INDIANA BYC'ers HERE!

[barb s]

I don't know if we will be able to go to the Nationals this year either. My husband isn't sure whether he has to work, and I can't drive.

You are going to have quite a flock come spring! Lots of different and interesting breeds! Who are you ordering from? You must have some land to spread out on. We live in Indianapolis, on almost an acre. My husband doesn't want more than 6 chickens and no roosters. We'll see how he feels once he gets used to them. He didn't like cats when we got married either, and now we have a whole clowder of them, and he is devoted to them!

I am going to buy one or two of the Heritage English Light Sussex pullets and two or three of the Heritage English Buff Orpingtons pullets this fall. Next spring I'll at least add Heritage RIRs and BRs. I'd like a really orange New Hampshire Red, too. Guess I want colored chickens more than colored eggs!

The Isbars, Breda, Light Sussex, Coronation Sussex and Swedish Flower Hens I ordered from Walt's Ark. I just added Silver Sussex to the order. They have American, Australian and Canadian lines of Sussex. You can pick the line that you want or get a mix of lines, which is what I did. Very nice to deal with. My chicks will be arriving in May. I'm soooo excited. I also just ordered 3 Buckeye and 3 German New Hampshires from Sunbird Farms. Waiting on confirmation and delivery date on them. I think that I will be getting them sooner than next spring though. Maybe when you are ready for some New Hampshires I will be able to help you out.

We bought an old farmhouse on 2 acres of ground this summer. The house needed quite a bit of work done to it before we could move in so we have been working on that. Its been a long process as we are doing all the work ourselves. It's amazing how everyone just disappears when you need help but if they need help they expect you to drop everything to help them. Anyways, we are finally getting close and hope to be moved in by the end of the month. The property already had an 8 x 8 chicken coop on it and my sister gave me a 10 x 12 shed turned chicken coop that we moved over there a couple of weekends ago. Both need work done to them, but I hope to be able to at least get them ready for the chickens this weekend. I think that since my DF's son is who is moving into our current house that I should be able to get a lot of help because I have already informed them and my DF that I am not moving without my chickens.

My DF is a wonderful man. He doesn't care how many chickens or animals that I have. He loves the fresh eggs we get. He doesn't get to eat the chickens though. Our goal is to become totally self sufficient. Having grown up farming and raising farm animals he knows that you have to have good quality stock in order for it to pay off. So he's all for the Heritage Breeds of chickens as long as I don't go to far overboard at one time.

I do have a question both breeders that I am getting chicks from vaccinate for Merak's and none of the chickens that I currently have are vaccinated. Is this going to be a problem? Okay I have two questions. If I do end up getting the Buckeye and New Hampshire in the next couple of weeks how long do I need to keep them quarantined from my other chicks?

Sorry for the long post guess I got a little carried away.

 

[barb s]

Naturally. We'll PM you with progress.

Two of the chicks have brown stripes on their heads and chipmunk stripes on their backs. One chick has a Harry Potter spot on his head and no markings on his back. Here's their first photo shoot:

They're complaining about their vaccines.

Here's a closeup of the gold one:

Can he be ANY CUTER?!!!

Here's the bunch as they hang out with Mom:


Sharing a little fuzzy happiness to brighten your day.

adorable!!

 

[browncow15]

If you keep adding to it a bit at a time as you have time, it can get nice and deep and keep the "critters" from getting totally frozen out in the winter.  I just add to it as I go.

Kind of like making a "forest floor".  The leaves fall, wood pieces are deteriorating and bugs and good microbes are at work.  As they dig in there they actually get some good bacteria (think probiotics) that helps them build a good immune system.

It's a win-win situation and they also have something to do with themselves when they're stuck inside the run.

Only 1 thing I don't use is straw.  Straw takes a LONG time to break down and the hollow "straw-like" pieces can harbor lice.  It also tends to mold since it takes so long to break down.  I used some straw bales to sit on and as a wind-break during the winter last year but at the end of the season I removed them and tried to get any stray straw off the ground.  I actually burn the stuff to avoid the molds and bad bugs.

I haven't used hay or straw in my chicken coop at all. I do use straw bedding for my cows though so I'll keep the mold issue in mind. I didn't realize straw took so long to break down, but I did notice an awful lot of it still visible when we moved the manure pile a few weeks ago!

I bought a standard sediment filter and installed it on the outlet side of the well pressure tank.  Before installing it, a bucket of water had a orange hue to it.  Afterwards, it is completely clear.

I was surprised at the difference.   The filters for us last 2 or 3 months before they start to plug up and constrict water flow.  The filters are 2 or 3 bucks.  The filter holder contraption was 20 or 30 as I recall.

With all the iron rust removed from the water, my chickens weigh less and can fly to the top roost more readily.

John

By sediment filter do you mean just a string filter? We have one on ours it helps a ton! Especially before we had a new well drilled.

Stupid question, I can usually figure out the breed abbreviations but what is a BCM ?

 

[kabhyper1]

Okay guys bear with me, I have another question. My silkie apparently got poop on her feet and layed on her eggs. Now they have poop on them. Its not brood poop because there would be a lot bigger mess lol. They are 14 days in. Should I wash them in water? Or leave them be. I heard dry wiping pushes bacteria into the shell so I didn't want to do that. Help!

 

[SallyinIndiana]

I would let the eggs be.

 

[kabhyper1]

Quote:
Okay, thanks. I figured since there are hens who hide their eggs and we never know bout them, hatch chicks just fine. I'm sure the eggs don't stay spotless in a pile of dirt in the woods somewhere. lol It just looks unsanitary. I don't want to hurt them by over helping. I just wasn't sure if I should do something or not.

 

[wheezy50]

Here is a couple pics I've taken so far. 9 of 10 eggs hatched but two chicks didn't make it through the first night. But we have 7 happy, healthy little ones. Five are bantams and two LF.

 

[wheezy50]

 

[racinchickins]

I'm also thinking about honey bees next spring. I bought a couple of books and plan on reading up on them this winter. I'm going to try my hand at building a couple top bar hives this winter also. The only hesitation I have is that I have heard you don't get honey the first year. It has been hard enough waiting 4 months to get eggs from the chickens! I hate it when hard work doesn't pay off relatively quickly!

You heard correctly. We got our first hives this year, and no honey till next year. You want to make sure the bees have plenty stored up to make is through the winter. Once the hive gets established, then you can get honey. We are looking at top bar hives too, plan is to have them ready to either split an existing hive next year, or get new bees and add a hive.

Naturally. We'll PM you with progress.

Two of the chicks have brown stripes on their heads and chipmunk stripes on their backs. One chick has a Harry Potter spot on his head and no markings on his back. Here's their first photo shoot:

They're complaining about their vaccines.

Here's a closeup of the gold one:

Can he be ANY CUTER?!!!

Here's the bunch as they hang out with Mom:


Sharing a little fuzzy happiness to brighten your day.

Very cute chicks. What breed or mix are they?

 

[PeacefulWalls]

Soooo, i am still thinking about my honeybees. If anyone keeps them, let me know if you enjoy it. Starting to get real interested in them!
The office trailer has been here a few weeks, and I am using it for my brooding chicks. Even in the hottest weather, the bees are not aggressive.
Some have landed on me, then flew off. Really calm, not like a yellow jacket, wood bee or the nasty paper wasps.
Are they difficult to keep, what do they need to thrive? We rarely see any here so I am very curious.

Quote:

I'm also thinking about honey bees next spring. I bought a couple of books and plan on reading up on them this winter. I'm going to try my hand at building a couple top bar hives this winter also. The only hesitation I have is that I have heard you don't get honey the first year. It has been hard enough waiting 4 months to get eggs from the chickens! I hate it when hard work doesn't pay off relatively quickly!

Our family ventured into beekeeping. 3 years ago both of the kids joined the 4-H bee club. The first 2 years of club the project requirement was a poster to display. We were still in town and didn't have a place for hives, so we spent that time learning. Last year, once we were living out of town, we set up 2 hives. We wanted the benefit of the pollination for our garden & the orchard we planted, but especially wanted to produce our own honey. I personally think it takes a certain type of personality to have bees -- you really have to want to do it. My son was kind of wishy-washy about it, but my daughter & I thought we would enjoy it. For a while during the spring and early summer it wasn't bad for us. But what we hated was when it was time to take frames out and get all the bees off so we could extract honey for fair. We didn't really have a good way to do it and we were so afraid of making just a couple of the bees mad enough that they would sting & send out the warning pheromones to the others to attack! (Happened once when some accidently got stepped on - yikes!) It also seemed like whenever it was time to check the fullness of the frames hives it was super hot, we were sweltering in our bee suits and it took us forever since we were so new. Quite the sensation to have thousands of bees swarming around and on you with just the smoker to use to puff "calming" puffs of smoke around! For us, it just turned out not to be an enjoyable experience, which I was kind of disappointed about. It became a dreaded task to tend to them. It's not a lot of work, but it's work that has to be done when it is time for it -- some tasks can't be postponed -- especially if your hive is too full. If you wait an extra day you might not have a hive left because they're swarmed looking for more space. Often we were so busy with other stuff that we weren't able to tend to things when we should have. Sometimes (often?) we felt like we really had no clue what we were doing or what needed to be done & when -- could have used a bit more mentoring. One other negative that was fairly unique for us -- since the bees have to have access to water, they decided our little beach area by our pond was the perfect spot for them -- all that nice, wet sand at the edge of the water. We had to be sooo careful every time we went to swim so we wouldn't step on them. A couple of feet did actually get stung. We were pretty tired of that by the end of summer. All these things obviously influenced how we felt about the whole adventure.

However, you could have the personality of our 4-H club leader who is in heaven with all the bees swarming around him -- says it is calming!

I think it's one of those things -- either love it or hate it. On the flip side, we had sooo much fun when it was actually time to extract and bottle the honey. If that's all we had to do I'd love it. We extracted about 140 lbs. of honey. A lot of people bought honey from us multiple times -- said they loved it -- and were sorry when we didn't have any more left to sell. We still have our 2 complete hives & equipment in my garden work shed. Not sure if we'll try it again in a couple of years or end up selling it all -- it was a pricey adventure! But at least my gardening area has a wonderful honey smell on warm sunny days when the temperature goes up in there -- love the honey house smell!