North Carolina

[Tikkijane]

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.

 

I think that is more true in nature than we know......kind of like how kangaroos can determine sex of joeys based on what is more likely to survive. Seems to me there was an article about sex change in utero-I'd have to look and see if I can find it because that is totally bizarre.

http://www.kangaroo-protection-coalition.com/kangaroo-mothers.html

I wonder if the that idea came from the natural holding back.... hum. I'd have to know more about the sex organ development of kangaroos in general- like at what age of development is sex determined. Honestly, I'd rather stick to chickens.

 

[atmaclean]

How does he use it on the horses?

I want to put it in my laundry since I use homemade laundry detergent, which has no scent.

He puts it on himself around his neck and as he is bending over trimming/shoeing the horses can smell it on him. I guess you could put it on the horse, too, but he likes them to associate him with the calming/relaxing smell.

On a side note, he DOES NOT smell like lavender when he comes home in the evenings! More like gross hoof smell! LOL! But he tells me, "that's the smell of money, honey" and I guess he is right.....

Hope it works for your laundry! I wish I was creative enough to make my own laundry soap.

Angela

 

[atmaclean]

get a dog crate and put her in it with the eggs you want her to hatch and some food and water. I gave up long ago trying to break my broody silkies. They will sit for 3 months straight if they don't get a chick!! Some of mine will even steal chicks with out being broody

Ugh! Ok. I was hoping she would just stop. Interestingly, I did take her in the house and sat her down in the tub with her babies to see if she would be nice. She wasn't! She started pecking them on the head. I thought maybe she would recognize their smell since they were HER eggs. Since they are more valuable eggs, I didn't want to take the chance of her not hatching them or them getting cracked or whatever. So, I incubated them. Apparently, she didn't recognize them as "her" babies.....?

Guess I can let her hatch one of the Swedish Flower Eggs - but they would be crossed with my Cream Legbar rooster so that would be a really weird chicken!

Thanks so much for the info!!

Angela

 

[Tikkijane]

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!

We'd have to check the DNA.

I wonder what the incidence of hermaphroditicism is in chickens....... and probably, we'd find that those would be infertile, too.

I think sexual ability and fertility in addition to effects of hormone malfunction can be found everywhere in nature.

And then, there are those troublesome asexual lizards: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=asexual-lizards

Nature is sure amazing!

 

[ramirezframing]

no chickens aint like a horse in the "smell of their babies" section This is why most of the eggs my silkies hatch aint silkies. You might be able to give her day old chicks (at night) as she hatches her own, but some chickens will not take a chick that they didn't hatch, some will even eat what they hatch.

 

[my little peeps]

i swear this year so far has been horrible. i have 10 6 weeks old and everyone who bought some last year says they are all laying colored eggs, 96 birds total. anyway these 10 are all pullets, and i was asking 6$ each or 50$ for all, and i was told that was unreasonable and i was out of my mind for trying to rip people off, that at most a 6 week old pullet should be 3-4$ each

I looked around for my chicks came across several places that I only had straight run. I couldn't chance it so I had no problem paying $5-7 per bird to ensure I was getting all pullets.

 

[Tikkijane]

i swear this year so far has been horrible. i have 10 6 weeks old and everyone who bought some last year says they are all laying colored eggs, 96 birds total. anyway these 10 are all pullets, and i was asking 6$ each or 50$ for all, and i was told that was unreasonable and i was out of my mind for trying to rip people off, that at most a 6 week old pullet should be 3-4$ each

That is nuts. Tractor Supply is going to charge somewhere between $2 and $3 each. Sheesh. I'd add cost for age, ya know, because they eat food and stuff.

 

[Tikkijane]

What do you guys do with your bantam eggs?

2 for 1, lol. We eat them.

 

[missnu01]

I had my first egg hatch this morning

Congrats...soooo jealous!!!  From a broody or bator?

From an incubator. It's my first time. So far 3 have hatched and it looks like most of the eggs are pipped. A couple have big holes. I've been just staring in the incubator all morning! Hooray!

 

[Matt A NC]

Quote: Greensboro is normally a smaller show. They seem to top out at 600 birds or so. There has been more interest this year, so it may be larger. There are not normally alot of sellers outside. The problem is that the parking lot/area is rather small.

Matt