INDIANA BYC'ers HERE!

[PeacefulWalls]

Remember in the movie Chicken Run Mrs. Tweety tells her husband the chickens do not organize? Well, I think my cinnamon queens held a committee meeting today & decided tonight they would show me that they can now fly. A couple of them flew to the top slats of their coop fence and would have flown out, but we were right there and stopped them. So out comes the hardware cloth & staple gun to secure the remaining top 2 feet. I went in the coop to visit with the chicks. While I was kneeling down to pet one of the girls a cinnamon decided to fly up and perch on the middle of my back. I finally got her off and stood up holding a chick and another decided to fly up and try to land on my arm. After a few more chickens flew and tried to land on me I decided it was time to tell them all good night!

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

Tried to take some photos of some of my chicks. They did not cooperate at all! But here is some photos. In photos I have 3 Black White Crested Polish, 1 Partridge Silkie, 2 Partridge Cochins, 2 what looks to be EE's, And 1 that looks to be a blue cochin and 1 pekin duck. Also I was able to get a picture of Older Blue Cochin Hen sitting on eggs. She has been broody for 3 days now.

beautiful babies, I am really liking our pekins, think I'll look for a few more!

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

Chickies!! They saw newspaper for the first time today. Their reaction:




Getting closer...:




...And after deciding it was okay:




Little Easter-egger bantam, Hika Ma. Leaning back toward boy for little Ma-Ma...




Rangi

And the little guy, Po.

Anyone know how long it takes before you can tell if a chick is frizzled or not? Po is supposed to be a black frizzle Cochin bantam, but he's from a frizzle X frizzle cross (I'm assuming by the page at the website of the hatchery he came from), so there's a 25% chance he's smooth feathered anyway...

I love your pictures!

I can't wait for my eggs to get here so that I can put them in the incubator. I have some coming from texas and some from virginia. They are suppose to be getting shipped tomorrow.Crossing my fingers they get here safe and sound

cant wait to see!

I have a question for anyone, everyone-- How many biosecurity measures do you use? I read about everyone swapping chickens and other animals. Do you use only certain boots in your chicken area (and different ones at the feed store, poultry shows, other chicken people property)? Use a bleach foot bath for visitors? I haven't read anything about disease plaguing (only predators ) in this group but I have only been a member for a short time.

I feel like the members here are conscious enough about their birds health that i don't worry much about it. I do quarantine new birds usually about a month. I have 2 pairs of boots for my chores, winter and summer. I only wear them tending to the animals here, and working in the yard. When I go out to feed stores or other farms, I have one pair of shoes for that too.
As far as visitors i don't know, I rarely EVER let anyone in my coops. Its just too great of a risk. I have a small porch area that I currently brood and hatch in, and that gets bleached out regularly, its just a concrete floor.. I take visitors looking for chicks in that room only. I explain to everyone I cannot take the risk of losing my flock, but they are welcome to walk by the pens anytime. I plan to get some surgical booties eventually for visitors, many people recommend using them. My birds do free range most of the afternoon and evenings, but tend to shy away from strangers.

 

[CluckAcres]

beautiful babies, I am really liking our pekins, think I'll look for a few more!

Thanks. I really like my Pekins as well. I have 3 now. hoping this little one is a female that way i have 2 females and 1 drake.

 

[zeke]

WisCONsin, eh? Of course welcome. Especially after the compliment. How many chickens deep are you? We have several here who have a dozen or less in their back yard (us) and many who have a LOT more.

I have 7 layers n 1 banty roo,,, Had a tough spring 7 hens stolen right off the farm we think and a mink got in the coop and killed 8 layers n 1 roo now that stinks,,,However I do have 50 ....5wk old chicks transitioning to the coop soon Several breads, nothing to fancy I am hoping to hatch out some real nice lav orps and some english orps I am getting eggs from 2 seperate gals on the wisc thread,,, take a look at it sometime ,,Got some real good people on there,,, Your always welcome!!!! We dont say EH! in WisCONsin,, those EH sayers are the Yoopers[upper Mich.] well and Canada,,,, But you got it half right You know If we pronounce it WisCONsin it must be right,,,,I think maybe YOU-ALL got it wrong!!!!

Hope you all have a nice evening!


Zeke,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

Remember in the movie Chicken Run Mrs. Tweety tells her husband the chickens do not organize? Well, I think my cinnamon queens held a committee meeting today & decided tonight they would show me that they can now fly. A couple of them flew to the top slats of their coop fence and would have flown out, but we were right there and stopped them. So out comes the hardware cloth & staple gun to secure the remaining top 2 feet. I went in the coop to visit with the chicks. While I was kneeling down to pet one of the girls a cinnamon decided to fly up and perch on the middle of my back. I finally got her off and stood up holding a chick and another decided to fly up and try to land on my arm. After a few more chickens flew and tried to land on me I decided it was time to tell them all good night!

I go out and sit with my birds in the afternoon. I usually have a lapful! If I sit on the ground, the geese take over tho

 

[critterwhisper]

Wow- didnt think i would ever finish reading the posts from the last 7 days! With baseball/softball we havent had time for anything else. Is this a time for lil roosters to appear? From what i have read i am not the only one with a rooster surprise. My two and half polish decided to make himself known yesterday morning when i let them out.recorded this morning to make sure i wasnt hallucinating. ICE is a he. Good news is if he continues to crow only a few times in the morning and plays nice- hubby says he can stay.

 

[kabhyper1]

We went & visited them a couple of weeks ago -- they are a very nice couple. Renae was the one who recommended Crick's for shearing. They spent a lot of time with us showing how they process their alpaca fiber and Renae showed us how to needle felt. We came home and skirted/cleaned some of our thirds fiber to practice on. The kids are loving needle felting! My son even did his 4-H club demo this past week on everything he learned about alpaca fiber on our visit with them. And now I'm drooling over a wool picker and a wool carder to process our fiber, although I should find someone who can give me some hands on instruction.

They came here for our shearing last Friday. We have become pretty good friends with them. They are always rescuing me from panicking over something silly. lol. I havent done anything with our fiber yet. Not sure what we are going to do with it. I'm glad Renae did that for you. You almost have to befriend someone in the business when it comes to alpacas. I'm learning that about chickens too. Learning new things everyday it seems.

 

[Mother2Hens]

I replied: I am the boring one who just has five hens and has one year of experience. I was feeling so proud of myself for demonstrating self-restraint (unlike EVERYone else on this thread! haha), but my maternal instincts are messing with my brain. I am rationalizing the idea of perhaps adding two more to my flock by noting that friends and neighbors love our eggs and I never have enough. (It's not just chicken math, vickie chickie, it's egg math, too!)

Pipd~ you are partially responsible for habitually posting adorable baby chick photos!

Update on my unplanned plan: Today, I unpacked three wooden polka-dotted Easter eggs and painted them light brown and put them in one of the nesting boxes. We'll see what happens... if one of my hens goes broody, then I am hoping to put a lavender orpington egg and a blue/black orpington egg in there without having my hand pecked off. Oh, and I have to procure the fancy eggs. haha I've seen some on eBay and craigslist, but I basically don't know what I am doing. First, I will see if one of my hens fall for fakery or if I find the eggs tossed out of the coop tomorrow!

 

[Too Fast]

I have a question for anyone, everyone-- How many biosecurity measures do you use? I read about everyone swapping chickens and other animals. Do you use only certain boots in your chicken area (and different ones at the feed store, poultry shows, other chicken people property)? Use a bleach foot bath for visitors? I haven't read anything about disease plaguing (only predators ) in this group but I have only been a member for a short time.

Those are good ideas, but in our back yard we don't use any. Maybe we need to? I let whoever wants to in the coop/run. And welcome to BYC!


Pipped, love the eyeshadow on Rangi!