Minnesota!

[Cebarmlds]

I know hatchery birds are not a good gauge of the breed but I tell you what, I am having second thoughts on the wyandotte. I got 2 varieties, the golden and the silver laced wyandotte. I got 2 pullets of each. Both of the golden are super mean to every other chicken in the coop. I am dead serious. They peck repeatedly at anyone eating at the same time they are. They chase and pull out feathers or just peck at any chicken for reasons I cannot see with my human eyes. One is worse but both are bad. I am honestly thinking I must have received males instead of females. The silver are not as bad behaved so I am wondering if it could just be limited to the color variation and not breed. The golden ones DO have redder faces, wattles, and combs compared to the silvers. I have 2 feeding stations and 2 water stations to take off the pressure of the bullys but it doesn't seem to matter. If my son hadn't picked out the goldens I would make them disappear. I have been talking to DH about setting up a separate bachelor pad for all these roos we have. I would stick the wyandottes in with them until I know for sure which way they swing. Boy those bullys sure can stir things up in a hurry.

I have very sweet GLW and the SLW's were the meanies, but not really mean with constant picking maybe just a little PMS? and they are hatchery birds too.

 

[Rhetts]

I have very sweet GLW and the SLW's were the meanies, but not really mean with constant picking maybe just a little PMS? and they are hatchery birds too.

I am hoping that they just need to grow out of this 'teenage' stage and the behavior issues might settle some. (wishful thinking perhaps)

 

[Bogtown Chick]

@MinnesotaNice. If you get a window framed in that might be your fresh air draw while heat and moisture pulls out on that raised wall.

I like that coop link. But even though he's had birds 10 years...over and over again you will hear the recommendation for 2x4s flat side up on this forum for cold climates. For me majority wins. Also like this person I have nest boxes framed 'outside' the main building frame. I sometimes think for us in MN land of frozen cracked eggs that they would have a better chance if nest boxes are within the main structure of the coop. So many great ideas out there. And fun to peruse the coops isn't it?

 

[Cearbhael]

This tail pecking stuff drives me crazy!  But here is what I am sure is the cause of it.  Some of the bigger feathers are actually "blood feathers", which means that blood actually goes up into the shaft of the feather.  These are some of the primaries and some of the tail feathers.  So, when the birds are getting all stupid and crazy, especially in the juvie stage when they act like bringing them feed is a sure sign I am the boogy man will eat them whole all at once.  A blood feather gets broken or enough so that the blood shows and the frenzy begins.  I have lost more juvies to this than I even want to think about!  And I have two Buckeye pullets (of course, pullets) that are in a dog kennel on the mend as I type.  It also seems to happen more to some breeds than to others, like my Buckeyes and Cochins.
Sometimes it is the oil gland that attracts attention though and one will peck at it and if bleeding starts, they are also like ravenous wolves at the kill.


With any little scratch or break that shows a little bleeding, it is best to just spray some BluKote on it so the others won't peck at it, they will tear apart wings in the same manner as the tail. 

I am sure that the censorship you applied was the same as what I had to do when typing about the weasel, Ralphie.  I have quickly developed a hate for those creatures that is unparalleled in my mind!  I didn't catch one last night, but I did catch a mouse.  Stupid mouse.  It is actually mice and rats that attract them to a place, in case folks didn't know that.  Considering all the holes around the pasture where they tunnel under tractors and coops, it is no wonder the )(&%%^&* weasel came around.  My momma cat just had a litter though and they should help cut down the population a bit once they are up to size.  My tom cat who is supposed to go for his vet visit on Tuesday has disappeared in the last couple of days.  He  usually comes back after two days, but I think he heard me make the appointment and thought he better disappear for a while.  There are at least three neighbors that have way too many cats around that he has gone off to sleaze around at.  Hopefully, he will come back and I will get that little deal taken care of.  I am not a cat person, but these two have kind of grown on me.  Her name is Callie (what to guess her color?) and he is Jerome.  Both leave my birds alone and catch mice, so I am good with that.  I feed them a little each day so they don't think they can get lazy about their jobs, but enough to keep them around doing their jobs for me.


Time to run out into the rain again.  I have to reset the trap the mouse got into, but needed a drill to open it.

If your female cat just had a litter of kittens, you need to prepare yourself for the possibility he won't be back. Your female May have run him off so he won't be a threat to her kittens. We had a male and female as barn cats and were told she would run him off and we didn't believe it until she came close to delivering... He suddenly disappeared and we never saw him again. My son was delves taters since the boy was his. Queens are very territorial and unfixed males are NOT generally welcome unless she is in heat

 

[Cearbhael]

Spell check strikes again. My son was devastated

 

[Minniechickmama]

Miniechickmama, I am so sorry to hear that blasted weasel is back. Best of luck with the trapping.

Apparently this spring being broody is contagious. I'm up to 6 broodies. Egg production is dropping, and they keep rolling or scuffling for possession of the nests and some of the eggs seem to be breaking and vanishing. And with this rain, I don't want to put one or possibly two in the broody cage as it is outdoors. And it won't fit all 6!

By the time I get home from work tomorrow, there should be 8 or 10 broodies, dagnabbit.

6? Is that all? LOL!!!
I have 5 broody Silkies in one pen, one that just decided to give up in another. Even after selling 5 Cochins in the last couple of weeks, I have 5 of those, and one crossbreed (Sweety) who has gone broody at exactly this time for the past 3 years, who is in the mixed flock. Then there are two Dark Cornish, one who isn't even a year old who are broody in two other pens. Why do I keep running my incubators???

Thanks about the weasel. I hope I catch it soon! I am going to have to keep on top of the traps until I do. I have two more rat traps, and plenty of old barn wood, so I will try to make a couple more. I have plenty of things in the freezer I can pull out to use for bait if I have to, but I have some cull bantam cockerels too that might work if I so choose, and I don't mean live bait, folks.

 

[Minniechickmama]

I know hatchery birds are not a good gauge of the breed but I tell you what, I am having second thoughts on the wyandotte. I got 2 varieties, the golden and the silver laced wyandotte. I got 2 pullets of each. Both of the golden are super mean to every other chicken in the coop. I am dead serious. They peck repeatedly at anyone eating at the same time they are. They chase and pull out feathers or just peck at any chicken for reasons I cannot see with my human eyes. One is worse but both are bad. I am honestly thinking I must have received males instead of females. The silver are not as bad behaved so I am wondering if it could just be limited to the color variation and not breed. The golden ones DO have redder faces, wattles, and combs compared to the silvers. I have 2 feeding stations and 2 water stations to take off the pressure of the bullys but it doesn't seem to matter. If my son hadn't picked out the goldens I would make them disappear. I have been talking to DH about setting up a separate bachelor pad for all these roos we have. I would stick the wyandottes in with them until I know for sure which way they swing. Boy those bullys sure can stir things up in a hurry.

I wish I had a count of how many people have said this very thing about hatchery Wyandottes!!! I kid you not, I get a call or two every year asking about what to do with a mean hen who beats up other hens and birds in the flock, even drawing blood. I finally started just asking, is it a hatchery Wyandotte? Almost all of them say yes. I had BLRWs for 4 years, and they didn't do that, but they were terrible broodies and would bruise me from biting if I tried taking them off the nest or take eggs. Last year before I got rid of them, I have 4 of them in two boxes every day I had to reach into. They were stupid too and would set on rotten eggs until they exploded. You should have smelled my big breeder house two summers ago!

My Buckeyes will definitely establish themselves as the queens of the flock when I put them out on pasture, but they do not draw blood, they are just crabby and extra assertive. Cornish on the other hand, they will decide one of their own isn't worthy and peck their heads clean to the bone, and I have had it happen 3 times now. Last year the victim had her head pecked to expose about a square inch of skull bone. It was nasty, but she healed. There is not warning either, one day they are fine and the next time you walk in the damage is done. It is all ages too, and it is the females that do it.
Here she was. This was right about a year ago when the gnats got really bad. I tried using Neosporin on her but the gnats kept getting it in and they were covering the whole area where they got stuck, so I used BluKote and just reapplied when needed until it healed weeks later.

 

[Minniechickmama]

Spell check strikes again. My son was devastated

I was trying to figure out if that was some kind of regional slang or something! LMBO!!!

I know what you mean about the females chasing off toms, but the two of them were snuggling and rubbing on each other just like he did as a kitten right up until he took off a couple of days ago, and she had her babies yesterday. He is a year old and still acts like a kitten except now he is out prowling.
I hope he doesn't take off for good, I have gotten quite fond of him. I am pretty sure they are little inbred kittens this time, but maybe not. She disappeared a couple of times for 5 or 6 days each a few weeks back and I thought she had gotten eaten by a yote or something. I just gave her dewormer the day before she had the litter too. I saw she had tapeworms, so the stuff I had wasn't working on those. I went and picked up a pill from the vet, thinking I was going to have one heck of a time giving her that, but she swallowed it without me having to do much at all. She has ear mites too this spring that I finally got cleared up. That poor cat has been through a lot. I can't bring them to the house even if I wanted to. My dogs like to kill chickens, but they like to kill cats even more. Luckily, they don't try crossing over to get those either but they do sit and bark at the cats when they are sunning themselves on the porch of my brooder house. I think those stinking cats know they are antagonizing the dogs too.

 

[duluthralphie]

Good Morning all:

Another rainy day. I did better on my hatch of turkey eggs than I thought I would, I really need to get a better candling light and take a candling class. I have 8 babies, but one is getting ICU treatment.

I doubt it will make it, the sad part is I think we are responsible, it was pipped for a long time and we have been having problems with the babies getting shrink wrapped. Also the babies seem too large to turn in the eggs.

My wife wanted to perform a turkey C-section. I did not, but she is the nurse and I am just a guy that lives in her house. I said we should wait, but did not push the issue. When she opened the air sac the membrane there was shrink wrapping but as soon as she took a small ( and I do mean small) part of shell below the air sac, I thought we should stop as the baby was wet, I lost the discussion. The baby is made it over night but is not getting better and his legs look useless. We have made an artificial egg for it to lay in, and hopefully get better.

I am not blaming her, I am just soothing my own guilt on her shoulders, ( a insignificant but big difference in my little mind). She is almost crying here as she gets ready for work, She is feeling bad, so I am stuck telling her it's okay and it was my fault. Holm when you get married, just remember no matter what happens it will be your fault and never your future wife's.

I will be moving the 7 to the nursery today as the Creamettes and toads should start hatching today. It appears the Guineas will not hatch, but I do not remember if I put the first day they could hatch or the last on them. I assume it would be the first as I use that date to decide when to move them from the incubator to the hatcher. That being the case it could be 3 more days before they hatch. I am not worried about having to turn them, as the poults are turning everything. It is amazing how much they move the eggs around. ( I have went from hatching in the egg carton to lying eggs flat, not that is makes a difference but we were doing so poorly in the cartons this year)

I hate hearing about all the troubles you are all having this spring. BUT I find it comforting too, sort of like I imagine the passengers on the Titanic were comforted having company as they crawled in the life boats.

I had another Tanager show up last night, I had two at the feeder at once. I am assuming after reading what you al said, they are just passing through and I will not see them again. I had an oriole show up this morning, Summer must be here. I did not get any guinea eggs yesterday, I am wondering if they are eating them instead of letting me have them. They are like that. They are ticked off about living in the guinea Gulag and showing me. I cannot believe it is that hard to find eggs in a 24x48 pen.

I only got one Turkey egg, I am leaving them in the pen for a turkey to sit on. On a bad note, I found a broken turkey egg lying in the field yesterday, It looked like an Ethel egg. Ethel was walking around the other day like she was lost and searching for a new nest site. I am assuming I have a critter that got her egg. Most likely a fox, coyote or coon to haul the egg that far. It may be time for a predator shoot here. The chickens followed me yesterday as I tilled the field. I was amazed how many grubs they found.

And Ed, Ed is a gentleman! I saw him find a big juicy grub and then he seemed to stand back and point it out to a hen, The hen grabbed it and ran. I was amazed at the manners you instilled in him as a chick. BUT it begs the question, "if you could instill such manners in Ed, how did you ______ (pick your favorite four letter word for the blank) so badly on Ole?"


PS Tanager is back!

 

[holm25]

This morning we went turkey hunting. While sitting there I heard a noise. Looked down and there was a cute little weasle sitting not even 5 inches away!! It wasn't scared I could have killed it. But it was so dang cute! Minnie I know you r going to frown upon my decision but I couldn't kill something so tame and cute.