Meyer Hatchery Chicken pics anyone??

[ncymst]

I hope in your next batch that you get an EE that color and of course I hope all of your EE's lay green or blue eggs. Or are you ordering the Olive Eggers too?

Thanks for the waterer info. I didn't even think of putting up the metal one until winter, that's a great idea. Especially since I already have a big and a small plastic one. I need to claim a space in one of our sheds for all my chicken stuff. My husband has all his equipment in them and I am always having to dig through to my stuff since he always seems to put stuff in my way. I'm the organized one in the house with everyone else it's a battle.

That is a lot of snow! You're Corgi is adorable! Maxie, my chow, would love it if we got that much snow. I guess there is still a chance for more for us, but so far we've not had it as bad as everyone else. We've had the extreme cold, but not the ice and snow. Yesterday we got up to 72 degrees, today the high is 42 degrees, tomorrow the high will be 66, this is some crazy fluctuations here.

I miss mine being that small, they grow so fast. I never had a rooster though. I wonder when he'll start crowing?

So sorry, they are a fun breed to have, I hope that you can get another soon!

If I lived close that's what I'd do. Can't wait to see the pics of your chicks!

I can't remember when my well Sumer started crowing he died at a yr and a half but people have said some start trying to crow at 7 weeks ugh. But I think my other rooster was like 5 months when he started crowing

 

[chickentherapy1]

They don't tag them, but you can get those small little leg i.d. bands. My chicks from Meyers all looked different and had different personalities, so I was soon able to tell them apart. My easter eggers looked the most different from each other, but even my Barred Rocks and Rhode Island Reds had different markings.

 

[daniellea2912]

I got some pictures today of my Meyer girls.

The older girls, who will be 2 years old in June:

I don't remember who asked about them, but here's my Speckled Sussex. Poggy:




Iddy Biddy:




Here's one of my Meyer Partridge Plymouth Rocks, She Who Sleeps Standing Up. Fancy, my other PR, kept moving, so I didn't get a picture of her.




And my lovely blue splash Marans, Frou-Frou, who pretty much blends into the snow right now.

Some of the young girls, who will be 9 months old on February 12:

My Silver Lakenvelder, Huka:




My Golden Campine, Ihi, who is molting and clearly in a bad mood.

Mr. Po the Black Cochin bantam from Meyer's Black Frizzle Cochin Bantams:




Roha the Exchequer Leghorn:




My Ancona, Rangi, got hit with frostbite really bad a few weeks ago and now has 1 1/2 wattles, poor girl:

How well does your speckled sussex lay? I was thinking of adding one to my order in April

 

[anba]

I am excited to start my backyard flock. I ordered from Meyer to be picked up in June...

Black Australorp
Barred Rock
Buff Orpington
Blue Ameraucana
Blue Splash Maran
Welsummer
Easter Egger
Salmon Faverolle


I am so excited. We are in the chicken coop planning phase right now and my husband so graciously agreed to make it for me. I think I am going to make it large enough for 12 chickens so that the kids can hatch eggs next year for a school project. They just wanted chicks this year and I just wanted as many hens as possible.

I can't wait.

 

[IrishAcreFarm]

I am excited to start my backyard flock. I ordered from Meyer to be picked up in June...

Black Australorp
Barred Rock
Buff Orpington
Blue Ameraucana
Blue Splash Maran
Welsummer
Easter Egger
Salmon Faverolle


I am so excited. We are in the chicken coop planning phase right now and my husband so graciously agreed to make it for me. I think I am going to make it large enough for 12 chickens so that the kids can hatch eggs next year for a school project. They just wanted chicks this year and I just wanted as many hens as possible.

I can't wait.

That is wonderful!! You are starting off with some great breeds, and Meyers hens are the sweetest hatchery birds I have ever had! Very excited for you and your family, you will find that having a backyard flock will be so incredibly fun and rewarding!

 

[anba]

My husband is planning a 8X6 coop. Do you all think that is sufficient for eventually 12? I was thinking 8X8, but he very much does not want it to look like a box... so 8X6 it will be

.

Thanks!

 

[anba]

That is wonderful!! You are starting off with some great breeds, and Meyers hens are the sweetest hatchery birds I have ever had! Very excited for you and your family, you will find that having a backyard flock will be so incredibly fun and rewarding!

I am so hoping that they will be, for the most part, pleasant, docile, and good with my kids. We homeschool and I thought that keeping chickens would be a great teaching tool. Plus, I get to have fun watching their antics and as an added bonus we get eggs and garden helpers. I think you can't get any better than that.

 

[NanaLynn]

I am so hoping that they will be, for the most part, pleasant, docile, and good with my kids. We homeschool and I thought that keeping chickens would be a great teaching tool. Plus, I get to have fun watching their antics and as an added bonus we get eggs and garden helpers. I think you can't get any better than that.

8 x 6 will give 4 square feet per chicken, so that should be the right amount, if I am doing the math right. Just watch out for "chicken math" so you don't go over your 12. Are you building a run too?

You are right that having chickens is a great teaching tool. I got mine too late since my kids are all grown now. My one regret with having chickens is not getting them earlier when my kids were young.

Make sure you have a hands on approach and spend a lot of time with them, they'll be sweeter chickens that way.

I love all of the eggs we're getting and the garden help! So much more fun gardening now! Good luck and I'm excited for you. Can't wait to see those cute chicks!

 

[trsturself]

We homeschool too and the chickens have been great. We only have 2 meyer birds but we love all of our chickens. We are in the process of hatching eggs right now. Chicken math will get you! We built our coop for 4 birds and now have 8 moving up to 10 this year. We have a large outside run for them so the 16sqft coop is plenty of space for them. They only lay eggs and sleep in there. If that's your case too then that is plenty big for them. We have 16ft of roost space and they all pile in to about 7ft of it. They like to smoosh together especially when it's cold out. If they will get to spend most of their time outside then I think the more important number is 1-2ft of roost space per bird. We have ours all at the same level but some people do ladder roosts. We tried that and found our girls only used the top roost on it anyway so we took it out to give them more floor space.
I think you will be really happy with your selection of birds. We have an EE, BR, and BA out of that group. We had a BO but we gave it to a friend. We like to feed our birds out of our hand and she pecked super hard and hurt! She didn't mean too I think she had a depth perception problem. So she went to live with a friend that doesn't hand feed. She actually has a lot more room now so she was a lucky girl!

 

[MsChickenMomma]

I need to start checking this thread more... I keep getting way behind on posts.

Beautiful pictures to those who posted them, and welcome to the new joiners on this thread. I love seeing everyone's orders for Spring.

My Ellie finally started laying eggs again. Also I am about 90% sure that Amber finally laid her first. There was a creamy brown egg in the nest box, and my only girl that I know of that lays that color is Sunni.

So today I got 7 eggs from 9 hens. Even my almost 6 year old hen laid an egg today! The only ones that didnt lay today were Lilly (BA) and Daffodil. I'll have to get some pictures of the eggs. All of the colors are so pretty!