INDIANA BYC'ers HERE!

[MikeTodd]

Anyone able to sex silkie chicks early? I was told he/she is about 4 weeks old. I really want Rod (Stewart) to be Rhonda!

 

[kabhyper1]

Anyone able to sex silkie chicks early? I was told he/she is about 4 weeks old. I really want Rod (Stewart) to be Rhonda!

No not yet. You have a couple more months, but, you seem to have a sizzle (smooth feathered silkie). I have a black hen like that. So watch for saddle feathers and hackle feathers to come in pointed if it is a boy. Could be a few more weeks before you see it though.

 

[Hholly]

Ok all you experienced folks, I"m hoping you can help me with a puzzle. I have a Naked Neck that was supposed to be sexed as a pullet. It looks like all my other pullets, comb-wise and tail-wise. Everyone is laying now, so I can't tell who lays what. But this particular bird I have observed jumping on my lowest-ranked silkie and mating her. Sometimes she seems compliant sometimes she resists. This NN looks just like the pullets. But I swear it is mating the silkie. It only jumps on the one silkie girl. One time my roo, Elvis did the rooster dance around it. When I go to pick this bird up, it squats. But it has been mercilessly mating my silkie. No crowing. What is this bird??? A hermaphrodite? A sneaky rooster in disguise? Or an over-dominant hen?

Any help would be appreciated. I will get a photo tomorrow.

TIA!

 

[Faraday40]

kittydoc

I don't have Cochins, but I do have a great Bantam English Orpington. She's not tiny like our Sebright & her fluff makes her look bigger. She's very round in appearance & has that typical bantam queen-bee attitude. Since you already like orps, you may want to try a bantam orp. She's easier on the food bill than a LF orp & lays daily eggs when not molting or broody. Downside - she goes broody easily & often. 5 xs last year alone. This year she already went broody 3xs. The first two times we broke her, but we let her sit in June.

Here are her LF orp chicks. They'll be a week old tomorrow.


So sorry about your Jubilee orp. That stinks. At least you'll have a few pretty Jubilee layers to look at.

I had great luck hatching Bieles last year & got mostly females. This summer, I only got one purebred female. (rest were mixes, so just bad luck) I guess I should have kept some of my Biele pullets & searched for a male. Oh well. I am very happy with my Biele pullet, so I shouldn't complain. I believe she's a cousin to yours.


Tell your DD not to panic yet. In Illinois, only the private schools seem to hire in June. Many of the public schools wait until late July & August before offering jobs to teachers outside of the district. They must have their enrollment numbers & funding budgets completed. Then they may have tenured teachers wanting to transfer schools, switch grade levels, or returning from maternity that need assignments. It is true that knowing someone is a big benefit. Rarely do principals go through the HR dept. Networking is gold. If she attends a summer workshop, teacher conference, etc,, she will make those contacts & quickly learn of job openings & to whom she must send a personal resume. That's how I got into my district. A co-worker/friend got her job just because she kept going to the school IN PERSON to ask if there were any openings. The secretary took notice of her persistence & arranged a meeting with the principal. There were no openings at that time, but the meeting went well. He said he'd keep her in mind if something opened up. A week before school started, the principal called her & offered a P/T computer teacher job. She accepted. But, 2 days before her start date, she was asked if she'd like full time. The catch.... she had to teach applied technology (shop) & computers. Quite a jump for a reading & English teacher, but she got into her dream school. She ended up having a blast teaching applied tech & stayed in that position for years until pregnancy made her switch over to be an English teacher. Life can be funny at times.

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

Quote:
I agree with it, multiple roosters tend to not be human aggressive. My first year keeping laying breeds, my lone rooster, Red, a Gold Laced Wyandotte became very aggressive. He was a sit in your lap fella, loved attention. At about 7 months old he became very outwardly aggressive. I learned about "pinning" from my Grandmother training geese so I applied the method to him. It worked, and stopped his attacks towards me. Pinning is a natural move that all birds respect, and is part of flock dominance. When a bird makes an aggressive act, grab them. Either hold them several minutes until they stop struggling, or pin them to the ground. Of course don't harm them, just restrain. All family members need to learn this if you intend on a single rooster.

Quote:
Welcome, anytime!

Quote:
He will probably be preparing nests for them too. All the signs f a good rooster.

@chick rookie Please please talk to someone in the appropriate office (zoning board, land something or another, etc.) for your county and inquire about being grandfathered in. It happens very often if you are persistent. That's why you see horse and llama farms in the middle of suburban Carmel. Sometimes the "grandfathering" lasts forever, sometimes only as long as you own the property.

You aren't subject to a Home Owner's Association, are you? That would really suck and would screw you totally is that was in effect when you bought the property. They are private contracts and can be changed by the boards at any time and with little notice. They are much less inclined to grandfather in an exception than if you are NOT subject to an HOA.

I am in a rural district of Zionsville (thank you Lord--they made that change AFTER we got chickens but we knew we weren't "in town limits" nor subject to an HOA. If they ever try to change it before we plan to move in about 5 years, we will do whatever it takes, including using an attorney, to get grandfathered in so we can stay put with our chickens. We don't have enough acreage for any other livestock under any scenario here, which is part of why I want to move eventually.

Good luck. I feel terrible, but all is not lost.

Good points. This Indiana rezoning has been a terrible impact on so many people!

Does anyone on the list raise Cochins (bantam or conventional)? I've thought having just one pullet (preferably a bantam from a line that DOES lay decently) would be fun.

We've lost a few birds lately. We culled a mean roo (worst EVER, thank God not my breeding)--he also was carrying a gene for recessive white which did NOT belong there. We also had to cull a severely prolapsed Jubilee Orp hen, and my beloved Jubilee roo Placido has some kind of facial/head tumor that I reduced as much as possible, but it's growing back already. He still is holding his weight and mounting hens, but his beak also looks funky and I think we are going to cull him this week while he feels OK instead of letting him go until he gets worse. He is already blind on one side because the tumor tissue closed the eyelid (the eye itself is fine, but he can't use it). I don't want to wait for him to suffer. My remaining two Jubilee hens will go into the layer flock. Thus ends my most expensive chicken experiment ever. I love Jubilees but will never have them again. When you get breeders to talk about them privately, the stories are all the same. They are so inbred the hatch rate is low, the survival rate of hatched chicks is low, but if they make it they are really gorgeous and nice birds. The gene pool is just way too small. I toyed with the idea of making blue Jubilees, which takes three years, but now that Placido is sick, that's out. You really need a Jubilee roo (or two or three) to do it right.

Segue: Eight weeks since my SSDI hearing today. No news. DH continues to be optimistic. I continue to want them to hurry the heck up and just tell me yeah or nay.

In happier news, I'm taking two of the rescue kitties from my former bipolar neighbor's fiasco to a former employer to declaw them for my daughter. He uses the laser to do it. I don't declaw mine, but these two otherwise darling rescues were raised with no manners at all and they strop at everything. It's easy to trim their nails, but they both really put their entire bodies into scratching everything. I don't like it, and I know my daughter won't like it when she finally takes them. She's also going to need scat mats to keep them off counters and tables. I will be glad when they are living with DD, but have no idea when that will be. She has applied for 32 teaching positions and had 6 or 7 interviews so far, but no job. It's hard for new graduates to break in unless they know someone who knows the principal or superintendent. I'm proud to say she graduated with a 3.98/4 average from the University of Kentucky.

BTW, if anyone wants some Biele cockerels for meat, I have three chicks, $1 each (1-4 weeks old). I have had 100% males (7/7) so far this season. Culled a few, gave one away to some folks with a farm and he's become their son's pet (named Milton) who likes to sit on the boy's shoulder. I hate to cull them because they are so sweet and calm at this age. Very Zen. I will hang on them a little longer, but not much. You can process them at 12-16 weeks and they have a nice amount of breast meat by then. I even vaccinated them against Marek's. We just don't "do" much meat processing at all, maybe 1 or 2 a year.

To everyone with animal or human health issues (yours or a family member's), I feel for you and hope everything turns out OK.

@kabhyper1 I think still raises Cochin. Sending a prayer your way too, SSDI is a real pain, everyone usually gets denied at the first app.

We have a few Cochin chicks that are straight run thaf I got from a fellow BYCer. They are Blue Cochins I believe. We had a Partridge Cochin Roo last year that was beautiful!!! However, he decided to become very aggressive towards people so he had to leave. I love the looks of Cochins so I am praying these chicks are female.

Fingers crossed for pullets!

Our cute Araucana 'babies' are 8-weeks old this week. They're so cute running around without tails/butts. It makes them seem like they're always moving faster because there's less of them.

It's hard to tell -- because it's REALLY hard to take a picture of--but this black one in front has a mustache. We named her Dali. We still think she's a pullet, although her comb is the reddest of all three chicks.

The Svart Hona in the background gets along with the chicks well. The Svart is a very small breed--maybe 2-3 lbs, and you can see how much difference NOT having a tail makes.



This white one has coloring I haven't got in any of my other birds. Is this considered 'Splash'? Her name is Violet, and we think she's a pullet, too.



We have one other chick that is black with a copper neck. S/he's got great coloring and is beautiful in the sun. All my pictures came out terrible, so I won't put you through it. Initially, we thought this mustache-less black one was a roo, but s/he's not crowed since we put her out in the main pen. S/he's the smallest of the three and we named her WallE.

If anybody else has Araucana's, perhaps you can share with me what their temperament is. So far, we can't really tell because they're busy integrating into the flock and establishing their place in the pecking order. They're super cute though!

We were kind of hoping that WallE was a roo, so we could have our own stock for our broody days.

Loved your pictures!

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

Taking a survey of folks with SMALL FLOCKS:

At What age do you let your "chicks" out to free range without supervision? (As in being at work all day...and considering they'd likely be "easy pickins" for arial predators should they pass though.)

I'd like to hear everyone's practice and experience on this.

I want them to be adult sized at least.. The smaller hawks are really brave, more so than red tails. They have attacked large frame roosters and killed them here. Sharp shinned are very aggressive in hunting especially! We have had some surprising losses from them, even with caged birds.. they squeezed right into metal dog crates and killed my silkies. As long as they have safe escape barriers you can probably get them outdoors.

Quote:
@kittydoc and I both raise them. I have some chicks but won't be offering until next year.

Ok all you experienced folks, I"m hoping you can help me with a puzzle. I have a Naked Neck that was supposed to be sexed as a pullet. It looks like all my other pullets, comb-wise and tail-wise. Everyone is laying now, so I can't tell who lays what. But this particular bird I have observed jumping on my lowest-ranked silkie and mating her. Sometimes she seems compliant sometimes she resists. This NN looks just like the pullets. But I swear it is mating the silkie. It only jumps on the one silkie girl. One time my roo, Elvis did the rooster dance around it. When I go to pick this bird up, it squats. But it has been mercilessly mating my silkie. No crowing. What is this bird??? A hermaphrodite? A sneaky rooster in disguise? Or an over-dominant hen?

Any help would be appreciated. I will get a photo tomorrow.

TIA!

Definitely post a photo! If you don't have any mature roosters, its possible she is just the dominant hen. If you do, then yes, she may be both.. it happens sometimes in chickens. I have had a couple hens in the past that were just that dominating over the flock too.

kittydoc

I don't have Cochins, but I do have a great Bantam English Orpington. She's not tiny like our Sebright & her fluff makes her look bigger. She's very round in appearance & has that typical bantam queen-bee attitude. Since you already like orps, you may want to try a bantam orp. She's easier on the food bill than a LF orp & lays daily eggs when not molting or broody. Downside - she goes broody easily & often. 5 xs last year alone. This year she already went broody 3xs. The first two times we broke her, but we let her sit in June.

Here are her LF orp chicks. They'll be a week old tomorrow.


So sorry about your Jubilee orp. That stinks. At least you'll have a few pretty Jubilee layers to look at.

I had great luck hatching Bieles last year & got mostly females. This summer, I only got one purebred female. (rest were mixes, so just bad luck) I guess I should have kept some of my Biele pullets & searched for a male. Oh well. I am very happy with my Biele pullet, so I shouldn't complain. I believe she's a cousin to yours.


Tell your DD not to panic yet. In Illinois, only the private schools seem to hire in June. Many of the public schools wait until late July & August before offering jobs to teachers outside of the district. They must have their enrollment numbers & funding budgets completed. Then they may have tenured teachers wanting to transfer schools, switch grade levels, or returning from maternity that need assignments. It is true that knowing someone is a big benefit. Rarely do principals go through the HR dept. Networking is gold. If she attends a summer workshop, teacher conference, etc,, she will make those contacts & quickly learn of job openings & to whom she must send a personal resume. That's how I got into my district. A co-worker/friend got her job just because she kept going to the school IN PERSON to ask if there were any openings. The secretary took notice of her persistence & arranged a meeting with the principal. There were no openings at that time, but the meeting went well. He said he'd keep her in mind if something opened up. A week before school started, the principal called her & offered a P/T computer teacher job. She accepted. But, 2 days before her start date, she was asked if she'd like full time. The catch.... she had to teach applied technology (shop) & computers. Quite a jump for a reading & English teacher, but she got into her dream school. She ended up having a blast teaching applied tech & stayed in that position for years until pregnancy made her switch over to be an English teacher. Life can be funny at times.

Great advice!

 

[pbirdhaven]

[COLOR=0000FF]Does anyone on the list raise Cochins (bantam or conventional)?  I've thought having just one[/COLOR] [COLOR=0000FF]pullet[/COLOR] [COLOR=0000FF](preferably a bantam from a line that DOES lay decently) would be fun.  [/COLOR]

We've lost a few  birds lately.  We culled a mean roo (worst EVER, thank God not my breeding)--he also was carrying a gene for recessive white which did NOT belong there.  We also had to cull a severely prolapsed Jubilee Orp hen, and my beloved Jubilee roo Placido has some kind of facial/head tumor that I reduced as much as possible, but it's growing back already.  He still is holding his weight and mounting hens, but his beak also looks funky and I think we are going to cull him this week while he feels OK instead of letting him go until he gets worse.  He is already blind on one side because the tumor tissue closed the eyelid (the eye itself is fine, but he can't use it).  I don't want to wait for him to suffer.  My remaining two Jubilee hens will go into the layer flock.  Thus ends my most expensive chicken experiment ever.  I love Jubilees but will never have them again.  When you get breeders to talk about them privately, the stories are all the same.  They are so inbred the hatch rate is low, the survival rate of hatched chicks is low, but if they make it they are really gorgeous and nice birds.  The gene pool is just way too small.  I toyed with the idea of making blue Jubilees, which takes three years, but now that Placido is sick, that's out.  You really need a Jubilee roo (or two or three) to do it right.I

Segue:  Eight weeks since my SSDI hearing today.  No news.  DH continues to be optimistic.  I continue to want them to hurry the heck up and just tell me yeah or nay.

In happier news, I'm taking two of the rescue kitties from my former bipolar neighbor's fiasco to a former employer to declaw them for my daughter.  He uses the laser to do it.  I don't declaw mine, but these two otherwise darling rescues were raised with no manners at all and they strop at everything.  It's easy to trim their nails, but they both really put their entire bodies into scratching everything.  I don't like it, and I know my daughter won't like it when she finally takes them.  She's also going to need scat mats to keep them off counters and tables.  I will be glad when they are living with DD, but have no idea when that will be.  She has applied for 32 teaching positions and had 6 or 7 interviews so far, but no job.  It's hard for new graduates to break in unless they know someone who knows the principal or superintendent.  I'm proud to say she graduated with a 3.98/4 average from the University of Kentucky.

[COLOR=0000FF]BTW, if anyone wants some Biele cockerels for meat,[/COLOR] I have three chicks, $1 each (1-4 weeks old).  I have had 100% males (7/7) so far this season.  Culled a few, gave one away to some folks with a farm and he's become their son's pet (named Milton) who likes to sit on the boy's shoulder.   I hate to cull them because they are so sweet and calm at this age.  Very Zen.  I will hang on them a little longer, but not much.  You can process them at 12-16 weeks and they have a nice amount of breast meat by then.  I even vaccinated them against Marek's.  We just don't "do" much meat processing at all, maybe 1 or 2 a year.

To everyone with animal or human health issues (yours or a family member's), I feel for you and hope everything turns out OK.

I'm sorry to hear about your hen and rooster. It's tough when a special one has to be culled.

I have bantam Cochins but right now don't have any pullets available. Fertility has been an issue--guess I'm going to have to trim some butts or do some AI. Didn't want to trim during show season.

Good luck with the kitties. Twelve years ago I took in two feral kittens to foster for the humane society after my beloved Groucho died. It didn't take long to decide that I wouldn't be able to socialize them enough to be adoptable while they were still little, and I had a big house, so..... Always said I would never declaw, but like yours, it had to be. Widget had to be put down with kidney failure five years ago; Pearl, one twelve years old, is very possessive of me and lets the other cats and my cattle dog know that she's the matriarch.

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

Not much happening here. Eggs are coming in daily and a lot are going in the freezer. Glad to be able to let my hens out again and the yolk colors are sure improving. Really enjoy seeing my chickens able to forage without confinement.
Quail are laying like crazy, anyone interested in starting with Quail, I keep Jumbo Coturnix. They are great egg producers, and a fantastic meat bird. They will not brood eggs however, you will need an incubator if you intend to raise them. Please PM me if you are interested. I keep James Marie Farms line quail, hardy and huge birds. Excellent layers. We keep a bowl full of hard boiled quail eggs in the fridge, I love to snack on them instead of cooking a big meal.

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

Quote:
We have one very old mouser girl left, she winters in the house but come spring she is out catching mice. I have to add more mousers.. for sure. I have such a hard time taking cats in since so many are dumped here. So many of them are declawed, and most don't survive. Animal control will not pick up cats in this county. Its really upsetting. So if I can catch them, I try to rehome. Its really upsetting because most have died before I find them. I wish these people would just knock on our door and ask.. just leave a note. Best thing would just be honest and let me help rehome them instead of dumping them out, starving to death. Just so upsetting an animal is discarded like trash. The mentality seems to be they think cats will be able to feed themselves. Domesticated cats can't, they haven't been taught. Ferals can, its likely the mother is feral too.

 

[Jntnrmn]

Taking a survey of folks with SMALL FLOCKS:

At What age do  you let your "chicks" out to free range without supervision?  (As in being at work all day...and considering they'd likely be "easy pickins" for arial predators should they pass though.)

I'd like to hear everyone's practice and experience on this.