Look what we got in the mail today

[terrilhb]

They are so cute. Congratulations.

 

[The Burg Peeps]

So Awesome! We will be getting our 2 week old birds on July 5th. It will be our first flock as well. Enjoy!

 

[Kudzu]

Quote:
They are doing great, getting five eggs a day. Well one day we did not get any, then we caught a Chicken Snake in the nest box the next day. Their beaks were clipped, since these are our first, I don't know if that is good or bad for them. They seem to do just fine. However, it took them about a month before they started acting like chickens, I think that is because of the way they were raised. We have a very large open air (covered) pen for them and the first month they used about four feet of it. Now they are all over the pen and use the different roost we have for them. All in all I would do it again, just didn't have time to raise small chicks.

 

[chicks4erin]

Thanks Kudzu, are they friendly to handle now that they know they are chickens? I don't know if you already have some on BYC or not but if you have any recent pictures of your ladies I'd love to see them and see what exactly all this beak talk is about. Thank you!! I think we'll be ordering some pullets as well, seems like a good way to start out. Oh dear, I sure as heck hope we don't have any chicken snakes up here, not a big fan of snakes at all.

 

[Kudzu]

Got some pics today, will get up soon.

 

[Kudzu]

We have happy girls..

chicken snake we caught in a nest box.

got a little watermelon today...they loved it..sorry about the wire but when I went inside they ran to me and away from the melon...LOL

they love my wife's feet...

stink eye...

sand added to the coop under the roost..much better!! the girls love it too..have redone the roost walk with much larger slats for them to walk up; they never used the roost at first but now roost every night and fly down every morning!

 

[ThePolishPrincess]

Such beautiful, healthy gals! Debeaking is usually not recommended because it causes a large amount of pain to the bird, kind of like declawing a cat. It is said to reduce the likelyhood of feather picking and is pretty mainstream for purchasing 'point-of-lay' pullets from hatcheries, because that's where many commercial layer hens are from, I believe. And commercial laying industries keep debeaked hens. I'm under the impression that all hatchery ordered point-of-layers arrive debeaked.

You obviously love your babies and I'm glad they have such an awesome home! Their coop setup looks like a giant playhouse. So bright and colorful! LOL

 

[Jerseycoop]

They are so pretty! Good luck

 

[chicks4erin]

Kudzu, thanks so much for all the info, your girls are lovely and what a fabulous coop, love the roost - what lucky girls. It looks like they still have most of their beak, except the tip, I don't know what I was picturing... I thought we would wait until next spring to get our birds, but if I can get hubby out there building us a coop, maybe we'll do this in September. Thanks again, pictures are worth a 1,000 word. They really are pretty.

 

[Kudzu]

Better view of the beak.

This has become our new favorite sandwich..BET [bacon, egg and tomato]

umm umm good

We have an open air coop..shot of the coop before all the shade cloth was put on

Shade cloth over all of the top except a postion of the grassy area in the extended coop

The girls love for us to put the sprinkler on them and let it drip through the shade cloth.