not so much but then again? ?
Super cool on the pen progress and eggs! Look forward to those pics!

@atrueb00 regarding the silkie egg sales, mine get bought up (all bantam eggs) once i advertised to folks how great they are for use as hardboiled for little kids, in salads or as mini deviled egg appetizers. Now they request them. You giving them free should have been treated as a sample...lol..then hook them!!

Disturbing this morning i awoke to my little possible blue egg laying frizzle/silkie cross that recently hatched...well it disappeared! I have looked all morning and no signs of it. The large GQF brooder is in the garage on a very large wooden lid that is partially covering the large wooden adult silkie pen. All i can think of is it slipped through the feeder hole and fell through the netting that covers the remaining silkie pen and they killed and ate it. No signs of it. I used a flashlight looking around things, but would expect it to be frantically chirping. Its not cold enough to have killed it for just being away from heat for several hours????? I can't stop looking for it though, just freaking me out!

Better news: i did wake up to another hatched partridge silkie. I have 4 blue eggs left and 4 silkie eggs in the bator yet to hatch but one of those silkie eggs is cracked from me dropping the lid on it, its still developing though. While looking for the wee chick i did find that my last spring blue silkie is now broody!! When i kicked her out of the nest box thinking maybe the chick lucked out and slipped under her, nope, but heck she's sitting on more blue eggs and silkie eggs!! Not letting them range and not having suitable outdoor pen for them yet is not helping avoid broodies! Leaving for FL in a week and i hate to think how many she's going to end up with!!

Everyone else is good. No turkey eggs yet that ive seen. Girls cut back on laying again...got 4 eggs yesterday!?! Granted i have at least 7 dozen i need to take to the hair salon to sell but i thought things would improve.

So sorry about your chick. My girls finally picked and so far are sill going strong...

1 black and 1 partridge silkie. Hatched in the past couple of days. I need to get the partridge chcik from the garage brooder and put with these guys inside since losing the other little chick.

very cute, what is that they are standing in?

Here are some pics of our hatch. The last egg just hatched around 1am. (Happy St Patrick's Day!) I have 2 more eggs but I couldn't see an internal pip last night, so I'll be tossing them later today.
25 eggs went into lockdown & 23 chicks hatched. - 92% Most of the eggs hatched Mon-Tues, so when an egg pipped on Wed afternoon, I was very surprised. I've never had an egg hatch so late when compared to the group.


Black & Lav Orpingtons




Here are a few of the Apenzeller Spitzhauben


Unfortunately I did a poor job picking out the Biele eggs. My friend has a Biele roo with 4 Bieles & 4 Black sex Link hens. All 4 chicks I hatched are mixes. 4 more eggs were started later & should go into lockdown tomorrow. (I couldn't pass up another chance to get Biele eggs, so I set up a 2nd incubator.) I hope that I did a better job selecting the Biele eggs with those.

The kids are very happy to have chicks again. It's so much fun to put your arm into the brooder & within seconds it's crawling with chicks.

love the chicks so cute, post all the pic's you wish, I cant have chicks this season so I can only get my fix if you guys post pic's... lol good luck with the rest of your hatch.

Well, it's not 100% but it's pretty close. Long day today working on the interior, and some of the exterior trim.

Collection tray from the rollout nest boxes. Still need lined with carpet and foam at the back, but structure is complete.



"Human area" behind the collection area. I'm thinking during warm weather I will be using a large Rubbermaid tote that I have to feed a cup watering system from here.



This is from the chicken area looking through the open feeder door.


This is the feeder door. Gravity bunk feeder that is the door access the chicken area. Should hold better than 50 lbs of feed.


Better look at the door.


Door swung open, the bunk fits under the nesting boxes.


Door closed.


Door closed

Better look at the nest boxes.

Outside. Other end needs trimmed as does this end beyond the pop door.

Looking over the nest boxes. Pop door down. Currently just have a string system setup, but hoping to add a motor on a timer I've seen on BYC.

Roosts. Original plan called for a ladder style that hinged off the back wall. May still do that eventually, but I ran short of lumber and didn't want to spend any more. Also, You can see the eves are just above the two higher roosts, i'm a little hesitant to have the birds roosting above that airflow, less in summer more in winter. plus, this way two of the roosts (over 8' long) are the same height. We'll see how it works...


So, aside from needing hardware cloth for the divider wall, and in the eves. I really think I want to move the chicks out there ASAP, I can run an extension cord for the heat lamp. Anyone have any good reasons not to?

Welcome any feedback!

your doing an awesome job, thought it out well I think. as for the heat lamp.. I use one in my coop but I have it wired up wit lots of extra wire!!! and I made a screen over the bulb out of hardware cloth. Have used it for 3 years now.

Oh man, thats awful! I know, some days just nothing seems to go right!

Thanks for sharing!

So precious!


Thats so sad. But congrats on the new chick.
I am pretty new to peas, I had some a few years back, but they went to the neighbors when Dad had open heart. Was just not home enough. Trying to learn more about them. So maybe they will surprise me this year!
Oh my, I remember those days!

They do get strong! We are hoping to get the rest of the wire to run electric fence this weekend. Double Stuff is loving being on the big open pasture! She lazes around, and follows the other animals. Bo, my buck wants her no where near me tho, and he butts her, then she nips him! They have reached a truce finally, and take turns for attention and carrots, lol. I plan to let my boar out once the wire is ran too. I need to work with the other sows more before I will release them.

Oh thats great!

I know i'm being impatient but I just cant help it.... didn't know electric wire would keep pigs in???

 

[ellymayRans]

@chick rookie they are just in a potted tree in the house to get a pic. Lol...i have to put rock in them or the birds scratch all the dirt out when i put them out on the deck during the warmer months.

 

[ellymayRans]

Went to RK earlier. They have the following:
ISA, special on RIR (2bins Full), Columbian Rocks, a bin with multiple breeds i think ones they combined because of the #'s and new ones in, Ducks (khaki Campbell's, Pekin and Rouen), Turkey (not labeled but believe the bronze and white broad breasted), french pearl guineas

They now are showing silkies on their breed list of pics, i didn't ask but assuming thats because they will be getting some in.

I did get 2 of the khakis in hopes for girls (eggs) and 2 of the guineas! ! Haha! Swore I'd never have guineas because they are annoyingly loud, but, after seeing @jchny2000 at her place they were just so cute and i have ticks on the property very bad. Soo..i did it! Shhhh to DH...I'll just act like they randomly showed up or someone must have dumped them!! I'm so bad

 

[ellymayRans]

Shocking, but the silkie egg that i accidentally dropped the bator lid on and caused a good sized bust, just hatched. Thought for sure it wouldn't make it. That was last week..

 

[pbirdhaven]

@atrue00 hmm what would you (or everyoneelses) thoughts on making a thread and everyone can post recipes and i could combbine them into a digital cookbook of sorts

Like the idea!

well yesterday came and went. We went to the new house to start cleaning before moving any of our stuff in and people were still there!!!  said their stuff was still there and they weren't leaving till they got it all out. The Sheriff came and made them leave and I guess they came back afterwards.  get this!!!     they had an order from the judge... they get to stay till the 3rd!!!!! But the Sheriff had an order to remove them if need be!!!!   So screwed up...... I want my new place !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What a bummer! Similar case when I moved, only it was winter, snowy, and they couldn't get out, so I had to pay for two places for a month.

Been a busy and super fatiguing couple days, so I skimmed.

But lookie! The babies are one week old already!! Bennie and Marka (and possibly Indigo, too) actually turned a week old yesterday, though.


Marka has some complaints about the photo op, however.

Indigo (Don't mind my uneven nails, it's from playing harp )

"Mama, you got something riiiight there!" Bennie is such a stinker!

Winter

Indi on his Mama's back Can you even stand the cuteness?!

Look at how big they're getting!!

Margie is so good with them! I think she's really happy to finally be a mama after all those tries at it.

 

[racinchickins]

Quote:
Electric wire will keep pigs in that have been trained to respect it. If they've never hit a wire before, their first instinct will be to charge right through it. They are also masters of figuring out when the electric is out and then escaping. I plan on using electric netting for pasturing pigs this summer, but they will get their first training on it while they are still inside a pen with a strong outer fence

 

[Indyshent]

Went to RK earlier. They have the following:
ISA, special on RIR (2bins Full), Columbian Rocks, a bin with multiple breeds i think ones they combined because of the #'s and new ones in, Ducks (khaki Campbell's, Pekin and Rouen), Turkey (not labeled but believe the bronze and white broad breasted), french pearl guineas

They now are showing silkies on their breed list of pics, i didn't ask but assuming thats because they will be getting some in.

I did get 2 of the khakis in hopes for girls (eggs) and 2 of the guineas! ! Haha! Swore I'd never have guineas because they are annoyingly loud, but, after seeing @jchny2000 at her place they were just so cute and i have ticks on the property very bad. Soo..i did it! Shhhh to DH...I'll just act like they randomly showed up or someone must have dumped them!! I'm so bad

You'll want more. They're exceptionally tasty, prolific, and east their body weights in pests. They're also great watchdogs and hawk-killers.

 

[tmarsh83]

Went to RK earlier. They have the following:
ISA, special on RIR (2bins Full), Columbian Rocks, a bin with multiple breeds i think ones they combined because of the #'s and new ones in, Ducks (khaki Campbell's, Pekin and Rouen), Turkey (not labeled but believe the bronze and white broad breasted), french pearl guineas

They now are showing silkies on their breed list of pics, i didn't ask but assuming thats because they will be getting some in.

I did get 2 of the khakis in hopes for girls (eggs) and 2 of the guineas! ! Haha! Swore I'd never have guineas because they are annoyingly loud, but, after seeing @jchny2000 at her place they were just so cute and i have ticks on the property very bad. Soo..i did it! Shhhh to DH...I'll just act like they randomly showed up or someone must have dumped them!! I'm so bad

I want ducks. I want them to be khakis. But after growing my flock by a factor of six my wife would shoot me if ducks showed up right now. Lol

 

[Faraday40]

Swore I'd never have guineas because they are annoyingly loud, but, after seeing @jchny2000 at her place they were just so cute and i have ticks on the property very bad. Soo..i did it! Shhhh to DH...I'll just act like they randomly showed up or someone must have dumped them!! I'm so bad

That's so funny. I did something similar to my poor DH. I added a few Spitzhauben eggs to the incubator, so when they hatched along with our orps' eggs, no one even noticed. (We don't even own any white layers!) Technically DD noticed them, but she always wants more chicks/chickens.