Isa's Homestead Happenings and Hangout

[tripletfeb]

Take that to the Dad jokes thread.

You can. Be my guest

 

[azurbanclucker]

How is everyone today? We were up super late last night so I haven't been up long and both our fires went out last night. Right now it's 53ﾟ in the kitchen.

Fed and conscious. That may end up being the highlight of my day.

 

[MACCanadianCoop]

Tonight is my chickens' first test with negative teen temperatures, with the real feel forecasted to be about -40. I have done and am doing everything I can think of to get them through it. If they prove to be hardy enough to scamper out of their coop tomorrow with nothing wrong, I will go to work as usual. If anything is wrong, I am calling out to do my real job (being a chicken momma).


Usually, if I say such things, everything goes well and I look foolish for worrying. Hence why I am saying this. 

Me too. I locked them into their coop last night and brought them out a breakfast of fresh hot mash. Tomorrow is supposed to be the same.

 

[Aunt Angus]

Peonies are my favorite!

Ugh, so I still don't know if we should take a rooster. It would mean keeping a rooster in my basement for a month or more. It would mean not getting Marans chicks until that time had passed. It would mean potentially having a mature rooster that much sooner! It would mean the possibility of breeding little meat mutts, however I don't have a great place to grow them out at the moment. It would mean one less fairly limited rooster space available for either an Australorp rooster, or any Marans rooster we might want to keep, (which could be easily remedied once it came down to it), or else getting a man-house set up out there and starting a little rooster collection, which I'm sure the right would love! Haha.

I am really just torn though between keeping everything as lovely as it is, and what I feel like could be inviting various moving parts into the situation. I think we'd need to invest in a first set of netting to put around the enclosure and start introducing him on the perimeter by having him inside the net, but outside the enclosure, so that means selling DH in spending for the net, too. Or else if he's just ranging at first, while the girls are in the pen, is he going to stay close by? Will I be able to grab him ever again??? Lol not being hand raised has its disadvantages I feel like, too.

I guess I was also hoping to hear @ColtHandorf weigh in on just what these hypothetical fascinating little meat-mutts might even look like? The rooster would be a Sasso, which I believe is already like a red barred sex link, and then my existing hens. I made a thread for that elsewhere though.

He'll stay where the girls are. His whole existence is those girls.

But I'm going to give advice. I usually say to do whatever you think is best. But I'm going to break my own rule. Don't get the rooster. It will absolutely change your relationship with your chickens. Don't get me wrong: roosters are great. They are helpful for watching for predators. And they're gorgeous. And the good ones have wonderful personalities. But he will supplant you as the flock leader. If your birds were livestock for meat and eggs, I'd say go for it! But you sound like me. My birds are pets. Things changed a lot when I ended up with an accidental rooster.

My two cents.

 

[Chipmunk Chicks]

What's the fault process behind getting a rooster? I mean, were you thinking of having him 1st specific purpose? Based on all you've described, it sounds like right now there would be a lot of work to add him and I'm not sure there's much of a benefit.

Yeah, honestly I just deleted a whole long thing, because the more I think about it (and finally talked with DH) it's probably not the right time (and not the right rooster.) I want to focus on my layers this season, adding the Marans and possibly keeping a rooster from there, since they will be sr. I would like to replace our drake, and finally get an SOP Australorp cockerel later in the season.

So those would *possibly* be our two roosters for now, and I would either get barred hens (Dominiques) to make meaties with the Australorp, or a red rooster of some sort (Welsummer, Buckeye, Partridge Wyandotte etc.) and light Sussexes eventually, but I can't really think about a meat bird project too much until we move. And of course once we are breeding the Australorps, we'll have extra cockerels and culls, just not sex links.

Phew!

 

[Chipmunk Chicks]

He'll stay where the girls are. His whole existence is those girls.

But I'm going to give advice. I usually say to do whatever you think is best. But I'm going to break my own rule. Don't get the rooster. It will absolutely change your relationship with your chickens. Don't get me wrong: roosters are great. They are helpful for watching for predators. And they're gorgeous. And the good ones have wonderful personalities. But he will supplant you as the flock leader. If your birds were livestock for meat and eggs, I'd say go for it! But you sound like me. My birds are pets. Things changed a lot when I ended up with an accidental rooster.

My two cents.

Hahah, thank you! It is reassuring after reading your post to think that I'm not just being "chicken," that it's fair to say, no, thank you, not at this time. I agree, I have a great relationship with my flock, a they are such beautiful birds. I really am not in a rush to mess with a good thing we've got going here.

 

[Aunt Angus]

How is everyone today? We were up super late last night so I haven't been up long and both our fires went out last night. Right now it's 53ﾟ in the kitchen.

Im tired. I woke up late. I was going to put up a new section of electric netting this morning, but I slept right through the alarm. Other than that I'm fine.

The dang goats, being goats, have figured out how to get the geese's feed. I have been leaving veggies and pellets in the geese's pen, but the goats somehow figured out how to squeeze into the small opening and eat everything. Because goats. I was just going to expand the pasture a lil bit to encompass more grass. But they'll have to wait until tomorrow. The poor geese. I really need to get them situated since the massive rains we got killed most of the grass.

 

[Aunt Angus]

Guess what, everybody!

 

[Isadora]

Guess what, everybody!

you got some "bad" feed to test?

 

[Brooks_]

I really want to add to the flock but I need breed suggestions.

• Light in color (not buff)
• Single comb
• Clean legs
• Docile/calm
• White eggs