INDIANA BYC'ers HERE!

[Chaneys Ranch]

Our member list. Can be sorted by breeders, location and several other options:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zqcpdsOAzQeuVVHn8z-MK57ml5LMd7-F167MOavaFl0/edit#gid=1

 

[Mishlerfarm24]

So after work I couldn't help it but rush to the bank to deposit my check and pick up my son to go to Tractor Supply!!! They were pretty picked over with their chicks but had plenty of ducks!

My son is absolutely in love with the ducks!!! He asked during his bath if they could come swim in the tub with him!! Maybe someday once they get more settled in I'll let them in the tub during his bath!

My fiancé wants more speciality chickens and I told him he'll have to order what he wants. It just makes me nervous to order chicks online for some reason!

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

I feel ya on the tiredness! Been busting my butt studying for midterms, and getting papers done! THankfully my last class was Tuesday so I been on my spring break for 2 days now. Not much of a spring break when I have to work but at least I get a break from school! What are you studying for? And where you going to school at!?

Haha, lucky! I had class this morning and one last assignment to turn in this evening, so I'm pretty much just starting my spring break.

My current major is Ecology, but having taken an Ecology class now, I've been rethinking that... It was just so hideously boring. I mainly just enjoy studying animals and would like to work with them for a living. No clue what I'll be doing, but ideally it'll involve animals. I also may be minoring in German now because my professor really wants me to, and I've already gone through all my gen ed classes so I need something to pad out my semesters anyway. I go to IPFW, but my degree will be from Purdue University.


Congrats on the babies, by the way!! (The cuteness, ACK! I do not need to check on Margie's eggs at 11 at night!!)

 

[Indyshent]

So after work I couldn't help it but rush to the bank to deposit my check and pick up my son to go to Tractor Supply!!! They were pretty picked over with their chicks but had plenty of ducks!



My son is absolutely in love with the ducks!!! He asked during his bath if they could come swim in the tub with him!! Maybe someday once they get more settled in I'll let them in the tub during his bath!

My fiancé wants more speciality chickens and I told him he'll have to order what he wants. It just makes me nervous to order chicks online for some reason!

COMPLETELY UNSOLICITED ADVICE
Let him bathe AFTER the ducks are out of the tub and the tub's been drained and washed. The first thing those ducks are doing to do in a tub is unload their colons... completely.

They are adorable, but watch out and be warned that they grow about twenty times faster than chicks and will make an enormous mess out of the brooder. Duckies splash out water everywhere and like their food moistened (so they take shovelfuls of it to the waterer and muck up everything). They also make giant splatty poos frequently throughout their entire lives.

If you don't have a girl duck among that pair, your drakes may take to raping your chickens and kill them.
All that to say I wish you the very best in your duck-keeping adventure. If I had a pond, I'd have them all over again in a heartbeat, but I couldn't help but feel they were miserable in my backyard with only a little kiddie pool

***Also, what does he mean by "specialty chicks"? Lots of people on this thread keep some super rare and utterly neato (totally scientific term there) breeds. @yankeedoodling has some of the most mindblowing birds I've heard of in this state (if I'm not mistaken).

 

[Mishlerfarm24]

Haha, lucky! I had class this morning and one last assignment to turn in this evening, so I'm pretty much just starting my spring break.

My current major is Ecology, but having taken an Ecology class now, I've been rethinking that... It was just so hideously boring. I mainly just enjoy studying animals and would like to work with them for a living. No clue what I'll be doing, but ideally it'll involve animals. I also may be minoring in German now because my professor really wants me to, and I've already gone through all my gen ed classes so I need something to pad out my semesters anyway. I go to IPFW, but my degree will be from Purdue University.


Congrats on the babies, by the way!! (The cuteness, ACK! I do not need to check on Margie's eggs at 11 at night!!)

Sounds like vet tech is where you need to go or somewhere in that field! I thought about vet tech but I get so attached easily to animals that it would be way to hard for me! I would be adopting every animal I could, or trying to save their lives instead of putting them down, yeah just couldn't do it! So I'm going for my Medical Assistants and just love it! I know where IPFW is, I went to Saint Francis for 2 years then decided to quit school for awhile til I figured out what I wanted to do instead of wasting mine and my parents money!

Thanks! I can't stop watching them and holding them! My son has been checking on them almost every 20 mins!

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

So after work I couldn't help it but rush to the bank to deposit my check and pick up my son to go to Tractor Supply!!! They were pretty picked over with their chicks but had plenty of ducks!



My son is absolutely in love with the ducks!!! He asked during his bath if they could come swim in the tub with him!! Maybe someday once they get more settled in I'll let them in the tub during his bath!

My fiancé wants more speciality chickens and I told him he'll have to order what he wants. It just makes me nervous to order chicks online for some reason!

Oh goodness

look at those adorable ducklings!!!

Quote: Sure you do! And I bet you did

Quote:

Ducklings and goslings steal my heart every time. I especially love the goslings.

 

[kittydoc]

Quote:
So don't! There are lots of breeds and colors of chicks and adult chickens for sale from folks on this board. If you haven't asked about a breed or color, I'd highly recommend trying here first.

We bought our first chicks (Australorps) from TSC, but since then, if we had to order, we used Ideal Poultry. Our chicks left Texas one day and were here the next (via truck), and all healthy.

 

[kittydoc]

Another article on avian influenza--looking back now at possible causes (wild waterfowl were EXCLUDED, if you didn't already know) of last year's catastrophe.

http://www.mprnews.org/story/2016/03/01/bird-flu-outbreak-mystery

 

[Mother2Hens]

@SAOrnduff @Digz @Junibutt @weezerfish @tiffmw10 @Nin315

@EmSteele ~ Good to hear from you—and you’re expecting a human baby? Congrats!

@Dish chickens ~ You are not alone... It’s annoying when this site has problems because byc obviously makes good money from advertisers, yet they continue to have periodic glitches (my favorite is when my post deletes just before posting!!). They also haven’t updated to responsive web design—for one thing, that would certainly improve mobile use.
@Faraday40 ~ I was glad to hear that your Cuddles girl is doing better. Hope she continues to improve! Please keep us posted. She is beautiful!

 

[kittydoc]

I must have lost a few of the brain cells that store my egg incubation information since last year...

This is the fourth year we have hatched eggs (our own or someone else's). I've always had an easy time seeing the blood vessels early on, then eyes shortly thereafter, so I know what's fertile and developing, and what's clear.

I set 4 dozen eggs last Sunday. I used to be able to detect life sometimes by day 3, almost always day 5 (except for dark brown eggs, which you just have to wait and wait). Well, last night was the end of day 4, and I saw NOTHING but a couple of meat spots in one egg. No vessels. No eyes. No layering of the yolks. Mind you, they got up to 104.7 for an hour, and then another high bump at 102.2 for a couple of hours, all in the first 24 hours. I figured they were par cooked so I wasn't really expecting any to live.

So, I decide I'm just going to crack them all open and make a giant scramble to give back to the flock tomorrow as long as nothing smelled or looked off.

I crack egg #1. It's infertile with meat spots. As expected.

I crack egg #2. Ooooooops...nice blood vessels and a 1/4" embryo, and I just killed it. <insert expletives of your choice here>

So I decide to look at them all again (like I did on days 3 and 4), and while I still can't see any blood vessels, I saw a couple of dark eyes, and did notice the yolk starting to settle into layers of different shades. Also saw a few definite clears, but left them alone anyway for another couple of days. My "definite" isn't very! Out of practice after 10 months off, I guess.

Short story long, I guess/hope they mostly made it.

It's a big mix of Bielefelders and several colors of English Orps, as well as some genetic testing eggs from one hen (eggs from my other "maybe" black lav split hen are being collected now for the next batch). These two hens are from Cogburn and my blues, a little last minute thing I did in my very last hatch in 2015. Cogburn is split to lav, so the only way to know if these are "true black" or "black split to lav" was to breed them to Roadrunner, the lavender roo I got from @jchny2000 . If I get all black chicks, this will prove the hen is true black. Otherwise, if I get even one lavender chick, I'll know the hen is split like their daddy. I hope I have at least one true black, and would be happy if both were.

ALL I can figure is that the shells on these eggs are thicker than average. Most of the eggs are from hens 9-12 months old. But previously my young hens never had such thick shells (not overly thick, just strong). We started feeding some dry cat food to the whole flock, breeders and layers, about a year ago, and maybe that's what has changed the egg quality. We let the older birds molt, and their eggs are more "perfect" than before the molt, but the only eggs in the bator now from hens that molted are about half a dozen blue Orp eggs.

So I offer up thanks to the Chicken God and hope these chicks hatch healthy.

ONE QUESTION: Anybody still waiting on a hen or two to resume laying? I moved my one and only known black English Orp into a comfortable crate in the garage to get rid of Jubilee roo residue, but she hasn't laid an egg yet. Cleo was a superb layer last year. Maybe she's just off because she's away from the flock. My chocolate hen went on egg strike for 5 days after I put a rooster in with her, but she's back to laying.

They are getting plenty of light (the garage clan of four).

I also just had a really great day, one of those you'd like to put in a bottle and keep as a tonic for the rough days. With my back and leg pain, a great day is a real rarity--plus interactions with Humanity were all just superb, with total strangers. And my daughter also made me extremely proud by handling herself like a responsible adult (she's 21) in a touchy situation when two other MUCH older adults did nothing to try to improve it (the situation has been going on about 7 weeks, and was getting worse by the week). I talked her through how I would approach it, including killing her supervisor with kindness, and by golly she executed it beautifully today, and got the desired results. Communication. Realizing that they have different styles and that has made things difficult for both of them, but they never talked about it before. It's good to talk to people. My daughter is still used to being deferential to her elders (especially people old enough to be her parents and grandparents), but I told her she could be respectful but still speak with them as one adult to another.

Night night, everyone!