INDIANA BYC'ers HERE!

[AmLambson]

Hey all! I picked up 2 light brahma pullets today or I should say that's what they were marked as. They look to be about 2 wks-ish I'm guessing. They will be joining our small flock of 3 a RIR, EE, Golden Comet. Any advice for a new Brahma momma?? And any guess for age and if they look like light brahmas pullet chicks? Thanks all!

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

I need your experience. We are at 7 weeks old with our Gold Laced and Silver Laced Wyandottes. I am wondering if they are male or female????



These are my 7 week old Silver Laced Wyandottes.


These are my 7 week old Golden Laced Wyandottes.

They have a lot of orange and red in their beak and face area, but not so much of a comb or waddle. I am very confused. Hoping for hens! If you need better pictures I can take some more. Thank you!

I have GLW, and I wish I had SLW too, they are beautiful birds! You can clearly see the roos at 4 weeks. Am betting the SLW are the same. The comb is wider, and will start to redden pretty early. Loved all your pics! you have some lovely birds

Bumping this, Need the chickens out of my house! LOL Side note, my 9 week old bantam cockerel bit me today, do they go through a bad teenage stage or something?
Quote:
Eventually they do, but that "sibling bond" seems to stay a long time. When everyone is out, they have "cliques" and go off with their original groups. I am seeing now tho, my original 4 (Red my rooster is one of them) include the next 2 hens that were added as theirs, all 6 stay together. Think it has to do with age also.
I have bantam 2 month olds in with year old LF. (not permanently, until they are laying) I do the merges all at once so they don't single out any certain chick. Usually at dusk when they are roosting or feed time right before. There's always a few disagreements but I micromanage them

On the skull issue, I can't really say. Maybe another member with more experience can help.

Is anyone else TIRED OF ALL THIS RAIN? I am going to have to build my chickens a boat pretty soon. They are on the highest part of our property, but with rain in the forecast 5 out of the next 10 days, I am afraid they will not be able to come out of their coop soon. I feel so bad for them. Right now they come out just long enough to drink, get their feet muddy, and then return to the coop. And they are EATING so much more because that is all they have to do. I would love to see the sun some time soon.

YES

Most of mine still go out and range but stay in the bushes more.
They all look a little dirty, but they go visit the goat pen and go under the milking stand to dust bath. they hate when I run them out.

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

The other day I built some pens snide my coop to move the younger chicks out of the garage. The best part, I was able to reuse leftover materials from previous projects! Didnt cost me anything to build them! They are just temporary until more coops are built. Anyways here they are. They are 10ft by 3ft and the top one is divided (small section not built but ultimately I want a removable divider between them.

Would never guessed it is repurposed materials. That's just awesome! I really want to get my whole brooding setup out of the breezeway, dust is awful in there.

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

How much pecking and fighting is too much when introducing younger girls with older girls?

There will be some. it will go on a few days, usually about a week at most.

Quote: Yes, the heartworm scam is a huge scare tactic, and really angers me. Talk about gouging!

Ivermectin pour on is the same medicine.
Read about it here..
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/310054/ivermectin-for-dogs-for-heartworms
theres several articles about it on the web too.

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

Do you think it's better to cull a chick or wait till a deformity makes them suffer?

Thats a question to ask yourself, It will need special care. This is always a hard one...Can you provide that care for it? Chickens can live 10 years.
I have a gosling with a deformed neck. I have kept her because I Love the grey chinese and am retired, so I have the time to care for her.
Part of being humane is quality of life, If you have the time to give then by all means, Let it live and flourish!
Just be sure it isn't in pain or suffering. Sometimes there is recovery or improvement in health issues too.

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

Quote: Its really not bad, I have done CX (Cornish cross) twice, lots of help it goes fast. They are the tyson or perdue chicken, lol. I am no expert but I know what stays and what to remove LOL, I hate plucking with a passion! I am still thinking how we can all get together to do this and help each other learn more about processing. My DH promises to build me a plucker out of a washing machine.

Guess which SLW is the boy ha ha.



Couple pictures from yesterday and today. Turned out to be a nice afternoon, no rain!


^^^above, all 8 are in the picture.


Our 2 WL, enjoying some wheel time:





^^^aahhh, free ranging, looking for bugs etc.

The coop is done, the run is mostly done. Now for the clean-up and making it look better and like it's been there for more than a few weeks.
Going to do some planting, sunflowers and other things.

The coop is exceptional, well done! And your birds are beautiful!

Quote: It does add up fast. I wouldn't change a thing tho myself, except for finding BYC sooner. I guess I don't count the start up expense against the eggs. (shed was already there, repurposed material etc.) But I know WHAT made the eggs I eat now. And i know WHAT that chicken ate before I eat it. (usually...

) I will be hatching all summer, into winter so we keep our freezer full.
Its all in what you want having chickens for!

 

[Mother2Hens]

My bubble was burst. I thought for sure that I won bradselig's contest (and I am still expecting the prize money. haha) No one even acknowledged my amazing discovery. Am I blind or just an ignorant newbie? Both? Here is bradselig's chick and the matching photo I found online.



Below: A Perfect Match! (at least I think so)


Btw, bradselig~ I love your coop pens and your one-of-every-breed-chicks!


iPad Users Unite
All of us who have iPads should PM the administrators Nifty-Chicken to urge them to make an iPad app.

 

[Mother2Hens]

Quinstar posted: Also, we're hoping to move to our new house this weekend and then we'll start building our coop! Any tips or tricks or words of wisdom from those of you who have built your own coops? I've gotten a lot of the materials for free, so we're hoping to do a 6X6 raised coop with an enclosed run and come in around 300-400. I think we can do it, but I know they always end up more expensive than you'd think. Do you think 6x6 will work for my 10 girls or should it be a little bit bigger? We are planning to let them free range when we get home after work and they will have a large enclosed run for the rest of the day. I was also thinking of doing some PVC chicken feeders. Has anyone tried these?

Grass~Winter Months
The part about letting them free range after work-- don't forget about the winter months when it gets dark early, like about the time you get home from work. However, if you have a large enclosed run, that would help. I would advise making two grazing frames for the enclosed run. We had no idea that the chickens would eat ALL the grass in our fenced-in back yard! We have two grazing frames now and I also take them out daily past the fenced-in area where there's plenty of grass. In the winter you could alternate growing grasses and feeding grasses using two frames. (Meanwhile, we are fencing off large areas to try to get some grass growing!)

Modify a yard barn or start from scratch?
Just some general thoughts~ Sometimes I wonder if it wouldn't be easier and less expensive to modify a yard barn. I know people often do that and then there are others like me who have no idea how much work and how expensive building a coop is, or in my case, having a coop built. I guess it depends on whether people have carpenter skills and equipment, whether you have time and money to spare.

 

[Too Fast]

Its really not bad, I have done CX (Cornish cross) twice, lots of help it goes fast. They are the tyson or perdue chicken, lol. I am no expert but I know what stays and what to remove LOL, I hate plucking with a passion! I am still thinking how we can all get together to do this and help each other learn more about processing. My DH promises to build me a plucker out of a washing machine.

The coop is exceptional, well done! And your birds are beautiful!

It does add up fast. I wouldn't change a thing tho myself, except for finding BYC sooner. I guess I don't count the start up expense against the eggs. (shed was already there, repurposed material etc.) But I know WHAT made the eggs I eat now. And i know WHAT that chicken ate before I eat it. (usually...

) I will be hatching all summer, into winter so we keep our freezer full.
Its all in what you want having chickens for!

I like the idea of getting together to process some chickens. Only the obnoxious ones, lol.

Thanks for the compliments on our coop, I just got brave enough this morning to add up our reciepts. Yes, we kept almost all of them, including the feed/water containers, the initial chickens, feed etc. In my mind I thought I'd be about $1100, it turns out to be spot-on. So far we've spent $1,047. Only 3x the origianal budget. Like a government thing, just a bit over the budget. We are still paying the tax for the original Hoosier Dome here in Indpls, for when the Colts came over in 1984. A 1% restaurant tax that was supposed to be retired in like 10 years!

 

[vickichicki]

Quinstar posted: Also, we're hoping to move to our new house this weekend and then we'll start building our coop! Any tips or tricks or words of wisdom from those of you who have built your own coops? I've gotten a lot of the materials for free, so we're hoping to do a 6X6 raised coop with an enclosed run and come in around 300-400. I think we can do it, but I know they always end up more expensive than you'd think. Do you think 6x6 will work for my 10 girls or should it be a little bit bigger? We are planning to let them free range when we get home after work and they will have a large enclosed run for the rest of the day. I was also thinking of doing some PVC chicken feeders. Has anyone tried these?

Grass~Winter Months
The part about letting them free range after work-- don't forget about the winter months when it gets dark early, like about the time you get home from work. However, if you have a large enclosed run, that would help. I would advise making two grazing frames for the enclosed run. We had no idea that the chickens would eat ALL the grass in our fenced-in back yard! We have two grazing frames now and I also take them out daily past the fenced-in area where there's plenty of grass. In the winter you could alternate growing grasses and feeding grasses using two frames. (Meanwhile, we are fencing off large areas to try to get some grass growing!)

Modify a yard barn or start from scratch?
Just some general thoughts~ Sometimes I wonder if it wouldn't be easier and less expensive to modify a yard barn. I know people often do that and then there are others like me who have no idea how much work and how expensive building a coop is, or in my case, having a coop built. I guess it depends on whether people have carpenter skills and equipment, whether you have time and money to spare.

General rule of thumb for coops is 4ft² per bird. This is really 2ft x 2ft. This is for the coop area it's self and not including the run.

I agree that sometimes the reuse of an exsisting building or purcahsing a building might be the way to go for some people. This way there is a sturdy structure to begin with and things can be modified after they are in.
The Menards ad this week has a 10 x 8 steel building listed for $269. This does not include the cost of the floor and there would have to be modifications for air vents and possibly insulation so it would not get too hot in there, but it is a great base price.
Now depending on where you are loacted you can scower the Craigslist ads and find some mini barns on there. Just saw one listed for free, you come take it.

I would love to have the ability to have build my addtional coops by now, but work means tools are out on jobs and all the other tools are at the shop. Anything I decide to build either has to be built at the shop and brought over, or loading up tools to bring back home.

Never be daunted by the idea of the project. It is a whole lot easier to do than you think. You just need a starting point.

Great idea on the grazing frames. My turkeys had the coops entire grass eaten in their first day.