INDIANA BYC'ers HERE!

[hogster160]

What are these? I've never seen them before. Are they difficult to put on and do they stay on? Have they helped? [/

...

The curtains are a great idea! I am so stealing it. Thank you. Yes wonderful idea, consider this stolen x2!

Note to self- stop putting so many sets of eggs in the incubator so close to each other! It's not fun trying to fit them all into the hatcher! Thankfully I hav a 5 day window now to clear out the hatcher before I have to lockdown more eggs.

Ok, I'm new to chickens, less than a year, so please forgive me for my curiosity. But how many chicks do you hatch each year, and what do you do with them? It just seems like you always have chicks hatching. Do you keep some, sell some? Do you find it hard to sell them? Do you hatch during the winter months? See curious, sorry!

So I moved her. After finding multiple eggs that weren't marked under her today, and three hens in the nesting box with her enabling her egg stealing problem, I moved her to the barn. She was a bit confused at first, but ate and drank and pooed and went back to the eggs. I accidentally broke one of the eggs she was sitting on this morning, so there are twelve now. But it was developing, the blastoderm/ target, was larger than a fresh egg. I felt badly, but she has twelve more to work with and there are three eggs in the silkie coop this morning, plus the four layed by the big girls, so I'm not short on fertile eggs at all. lol She's in there, just hard to see. [URL=https://www.backyardchickens.com/content/type/61/id/5975287/]

Very nice setup. I'm sure she is comfy. I know that when I moved my broody, she seemed more content, she didn't have to protect the nest. If I had waited for her to go out to eat etc, I'd still be waiting. She didn't move for 2 days. So I started taking her off the nest 1 a day. Then we had that 90+ weather, I took her off 2-3 a day and made sure she ate and drank each time. I pretty much hand fed her some days. Although she always had food and water in her area, she never touched it.[/URL]

 

[hogster160]

So I gave my mother in law my bantam cochin rooster Oliver... This is what she posted on fb that he is doing today. Can you say spoiled! He does live outside with his two big hens, not sure why he was in the house LOL. He is also a therapy chicken for my husbands grandmother who has alzheimers. He sits with her outside all the time. He thinks he is a big rooster. He is a war dancing toe pecker, but he is adorable!

That is one cool rooster!

 

[julie0477]

Awe my lil 22 wk old buff orp went full on broody. I got pecked trying to put her back in the coop. This is no time for babies lil lady!!

 

[kabhyper1]

Awe my lil 22 wk old buff orp went full on broody. I got pecked trying to put her back in the coop. This is no time for babies lil lady!!

Apparently our girls did not get the memo.

 

[hogster160]

It's been a very busy couple of days. I had to move my turkeys out of my chicken yard. The turkey hen got a hold of one of the smaller sized layers and ended up breaking the chickens beak. So I fenced in a new run for the turkeys. It's 25 x 90 for just the 2 of them. Then I made a secluded run in the chicken yard for mama and her babies. They will have plenty of room until mama decides to re join the flock. Then I finished up the run area for the meat birds (well almost) still just a bit of clean up to do.

Then I took the meat birds outside for some foraging. I just put them in the 4x4 and I took the injured chicken over with me. She did a great job foraging with them and showing them what to do. Then she found my flower bed and all help was done lol. It was wonderful to just sit there for a few and enjoy them. They were a lot more active than was I was expecting. They we trying out those little wings of theirs, lol. It was a great way to end my day.

Mama and chicks in their run

Little meaties enjoying their first foraging.

Hmmm it appears I did not give my turkeys equal time with the camera (ipad) I'll have to fix that little problem tomorrow.

 

[Kiniska]

How cute!!!

 

[Thunder Chicken]

She has some cute glasses now, eh? I love the drawn in eyelashes. How do they stay on? The specks, not the drawn-on lashes lol. And how hard was it to put them on the hen?

They have pegs that go in the nostrils. John made me draw the eyes on. He insisted when I was talking about them before.

Bald Eagles. Well, that's what they look like.

That's exactly what I thought, lol.

Where did you get those?

Very nice!

Ebay. They come with the pliers and you can get different colors. Here's a link to the peepers I bought.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/10-Pinless-...t=LH_DefaultDomain_0&var=&hash=item4ac998a6f4

What are these? I've never seen them before. Are they difficult to put on and do they stay on? Have they helped?

My son held her to keep her from flapping. I grabbed her head with my left hand with her beak between thumb and forefinger. Slipped it on with my right hand. It took a couple of times because she would pop her head up just as I was ready to let go. It is definitely helping.

 

[strssdmom]

It's been a very busy couple of days. I had to move my turkeys out of my chicken yard. The turkey hen got a hold of one of the smaller sized layers and ended up breaking the chickens beak. So I fenced in a new run for the turkeys. It's 25 x 90 for just the 2 of them. Then I made a secluded run in the chicken yard for mama and her babies. They will have plenty of room until mama decides to re join the flock. Then I finished up the run area for the meat birds (well almost) still just a bit of clean up to do.

Then I took the meat birds outside for some foraging. I just put them in the 4x4 and I took the injured chicken over with me. She did a great job foraging with them and showing them what to do. Then she found my flower bed and all help was done lol. It was wonderful to just sit there for a few and enjoy them. They were a lot more active than was I was expecting. They we trying out those little wings of theirs, lol. It was a great way to end my day.


Mama and chicks in their run



Little meaties enjoying their first foraging.

Hmmm it appears I did not give my turkeys equal time with the camera (ipad) I'll have to fix that little problem tomorrow.

The meat birds are so cute. What do you feed them? Keeping them separate, do you feed them differently than if you would have them with the flock?

 

[hogster160]

The meat birds are so cute.  What do you feed them?  Keeping them separate, do you feed them differently than if you would have them with the flock?

Thank you, I feed ff using non medicated chick feed. I was just keeping their feeder full for the first 2 weeks. But then someone shared a meat bird feeding/weight page with me. So now I will pull their total amount of feed each day, and feed them that through out the day for the next week, then put them down to just 3 feedings a day with weekly increase plus forage time daily. They are being raised separate from my layers who get ff 2xs a day.

Since they are only a day older than my hatched chicks, I thought about slipping them under mama. But of course, when I thought about it, the meaties were already much larger than my hatched chicks, who just seem so tiny. I also thought 20 chicks would be a bit much for first time mama. So they are separate. Maybe if I have a broody in the spring, I'll do it then.

 

[Kiniska]

Have any of you given calf manna to your chickens?