Michigan Thread - all are welcome!

[Trefoil]

Ugh, I just spent $80 on a chicken I'm picking up at the Ohio Nationals this weekend.

Thank goodness I just sold those two Squawkers parrot toys on ebay for $100 each this past week to pad my wild chicken spending-spree. Oh, and I should also probably be grateful for a very understanding husband...

no fair. What kind of chicken? Are we going to see pictures?

 

[Scifisarah]

no fair. What kind of chicken? Are we going to see pictures?

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/...-cochin-pullet-pair-auction-ends-11-8-12-6-pm# Not sure if I should take the splash cockeral that comes with her or not, but I will take a look at him and see what I think. Honestly, I have spent so much on bantam cochin hatching eggs over the past two years that I should have gotten a nice bird like this a long time ago.

 

[snowflake]

But only for the opener of deer season. I love hunting in the snow.

DH loves it for hunting also, we have so few deer this year I don't know if he has decided to hunt or not

Carmel apples! yummy!

Those apples look almost as good as the ones drizzled with chocolate sound

Well, got the run covered. I think I did a pretty good job for a nut case who just flies by the seat of her pants and hopes it all works out in the end.




I still have to finish the tops obviously, but! They now have a nice snow free place for the winter.Trying to decide if I should run a bit of fencing around the top to discourage any critter from trying to get thru the tarp. I haven't had anything get on top of the coops yet. Yet being the key word there...

LIKE the top, very nice. wish we had done something like that ours is flat, had to put in lots of supports to hold the snow

no fair. What kind of chicken? Are we going to see pictures?

x2,,,, need some pics. ,please

 

[snowflake]

HH used cattle panels to make hers. DH,and I helped DD make one like hers it was very easy and not to costly

 

[1muttsfan]

Hi HH, hope you are feeling well!

1 little hatched out CL so far - -hope there are more! Looks like a girl chick too.

 

[fuzzybutt love]

be careful, swearing in public in front of kids will get you fined too! Not that i wouldn't have said all that and a lot more too, probably accompanied by my throwing whatever i could find handy, but our fickle laws..........

To me it comes down to if it was an honest one time mistake, or is it an everyday occurrence?

I run into this situation more frequently than i'd like, i hate to say it but i am not friendly at all in these situations, even to friends and family. To me it is a lack of respect, and i don't take kindly to it. It usually don't take but one or two of these situations before the offender realizes that i'm deadly serious, and to stop playing russian roulette with my animal's lives. I want to save up for a bunch of fencing enough to do a whole yard in the tall fencing, but it also angers me because i shouldn't have to if my animals are in their own yard.

HH used cattle panels to make hers. DH,and I helped DD make one like hers it was very easy and not to costly

That's it? no supports? .......we have cattle fencing, had it for the goats but i don't think we are getting them back...........I would still need the hardware cloth for predators, but i would love to do a hoop run!

 

[greenmimama]

ANY dogs taken off of your property should be leashed properly, I can't even count the times a dog has scared the daylights out of my son, he is 3 now but has always been scared of dogs and the owners always act like he is silly. He's a small child, it's the equivalent of a horse running up to you with it's tail wagging, it's huge and scary.


Well my We had to cull my SLW, she was so sick and we had no idea what, she just lay on her back like a turtle and her legs twitched it was too sad, so we put her out of her misery.

Now we have 6 hens that seem to be getting along the best yet, it only took them more than a month, silly birds.

My chicks all 44 of them are doing quite well, I have them out in a separate big girl coop, no heat and they are doing well. When I go out to feed them, they are so happy to see me, it's a little crazy, they drain 2 gal. of water every single time. I am a bit concerned about their water freezing this winter since they drink so much of it. I might just drop the money on a larger heated waterer. I feel like I have put a lot of time, effort, and money into these chicks, don't want to lose them on frozen water this winter.



I am learning so much from BYC in general and specifically this thread, gives me lots of knowledge to not make those rookie mistakes so thanks, I appreciate all the chatter.

 

[NovaAman]

Fuzzy, the hoops are super easy to build, now that I have done it, and IF I had a second pair of hands while doing it! LOL. But really, I am going to leave the top on year round. Just remove the white plastic for the year, but it'll be nice having a top on it, so on those days where I do not want to let them out cuz the hawks are just crazy... Speaking of hawks, today I saw a lovely one land on a poor little black bird in someones front yard, kill it, then take off with it. Was kinda cool. I am just glad it wasn't one of my chickens!

 

[Elyssia001]

I'm trying to figure maintenance costs for a small flock of chickens, perhaps around 25-30 DP LF (eat the cockerels, let the pullets lay), and I'm wondering if anyone minds sharing their feeding costs with me. I'm curious where I should purchase grains and feed and how much I should expect to pay per chicken per day/week/month. Since I don't yet know where I will be when I purchase my first flock, lets assume that they get their coop and an attached run, but not free ranging.

 

[greenmimama]

Well this won't answer all of your questions, but here are a few of my numbers.

Purchased chicks for $2/piece
They are now 10 weeks old I have 44 of them, 6 are banty's and we have gone through 250lbs of food, at $15/50lbs so that would so far total $163 That is $3.70 per chick so far, I have at lest 7-10 more weeks to feed them before they even start laying, and they seem to eat more, every single day, I wish I had a run for them right now, but I don't so it is all bought feed.

I estimate I wil go through another 250lbs of food before they lay, so another $75 in feed.

Hope that helps you figure out costs.


On a different spectrum, I bought hens that were already laying 8 of them for $55, 2 dies so I have 6 and I am getting an average of 2 eggs/day that isn't even enough to feed my family all that we want to eat yet, so I haven't sold any of them yet. I have bought 100lbs of food for them, and we probably have 25lbs left, maybe even 30lbs, they free range most days. So it has cost around $80 so far to buy and feed the hens and they have given us approx. 140 eggs, that doesn't even seem possible, but yeah so the eggs have so far cost $6.90/doz LOL that should go down considerably when I am getting a better % of them laying, 2 days this week I had 3 eggs each, now today I got 1.

Now if that isn't confusing chicken math for you, I'm not sure what is.

Just wait till the chicks start laying and see how much those eggs cost me