INDIANA BYC'ers HERE!

[Kiniska]

Question for those of you with goats--can dwarf/ Pygmy goats be house trained? Has anybody had or heard of having them in the house as pets?

I had a friend who kept one in the house. She put a diaper on it with a hole cut for the tail. Her husband finally made her put it outside because it figured out how to jump on the kitchen table.

 

[Kiniska]

[COLOR=800080]minmin~[/COLOR] [COLOR=8B4513]I'll be in the same situation since I have silkie and orp chicks. Basically, you just have to slowly introduce both flocks. When I introduced my last two orps to the flock last summer, first I put the orp chicks in a tractor in the yard. When my hens noticed them, they walked around the tractor, but the only one who was mad was of course Nene, my RIR. We did that routine for several days, and then when I let the orps out of the tractor for a while each day, I supervised the whole time. Then, when decided to move them into the hens' coop at night, I put the orps in the run side of the coop, which has a perch, and I blocked that side of with a large folded dog kennel (their former brooder). The bars of the kennel allowed them to all see each other. Over a few weeks time, I gradually left a bigger opening until I finally removed the cage. At first when they free-ranged during the day, they'd stay in two groups, but eventually they joined forces.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=8B4513]I haven't had silkies before, so I'm not sure if there's any difference in introducing them to the hens since silkies look so different. I have a small coop that I have for an emergency quarantine that I thought about using for the silkies, but since I have Bonbon, my chocolate orp, in with the LF hens, I might just see if they'll all adjust to the big coop.[/COLOR]

You are going to have quite the flock this year M2H.

 

[pginsber]

How long do Pygmy/dwarf goats live?

 

[CCCCCCCCHICKENS]

We've raised meal worms for about 4 yrs. They are so easy. We use chicken feed, I have them in one of those plastic 3 draw containers you get at wal mart.. Put in some potatoes and that is all we do.

How cute !!!

My daughter likes the NN, but then she likes anything wierd or unusual

Just get rid of him. I've never known a mean one to get much better, no matter what you do. I've gotten them to leave me alone, but they will still go after other people, plus I have to keep them in line all the time, just not worth it.


Rural king in Terre Haute has some chicks that already are mostly feathered in, Guess people are buying to many yet.


You should try Buckeye, I've never had such a friendly breed !!!

You've had such a rough year, hopefully it will get better for you real soon !!!

I agree about the rooster. It is about a 1 in a million chance that he will turn his act around.

Bukeyes are not my thing. Maybe my taste will change in a few years. I only have 2 red chickens lol, i like blue, black, white, slash and more exotic colors like mottled. I never actually wanted the rocks until I saw a giantic rooster at a show (which I bought). I justlove their nize. I never wanted what at the time I thought were the more boring breeds, with less interesting looks. I wanted things like ameraucanas, cochins, NNs, and so on.

Just an update on things, DH is home got him home at midnight... he is on crutches with a leg brace that don't allow and movement. the dogs were all happy to see dad but 1. She was scared of the crutches!!! wanted to eat them up!!!! still aint happy about them her hair stands up and all!!!! lol we got his workmans comp check got everyone paid and had enough left to go get more hay latter today.
the dang Starlings are back full force, going to pm about the feeders I saw that someone had made, need to back track and get the name cant remember off hand.
The goats are bagging up so it wont be long now and we will have kids running all over the place.
We got so much food in the house I wanted to throw a party.. lol
Jchny2000=hope your brother is getting better haven't had time to really read all I have missed will be awhile before I get the time to do that..
hope everyone is doing well and just a little while longer SPRING IS ALMOST HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!

Great news! Very happy for you guys, sounds like things are goign much better.

Question for those of you with goats--can dwarf/ Pygmy goats be house trained? Has anybody had or heard of having them in the house as pets?

My friend used to have a pygmy in her house. She was a female. She had accidents all the time. They can't hold it like a dog. They they just had her outside, not in a fenced in area either. She would stay in the yard like a dog. Overall I don't thinkit is a good idea. Goats love to climb. So they are going to want to climb all over thing.

 

[CCCCCCCCHICKENS]

How long do Pygmy/dwarf goats live?

around 10-15 years. I like pygmys better than nigerian dwarfs. I have a ND and she is a spaz, and won't come near me. If I could catch I would get rid of her lol. My pygmys always had good calm tempermants. If you get a male I would definatley get him banded. Bucks aren't fun to have around

 

[raisinemright]

Question for those of you with goats--can dwarf/ Pygmy goats be house trained? Has anybody had or heard of having them in the house as pets?

I have Nubians and I dont think there would be anyway that they could be house trained. I have had them come into the house though lol. But I would say no to them being indoor pets

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Haha, very funny. I've been willing it to stop snowing ever since that first nasty snowstorm in January. It's not working!

ETA: It didn't quote for some reason, but this was the 'Dr. Phil Pipd' post from M2H.

Pipd and M2h, I'm glad you posted Pipd's question. I was so busy looking at the lovely pics that I missed it. Yes, I handled him a lot. He was so spoiled and sweet. So, do you know why that would make meaner? I would have thought it would make him used to the affection. We didn't know who was what so we handled them all.

And for all of you with sweet Cochins, I'm so envious. Mine squeal like banshees if I try picking them up or even pet them. They were already a few months old when I brought them home and have never gotten friendlier.

I don't think there's an absolute known reason for why handling young roosters makes them human aggressive, but it has been shown time and time again that it happens, so there must be a connection there. I do have a theory, but nothing solidly proven, so bear with me here. First of all, all chickens tend to view humans as big roosters. This is why the hens 'squat' when you reach for them (or walk past them or look at them funny in the case of some of my girls ). They are assuming the mating position for their rooster. My theory is that by being friendly to a young cockerel, you are showing him that you're a very docile rooster and that you'd probably be easy to dethrone. If you treat the cockerel like an adult rooster would treat a cockerel, he is more likely to be respectful of you because you're not a pushover.

As a side note, genetics tend to play a role here as well. As I posted previously, I raised two roosters in the exact same way and though Po is respectful and good with his girls, the other one was not. I mostly stopped handling both of them except for to move them from one pen to another once it was clear that they were roosters.


And as for your Cochins, I have found that unless they are raised by hand from day one, my hens have been the same way. All of my Sebrights were adults when I got them and they are all human shy. My Rhodies were adults as well and human shy, too. I know three of the Sebrights came from a less than friendly home, and the Rhodies weren't handled much at all as chicks (they came from a wannabe-farmer type that probably didn't want to touch the germy birds).

 

[CCCCCCCCHICKENS]

All the chickens got a treat today.

Oatmeal, mixed with some suet, millet, BOSS, and, crushed corn.

This was the first time they had gotten this treat, and their were mixed feelings about it. My ameraucanans loved it, they even picked the little pieces of each others beards lol. Two of my white rocks hens and black stars seemed to like it as well. And a pair of OEGB hens liked it. Majority of the other would nibble on it and leave, then come back for some more later. I had a white rock rooster calling out warning call to his hen. I have 3 hens in that pen and none of them would eat it because of him. But my Bantam Mottled cochin was brave enough to see what it was, he must of convinced two hens, because they ate it after he made some clucking sounds. The white rock pair still won't eat it.

. The ameraucanas will get left overs from the others tomorrow, since they liked it so much.

 

[chick rookie]

thanks all, yep its amazing how money can make a difference, now that his checks have started it feels like someone took 100 lbs off me and DH aint so grumpy!!!!
Rural King's chicks are all mixed up. they don't know what some of them are... or they just put the tags in the wrong place....
I know I shouldn't have done it but my heart is bigger then DH's wallet, in the ISA Browns brooder they had 4 chicks that were being eaten alive by the rest. So I threw a fit and had someone paged to come help and I was going to take the poor little ones home, NO ONE SHOWED and we waited 10 minutes... I got them out myself and boxed them up then DH told me that they had Lt. Brahma's and that is his favorite chicken in the world... next to Big Man... lol so we ended up taking 3 of them home too they had a group of Arucana's to 2 of them had ear muffs and beards I almost took them but they weren't acting very good and I already have my charity chicks... besides I didn't want to take something home to the rest of the chicks.
I really didn't want the browns but what was I to do? I couldn't just leave. anyway I took them to the checkout and told the woman I wanted a discount on the injured chicks and she tried to tell me that " THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH THEM THEY HAVE SOMETHING THAT IS CALLED "PASTY BUTT" I sat her straight and let her know I wasn't a complete dumb butt!!!! and I got them for .50 each. so now if they don't make it I'm not out butt 2.00 there was 4 and I took all the injured ones.
Now I have to figure out how to treat them... ????



I have 2 with the same wing injury and 2 with the same tail injury. I have put triple anti-bio tic on them, and other ideals?

 

[Kiniska]

How long do Pygmy/dwarf goats live?

I had one live 15 years. She probably would have lived longer, but the last time she kidded she has issues so we put her down. We had a Buck and it was impossible to keep him away from the girls when they were in heat.