Michigan Thread - all are welcome!

[Wynette]

after you have kept birds in the same spot year after year, parasites such as coccidia will build up in the environment and be a bigger risk for young birds.
And yes, Little Boy Blue is a hatch mate to your little girl.

This is a definite concern but not necessarily true; it would depend how large your runs are and how much access to free range the birds have. HOWEVER, I do believe it's never a bad idea to rototill the run area - we do so several times a year, and spray with Oxine solution or Virkon(s). A minimum of twice yearly. The added "extra" is that the chooks LOVE playing in the freshly churned up earth!

 

[Brethren49619]

Very pretty ladies, I can't wait to get mine in the mail

Did you order some already? What kinds??

 

[Cedar714]

I don't mean to change the current subject but I have a hen that has broody tendencies by sitting on her eggs.
At the moment I do not want to try and hatch any new chicks but I don't want her to lose her egg sitting behavior in case I decide to try it in the future.
Should I put a fake egg in the box with her?
Do nothing but continue to gather the eggs daily?
I am very new to chicken raising/keeping and I am trying to learn as much as possible.
She is a RIR about 20 wks old, I have 4 hens and 6 roosters which I will have to be culling soon, no problems with them yet
I have 5 RIR roosters and 1 BR rooster, 3 RIR hens and 1 BR hen.
I wanted to get pullets but the wife found a mixed batch of straight runs for almost free and were a week older than the others in the store so we went with them even though I told her we would probably get 50/50 hens/roosters, it's her fault

She didn't really want me to get chickens because I stay pretty busy with work and whatever hobbies and other chores I can squeeze in so that was one of the bargaining chips I used to get my way.... doh, I guess it's half my fault too

Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated!
Thanks to all of you who contribute to this site, lots of good helpers in the Michigan thread!!

 

[chicken grandma]

Hi Cedar,
You can eat your roosters. There are places that will kill them and bag them for you to put in your freezer.

Just keep one good rooster if you can so he can guard your hens from predators. Hens are much more relaxed with a rooster for protection. At one BYC members house I observed her two roosters working in tandem! One rooster stood in the field over the hens who were grazing. The other rooster stood near the coop and guarded the ladies who were laying! Lucky hens!

Of course for your four hens you don't need two roosters. They would fight. But if you can keep one rooster for those ladies, you will be glad you did!

At 20 weeks old your hen may just be starting to lay eggs and the time she is spending in the nest box might be the time she needs to lay her eggs. She may not be broody, she may be a new layer and inexperienced.

If she is truly broody - is spending 23 hours per day in the nest box, then it is in her best interest to get back out to eating and drinking and hanging out with the flock. Some folks on here will have ideas on how to help her do that! Keeping her sitting on eggs that won't hatch is not good for her health and there is no purpose in that.

Good luck!

 

[Brethren49619]

CG always has good advice.

When I broke my broody hen (couldn't get fertile eggs to set under her), I just kept putting her back outside. After a few days with her returning to the nest area, I finally just closed the pop door during the day. WaLa! She was done. Note: they all had another pen to go into, so no one was without an inside space.

And here is the link for the broody hen thread. If you don't find an answer here, you might want to try there as well.

 

[RaZ]

Twenty weeks seems too young to be going broody. When did she start laying? Maybe the process tires her out and she has to rest afterwards.

I've only had one young hen go broody and it was my Uggo (Pepper) who went broody after laying for ~4 weeks.
Speaking of things in the soil, I am reading a newsletter from the Society of Ecological Restoration (SER). There are several good articles about soils and the decomposers who live there. I might have to do some more digging.

 

[Cedar714]

It's only been about 2 weeks since they started laying, I just noticed the one hen wanting to remain in the box with the egg under her lately, after I grab the egg she stays there for a little while but then she mingles with the others.
I don't watch them for very long but that is what I have observed so far.

 

[1muttsfan]

I have seen some of my hens go into an "egg trance" and just sit there after laying for a few - then comes the egg song

 

[NovaAman]

I had a hen do the broody thing already who is only now 8 months. Leila was 6 months for her first brood...

 

[Cedar714]

I never realized all the different facets of raising chickens and I'm kinda intrigued by it, I hope I don't get hooked too much and end up with "too many chickens"