Meyer Hatchery Chicken pics anyone??

[autumnhearth]

Autumn, where are you going to move?

Not sure, somewhere relatively close, we want to stay within an hour of Strongsville as that is where my parents and two of my siblings live. We love Berea but there is not much land here. We also love Olmsted Falls and Township but property taxes are too high for us (the price of a great school system). On the other hand Medina County has lots of land but I don't want our son to be in their school system. North Royalton, Strongsville, Columbia Station and North Ridgeville are all possibilities. We are open to looking further west and south but are unfamiliar with the communities. Wellington looks really charming from our drives down to Meyer. We want at least an acre, 2-5 would be preferable. My sister keeps saying we should buy the house next to her (an old couple owns it but doesn't live there). It's about 2 acres and combined with her property it would be 4. However it's a very small house that would need work, most of the land is in front of the house and they have a confirmed coyote. We've found some cute houses on Zillow, but I don't want to get too attached. We are in no place to make an offer, I need to get a job in September as I'm the one with the good credit.

Oh and our neighbors have been better now that they understand what we're dealing with. We are going to have to get the back drained, there is just no where for the water to go. I scooped out seven 5 gallon buckets of water and dumped them down our outdoor drain and have cleared out some branches to get more sunlight in but kept getting my boots stuck in the mud and falling. The husband made me stop. Their 3 year old granddaughter keeps things light. She hangs out by the fence asking "Where are chickens? What they doing?" Mike sent her over the other day to pet them. I took Pema out for her as she's super calm and soft then she followed me back to the coop to look at the other girls. She just grabbed the handle and walked right into the run, not my intention and when Cora came to check out her pretty red toenails she freaked out, ran into the corner and tried to step on her (luckily she's just a small thing wearing flip flops). I got her out them she ran back to her grandparents saying the chicken was trying to eat my toe nails. I went over go explain what happened and Mike just laughed, he's been more chatty lately, he likes to complain and as long as its not directly about us, that's fine.

 

[Finnie]

. However it's a very small house that would need work, most of the land is in front of the house and they have a confirmed coyote.

I wouldn't worry about confirming coyotes or not. Even if no one sees them, they are everywhere, and you just have to deal with them no matter where you go. I have seen them in built up subdivisions. They are getting to be kind of like deer, adapting to living amongst human populations.

One thing you should check though, for any house you are considering, is whatever the local poultry laws are. Sometimes it's based on zoning, and sometimes on the size of the land you own. Around here, 1 or 2 acres would not be enough to own chickens.

Good luck with your house plans. It's exciting to be looking. Right now as I type, my daughter and son-in-law are going out with a realtor looking for their first house.

I went with her last week looking at rental houses, but now they have decided to buy instead.

 

[Briggadane]

Autumn, We definitely have coyotes. My Danes kept them away. They look a lot like German Shepard mixes.

You should consider Columbia Station. Part of it is in Olmsted Falls school system. Lots of land, it's In a Cuyahoga county school district, while its actually in Lorain County. Lots of kids going here from that area. It's a nice compromise. I grew up here.

 

[autumnhearth]

Finnie, good points. The poultry laws are very lax here, though there are some variations, in a few of the suburbs including the one we live in poultry is simply defined as separate from livestock (livestock you need a permit for) then all the rules for pets apply, don't abuse them, let them run at large or become a nusiance with excessive smell or sound. No lot size minimum nor limit on number of birds, it's kind of weird. Of course if you live in a development with an HOA you're not allowed. We will definitely check the local ordinances before even viewing a house. I wish we were first time home buyers again. We moved here just over 6 years ago when I was very very pregnant. We rushed into home ownership at my dad's concern about our son having a backyard. If we had lived in an apartment for one year while searching I think we would have made a better choice. Oh well.

Briggadane, I did hear some of it was part of Olmsted schools. Growing up one of my friends lived in Columbia Station but attended Strongsville schools. Very interesting. My parents live right near the border.

So yesterday I thought we had a mystery egg in the run. All the big girls have been laying in the nest boxes just fine but this egg was on the sand under the perches in the run. I got excited, picked it up and noticed it had a sort of orangish tinge, like a Brahma egg, but that couldn't be. I don't expect Pema to lay for another month or two. Snow, the White Rock, sure, but not our Brahma girl. I took it inside and saw it was the same size as Baby's, it just looked a bit unfinished. Then this morning while scooping under the coop I saw what looked and felt like a deflated balloon. I knew what it was but was surprised as we've never had an odd eggs, no wind eggs, soft shells, double yokers, nothing. Then I noticed the oyster shells/calcium was next to empty. I'm pretty sure it was Baby, I have eggs from the other three from the past two days. She seems perfectly healthy. Pullets aren't squatting yet, but they are getting noisier.

 

[Finnie]

Oh Autumnhearth! I hope refilling the calcium dish is all it takes to get that shell corrected. I think there can be other problems that cause faulty eggs, so I hope you don't have any of them.

On a somewhat related note, my Welsummer, Wendolene, who was having the egg problems for a few months, finally started putting proper shells on her eggs, and I have been getting one daily for the past four or five days. But she must have lining problems in her egg duct or whatever it's called. Because every egg has had blood or meat spots in them. I had a CL ad up to sell her for over a week with no responses. I lowered her price a little, and decided that for as long as no one wanted to buy her, I would just wait and see if her eggs ever become edible, and maybe take the ad down if they did. But then today a man called and came and bought her, so I will never know if the blood spots is something that could have eventually healed. Good bye, poor Wendolene.

I am now no longer one chicken over what I had decided was a reasonable number of chickens. And Beaker has an appointment on Monday to go home with a man whose flock of 22 chickens on 12 acres needs a rooster to watch over them. The man researched and decided Appenzeller Spitzhauben was the right breed for his flock, so he is driving a long way to come get him. At least that one will be a happy ending.

 

[autumnhearth]

Baby laid a normal egg in the nest box today. Sorry to hear about Wendolene. Good news about Beaker though!

I learned something interesting at my son's birthday party this afternoon. One of the kid's mom's neighbor's is getting chickens and was saying she could only have six (we have seven). I said there were no limits in the ordinances, they responded that they were just recently passed. So after the party I did some research on my, first coming up with an article from February where they said they were relaxing the proposed limit from 4 to 8. Then some town meeting minutes from October lots of chicken keepers in attendance (how did we not know this?!). The councilmen visiting several residences coops to learn about local chicken keeping and talking about no one being penalized right away. Finally when I got on my computer I found the knew ordinances passed in March. They seem fair, most of them are about the condition and location of the coop and run. All of which we are in compliance with. Then the number based on lot size and date. People with more than the limit had to write in to the Animal Control officer by April 15th who would visit and review their case and make sure they are not in any other violations.

Lot Size
Maximum Number of Poultry animals by January 1, 2016 Maximum Number of Poultry animals by January 1, 2017
Less than 10,000 square feet

12

8​

More than 10,000 square feet but less than 1 acre

18

12​

More than 1 acre

36

24​

So yeah, 8 is much better than 6, I'd rather be under than over, not that we would get in trouble for having one more but it's good to be in compliance and still another good reason to move.

 

[Briggadane]

Baby laid a normal egg in the nest box today.  Sorry to hear about Wendolene.  Good news about Beaker though!

I learned something interesting at my son's birthday party this afternoon.  One of the kid's mom's neighbor's is getting chickens and was saying she could only have six (we have seven).  I said there were no limits in the ordinances, they responded that they were just recently passed.  So after the party I did some research on my, first coming up with an article from February where they said they were relaxing the proposed limit from 4 to 8.  Then some town meeting minutes from October lots of chicken keepers in attendance (how did we not know this?!).  The councilmen visiting several residences coops to learn about local chicken keeping and talking about no one being penalized right away.  Finally when I got on my computer I found the knew ordinances passed in March.  They seem fair, most of them are about the condition and location of the coop and run.  All of which we are in compliance with.  Then the number based on lot size and date.  People with more than the limit had to write in to the Animal Control officer by April 15th who would visit and review their case and make sure they are not in any other violations.


So yeah, 8 is much better than 6, I'd rather be under than over, not that we would get in trouble for having one more but it's good to be in compliance and still another good reason to move.

I sure hope Berea never gets ahold of Olmsted Twp! They keep trying, and we've been fighting it for over 30 years. They'd have one hell of a fight on their hands with the farms we have here. I have about 9 inches less than an acre, and over 100 chicks/ chickens.

I think Berea just wants us for land development potential. We pay a lot in property tax, but have no city tax.

 

[HappyPeepFarms]

Getting some girls from Meyer as well. White cochin, Speckled Sussex, Buckeye, and delaware.

 

[hyzenthlay]

Enjoy, HappyPeepFarms! We've had a great experience with our Meyer pullets.

Finnie, I'm sorry to hear about Wendolene , but glad to hear about the good development for Beaker.

AutumnHearth, I hope the calcium was all it takes to fix Baby's eggs!

I have a few 4 week pics of my BLRW pullet (no room on my phone to take pics of everyone, so I had to prioritize). Her color is a little hard to capture with my phone--I feel that her feathers are definitely off-black, more of a charcoal gray, but I they come out looking much blacker in the pictures. Time will tell, I guess. Blossom's pics do give me some hope. Here's what I got today:






This one is probably the closest to showing her color but still darker than I think she looks in person


Here you can kind of see by comparison to Nigella (the BA) that she is a little grayer. Not way lighter than Nigella, but definitely somewhat. See how Nigella's darkest areas are darker than BLRW's darkest areas, like the wingtips and behind their necks in this shot? It will be interesting to see how she ends up...


Still no takers on little Hazel/nka Henry the Welsummer roo. In an urban area like this, there aren't many people looking for roosters. Pittsburgh just got an awesome new ordinance allowing more chickens, bees, and even goats on urban lots (!), but still no roosters allowed. It's too bad we can't keep him, because he seems to be the sweetest and most confident/curious of this group of chicks. I don't want chicks, though, and especially mixed breed chicks, so I guess it's not practical in any event. I am excited about the goats, though. I used to dream of having a couple mini dairy goats, and now we have the room for some and we could be legal in the city. We definitely don't have time for them now, but maybe when the kids are grown... it's something to look forward to.

Oh, and I wanted to share some pics of my 6 year old Meyer EE, Chamomile. She's shy so it's hard to get good pics of her, but I just think she has the prettiest colors, and she strolled by the patio yesterday and let me get some shots. I love her long gray tail, and her salmon breast, and her grizzly gray and gold mane, and her soft mix of body colors. That gray beard does make her look very stern, though, like the grand old dame she is! I always wonder what they mixed together to get her. Does anyone know what breeds Meyer usually uses for its EEs? I'd love a white and black one, sometime, although I think most of them tend to be the black and gold kind like my other EE, Tiger Lily.

 

[HappyPeepFarms]

Thanks hyzenthlay!