INDIANA BYC'ers HERE!

[chick rookie]

brown cow ~ That would be a good topic for one of those HGTV home renovations shows! New Trend~ Brooder Rooms! or Build an Addition for your "Home Business."
Originally Posted by pginsber
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?

Here's a link: Pygmy Goats Can Make Good Pets! - Pet Columns, Office of Public …
They live 8 - 12 years. Just make sure ordinances allow it. There was a story here last fall about a guy who had to give his pet goat up because of a city ordinance that doesn't allow goats (chickens and some other animals are okay'd). He argued that his goat was smaller than many dogs, and it didn't bark, run loose, etc., but once ordinances have been on the books for decades, it's difficult to have them changed even if they make no sense.
Kiniska ~ Haha I will take photos of the chicks tomorrow in natural light. I just wish they would pose like kabhyper's chickens do!
And YES-- you need that horse! The winters are so bad, that you'll need him to ride to and from the chicken coop with supplies!
Btw, the horse said that his feet were freezing while you stopped to have this photo taken!

CCCHICKENS~ It's so funny to see how they react to something new. Mine look at me with suspicion like I'm trying to poison them. Apparently your white rock rooster thought that's what you were trying to do! Mine become very annoyed if it's anything slightly mushy that would cause them to have to wipe their beaks repeatedly. Next, they'll be requesting their food be placed a silver tray with a linen napkin to wipe their beaks.

ccchickens=

Those sound pretty!

I found this post about a chicken playground and it sounds like something m2h needs for her girls. These people couldn't get their chickens out in the snow so they set up ramps for their girls. Over The Snow Chicken Playground - BackYard Chickens Community
https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/over-the-snow-chicken-playground

Oops the Link didn't work

I'm setting up one tomorrow... so cool, my girls are going to love it... thanks for posting it.

What do you do with a goose that is in LOVE with you. Follows me every where, even goes in chicken houses with me. Even trys to follow me into the house, He is always loving on me.

So cool looking love him

Just getting started. We are in Clay Co. Our babies are just 6 days old and we got them at RK. We have 3 barred rock, 3 light Brahma, 3 Welsummer, and 3 black jersey giants- all pullets. We only want eggs from them at this time and plan to have them in a coop with a run. Do we need a rooster? A lot of people have told us we do.

no Roo is needed unless you want babies

I don't recall who was having a wild bird problem but here is a link to one suggestion.
http://nuge67.wordpress.com/2014/02/16/air-rifles-and-the-homestead/

And Spring must be getting closer as our neighborhood hawk is back. I'll put up my owl once the big wind storms are over.

I was one of them that was having a wild bird problem, still do but not as bad.

I
I don't see why not just cook it first.

I use those oats and have been and I'v not had any problems.

 

[chick rookie]

WOW that took forever... I'm caught up!!!!!

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

Hi guys, sorry I haven't been on much. Will try to catch up tonight if I don't fall asleep in the chair again!
Leahs mom, I will try to take those pictures asap, may be a day or 2.

 

[CCCCCCCCHICKENS]

Maybe he took a harder knock to the head than you thought. The time you held his feet may have given him a moment to get his bearings. It's hard imagining that his flesh was literally frozen and is now working fine. --or--maybe you really did catch him just in time. Lucky!

He was attacked yesterday and spereated yesterday. The leg/toe thing happened today. He was trying to walk all over his pen, just really hard for him to do. I thought the same thing, but it is the only thing I can think of to make sense of it. Maybe I just have special healing powers lol

 

[BackyardBitten]

hey bradselig, these look like your "type of chicken" hehehehe was looking around ebay and found these. Kind of seems like a high price for the amount of eggs that might not even hatch.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/8-BLUE-SPAN...d=100102&prg=1140&rk=3&rkt=4&sd=321081303808&

 

[CCCCCCCCHICKENS]

hey bradselig, these look like your "type of chicken" hehehehe was looking around ebay and found these. Kind of seems like a high price for the amount of eggs that might not even hatch.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/8-BLUE-SPAN...d=100102&prg=1140&rk=3&rkt=4&sd=321081303808&

The price actually isn't bad for the eggs that they are

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

Ok, here is my rant about retail bashing. Maybe it bothers me more than most because I actually work in retail.

First let all understand that the minimum chick number is not a store by store policy. EVERY single rural king, TSC, and Big R and a single Family Farm and Home (only one store remotely located to me) have this minimum number of chicks. I have only been to an Orschelns that does not have a minimum. While I don't know the reasoning behind such minimums, it is still policy and to think an employee is going to break policy for you, you are crazy! Why would I risk my job for a customer? Sure you are more than welcome to ask if you can get less chicks, but to start arguing and complaining is flat out ridiculous, IMO. If you don't like the stores policy, then shop somewhere else! Very simple!

For all the "idiots" working in the stores, most employees are hired for areas that are their strengths. Not everyone will be a chicken expert. These stores typically have a lot of specialized areas and to assume every employee is knowledgeable in every area is also ridiculous.

Now, letting a animal become injured and/or diseased and not treating it is not acceptable. As some mentioned, businesses are in it for money (I thought that was obvious), so if you don't like the business take your money elsewhere. But to go in and just become argumentative, loud, and quite honestly a pain in the butt, is not the solution. The vast majority of the time you will be yelling at the messenger who has no control over policies. When customers beat down employees like this, you are just causing the employee to not care and not want to improve him or herself. Why would they go try and help an employee in an unfamiliar area only to get yelled at by a customer?

I know I will try to go above and beyond to help my customers, however I don't do to well when you yell at me. And don't tell me how to do my job. And nots lot forget that I am NOT a dog and will not come to you when you whistle at me! Working in cabinets, I'm dealing with high dollar projects. Things go wrong that are out of my control. If a customer is reasonable I'm more than happy to try to correct the issue, be it compensation or upgrading for same price. However, if you start yelling and becoming unreasonable, my willingness to help is gone! Retail employees are still people and still should be treated as such!

I agree with you on all points, both my daughters are in retail/customer relations. I have seen how they are treated by customers, its just rude and humiliating! Everyone deserves to be treated with respect. I only get rude if someone is rude with me. My frustration at RK was the number of chicks pasted up there, and the kid seemed completely unconcerned about it. He asked me "why are you looking at their butts?" So I explained it to him. He honestly just shrugged his shoulders. I am a little upset with myself for even buying them to be honest. DH would have understood. Leaving to go to the post office is really difficult with moms schedule, so I went with the opportunity.. I am going to call the manager there, and voice my opinions about the birds. Its really easy to put ACV in the water. Several of the bins had NO water in them! We were there almost 3 hours, we ran into some old friends. I was over looking at the chicks several times with Tammi while we were there

(oh, now she wants chickens too!) I realize some people just are not "bird people" or critter people period. But gees, food and water is a no brainer.. I also understand he may just not have known about animals, period. I should have asked more questions, but wanted to get my babies home.
I hope I didn't insult you. I know you have a lot of integrity and a very polite person. If I did, I am very sorry, and it was very rude of me!
You made me think about what I had said, and the kid may not have even been in that dept at all, just trying to be helpful.

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

Wow, it took forever to catch up with all the posts! So ready for winter to be over with! We have what, 4-6 more weeks?

My Einstein would like the snow to disappear! She makes me bring all the food and treats right to her her little house.


After a 4 month hiatus of no eggs, she laid a nice green egg the other day (of course when I found it, it was frozen and cracked). I am a little apprehensive in eating her eggs, just with the illness thing. I know she didn't get sick, but I really wonder...

So after seeing all the post about chicks at RK's, TSC's, etc. I decided to check my RK. I had to get some pig ears for the dogs anyway (nice excuse, right!!) and they had the little yellow chick foot prints all the way to the bins! I love that! They were about half out already. And I know I said I wanted some started pullets so I didn't have to mess with so much of the chick stuff, I COULD NOT resist!

I bought a BR, RIR, GLW, BO, and 2 EE's (which they had labeled Araucana's and I just laughed). I do think they went with a new supplier this year though. Even though its freezing out and it's really early in the season, the chicks just looked healthier than last year. Only saw a few that were dead and I found a trash bin for them. I, too, pick out my own and box them. I know what I want better than the employees. So I had to bring them to my apartment for the night before I was able to take them up to the farm. My cat sat with them all night and watched. She went from thinking I brought her a treat to complete amusement very quickly. She kept licking their heads!


Look at these puffy cheeks!

She's going to be a lovely EE in a few months! Only 4 months until I have my own fresh eggs again!!

Its exciting isn't it! Love the surrogate mama cat too!

Updated pics of the 6 week old Marans from Brad! Mr. Roo is getting very handsome! He is already getting the white on his chest!! I'm starting to think I have two pullets! Lucky lucky! The girls are shown together, the one in the front is the tiny one I am worried about. She is so small! She still is way behind on feathering too. She seems active though, so I'm hoping she is just small and not unhealthy.

Mr. Roo


The girls...

Mr. Roo

The tiny pullet (I hope!!!)

The girls saying helllooooooooooo

I think you're right~sure looks like 1 roo 2 pullets!

 

[raisinemright]

Well all my new baby chicks have settled down well with full tummies! A couple even got a little chick bath (poo whipped off with a warm soaked cotton ball) got dirty from the ride home. It was neat to watch them clean themselves afterwards. They seem to be very healthy and strong, but only time will tell for sure. Now we wait for the rest of my eggs to arrive and the ones in the bator to hatch!!

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

What do you do with a goose that is in LOVE with you. Follows me every where, even goes in chicken houses with me. Even trys to follow me into the house, He is always loving on me.

He is soooo handsome

Gee does the same thing with me. If I leave the back door open to move buckets outside, in he comes!
I really believe they just enjoy our company

If i sit in the run with the geese, Gee walks circles around me talking.
He does not like the other ganders around me at all! He will attend to his girls in a flash if one of them is upset tho.

AS for the poor animal treatment at the feed stores or the min rules. I agree the corporations care about money first. In some ways I tend to understand that. Just being honest but why would a store spend more than it makes, it would go out of business or have to increase markups on other items.
RK handles so manychicks, it is a numbers thing to them not a pet thing. They are providing a service by having the chicks available for purchase. It is easier for late planners, small flock owners, and new to chicken people to be able to pick up and touch the chicks. In order to provide that service, the feed stores need to make money on selling the chicks. In offering chicks in the stores, they have to cover a lot of expenses that many people just don't think about.
The chick box costs money. The time spent setting up brooders, maintaining them, and tearing them down, all cost money as someone has to be paid. The feed stores are not marking their chicks up drastically so I can see setting a minimum to cover the cost of the box and employee time. The box is at least 50 cents. Then if the employee spends 15 minutes helping you pick and select chicks at $7.50 an hour that is almost $2 wages plus the employer part of taxes and insurance so easily selling a customer a small number of chicks cost the store $2.50 on top of the price the store paid for the chick, not counting checkout time or chick maintenance time. So sure setting a minimum of 6 makes sense, that still means a markup of almost $0.50 per chick, again not counting any markup for feed costs or employee chick care time costs.

Good points also, its a business. Businesses need to think about public image, too. And things looked pretty bad!
I guess my problem with it is leaving the dead chicks in the bins.. and this year I was really upset seeing so many pasted up chicks.
The 3 hours I was there, the water was not replaced, one bin had an empty waterer. If I was still in animal control, they would have had a real big problem with me.
I would have demanded the manager to be called in. I did explain to the kid they have to have water available 24/7 or it puts them at risk.

My plucker has arrived!

So next Sunday, it will be time for some of my roos to have their 'one bad day.'

If anyone in the area was thinking of processing any of their chickens, they are hereby invited to come on over. And if anyone is interested in learning how to do it, this would be a good time also. I would enjoy the company, and I won't have any more to process for at least the next several months.

AWESOME!!!!! We still want to build the "whizbang" but its got to wait a few months. I even have a couple roos to do!
DH wants to come down! What time, I will bring some, and will be glad to help "teach" also if you would like

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WOW, vet for sure! That's a pretty big ouchy, I would be really concerned about infection.

Glad its suppose to warm up this week but not looking forward to having a muddy mess around the yard after all the snow melts. Be glad to get out and get a little yard work done though, Need some fresh air.

UGH I know. Dreading all the mud, but am stir crazy, I usually am outside from around 11am on til dark.
My coop is falling apart fast, and we really need to start our rebuild and repair the run.