North Carolina

[Hatch N Eggs]

Good Morning Everyone!!

 

[busymadre]

Morning everyone!
Left the coop chicken entrance open last night. All is well!

One girl stayed outside all night on the roosting bar in the pen. the rest were inside. Not sure why she is such a loner

DH took that "turn block lock" off the run door for me last night - at least I don't have to worry about getting locked in anymore

Glad we put a bolt lock on top and bottom of run door. My 2 year old granddaughter wants to be with the "cluck-clucks" all the time and can manage the lower lock, but thankfully not the top

Enjoy your day. Just got to work and already can't wait to leave and enjoy this nice weather outside.

 

[Tikkijane]

Good morning everyone!

Welcome to all newcomers!

Weird thing just happened to me... I was outside and heard a rooster crow. Not unusual as we do have a rooster, but this one didn't sound anything like Dick, so I looked around to see where he was. I saw a chicken sitting in the entrance to the coop (where the crowing sounded like it came from) and just chalked it up to the sound being changed because of where he was sitting. All of a sudden, a rooster crowed from the big pole barn (opposite direction from the coop) and there was Dick, crowing his normal sounding crow. The chicken in the coop was Boots a Bantam hen, or so I thought

. I'll try to get a pic of her to post here. She's not sleek and thin like our other bantam rooster, but she has a bigger comb than the other hens. Is it possible I'm mistaken, and she is a HE? Or was she a she, and now under going some sort of sex change type thing??

On another note, we have five chicks (Bantams, I really want bigger ones, but Henny decided to sit on Bantam eggs), and they are all doing very well with Mama. Hopefully I'll get another chicken to go broody so I can set some bigger eggs under her, since I now have 10 Bantams total, and only 3 big girls.

Hope everyone has a great day, try to get some outside time, it's BEAUTIFUL out today!! I'm off to chase chickens so I can get a picture of Boots.

Sex change is rare- if it does happen, it should only happen when they are a few years old. {http://www.feathersite.com/Poultry/BRKChange.html; http://www.lifeslittlemysteries.com/1277-sex-change-chicken-rooster.html} I've never read about a male going female, fwiw. [Sex change is ]Not out of the realm of possibility, though.

 

[Tikkijane]

Have one white silki hen that could use some company

I get my silkies from a guy in Tarbaro. No idea where you are and if that's a reasonable distance or not. And they are straight run. PM me if you want info.

 

[missnu01]

They did some kind of study and found that if you raise nothing but male chickens some of the males will start acting like hens, building nests and sitting on nothing...Lol.
Chickens seem to find a way.

 

[busymadre]

Took a large bucket into the coop run yesterday to sit on. Held one of my girls and just petted her. She seemed to love it!
My DH probably thinks I'm weird, but I know my friends on BYC will be able to relate

 

[KBG204]

My hen is still going after surgery! She is on a soft food diet until I see she can go back to the coop. Hope everyone has a good day!

 

[ramirezframing]

chickens don't change sex, but hens can crow or grow male features like hackle and saddle feathers and spurs. Hens that do ALL these changes tend to stop laying eggs, but can not fertilize other hens as a true rooster can do. I have a few hens that have spurs, but they still lays eggs. I think Boots is just a late bloomer as this tends to happen sometimes when there are other more mature roosters around. Now if you look on here you will see hermaphrodite chickens that have both sex organs. These chickens tend to look like one chicken on one side and a whole different chicken on the other side, very neat birds!

 

[LukesCityHens]

ONLY 4 WEEKS left until baby Lucian arrives. (or is supposed to) I've been way too busy for my own good, but I guess thats what I get for waiting. Just wanted to check in a say HELLO to everyone! happy hump day~!

 

[KristanB]

I just put a yard of sand in my outer covered pen and thought it would be enough , but it only covered 1/3 of it! I really like the sand because it is easy to keep clean and it doesn't hold water and stays dry. It isn't dusty and doesn't really blow around. I had a lot of dust with the shavings and straw and with the babies this year, I didn't want them breathing all that when they were confined in there at night or whenever. If it gets in the water, it just drops to the bottom and doesn't "dirty" the water. The chickens can dust bathe in it if they want.I made myself a "chicken-poo pick" out of one of the picks I use to clean horse stalls. I got some hardware cloth (rabbit wire) and fastened it to the fork area and now I have a "sifter" that lets the sand drop through and keeps the poop so I can dump it in my manure bucket. I can clean the coups and runs out so quickly and easily and they stay nice and clean.I think I will need maybe 5 more yards of sand to get everything to a depth of 3" in all the covered coups and runs. It is not that expensive. I paid $20 for a ton which is right around a yard.If you look at the cost, it is really a lot cheaper than shavings or straw that must be replaced each week because you only have to replace sand maybe once a year. I am a little OCD about keeping things clean and don't like the poop sitting around on the ground day after day building up. It may not be for everyone but I really like it for my situation.AngelaAngela

Thanks! I am gonna convert to sand!