INDIANA BYC'ers HERE!

[Panth]

Yeah, I was gonna go get the plywood for the new poopboards today, but the farthest I made it was sitting on the patio watching my happy chickens hunt for grass. Oh well, its a Sunday, what else can I say!

 

[bradselig]

congrats on the hatch cluck! i had a swedish flower hen hatch last night and another on peeping in its shell. overall im much happier with this hatch than the first. kinda scared to use that new little giant as a hatcher again. my old LG seems to do a better job for me.

 

[CluckAcres]

congrats on the hatch cluck! i had a swedish flower hen hatch last night and another on peeping in its shell. overall im much happier with this hatch than the first. kinda scared to use that new little giant as a hatcher again. my old LG seems to do a better job for me.

Im getting much better results so far from my homemade coolerbater than i am with my lg. LOL Congrats on the new hatches as well.

 

[Mother2Hens]

Yeah, I was gonna go get the plywood for the new poopboards today, but the farthest I made it was sitting on the patio watching my happy chickens hunt for grass. Oh well, its a Sunday, what else can I say!

Hello-- I think you were the one who wants to make poop boards that slide out (I don't have time to go back and read a gabillion posts-haha). I'm sure you have more birds than just the five hens I have, but I just wanted to say that I had a poop tray made when my coop was constructed, which can slide out the side of the coop to clean. However, it is heavy and cumbersome, so I just have two plastic (easier to clean than a wood tray) cat litter boxes placed in the tray, which I clean out by walking into the coop to have access rather than sliding the tray out the side. You can see what I am talking about on my profile page coop photo album. Having that tray made plus having an opening made to slide it out ended up being unnecessary for my needs. It is good to have a tray or a frame or something to hold the litter boxes in place so the chickens don't knock them over. But, as I said, your flock situation may not be the same as mine.

 

[Mother2Hens]

Subject: Possum visiting chickens in coop.
My husband hates them, too. I used to worry they would bother the chickens but they never did until this one. And he actually wasn't bothering them

just sharing their roost. Who knows what might have happened? Maybe he was a nightly visitor that never caused harm.

If he hadn't been in the chicken house I would have left him alone. I learned a hard lesson years ago when I killed a possum and had baby possums showing up everywhere! I then felt obligated to rescue them.

We had a possum that regularly visited. He or she would sit on the top of our deck railing near a tree. Many times we looked out to find out cats a couple a feet away from the possum on top of the deck railing. They would just hang out together. Ironically, now that we have had chickens for a year, I haven't seen a possum although I know that they surely are around at night as well as raccoons. Our coop is a fortress.

 

[vickichicki]

Yay the poop board is up https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/752684/my-poop-board-with-pictures

 

[vickichicki]

Alright, the follow up on the coyotes.

Coyote hunting season ends 15th March (I would assume you need a permit for this)

Pelts are currently not selling as they are losing their winter coats.

So now what....?

The law states you are allowed to 'take' any nuisance animal off your property. By take they mean kill and destroy. This includes trapping and killing of.
Obviously gun laws differ from county to county. (Not allowed to discharge a weapon within city limits in my county). Check your local laws.

You are not allowed to kill a nuisance animal and sell it off for profit, live or dead (unsure of the laws for that during hunting season). You are not allowed to trap a wild animal and release it in another location.

That is all I can offer for right now.

Would have been nice to be told pelts sell all year... go nuts huh.

 

[vickichicki]

So I may have gotten more chicks... Dam me and my weak will...

The only breed I am sure of is the Silkie.. (5th toe thing) Think he might be white.
Hoping I have snagged three Golden Seabrights.
Possible Buff Brahma ha ma
Mystery brown head white eyebrows
and one with multi-colours and darker legs.

The little multi-coloured one was not looking so hot last night but I syringed water to the side of his beak. Put him back in and he drank a gallon of water and is much perkier today. Temp seems ok for all the others. Maybe he was already dehydrated when I picked him up.

All the others are looking good. Although I have some sneaking feelings one of my Bantams was an escapee from another group. H is real big comapred to everyone else.

 

[bradselig]

Congrats on the new chicks! I kind of think its fun to get mystery chicks. The one I got has the fluffiest beard/muffs. I'm assuming its an EE but don't think of them as a Fry Pan breed.

I have an egg that has internally pipped for more than 24 hrs now. There is no sign of external pipping. At what point should one intervene?

 

[pbirdhaven]

I can't believe how fast the chicks grow. The Wyandots and sebrights ,OEG are still not friendly at all and sooo skiddish. No matter what I do or how much I work with them. The GC,BR and astralorps are super fun and excited to see me and run to my hands as do the free(Roos) BBs. The 2 Millie's that survived are mean! And my favorites so far are the ameraucanas pullets, they are the younges, but even still have been the calmest, sweetest and are happy to be picked up and petted and run to greet me. I do have one problem. The one we think is a silver sebright is the smallest of the lot. And has started head twitching. Like Parkinson's. I've done some searching thru the health threads but am open to ideas. They all get the probiotic , and electrolytic packets in their water and also a touch of VM. Ideas?

I tried sebrights for a while but got rid of them because I don't care for skittish chickens. I enjoy my australorps and ameraucanas also; very sociable. My Brahmas and Marans are super friendly also.

I would separate the twitchy chick and watch it just in case it's something contagious. There are so many things that can go wrong. You might check for mites also. It could be something neurological; I was told by a top breeder that chicks have soft spots like human babies, and sometimes the skull doesn't grow together as it should and can cause problems. How often do they get the electrolytes? Sometimes they can get an overdose of vitamins. My preference is a few drops of Oxine in the water one day and a small amount of electrolytes the next. The Oxine helps to keep the water pure and to protect against bacterial or viral infections.