Michigan Thread - all are welcome!

[aart]

If anyone is interested in laying hens, I've made the sad decision to sell my entire laying flock, 60+ hens. They will be a year old the 2nd week in August. There are RIR, Barred Rock, RSL, BSL, EE, SLW, Columbian W, BO, Leghorn,Partridge Rock, Brahma, and a few other breeds.
I also have 17 two week old Guinea keets and my breeding stock of Black Copper and B/B/S Marans from Wynette.
I was hoping I wasn't going to have to make this decision, it makes me very sad to give everything up.
Please PM me any questions.

OhNo...I'm so sorry!! Did you get caught up in a local municipality ban?



New use for chicken run roof....I was not sure where I as going to cure my garlic this year since I built my chicken coop in the large shed I used before.
Well, the run roof works just fine for 1st stage drying....will have to cure the heads in the garage tho.

 

[SillyChicken]

Could someone give me some ideas on what would cause rate of lay to decline? I have two pullets in their first year of lay. They both started laying eggs in April. One was laying an egg a day for about 20 days in a row, then taking a day off. She's now down to 7 days, then a day off. The other was laying for 7 days in a row, and she's now down to 2 or 3 days before she takes a day off. I don't see any signs of illness in either of them. I have 2 hens with these two that are a year older than these, and their rate of lay has not changed. I did add 3 younger pullets about two weeks ago to this group, and thought at first that that may have unsettled them, but I haven't seen an improvement yet. Any thoughts? What should I be looking for?

Molting...... but it may be a bit early for that yet.

 

[SillyChicken]

RAZ, Saturday... weather dependent on riding bikes. We'll be going up to the honey festival early, then have to go down to Toledo for a grad party. Let me know if you're still going. We aren't keen on riding up 23 because the traffic stinks on that road and with all the accidents lately.. it has some..bad ju ju! We thought about taking M-52 up.

 

[RoostersCrow HensDeliver!]

Luckily its not a legal issue, my husband and I are going to be purchasing a house and I won't be able to have them.
Luckily I have a few months to find new homes for them, this is really sad. I don't know if I will be able to find homes for my roosters, they are such gentleman and are good boys but no one ever wants roos. I would rather humanely euthanize them myself than send them off to the auction or someone with possibly shady intentions

 

[preciouskitty]

@RaZ
HAPPY BIRTHDAY! e

 

[Opa]

 

[HollyDuckFarmer]

X3

BTW I have 3 ducks molting now so many fewer eggs already.

 

[SillyChicken]

Happy Birthday Raz!

 

[gladahmae]

Could someone give me some ideas on what would cause rate of lay to decline? I have two pullets in their first year of lay. They both started laying eggs in April. One was laying an egg a day for about 20 days in a row, then taking a day off. She's now down to 7 days, then a day off. The other was laying for 7 days in a row, and she's now down to 2 or 3 days before she takes a day off. I don't see any signs of illness in either of them. I have 2 hens with these two that are a year older than these, and their rate of lay has not changed. I did add 3 younger pullets about two weeks ago to this group, and thought at first that that may have unsettled them, but I haven't seen an improvement yet. Any thoughts? What should I be looking for?

if they're laying 2-3 days in a row and taking 1 day off, you're still getting around 5 eggs per week out of her, and that's completely normal. Hot weather (which we certainly haven't had up my way) can cause them to slow down a bit as well. I would check for lice as my birds slowed down laying when they had them this spring. And not all of my birds had them. Go figure! When I add or move birds laying does change for a couple of weeks for some, so that could have been it as well. I agree that it seems a little early for molting, but that's not out of the question.



The girls are LOVING this weather. 70s during the day, 40s at night. My garden is not overly please. My tomato plants could really use some heat to get them going again....they were just taking off and then this whole 15 degrees below average temperature stuff hit.

I looked over my broody chicks yesterday (10 of them) and it looks pretty darn boy-heavy. I'm REALLY hoping I'm wrong because I'm planning on culling my older hens this fall when I send all of the cockerels to the processor, and I'd like to have POL birds to replace them.....but I sold chicks locally and tried to give them what I thought was girls out of the older batch since I had the younger broody batch. It also looks like all 3 of the amberlinks we bought from TSC are cockerels. So as of right now, I have 3 welsummer pullets (10wks) and maybe 1 mix pullet and then 6 for-sure cockerels in one pen. At least we'll have plenty of chicken to eat over the winter?

 

[RaZ]

A workgroup has been formed to address the issue of backyard chickens.
http://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo...ban_farming_working.html#incart_river_default