INDIANA BYC'ers HERE!

[Too Fast]

I just pulled the trigger and ordered chicks from Cackle Hatchery in MO. I'm getting ten pullets - five Black Australorps and five Easter Eggers. *gulp* I'm limited to six hens since I live in the city, so my cousin is taking the extra four when they are ready.

Yes congrats Kat! Is your coop/run built yet? They grow soooooo fast! 15 weeks into our chickens, we got our first egg today. Didn't expect any until August! Found it under the coop, now our nest boxes are filled with fresh straw and a golf ball to give the ladies an idea where to lay.

 

[racinchickins]

Yes congrats Kat! Is your coop/run built yet? They grow soooooo fast! 15 weeks into our chickens, we got our first egg today. Didn't expect any until August! Found it under the coop, now our nest boxes are filled with fresh straw and a golf ball to give the ladies an idea where to lay.

Ooooh. Very exciting. I got my chicks the same time you got yours. So I'll be scouring the run and coop from now on hoping for that first egg too!

 

[HouseKat]

Yes congrats Kat! Is your coop/run built yet? They grow soooooo fast! 15 weeks into our chickens, we got our first egg today. Didn't expect any until August! Found it under the coop, now our nest boxes are filled with fresh straw and a golf ball to give the ladies an idea where to lay.

I have a spot picked out for the coop and run, but I need to find a design and start gathering the materials.

 

[Too Fast]

^^^you better work quickly!

 

[pbirdhaven]

HELP!I have never seen a chick like this before.It dosent have splayed legs or anything it is like it grew the wrong way at its joint or something.It was hatched like this but I just realized it.Is there anyway to fix this?

It would be a long shot, but depending upon how much time you want to spend trying, here is what happened with a peachick that I hatched a few years ago.

This is how Trooper hatched.

These are the "shoes" I built from pipe cleaners.

After about 3 days. Of course, I had to keep putting them back on every time he picked them off.


Trooper now

 

[HouseKat]

^^^you better work quickly!

How long would you estimate that I have until they will be ready to be outside?

I do have a backup plan for if the coop isn't ready in time, an existing space that I could enclose and use.

 

[vickichicki]

So some good news/bad news. First the good. We got our first egg today, should be from a leghorn. This girl could be the layer. Also, her boyfriend has started some crowing. My son told me today that he has some bad news. He said this rooster was standing on one of the leghorns, trying to swallow her head from behind. He said he chased him off and scolded the rooster. I guess boys will be boys at any age!

Many congratulations on your first egg. I would expect sporadic egg laying for a while. When they get into the swing of things each chicken should be putting out 6 eggs every 7 days, as a general rule. Dependent on breed, weather, molting etc. I get between 7-9 eggs most days with the least ever being 5 from my 9 girls. Our first egg happened to be a double yolker. Bigger than the store brought eggs too. Wanted to share it with everyone.

 

[Quinstar]

Bury the cloth at least 20 inches out horizontally also. Or, we buried ours down about 4 inches, and 20 inches out horizontally. Much easier than digging down to bury it vertically in this concrete, er, clay soil we have. Coops looking great!

Thanks! We actually rented a trencher for a couple of hours and it's already dug out. We have clay as well, so I can't imagine doing it by hand. We are thinking of throwing down some pavers around it as well. Can't make it too secure!

[COLOR=B22222]WOW! That looks wonderful! You have some lucky chickens. : - )[/COLOR]

It's been a lot of hard work. I'll be thrilled when it finally all comes together.

I just pulled the trigger and ordered chicks from Cackle Hatchery in MO. I'm getting ten pullets - five Black Australorps and five Easter Eggers. *gulp* I'm limited to six hens since I live in the city, so my cousin is taking the extra four when they are ready.

Congrats! My EEs are some of my favorites, especially Carl, our unexpected Rooster.

How long would you estimate that I have until they will be ready to be outside? I do have a backup plan for if the coop isn't ready in time, an existing space that I could enclose and use.

I believe anywhere from 5-8 weeks. General rule I've read is whenever they are fully feathered. Our coop has taken far longer than I thought it would so start now! You can't give yourself too much time. We got three sections of wire up today!!! Only like 8 more to go. :-/

 

[racinchickins]

INVITATION!!! It's a CHICKEN PARTY

I've been talking to jchny2000 about her idea for a get-together for the Indiana BYCers. She wasn't able to find a good place to hold it near her house, so I am volunteering to have it at my place.

On Sunday 28 July, my DSO (Significant Other) and I are going to host a meeting of the Central Indiana Poultry Enthusiasts. This is a small club of chicken folk from the general Indy area that meet every other month at the house of one of the members. We admire the hosts chickens and coops, talk endlessly about our birds, and shamelessly steal their best ideas to make our chicks more comfortable (kinda like we do on here!

)

We'd like to invite anyone from the forum here that would like to come and meet other people as crazy about chickens as we are.

Here are some details and Ideas.

The meeting is usually from 3 to 5 or 6ish. Bring a lawn chair and a snack to share. Drinks will be provided. The DSO loves to cook, so there will be some fun things to eat too. There will be a tour of our coop and run setup and a meet and greet with our chickens and turkeys. We call it a meeting, but it really is just a chance to socialize with other chicken folk.

One of the things that was talked about was a workshop on processing poultry. I am blessed/cursed with an overabundance of boys at the current time. So I would like to propose that anyone interested in this portion of chickendom can show up around 11, and we can put on the workshop then. If you have a bird that needs to have that 'One Bad Day', go ahead and bring it. I can promise to have at least one bird for demo purposes and will probably have more than that if one or two people want to try their hand at it. For those that are not interested in this, we promise to be done and all cleaned up before 3.

Another idea is that if you know someone else who is coming and would like to arrange to swap/sell/transfer birds, that is fine by me. I have a large garage that has never seen my chickens, so I can offer it up as a place to keep birds being swapped so that they can be out of the sun and not kept in a car. Please make your arrangements ahead of time, and only bring birds that are already spoken for.

Our farm is located just east of Mooresville, IN. Which is located just SW of Indy not too far from the airport.

I'm just paranoid enough about things to not want to post my address and phone number on the forum where it is available to anyone and everyone, so what I would like to propose is that if you are interested in coming, please send me a PM, and I'll put together an email to send out to the participants with all the pertinent details.

If you have any questions, or suggestions, send me a note.

Hope you can make it!

Patrick



My spell checker here promises that if you come, he will be more than happy to entertain you with his cuteness. (Don't tell him that he will be at that awkward age by then....)

 

[CCCCCCCCHICKENS]

I don't think that it is fixable. In other words I think it is a special needs chick and a mother chick would most likely not keep it alive for long. Sorry. I could be wrong. I would post pictures in the emergency section and get more opinions too.

okay that is sad, but I will post it there too.