Meyer Hatchery Chicken pics anyone??

[christine9]

They have not started yet.:-( they are just starting to show some reed in the combs and wattles are starting to drop but they are still a few weeks off.

Darn! I'm so curious as to the color they will be.

 

[COChix]

From my understanding of the egg production system in a chicken you might have to wait 2 days to see a difference. Eggs take 24 hours to produce so tomorrows eggs were already in production today when you fed. Unless of course you feed at 9am and they don't lay until after 9am the next day it may make a difference, but my guess is a change would take effect the next day. It's like a bird that gets hurt or goes into shock, they will often lay an egg the next day because it was already in process, but then they stop.
Just guessing though. Let us know what you find! 

oh well that makes sense given their their egg production starts again 30 minutes after they lay. Will keep you posted....

Scary update, so we had two large coons visit last night. Have a survelance camera on the coop and we watched it this am. One looks to be the size of our smallest dog and she is 40 pounds. We guess the bore is around 30 pounds, no wonder he broke the coon trap early in the summer. So we had bought a new trap and they had managed to get the food and get out of the trap, now we know why. He is too big for the traps, we will have to get a different type of trap after seeing him. Weird to watch him climb on the enclosed run and walk around. So now the challenge will be not too worry too much about the gang.

 

[christine9]

From my understanding of the egg production system in a chicken you might have to wait 2 days to see a difference. Eggs take 24 hours to produce so tomorrows eggs were already in production today when you fed. Unless of course you feed at 9am and they don't lay until after 9am the next day it may make a difference, but my guess is a change would take effect the next day. It's like a bird that gets hurt or goes into shock, they will often lay an egg the next day because it was already in process, but then they stop.
Just guessing though. Let us know what you find! 

oh well that makes sense given their their egg production starts again 30 minutes after they lay. Will keep you posted....

Scary update, so we had two large coons visit last night. Have a survelance camera on the coop and we watched it this am. One looks to be the size of our smallest dog and she is 40 pounds. We guess the bore is around 30 pounds, no wonder he broke the coon trap early in the summer. So we had bought a new trap and they had managed to get the food and get out of the trap, now we know why. He is too big for the traps, we will have to get a different type of trap after seeing him. Weird to watch him climb on the enclosed run and walk around. So now the challenge will be not too worry too much about the gang.

Yikes! That sounds scary. I hope you can rectify this quickly.

 

[trsturself]

Complaining worked! We got 1 egg today. Much better than none. DH was home and checked periodically. We haven't done the wooden or mustard eggs yet though. I'll be out of town the next few days so I'm not sure if it will get done before then or not.

 

[NotableNancy]

Glad Patty Patty is a girl!

I second the magic eraser, we use it on our stove.

I'm thinking something must be stealing eggs, or group egg eating. We haven't had a single egg out of 50+ hens in almost 2 weeks. I understand the few older ones that are molting, but there are younger ones that were laying great a little while ago. Last year our young ones slowed down a little but never stopped in the winter, and this is pretty early in the season to stop completely. So... I'm going to put some mustard eggs and some wooden eggs. If they are broken we'll know there's some eating going on, if they go missing we'll know something is taking them.

And when I say molting I mean a hard molt...

Yup, thats a lot of feathers! But now that you put it that way... 50 chickens and NO eggs... something's gotta be going on. Do you have golf balls out there too?

oh well that makes sense given their their egg production starts again 30 minutes after they lay. Will keep you posted....

Scary update, so we had two large coons visit last night. Have a survelance camera on the coop and we watched it this am. One looks to be the size of our smallest dog and she is 40 pounds. We guess the bore is around 30 pounds, no wonder he broke the coon trap early in the summer. So we had bought a new trap and they had managed to get the food and get out of the trap, now we know why. He is too big for the traps, we will have to get a different type of trap after seeing him. Weird to watch him climb on the enclosed run and walk around. So now the challenge will be not too worry too much about the gang.

http://www.amazon.com/Duke-Dog-Proo...8&qid=1414454086&sr=8-2&keywords=raccoon+trap


This is the trap we used... can't even tell you how many we have caught. (no this isn't one of them... took pic off internet) We put marshmallows with peanut butter in there and it works every time. We've caught some pretty big ones too. You know how I always have crazy stories.... My DH was disposing of one early one morning and he used his bow cause he didn't want to make much noise. Shot it and the arrow went through his chest and into the ground. Went back about 10 minutes later and the coon was sitting up with the broken arrow next to him with a look on his face like... "OK, what else ya got?" Tough buggers. We just set it periodically because they're always around.
Good luck... from the sound of them you need it!!

Complaining worked! We got 1 egg today. Much better than none. DH was home and checked periodically. We haven't done the wooden or mustard eggs yet though. I'll be out of town the next few days so I'm not sure if it will get done before then or not.

Yay... at least one right. But there has to be something going on... hope you figure it out!

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Where did Trudi and Malcolm fly in from?  If you get a pic of them next to your chickens I'd love to see how small they actually are. They look adorable.

They came from a show in central Indiana (we're up in northern Indiana, so it was a few hours of a drive there--not as long as the trip to Meyer's, though!). They are in quarantine, so no pictures with the chickens yet, but hopefully in a few weeks I can try to do that. I'm thinking I'll try and find some common object to pose them with for size comparison.

I don't know if this helps for a size comparison, but here are Malcolm and Trudi eating from a standard (7-cup capacity) metal dog dish:

They're too cute! They finally figured out the steps to their pool, so they've been having a blast swimming and throwing water everywhere.






Some other things I meant to quote.

Loving the look of the kitchen remodel!

Congrats on Patty really being a girl!

I'm liking the look of those BCM eggs! I have a feeling my two, Georgie and Louise, are a long way from laying, though.

We're down to 3 or 4 eggs here. The advantage to having so many different ages in my flock is that they all seem to molt at different times and come back into lay.



School, winterizing, and coop building has me worn out--sorry if I seem scatterbrained at the moment.


Edited because I messed up the quote.

 

[trsturself]

I noticed a couple chickens were shaking their heads last night. Not a lot but definitely noticeable. Reading I found respiratory issues or bugs could cause it. Our little bantam EE has had a cold (yes, I know they don't actually get a cold but it's much easier than respiratory infection and you understand I'm speaking of the symptoms not the virus) for nearly a week now so I wouldn't be surprised if they all have it a little bit. The VetRx started helping after a couple days on the EE. She was almost her usual self today. I read those colds can also stop laying but not all of them are acting sick enough to justify no eggs. DH messed up the stuff in the nest boxes so we could at least tell if they are going in there to lay or not. No one went in there after he collected the one egg. Other causes of no eggs said worms, bugs, illness, etc. I guess they could have worms without showing other symptoms. When I get back in town I'll give them some pumpkin seed. I'll check them for bugs too.

On another note, I found one of my friend's chickens laying on the ground the other day. She can't support herself on her legs but she is alert and eating/drinking. I'm really hoping it's not mareks. I separated her immediately but there is such conflicting info out there. There was just a conversation on the CO thread about it. We are having a freeze tonight, I covered her dog crate with a thick moving blanket, hopefully it will be enough. My friend is expecting the worst but I hate dealing with dead animals!

 

[christine9]

I noticed a couple chickens were shaking their heads last night. Not a lot but definitely noticeable. Reading I found respiratory issues or bugs could cause it. Our little bantam EE has had a cold (yes, I know they don't actually get a cold but it's much easier than respiratory infection and you understand I'm speaking of the symptoms not the virus) for nearly a week now so I wouldn't be surprised if they all have it a little bit. The VetRx started helping after a couple days on the EE. She was almost her usual self today. I read those colds can also stop laying but not all of them are acting sick enough to justify no eggs. DH messed up the stuff in the nest boxes so we could at least tell if they are going in there to lay or not. No one went in there after he collected the one egg. Other causes of no eggs said worms, bugs, illness, etc. I guess they could have worms without showing other symptoms. When I get back in town I'll give them some pumpkin seed. I'll check them for bugs too. 

On another note, I found one of my friend's chickens laying on the ground the other day. She can't support herself on her legs but she is alert and eating/drinking. I'm really hoping it's not mareks. I separated her immediately but there is such conflicting info out there. There was just a conversation on the CO thread about it. We are having a freeze tonight, I covered her dog crate with a thick moving blanket, hopefully it will be enough. My friend is expecting the worst but I hate dealing with dead animals!

I hope things turn around soon! I hate dealing with all of that too. Your friend is so lucky to have someone who is taking such good care of her animals. The no eggs things is quite a mystery. I guess it could be bugs/worms but that still seems weird that it would affect them all. Although I guess with the combination of molting, maybe. Obviously you didn't go through this last year, right? Weird!

 

[MamaShell]

Has anyone tried this heated hanging waterer?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B001C...SX110_SY165_QL70#immersive-view_1414500357091

 

[NotableNancy]

Has anyone tried this heated hanging waterer?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B001C...SX110_SY165_QL70#immersive-view_1414500357091

I did and it didn't work. Maybe mine was just defective though. I didn't feel like giving it another try so I returned it for this...

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...rd_t=36701&pf_rd_p=1935651402&pf_rd_i=desktop


you need a galvanized waterer to use with it which I already had so it was fine. But I'm betting it was just the one I bought didn't work not the norm. The barn where I work bought one for her chickens so I can let you know what happens with hers but you prob. want to get one now.

I've always wanted to make a cookie tin heater but I'm so not handy.