INDIANA BYC'ers HERE!

[ellymayRans]

A Big Thank you to @ellymayRans
  for the wonderful eggs and for taking down the netting that was trapping my goats. 

Xoxo It was great to see you again and the kids!!

 

[daskhan]

So why the broken spirits? ! To me i battle family, funds, time and losses but i am too invested and love it too much to toss it aside. Now family situations change, time and funds become constricted. ..those things i understand and respect. If you need advice or venting time many of us here are here to help. It pains me for those of us that have the love of preserving breeds, sustainable living. ..whatever your passion, to see someone have to give that up because emotionally they become exhausted or feel overwhelmed. Im sorry you are going through this but if you're willing to share there are plenty that will try to help.

Basically it boils down to I have no free time and I want to spend more time with my daughter and I moved here two years ago on the asumption it was just going to be a short semester break not a long move and I'm home sick among a lot of other things I've been running myself sick setting up breeding pens and other things just for 80% of my chicks to get wiped out because I let some out on a warm day who were pretty large and tried to help a friend with their chickens one of the two reasons.. It's just so ugh... I might try again but right now I'd prefer it to be home(Florida) plus my normal job here sucks so much

 

[Hholly]

Quote:
Sorry to hear you are discouraged. Have you ever considered just focusing on a couple of breeds that you love, for your own enjoyment, first? Then showing, breeding, and selling? You haven't been into chickens that long. To make money from something, it takes time. Most businesses aren't profitable for a few years. And you need to know your market. I hope you have found something of value with your chickens. And i wish you the best.

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

Quote:

Quote: Its pretty easy to get pulled into chicken math. I am sorry to hear you are struggling with life events. Its sounds like you have taken a reality check. We all have those moments!
Wish you best of luck, and hope you can go home soon.

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

Crazy busy!
I am so excited for youngest DDs life events, but oh my! I am feeling a little overwhelmed with preparations. She isn't letting us know planning and other event dates until the last minute. UGH!
My Nubian Cocoa, the goat and her baby buckling are doing well.
I want to welcome our new members to the Indiana thread. We are an active group so please, if you post a question feel free to repost if you don't see a reply! Sometimes the discussion is going too fast, and your post may get buried in conversation. This usually happens when there's an event like AI going on.
We have an awesome group of friends here. So many folks willing to help others! I want to thank our contributing members most, you know who you are.

 

[daskhan]

Quote:
Sorry to hear you are discouraged. Have you ever considered just focusing on a couple of breeds that you love, for your own enjoyment, first? Then showing, breeding, and selling? You haven't been into chickens that long. To make money from something, it takes time. Most businesses aren't profitable for a few years. And you need to know your market. I hope you have found something of value with your chickens. And i wish you the best.

I don't really think it has much to do with chicken math or finances I think it's all resting on being home sick and missing everything I grew up knowing and everyone I was born a raised in Florida and don't really know anyone here spend a lot of my time alone... If I end up staying here I have no problem with the chickens as long as I get back to devoting only part of my time like I used to I think it's a lot of the pens being built slowly over time not as quick as I hoped but when they are done it will be easy again but I miss home really

 

[Ol Grey Mare]

I don't really think it has much to do with chicken math or finances I think it's all resting on being home sick and missing everything I grew up knowing and everyone I was born a raised in Florida and don't really know anyone here spend a lot of my time alone... If I end up staying here I have no problem with the chickens as long as I get back to devoting only part of my time like I used to I think it's a lot of the pens being built slowly over time not as quick as I hoped but when they are done it will be easy again but I miss home really

I wanted to offer you a

as this is something that spoke to my heart as we have recently decided that the pull of family and "home" is strong for us as well and is leading us to make the move from IN to Oregon. Perhaps relocating would allow you to feel more settled and you would then be able to pursue birds there?

 

[daskhan]

I wanted to offer you a as this is something that spoke to my heart as we have recently decided that the pull of family and "home" is strong for us as well and is leading us to make the move from IN to Oregon.  Perhaps relocating would allow you to feel more settled and you would then be able to pursue birds there? 

That was my thoughts and hopes but my wife is from Indiana and her family is here and she grew up here and I'm terrified that if she went there for me she would be great in the boat I'm in now

 

[Leahs Mom]

Anyone in the Northern half of IN mixing your own feed?

I will need to get a bag of Fertrell Poultry Nutribalancer sometime shortly and would love to have someone or a group that would be interested in a split. The regular bag size is enough for a ton of feed so I try to keep only as much as I can use in a year if possible.

PM me

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Just checking in will try and catch up latter. I hope everyone's troubles has stopped and life is looking up for all. M2H I think of you often and hope things are better. We were able to get out of buying the new place, it wasn't what we bought and hadn't taken possession yet so it was still the seller's place. So now we are back to square 1. I'm heartbroken but it's for the best cause we could not afford to fix all that damage. What really ticks me off is knowing that in the end that ----------------- will get away with it, cant get blood out of a turnip!! I'll be back when I'm in better spirits. Hope everyone has a great day. @Indyshent I hope your feeling better, @SallyinIndiana I hope you doing well. If I missed anyone it's not because I dont care it's just due to mind block right now.

Major hugs! So sorry things didn't work out with the new place! I had to go back and read, and wow! I'm also glad that y'all weren't stuck with the place after all that! :/ And hope all is well with Indyshent and M2H as well. I don't even know what to say. You've both had a rough year so far. So, so sorry for both of your losses.

OK, I have a chick and I don't know what color it is! I had the egg marked as from my black hen Cleo bred to my chocolate cuckoo roo Hershey. I very clearly made a mistake because the chick is no version of black, chocolate, with or without barring. It's this beautiful platinum color overall, with a few areas that look like normal blue. I do have a blue hen whose eggs have the same color and shape as Cleo's (Cleo's are just slightly smaller). I figure I'll know for sure when it feathers out! Is this one of the usual presentations of a splash chick? It's wings are starting to feather in with a mix of white and blue (I think). If this is a lav, it is the palest one I have EVER seen, so I do not think it is. All I'm sure of is that it's a purebred Orpington!!!! Comments?

Cutie!! So this baby is from either a black or a blue hen and a chocolate cuckoo rooster? Chocolate over Blue can produce Mauve pullets, you know. Anyway, splash shouldn't be possible unless it's a blue hen with a blue or splash rooster, though some report getting the very occasional splash from blue to black matings somehow. Another possibility is recessive white, which often shows up as a smoky color in chicks. Just some thoughts there.

Just wanted to share some happiness with everyone! My Sumatra (Hedwig) that went broody, right before the last of the older chickens were killed, is a wonderful mother! The four eggs I let her keep never developed, and @wheezy50 just happened to have some partridge silkie chicks available at a perfect time, so I met him the other weekend in Martinsville and brought 4 babies home, along with stopping in Solsberry for Marans and Ameraucana chicks, then to Bloomington RK for even more of a variety. So chicken math: 4 + 8 + 8 = complete happiness! I gave her the Silkie chicks and took away the eggs. It took about one night for her to accept them and for them to figure out she was warm! Now, she is one fierce mama! I can get close and change feed and water - Roxy (my furchild), not so much. There is a 5 foot minimum that she has to stay away from them or mama gets all puffy and mad and runs her off! My only sad thing to post is, I am getting absolutely NO eggs. My stock is slowly dwindling down, and I use a lot of eggs. I know a few people that raise chickens in the area, so I'm going to be hitting them up for the next couple months until some pullets start laying!

Lovely hen, and so sweet that she is so fiercely protective of her new family. That kind of chicken math is hard to beat! We're not getting too many eggs here, either, but then half of my flock is 5+ years old and the rest are 2-4, so I guess it's to be expected.

Last call, I'm stopping chicken hatching this season. Have had a few folks that's not followed through, and thankfully will have coops for the extra chicks... But what I have hatched is more than I had planned to keep for our needs. Will be hatching a few more Bourbon red turkey and geese, otherwise shutting off the incubators this year. I still have started BBS Sumatra, Some chocolate orpington available. Please pm if interested. Cocoa, my Nubian doe kidded a baby buckling last night. Exhausted..she has had issues. Mother and baby boy are fine so far, but we have learned she does not like to be milked. Hand milked her to be sure we don't have issues with mastitis and the buckling got colostrum. . Udder was way too full. The milking pump frightens the doe. My lil buckling is precious and a huge little guy! Cocoa is not allowing him to nurse very long, certainly not long enough to sustain him. I keep bottles, milk and colostrum on hand for this very reason. This reminded me why I just don't normally keep this goat breed. She was re homed here and already bred when we agreed and took her in..She is normally a very sweet doe, so I will have our vet look over whar's happening.

I am so, so tempted with those chocolate Orpingtons... I would so jump on that if I had a solid quarantining place, but I've been having issues with that as of the last time I tried to bring in a new bird... :/ Glad that Cocoa was able to kid and everything's looking okay thus far! Birthing issues sound so scary! Hopefully your vet will know what's going on.

An update on our broodies: We have 2 broodies hatching clutches of Araucana eggs at the same time from 2 different sources. The first has been sitting on the eggs since we received them in the mail. The second one has been sitting on the eggs after one week in the incubator. The mom of the incubated eggs was off of the eggs for 6 hours one day. Both broodies hatched the first egg on the same day. Mom #1 hatched 3 chicks. Eggtopsies showed: one had internally pipped then died, one late quitter, and 6 quitters. Mom #2 with the incubated eggs, hatched a chick that had unabsorbed yolk attached to it and it died shortly after it hatched. So far (5 days later) no other eggs have hatched. Since the purpose is to break the broodies, we have moved one chick from Mom #1 to Mom #2 overnight. Now both Mom's have chicks, everybody is happy and healthy and nobody is the wiser about it. We plan to take away Mom #2's remaining unhatched eggs tomorrow. Surely 6 days is plenty of time for late hatchers. Here's the chicks. Only one has a mustache, but they're all tailless.

Love that picture of mama and her baby!! In true Araucanas, you won't see 100% tufted chicks out of them, so that's normal. (I assume that's what you meant by mustache?) The tufted gene is lethal in double doses, so most breeders breed tuft to non-tuft to avoid that, resulting in a roughly 50-50 split in the chicks. If you got tuft x tuft eggs in the mix, though, that could explain some of your quitters. In that cross, 50% are tufted, 25% non-tuft, and 25% dead in shell. I hope you keep sharing pictures as they grow! Araucanas are such unique birds.