INDIANA BYC'ers HERE!

[PeacefulWalls]

bradselig's former Silkies and Kiniska's former English Orpingtons:
I'm making myself finish my work before I look at the thread, but here's a new video. At first, they're playing on some "sod." I took a large knife outside and cut a rectangle of "grass" out of the side yard for them to play with. Just as I was going to stop filming them around 30 seconds, they started flying/jumping over the stick/perch. That's an especially cute part.

Share your video

Makes me miss having babies around. Can't wait till we get more chicks!!

 

[Dreamwalker]

They finally found a green spot .But sure it will be covered later today.

 

[PeacefulWalls]

We had freezing fog yesterday morning. It formed huge flakes of frost on everything -- even roosters! You can see the flakes standing on end.



My dead weeds have never looked prettier!


The flakes of frost started falling off as the sun got stronger. You can see them lying on the ground. I think it looks so cool!



Another gorgeous dead weed!

 

[racinchickins]

Hi all,

looking for recommendations on good hatchers. I've seen posts on here from time to time saying that people like to incubate and hatch in separate machines. I'm pretty sure I'm going to want to do that also, as I now have a cabinet incubator and won't want to waste 2 weeks of eggs waiting for the current set to hatch. I have three rows in the incubator, and I can start a new row each week if I can remove the earliest row to a separate hatcher.

So what does everyone recommend to use as a hatcher. I'm probably going with one of the still air incubators. Does one brand work better than others?

 

[browncow15]

So wish it was easier to multi quote with a phone!

Kab- I hope today's better than yesterday!

I keep starting my mornings WAY to early thanks to a certain 3 year old, who also decided to wake up his sister today!! Then I went out to find a limping rooster in the coop! I have no idea what's wrong with him. Maybe he stepped in some water yesterday and has frost bite? I don't see any injuries.

We do the raised lasagna beds and I love them! They are so easy to work with and thwy do sooo well. I will say with having free rangers around you def will want fencing because thwy will figure out what you're doing and it takes no time for them to dig up what you just spent hours planting!

Beautiful gardens!!! I can't wait to start mine this year! I got a couple of seed catalogs in the mail yesterday so I think that's what I'm going to spend my afternoon doing

 

[Leahs Mom]

Quote: I remember reading in Harvey Ussery's book that he was having such a problem with birds at one time that he finally bought a sparrow trap to take care of the problem.

I haven't had the problems yet but I've always filed that in the back of my mind.

Last summer the Robins were coming into the chain link run/kennel early in the morning (pop door still shut to hen shed) and in the evening after the chickens went in. I never saw any go into the hen shed but I didn't want them pillaging in the run, and also didn't want to encourage them to go inside or spread lice or mites! I ended up putting up some of the really cheap netting with zip ties on the south side of the pen - which seemed to be the only place they'd come through. Worked like a charm.

Now this assumes there is a pen out there! I also put it over the top to deter hawks. It is NOT predator proof, of course, but does keep the hawks out and the birds from coming through the chain link for a low price.

This is the stuff I used...100 ft. long and 7 ft. high for a pretty cheap price.

http://www.lowes.com/pd_510599-2313...&pl=1&currentURL=?Ntt=bird+netting&facetInfo=

 

[ChickCrazed]

I remember reading in Harvey Ussery's book that he was having such a problem with birds at one time that he finally bought a sparrow trap to take care of the problem.

I haven't had the problems yet but I've always filed that in the back of my mind.

Last summer the Robins were coming into the chain link run/kennel early in the morning (pop door still shut to hen shed) and in the evening after the chickens went in. I never saw any go into the hen shed but I didn't want them pillaging in the run, and also didn't want to encourage them to go inside or spread lice or mites! I ended up putting up some of the really cheap netting with zip ties on the south side of the pen - which seemed to be the only place they'd come through. Worked like a charm.

Now this assumes there is a pen out there! I also put it over the top to deter hawks. It is NOT predator proof, of course, but does keep the hawks out and the birds from coming through the chain link for a low price.

This is the stuff I used...100 ft. long and 7 ft. high for a pretty cheap price.

http://www.lowes.com/pd_510599-2313...&pl=1&currentURL=?Ntt=bird+netting&facetInfo=

Wow! Thanks! That is much cheaper than the chicken wire, looks much easier to work with and has smaller squares. The chicken wire was being put along existing chain link solely to keep birds out so this would work really well! I guess I am going to Lowes this week!

 

[Little Ameraucana Mom]

I am having the same problem right now, of course I cant afford the bird netting I have a lg run. it aint nothing to look out my kitchen window and see 100 of the dang things swarmed in my coop and the poor chickens run out by them... I of course go and run them off only for them to come back before I can even get out of the run. I saw someplace on here chicken self feeders, DH is trying to come up with something that will work with the amount of chickens I have.
We have got to do something, going through 3 50lb bags of scratch a week. that aint cutting it!!!

I remember reading in Harvey Ussery's book that he was having such a problem with birds at one time that he finally bought a sparrow trap to take care of the problem.

I haven't had the problems yet but I've always filed that in the back of my mind.

Last summer the Robins were coming into the chain link run/kennel early in the morning (pop door still shut to hen shed) and in the evening after the chickens went in. I never saw any go into the hen shed but I didn't want them pillaging in the run, and also didn't want to encourage them to go inside or spread lice or mites! I ended up putting up some of the really cheap netting with zip ties on the south side of the pen - which seemed to be the only place they'd come through. Worked like a charm.

Now this assumes there is a pen out there! I also put it over the top to deter hawks. It is NOT predator proof, of course, but does keep the hawks out and the birds from coming through the chain link for a low price.

This is the stuff I used...100 ft. long and 7 ft. high for a pretty cheap price.

http://www.lowes.com/pd_510599-2313...&pl=1&currentURL=?Ntt=bird+netting&facetInfo=

I

On this talk of netting. I have some really big runs, never had a hawk problem till this winter, and hawks have lived here for years. It would cost me thousands to cover my pens, so I've decided when it warms up , I'm going to try the big bale netting. it is like 7,000 feet for around $250. Anyone else ever tryed it ????

 

[SallyinIndiana]

Hi all,

looking for recommendations on good hatchers. I've seen posts on here from time to time saying that people like to incubate and hatch in separate machines. I'm pretty sure I'm going to want to do that also, as I now have a cabinet incubator and won't want to waste 2 weeks of eggs waiting for the current set to hatch. I have three rows in the incubator, and I can start a new row each week if I can remove the earliest row to a separate hatcher.

So what does everyone recommend to use as a hatcher. I'm probably going with one of the still air incubators. Does one brand work better than others?

I have a LG 9200 still air that I use for hatching. The good thing about the lack of a fan is the humidity does not dry out really really fast. The hard part of the model I have is maintaining an exact temp. if the room changes int he least bit so does the incubator. Not a big big deal for 3-4 days for a stay at home mom. I just make sure I check it frequently and make the tiny tiny adjustments. Not sure how many you are wanting to hatch at a time. But the still air models are for about 40 eggs. You might be able to get more eggs in there using the stand up in egg carton method but there needs to be room for the sponges to keep humidity high in a dry room.
The still air LG 9200 model is much much cheaper than the brinsea but the brinsea is more digital and has the option of an auto humidity pump.

 

[Leahs Mom]

On this talk of netting. I have some really big runs, never had a hawk problem till this winter, and hawks have lived here for years. It would cost me thousands to cover my pens, so I've decided when it warms up , I'm going to try the big bale netting. it is like 7,000 feet for around $250. Anyone else ever tryed it ????

I was on the phone with the pullet shut owner the other day and we talked about various things. This is one of the things we talked about and what he's doing in his fences for hawk protection.

I think he said he had 1 acre fenced but I may have mis-heard...he may have said 1/2 acre. Either way, that's a lot of area fenced that his birds run in. His fences are 8 ft. high. He did the SALT WATER heavy fishing line and threaded them across the whole thing about 1 ft. apart going in both directions. Then he tied some reflective, short ribbon of some sort along the lines (think of a granny-square quilt with the little ties)...This was just to make it more visible.

He said it has completely stopped any hawk attacks.

Now I have to emphasize that his fences are 8 ft high. It would work for 6 ft. high also. But if your fences are only 4 ft. fences, you'd have to put higher posts around it or else you wouldn't be able to walk in there!


The other thing he said was that he put ELECTRIC wiring standing out from the TOP of the pen to keep night predators from climbing in there....raccoon in particular. Said it totally stopped the night preds from going in.