Michigan Thread - all are welcome!

[Folly's place]

I had one leg, not both, not in time. And the video should be 'interesting'! All I really worried about was if he got on the road, or in the wood lot on the other side.
Mary

 

[MasterofNone]

Hi all we are looking for one, or maybe 2 roosters for our flock of 21 pullets. We expected at least a few of the straight runs to be cockerels, but we only got Rocky, the barred rock, who we ordered. And that meant we got a lot of pullets!

Unfortunately, we have a little rooster problem. Our 17 wk old cockerel is showing aggression toward humans and pets. For about the past 2 weeks he's been charging up behind me and the dogs, and one cat that used to hang out with the flock has a puncture wound of mysterious origin. I gave him some time and tried some of rooster rehab stuff I've been told to try, but its just escalating. Tonight when I went to shut the coop door for the night, Rocky decided to try again for my ankles.

That was Rocky's last chance and he blew it. We need a roo that will watch out for the girls, but at least be tolerant and docile with the rest of us. Bad thing is, I spent a ton of time with those chicks to try and acclimate them to my handling. But I guess some are just born with a more aggressive streak. Unfortunately we do not want that passed on to his offspring.

The flock is free range as often as is safe, but have an oversized run and coop when they need it. We have BR, BO, SLW, new hampshire reds, australorp, and RIR. We are willing to take almost any breed so long as he is docile with us and hardy for our weather here in MI. We aren't too worried about what the chicks will eventually turn out to be, so long as they don't have aggressive tendencies.

Unless a new roo also has a bad attitude, then we have every intention of keeping him with the flock indefinitely for a long and happy life.

We are considering if we should actually try with 2 roos, considering just how many pullets we ended up with. So if you have two nice boys that get along and need a new home, that would be great for us. We are rural, so nobody is bothered by crowing, if they even hear it.

We considered starting over with baby chicks, but ugh... I don't want to deal with that this fall, honestly. So a couple cockerels from this spring would be ideal if anyone has any surprise-cockerels to rehome.

We have an extra NHR pullet if you want a trade.

Thanks for reading. Sorry to be so long-winded. (I did post in the other thread as well)

 

[Sarahmacc1]

There was one problem: The posts were going on the inside of the existing fence, and I had to be outside on the step stool. Otherwise I'd have been trampling all over the plants. I thought about taking all the fence down, but it's been there so long that the grass has anchored a lot of it in place. I was replacing home made wooden posts that DH made out of bits of barn wood. They held up a lot longer than we thought they would.

The blade part of grass composts quickly. The stem part, not as quickly. The long rhizome roots: Keep those out of the compost if you can. They sit there, bide their time, and when they end up back in the garden, they grow again. How do I know this? Trust me, I know this.

Any woody stem parts of plants take a while to break down. If you can chop them up somehow, that helps. If you have a high nitrogen source, like chicken poop, that will help. And if you do a "hot rot" that will help too. Check out this info on the Berkeley compost method.
https://deepgreenpermaculture.com/2010/05/08/hot-compost-composting-in-18-days/

Thank you so much, I will check it out

 

[Sarahmacc1]

Well it has been a few days since I have come back to this site. Several pages of posts to go through. Something was mentioned about composting. One of my favourite topics. I have a great big pile of tree trimmings from a local tree trimmer. It's not the ideal composition of brown to green but with a bit of work, I'll have brown gold soil by spring.. I'm so happy that I have a tractor with a bucket to turn that pile.
When I lived in the city I had to do all that labour by hand. But it was worth it.

The past few days I've been pulling wood out of the woods for winter firewood. I'm far behind for what I need. I have a bunch of logs that need to be bucked but to be honest, I'm a bit wary of the chainsaw since I hit my leg last week. On the other hand I have a bunch of good timber to pull out of the woods. There is easily 2 years of good firewood out there ready to harvest.

I will post a picture of our pitiful compost pile. The only good of it is the snakes call it home and haven’t come near our coop that we know of. However we don’t have any eggs yet still. Any day now

 

[Sarahmacc1]

Having a blast! Sanctus Real are amazing! Unity Festival is a 4 day concert of Christian music. Today is free. This year big tickets are Big Daddy Weave, Sanctus Real, Crowder, Riley Clemens,Mathew West, Mike Donehey who is now a solo artist but used to be part of the group Tenth Avenue North, Jason Gray and more. It's on every August.
View attachment 3218947View attachment 3218948View attachment 3218949
This is like Woodstock for Christians without the drugs,lol
We Are Messener is on and they are from Australia. Before covid, it was superb with Toby Mac, For King and Country. It is always a blast here. Just to have a huge set up just for us who love to worship Christ unashamed!

Where in Michigan is this? I would have loved to attend!!! Maybe next year!

 

[Sarahmacc1]

New to the Michigan thread, look forward to seeing what is going on with everyone's flocks. We do not have any chickens right now, coyotes cleaned us out last fall but we have pea fowl that are doing great. We had our 1st pea chicks hatch out this year, we have 4 pea chicks that were hatched out 4th of July if anyone is interested. Too young to tell sex yet but they have been wormed. Let me know if you are interested, $50 each.

What love to learn more about them? Are they the same as Guinea fowl or completely different?

 

[Sarahmacc1]

Cubalaya.View attachment 3226803

He’s beautiful

 

[Folly's place]

I'm down to three roosters right now, and it's just the right number. Maybe somebody has extra cockerels, we don't. Try raising some chicks in spring, and keep one or two nice ones. Our white Chantecler cockerels from Cackle have all been polite birds, although we have moved most of them on at five or six months of age; can't keep multiples too long!
Salmon Favorelles are really sweet, but probably are too mild mannered to do well in that mixed flock.
Half the Speckled Sussex roosters we raised were jerks, and half were nice. We gave up on them! The hens are terrific, but the cockerels were so chancy...
Mary

 

[Sally PB]

Snowbird report:

Sunday late afternoon, Little (alpha hen) and Snowbird went chest-to-chest at the the separation fence between them. She had her hackles up, he didn't. She walked away after about a minute.

Yesterday at snacktime, I put the goodies along the fence. They did very well! I'll put mash snack along the fence today, and see how they do. I might be taking the fence down tomorrow if all goes well...

 

[Folly's place]

Love getting updates, and love his name!!!
Usually introducing an adult rooster is the easiest introduction there is, hope it goes that way for your flock. He's going to be so delighted!
Mary