NY chicken lover!!!!

[rancher hicks]

I am surprized that more people dont trim around the silkies eyes .
I dont know how the poor things even see ...
It must be their Alien X - Ray Vision

The behavior is normal ..They get excited when they are let out ...They Act out more ..

These aliens don't use vision, they're telepathic. If you sneak up on the coop in the middle of the night you'll see a green glow coming from the coop.

 

[Breella]

Good rain, means good hay. I don't mind a good spring rain.

 

[rancher hicks]

Morning all. Looks like rain and we sure can use some. My lawn and runs are so dry they are actually cracking. I also need the rain to wash all the chicken poop into the soil! Babies are off light and heat and are growing like weeds. I throw them out every day when I get home so they get fresh air and sunshine and can do chicken things. Cant wait for the big girls to go to their forever home so I can move these ones out of my basement.

I think Olaf will be going to freezer camp soon. He is getting on dh;s last nerve and the poor girls are all raggedy and half naked from his attentions. He is raggedy looking from the girls feather picking him. Perhaps this change will do everyone some good. I know I have at least one if not two boys in the brooder so thats not an issue.

Jlaw---do your silkie a favor and trim the feathers around its eyes. I do my silkies every month so they can see well. Make sure you do above the eye and the cheek puffs below the eye. Makes a whole lot of difference for them. I also trim butts for breeding and cleanliness purposes and I trim their nails. I find silky nails can grow quite long and they dont wear them down as well as large fowl do. I use dog clippers.

Had to put my car in the shop for repairs and the dealer gave me a 2013 version as a loaner to drive. I think they should just keep mine and I will keep this one and we can call it even and a day. Thank goodness for my warranty otherwise I would be flat broke busted trying to pay for these repairs!

I see that someone is thinking of hosting a get together this year. I would love to go if it isnt too far away. It would be nice to put faces to names. Okay--back to the salt mines.

Dealers know that if they let you drive a nice new car you're more likely to buy one. We drove a Ford Escape rental and that was our choice for my wife's car.

 

[JLaw]

If you don't wear a sun hat when you are in the yard you should. Unless you'd like to eventually look like a piece of bacon.

Yep those that don't wear hats are the first to become zombies when the zombie apocalypse happens. Think zombies want raw food? They like bacon flavored people the best ya know. It's a well known fact just wait and see.

Jlaw---do your silkie a favor and trim the feathers around its eyes. I do my silkies every month so they can see well. Make sure you do above the eye and the cheek puffs below the eye. Makes a whole lot of difference for them. I also trim butts for breeding and cleanliness purposes and I trim their nails. I find silky nails can grow quite long and they dont wear them down as well as large fowl do. I use dog clippers.

Thanks for the advice i'll have to trim the head this weekend then. I noticed the feet are super large and toes seemed to grow faster so i'll keep an eye on that also.

 

[Lynzi777]

Morning All,

Hoping for rain today, I got big plans to rearrange a little girl's bedroom. A friend of mine in CT brought up this news of the Cicadas again. What are the chances of seeing any of these things here in the Syracuse area?? I think my kids would get a kick out of it. Might have to make a trip to CT. LOL

 

[Breella]

Anyone have a link to a good wiring diagram for a home made 'bator? I saw a few in the design section but the best one didn't have the thermostat on it.

 

[JLaw]

Jlaw---do your silkie a favor and trim the feathers around its eyes. I do my silkies every month so they can see well. Make sure you do above the eye and the cheek puffs below the eye. Makes a whole lot of difference for them. I also trim butts for breeding and cleanliness purposes and I trim their nails. I find silky nails can grow quite long and they dont wear them down as well as large fowl do. I use dog clippers.

What do you use to trim the silkies? I just used regular hair sissors and seemed to work but didn't want to cut through the lower part of feather the quil. Seemed like it was tugging some when I tried to do it. Then again I don't know how good these sissors are they all get used for everything in this house. I couldn't wait for this weeknd to trim her head.

jlaw

 

[Henicillin]

I found P. Allen Smith's Farm Raised videos on Youtube while doing nothing exciting last night. They're really interesting, as they're short, informative, often funny, and he has gorgeous stock. It's also nice to see a "celebrity" whose pens and birds look like everyone else's. His hens get bare-backed from overly amorous roosters, his roosts have poop under them, the pens are made of poultry fencing - it's not like Martha Stewart perfection. To her credit, of course, Martha is interested in conservation of heritage breeds, but Allen is right out there getting his hands dirty.

This is so funny - been here, done this!

 

[Child of Noah]

I want to wear a bug Zapper ! The little black flies have been crazy this year .
I have little bug bites on my arms & legs ...Chicken scratches & tree scratches on my arms ( cleaning up trees brush , etc )
I look like I have been in a battle .oh yah and sunburn on my shoulders .I am a mess ..
Does any one else have these small black flies ..? anything that you put on that is not toxic ?
I am chemicially sensitive ..so I dont wear off or any of that stuff

Also Ive been putting up chicken fences ..around our garden where we are planting..
And On the side of our yard ..the house next door used to be my mother in laws house ...there are renters in it now ..
The first tenant barely came out of the house ...So the chickens thought it was their yard too .
The new tenant is a flower / plant person .. We cleaned out some old shrubs so she could plant what she wanted ..
She got a nice arrangement set up ...then she put out dark mulch ...around everything ..
Well talk about a Bulls-eye .! that mulch draws the chickens like a magnet ...digging & scratching .
Sunday afternoon alls I did was chase chickens out & fix it back up ..

For bugs, I cover up more. I very rarely wear shorts, and even wear long sleeves if it is really buggy outside. Added benefit: protection from the sun, since I burn easily.
I have a similar property situation to yours. Directly across the private drive from our house is what used to be my husband's grandmother's house. It is now a rental property, though currently vacant... and I almost hope it stays that way so my chickens can roam.

She made her own roost ..LOL
pretty poop board ...what is the reason for a poop board ? other than catch poop of course ..

There's a VERY long thread called something like "poop board convert (warning graphic/gross poop pictures)" that tells how and why people make them. I was going to put them up in my coop, since that thread had me convinced. Since inside the coop, the chickens pretty much only poop from the roosts, and the poop will be in that line right under them. It makes for easier cleanup (without bending over so much). However, to maximize roost space, I put my roosts in such a way that poop boards would have been cumbersome. My coop is elevated enough that bending over isn't really an issue and I can clean it out with a little kid's sand pail play set very easily.

Ok so I posted my bantam pics on april 20th so I believe that's the day I got them. Now they was all fresh in last of tsc's chicks so I figure less than a week old. Should they? Would they? Could they? Be trying to crow already I got a video of it uploading to youtube as I type this.

Now for the show it's the little white one on the left. I thought it was doing it longer when I was in the other room but not sure.


Now if that's a crow that is sooooo not the chick I thought would be a roo. One of the other white ones is like 1.5 times the size of the others and they was all about same size at store I figured that would have been my roo. Think the bigger one is in bottom right of screen or the other one at the feeder cant really tell on this video.

And now for the rest of the news. I moved 11 of my 22 birds outside today. I come home to find them all on ground by the door not even on the 3 roosts I made for them grrr. I cleaned they're brooder out tossed some DE and shaveings in and moved the bantams in there. Video is bantams in there. Now if bantams would stop perching on that dag on feeder there I tried raiseing it some since they scratch so much.

When I took the ladies out to the coop they jumped all around at each other, pecked each other, and raced each other. When I moved the bantams to the bigger brooder they did the same thing. So I got thinking and wondering. Has anyone with multi coops tried moveing they're chickens around just to watch what they do? Seems like they have to reestablish they're pecking order when they move. Or is my birds just that messed up?

That silkie that I have that has puff on head that I feel sorry for cause it gets bleeding feet sometimes and pooped on a lot, well now I feel sorry for it again. Seems I set my first roost bar just high enough for it to not see and hit it's head on. It sat there moveing head side to side trying to look at the roost bar for a few min. I think I may have to break down and trim it's frontal blind spot like I do my dogs eyes. Set my roost bars 16 up/back with a cut up wooden ladder along one side from floor to top bar.


Well unless you have auto sexing chicks we will at least get half raised chickens for the freezer camp

Well that's the news for me today.

Jlaw

I had one TSC bird doing a "dry crow" type thing at about three weeks old. Did it for about a week or two, then she/he stopped. I am still uncertain of his/her gender. Guess I won't know for sure unless I get an egg from him.

 

[miquwid]

I found P. Allen Smith's Farm Raised videos on Youtube while doing nothing exciting last night.  They're really interesting, as they're short, informative, often funny, and he has gorgeous stock.  It's also nice to see a "celebrity" whose pens and birds look like everyone else's.  His hens get bare-backed from overly amorous roosters, his roosts have poop under them, the pens are made of poultry fencing - it's not like Martha Stewart perfection.  To her credit, of course, Martha is interested in conservation of heritage breeds, but Allen is right out there getting his hands dirty.

This is so funny - been here, done this!

Omg I love p Allen too he's great. I learn so much. Martha is just too expensive for me to do what she does, but her organic seed line is great, yes she is into preserving heritage breeds and bees!