North Carolina

[sbrooks88]

I feel like a bad chicken mama! I swear if someone is poisoning my birds I will find them and it won't be pretty!

 

[betty snow]

I know what you mean about suspected bad doings by other people. I have some hateful neighbors who are constantly threatening our animals.

 

[dutchbunny83]

I would hope someone wouldn't intentionally be poisoning your birds!
Do they go on anyone's land?
Do they have access to grass or plants that have been treated with pesticides or chemicals?

Idk, people do weird things though. My cat got out last week & came home with his entire back shaved!!! Creepiest thing that's happened to me, no idea who did it.

 

[sbrooks88]

We just have a hateful man across the field who got mad last year when we found out he was putting his personal garden on our farm! We told him he should've asked. Not angrily. Just simply ask next time. Then he kept having his folks go fishin at our pond and it was getting old so we changed the lock on the gate. 2 days later there was bullet holes in the boat. Then his son was driving real fast up the path and my dad told him not to anymore because of all the animals. Needless to say we've had 4 chickens and a dog die and a dog shot in the last 6 months. And I think he did it all! Hateful. Just pure mean. That's just fine. I'll set up a blessed trail camera and catch whatever. Then I ll have proof

 

[sbrooks88]

Cried the whole time I got these teeth out over my chicken. Had to file part of my jaw bone and my lips are bruised. I'm having a really bad week. And my Nieces guinea pig died yesterday. I'm fed up!

 

[betty snow]

I am definitely setting up cameras. Enough to watch our entire property. I'm sick of this witch across from us. She's caused problems since we started moving in. It's been almost 2 years now.

 

[jtbass2756]

We are having a problem with flies too. They are awful here. I'm getting some bug zappers.

We have been having an awful time with flies also! Here near Rocky Mount! We thought it might be because a lot of the fields were fertilized with chicken poop.....a lot of fields...around here.

 

[sbrooks88]

It was such a nice day yesterday! I got so much done: gave all my chickens a dip for mites, cleaned out the coop, processed two cockerels for the freezer (first time processing chickens, I didn't do too bad, and it's a good learning experience since we just ordered 10 Heritage Whites for raising for meat) and worked in the garden.

Now it's looking like it's supposed to be nasty most of this week, so I'm glad I got most everything done yesterday and Saturday. Todays agenda is grocery shopping and household chores, thankfully nothing too strenuous since my fibromyalgia doesn't like the rain.

Hope y'all have a great day, stay dry if possible.

I cleaned out the coop yesterday too and the seperate coop for the single rooster. I mean made sure everything was nice and comfy and clean and straight and there he was suffocating at 12 pm today. Ya think he could've stuck his head through and maybe broke his neck? Maybe I'm crazy obsessed with this but I really wish I knew what happened to him. Like I said it was really bad. Like something out of the exorcist bad!

 

[dutchbunny83]

I'm blessed with good neighbors!

I keep them fed with free fresh eggs & opt out of keeping roosters, and they don't seem to notice I've far surpassed the ordinance for 10 birds or have started a corn field in my front yard!
I also don't complain about their ridiculous number of dogs so that probably helps.
All good neighbors besides the anonymous cat shaver....
Sorry for those with such neighbor problems!

 

[StarMeKritten]

It might help if you let folks know what area you are in. Many
won't respond unless they know you are close enough to make
a deal or get eggs.

Whoops! I fixed that. Thanks.

I have heard (and from my experience) that BCM eggs do not handle shipping well. I think swedish flower hens and some other breeds are like this. I have incubated shipped BCM eggs and gotten 0-4 to hatch yet I can get 100% on my own BCM eggs from my flock.

I actually went and picked them up. Of course, after I got them home, I noticed that a few were cracked. It was several months ago when we had some really cold weather. It looked like some had started to freeze before they were collected. I didn't bother incubating those. I pulled a few more out that didn't develop or stopped developing. Only about a half dozen made it to lock down. The ones that did hatch were 3 days late but only 1 of those survived. The other eggs in the incubator had good hatch rates.

I have blue copper as well. Though she gives me eggs a shade lighter with dark speckles. BCM's are supposed to have the darkest eggs over the other colored Marans, which is why I was trying to find them. Mail order eggs are tough. The post office can be really hard on them. I have had some great mail order hatches though. The BCM I have now has feathered shanks to meet the standard, but my personal preference is the heavily feathered shanks. Coloring really good (some of the hens I've found with dark eggs have white spots on them which I don't like at all). It seems like breeders are only breeding for the dark egg or for the bird's appearance, it seems to be impossible to find for both.

These are the eggs I'm getting now. They're not BAD, but I want the DEEP chocolate eggs, like 8-9 on the scale. (This is the only pic I have on my computer with them, so ignore all the other eggs)

DutchBunny, if you ever have hatching eggs for sale, PM me.