Mille Cochin Info

[SilkieCRZYness]

I live in fort myers but I have family in Ocala that I go see once a month so I pass pass you on my way up there so I agree, we should trade some eggs or chicks once we get some. How far from 75 are you? Also, hoe many Mille fluer's do you have?

 

[KellyHM]

Quote:
I'm about 45 minsutes from I-75, so it's not too bad. I will only have a pair of started birds to begin with, but I have 16 eggs developing in the bator right now that are due on Oct. 2nd.

 

[WestKnollAmy]

You all won't believe what happened to me yesterday. I feel like a goof telling this but no one seems to understand it around here.

You all know I went and bought the 2 trios and 6 little Mille Fleur Cochin chicks Wed. I let them out into their pen yesterday morning, did the chores around the farm and kept an eye on them.
The mottleds are in one pen and the 9 Mille Fleur project birds are in another. Everyone settled in fine so I took off to the grain mill and went to Luann's to deliver her feed and pick up my last hatch of Barnevelders. I was gone about 3 hours. (Luann and I love to talk!)

When I came home, I immediately went to check on the bantam Cochins. One MFC hen was missing!

I searched all over the area, under all the large trees thinking a hawk had nabbed her(looking for feathers). I checked in the shed, around the shed, even pulling back the under penning thinking she had somehow gotten under there. Knowing most hens will stay near their roo and even their chicks if they do somehow get out I searched only that area, about an acre. Thirty minutes later, tears running down my face and sobbing like a school girl, I went to unload my grain and collect eggs from the barn.

While in the coop collecting the eggs, tears still running down the face of this old woman, I spotted a small lump of gold in a dark corner. I whispered to her and she came right to me! I scooped her and hugged and kissed on her and she snuggled right under my chin and cooed right back. I carried her up the hill to her waiting family and we all cried with joy.

I was so upset to have thought I had lost her and my family thinks I am crazy because she is a chicken. Whul, not to me!

So today I am covering the 4' fence with more wire. It makes it hard for me to rake out the pen but at least I know they won't get out somehow or get nabbed by a hawk. I have learned my lesson. And guess what? Prayers do get answered!

Thanks for listening.

 

[BluffCountryShepherdess]

Oh, Nadine!

I am SO glad that you found your little treasure, safe & sound!
I too cry over lost chickens...

;-)

Nancy
http://shepherdsvoice.blogspot.com
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/millefleurcochins

 

[amazondoc]

Similar story --

I currently have a bachelor flock of roosters in a building I call the "rooster house". Several of those bachelors are young bantam cochin cockerels.

Inside the rooster house, I have some large dog crates. I'm keeping four bantam cochin cockerels in one of the crates.

On Tuesday, one of the cockerels was gone from the cage. I couldn't find him anywhere. I looked under and behind EVERYTHING in that building -- and it's only about 8 x 20, more or less. I lifted things up, I moved things, I looked EVERYWHERE. No cockerel.

On Wednesday, I found a BIG (about 6 foot long) black ratsnake in the rooster house. Now, I don't mind snakes, and I let this one go on his way -- but I figured the snake had probably eaten the cochin, since the cockerel was a bantam and not fully grown.

On Thursday, I walked into the rooster house -- and that stinkin' little cockerel was standing there trying to get back INTO the dog crate.

 

[BluffCountryShepherdess]

TOO funny!

I'm thinking of setting up a Rooster pen as well. That way I can keep a bunch of cockerals and let them grow out before decided who's the best to use with each hen.

Do your boys get along OK?

Nancy
http://shepherdsvoice.blogspot.com
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/millefleurcochins

 

[Rare Feathers Farm]

Quote:
Mine do just fine together...they do occasionally have their swabbles, but I have three cochin bantam roos all in together, with two standard cochin roos. The two standards are waiting for their coops to be completed and the three bantams are all sale birds and waiting for new homes.

 

[amazondoc]

Quote:
IMHO you have to be careful and watchful if you keep a mixed bachelor flock. I have both bantams and LF in the flock, and they do squabble. You need to have lots of visual barriers (things for birds to hide under or behind), and if one cockerel gets bullied excessively you do have to be prepared to remove it.

The boys do squabble, and I have had a few injuries and even two or three fatalities. So it isn't a perfect system. OTOH, if you want to grow out cockerels it's about the only alternative to selling or butchering. If the cockerels have grown up together, they mostly do okay together as adults -- it's the mixing of unrelated/unfamiliar birds that you really have to be careful with.

 

[WestKnollAmy]

I have a few cockeral pens here but since I have so many breeds I have to build more. Especially since you all said to keep them a while to see who grows up better.
Most all my boys get along if I leave them together. Sometimes if a promiscuous hen walks by they get into a fuss.

I am glad your little Cochin roo showed back up. You just have to wonder what kind of adventure they had.

 

[WiseChicks]

Oh, I totally understand! Especially about my little Cochins! 2 nights ago, I went out at dusk to do the normal chicken count, and came up about a dozen short. FREAKED OUT! That many missing suggested large predator, and who was missing? All the MFC hens, my Black Mottled hens, my Seramas, and 2 of Michael's d'Uccles. So, I am running around the yard, looking for a massacre site of feathers, and didn't find one. So, then I'm looking under bushes and trees, thinking that maybe they just curled up where they were and calling chick-chick-chick. Nothing. So then I head back to the house with a heavy heart, and I hear a soft coo way above me. My oak tree is filled with nesting birds! It was a very cute sight, but way too dark to get any good pics (I tried).