INDIANA BYC'ers HERE!

[Finnie]

Sorry for the "novella"

No need to apologize, it was an interesting read! So glad your intro to the chicken life has gone so well. You got any pictures?

I took photos for my CL ads recently. Let me check if any of them are worth posting here.

 

[Finnie]

So the geese have been very prolific this year! (And turkeys. I hatched about a hundred turkeys and then got tired of that, so I sold off all my adults. I may keep a handful of poults that I’m interested in seeing how their colors turn out.)

But with the geese, I think the secret to getting lots of eggs (66 each!) was that I made them swap pens every day. That way neither goose bonded with any particular nest area, so neither one went broody.

I had to keep the two ganders separate, so I have my long goose kennel divided in the middle. Every day whatever group was on the east side would get to free range and then I would open the divider so the penned up group had the whole kennel. Then at lockup, they got shut into the east half and the free rangers go into the west half.

That worked out really well. I’ve since sold the extra gander and his mate, so I just have the one gander, his two geese and a whole gaggle of goslings. Some to sell and some to keep. I’m hoping any future ganders that grow up in this group will get along with their “father” and not require separating when breeding season rolls around next year. Troublemakers can always be removed.

Some other random pictures:

In this next one, the coop on the left is housing my new Tolbunt Polish (and frizzles!). Too bad they don’t show up well, but I was working on goose pictures. I will have to focus on polish pictures another time.

And my flower gardening is finally showing results!

Campfire rose, one of my absolute favorites:

Love my hollyhocks too

 

[Pepperdog]

Anyone lose a rooster in New Albany Indiana? One has been hanging around my moms on grantline road this morning it walked/ran lol into her house. My husband went and got it we have in a cage where it can see my flock but not interact. Its crop was flat so it has not eaten in awhile,no mite are bugs. Seems friendly so it came from a good home. If it’s yours give me a description and you can have him back.

 

[muddy75]

Anyone lose a rooster in New Albany Indiana? One has been hanging around my moms on grantline road this morning it walked/ran lol into her house. My husband went and got it we have in a cage where it can see my flock but not interact. Its crop was flat so it has not eaten in awhile,no mite are bugs. Seems friendly so it came from a good home. If it’s yours give me a description and you can have him back.

Unfortunately, it may have been a “dump” Jeff and New Albany have been really bad in recent years about code enforcement on backyard poultry especially roosters .

 

[Pepperdog]

Unfortunately, it may have been a “dump” Jeff and New Albany have been really bad in recent years about code enforcement on backyard poultry especially roosters .

Its feathers have been trimmed friendly, I see this guy as someones pet. I could easily sell him he is a exotic breed. This morning I gave him a bath I’m so leery of strange fowl around my flock. I have way too many chickens I don’t count anymore and 4 turkeys. do you want him?

 

[jdfog2]

No need to apologize, it was an interesting read! So glad your intro to the chicken life has gone so well. You got any pictures?

I took photos for my CL ads recently. Let me check if any of them are worth posting here.

Replying "better late than never"
Been busy from well befoe sunrise to 11pm everyday lately.

Here's a couple sort of recent pics. I will try to remember to take mire the next few days.

Been melting in this heat and humidity.

 

[jdfog2]

So the geese have been very prolific this year! (And turkeys. I hatched about a hundred turkeys and then got tired of that, so I sold off all my adults. I may keep a handful of poults that I’m interested in seeing how their colors turn out.)

But with the geese, I think the secret to getting lots of eggs (66 each!) was that I made them swap pens every day. That way neither goose bonded with any particular nest area, so neither one went broody.

I had to keep the two ganders separate, so I have my long goose kennel divided in the middle. Every day whatever group was on the east side would get to free range and then I would open the divider so the penned up group had the whole kennel. Then at lockup, they got shut into the east half and the free rangers go into the west half.

That worked out really well. I’ve since sold the extra gander and his mate, so I just have the one gander, his two geese and a whole gaggle of goslings. Some to sell and some to keep. I’m hoping any future ganders that grow up in this group will get along with their “father” and not require separating when breeding season rolls around next year. Troublemakers can always be removed.
View attachment 3586161View attachment 3586162View attachment 3586164View attachment 3586165View attachment 3586169View attachment 3586175View attachment 3586176
Some other random pictures:

View attachment 3586159
In this next one, the coop on the left is housing my new Tolbunt Polish (and frizzles!). Too bad they don’t show up well, but I was working on goose pictures. I will have to focus on polish pictures another time.
View attachment 3586160

And my flower gardening is finally showing results!
View attachment 3586171View attachment 3586172View attachment 3586177

Campfire rose, one of my absolute favorites:
View attachment 3586174
Love my hollyhocks too
View attachment 3586178

Really like those coops

 

[jdfog2]

Replying "better late than never"
Been busy from well befoe sunrise to 11pm everyday lately.

Here's a couple sort of recent pics. I will try to remember to take mire the next few days.

Been melting in this heat and humidity.
View attachment 3591342

 

[muddy75]

Its feathers have been trimmed friendly, I see this guy as someones pet. I could easily sell him he is a exotic breed. This morning I gave him a bath I’m so leery of strange fowl around my flock. I have way too many chickens I don’t count anymore and 4 turkeys. do you want him?

Tempting!! PM some details if you want/need to rehome him

 

[Finnie]

Really like those coops

Thanks! In 2019, TSC came out with a couple of prefab coops that were labeled as “better quality wood”. They were a LOT more money than the regular balsa wood prefab types. But they did look like nicer quality. And they didn’t come pre-primed. All over the box it warned you that you had to paint or treat the wood yourself.

Well I couldn’t stomach the high price, but I kept an eye on whether they were going to clearance out the display model. Lo and behold on Memorial Day weekend that year they had them all on clearance, not just the display models. AND, they were running a holiday weekend special of half off the clearance price! $500 chicken coops for $150 each!!

There was one at my local TSC, and then I started calling around to all the other TSCs, and I ended going on a road trip that day an hour west of me to get one and an hour east of me to get another. I was alone on a holiday and it was a beautiful day for a drive and I took the scenic routes and had a great day going around collecting my scores.

The package suggested treating all the pieces before assembly. That was the best thing ever. From now on if I ever buy a coop kit again, or even if I do a self build, I am totally going to pre-paint. It was a huge job leaning the pieces against sawhorses and such all around my garage and painting one side at a time, flipping them around, shuffling the done pieces out of the way until I got them all done. (I only built the red and blue coops that year. The 3rd coop I stored for a couple of years and then just got lazy and painted that whole one white.)

DH couldn’t park inside for weeks (I am slow and OCD). But that effort was SO worth it. These coops have been so much better than the cheapo prefab ones I have. Painting really helps preserve them. The pre-primed ones really ought to be painted too. And it is so much easier to paint pieces when you can walk up to them and move them however you want instead of trying to contort yourself to reach the insides and outsides of an already built coop.

Anyway, TSC had a different style of better quality coop the next year that I didn’t really care for. Since then I’ve never seen the good ones again. Probably because of the pandemic. There got to be such a high demand for easy chicken coops that now they can sell the cheapo coops for a lot more money so why bother using expensive quality wood? And wood was hard to source for a while.