NY chicken lover!!!!

[Lapeerian]

I cracked the egg into a cup and it has a little ring of blood. This was after many days. Chicken Nugget, on the left took the remaining eggs away from Beak A Poo. Beaks not on any eggs, although she took one back, which I took away. I gave Nugget 3 eggs that were fresher. Not sure if anything will hatch but she wanted to try. That's a new photo of Fredo.

If they are still laying, they are not truly broody. Also, check the hens chest/underside. Most broodies will pluck all the feathers from their chest, so the eggs have direct skin contact to stay warm.

 

[Tough Old Bird]

Hahaha! Your funny TOB

I need help to get my 'signature' on the page and you want me to send a sound clip???

Did I mention I was handicapped as far as technology goes............

I'm also not tech gifted.....but where there's a will, there's a way (or if you have kids, they can help you, like mine do)!

Where we fish in the Thousand Islands the Comorants are everywhere. I was told that the DEC is keeping track of their growth because they are taking over the Loons area and because they can dive so deep are eating all the small fish making less fish available for fishing

I don't believe they are impacting the fish populations in as significant way as some would lead us to believe. Anglers have pressured the DEC to do something about them because they fear the cormorants will decimate game fish populations. It's a very controversial topic. Oiling of the eggs is one of the more humane approaches to controlling the cormorants numbers, but there are those who would like to cull / shoot them at will. There are a lot of heated opinions on the topic. I'm an avid angler, but I am not in favor of mass exterminations. Where they are a problem, I could see the need to do something like oiling the eggs to prevent their hatching. I would hope this could be done when the eggs were first laid, but I don't think that is realistic to expect.

TOB

 

[dragonlord483]

 
That is one thing that seriously irks me... when people move into a neighborhood and then complain to make the neighbors conform to their idea of what things should be like... This happened in Nantucket... there was a farm with chickens and roosters and then people bought adjacent land and built a home and then complained about the rooster crowing... so the 100 year old farm (maybe older) had to get rid of the roosters. Like, really???? I would say, if you visited the land before sale... you knew... so tough chicken sh...
My land has been a tourist spot for a few hundred years... from native americans on... we had to put up posted signs because the world has become so litigious.

i had  something simular  happen to me ..i had an amish made shed out by the road in the side yard ..a guy moved in acrossed the street and we became friends.. then the friendship went south and he complained about my shed and i was forced to move it ..they wanted to fine me for every day i left it there after i was summoned ..the shed had been in that same spot for like 7 yrs before this guy even moved in ..i moved the shed and now its my chicken coop ..it faces his home now and levon my roo lets him no every morning at 4 AM that hes a jerk ..lol..i was going to raise pigs but my wife wouldnt let me ..lol..

I want to get some Idaho pasture pigs

 

[melbu23]

Good morning everyone!
It looks dry out right one so I will run out and open the girls coop for the day. I am pretty sure that at least 3 of my hens have layer eggs but production levels are still low. I did get 11 eggs in 6 days from the 3 ladies. 2 of my amaericaunas have not started yet.. My real issue is that one of my ladies (Amber - the first to lay eggs) decided to lay in furthest corner of the coop that I cannot reach without climbing into the coop. I had golf balls in the nest box but she only ever lye done egg there and since then has been in that corner. Is seems she is training everyone to do the same as my EE (not exactly sure which one yet) is now also laying in that corner. How do I retrain them to use the nest boxes? It will be a real pain to have to crawl into the coop in the winter.
We had a family sized scrambled eggs portion with our first eggs last weekend. Today I think I will roast my first meat chicken . So very excited to find out how they taste.
Hope you all have a great day!

 

[pharmchickrnmom]

Morning all. Sunny today so hopefully the needles and leaves start drying out. Demp4--I bag pine needles and leaves to use in my runs during the winter. It gets them up off the snow/cold ground and it gives them something to pick through to keep them from being bored. Its free and it breaks down. I usually go through 10 lawn/leaf bags each winter in 3 runs. My silkie runs dont take too much but my big run on the big coop requires more.

Today is my day of leisure. My leisure will consist of cleaning two silkie coops, stripping the tomatoes off my plants and pulling said plants out of my garden, raking up the needles around the one silkie coop and putting them in the run, doing laundry, cleaning up my kitchen and running the vacuum cleaner. Other than that, Im not doing a thing!

Going to move two of the juvile silkie girls into Legolas coop tonight. Hoping they give me some nice babies in the spring. Planning on finishing culling out of the big coop on wednesday and moving The Duke and that group into that coop wednesday night. I want to get the coop they are in now all cleaned out and prepped for spring breeding season so I can shut it up for winter,

Lynzi--I hope you are able to find a solution for your girls. I know I hate it when I have to work and cant be home to let mine out to play.

Rancher--how are you doing with your downsizing?

Ke5shde--Hows Junior doing? You getting some nice chicks from him? I do believe he got to one of my blue hens as I have a splash girl with his markings on her!

Okay, I guess I have to get started on my leisure. Have a good day everyone!

 

[pharmchickrnmom]

Good morning everyone!
It looks dry out right one so I will run out and open the girls coop for the day. I am pretty sure that at least 3 of my hens have layer eggs but production levels are still low. I did get 11 eggs in 6 days from the 3 ladies. 2 of my amaericaunas have not started yet.. My real issue is that one of my ladies (Amber - the first to lay eggs) decided to lay in furthest corner of the coop that I cannot reach without climbing into the coop. I had golf balls in the nest box but she only ever lye done egg there and since then has been in that corner. Is seems she is training everyone to do the same as my EE (not exactly sure which one yet) is now also laying in that corner. How do I retrain them to use the nest boxes? It will be a real pain to have to crawl into the coop in the winter.
We had a family sized scrambled eggs portion with our first eggs last weekend. Today I think I will roast my first meat chicken

. So very excited to find out how they taste.
Hope you all have a great day!

Melbu--try this. Get a broom handle, some wire and an empty soup can. Drill 2 holes in the side of the soup can to run the wire through. Drill a hole through the broom handle near the bottom of the handle. Run the wire through the can and then through the hole in the handle. It will be L shaped and you will have an ERT(egg retrieval tool) to get those eggs in hard to reach places!

 

[wny egger]

Hi, wny egger!

It is likely that the "white heron" you saw was a great egret. Although I rarely see this species here in CNY, when I do, it is usually in the spring or fall (migration times). Here is a pic you can compare your sighting with:



Did the birds your friend called green herons look like this? They are much smaller than great blue herons, and often appear hunched up and dark from a distance...very pretty up close.



Double-crested cormorants are invasive to our area, but they have set up shop to stay Some people hate them. In large numbers they can negatively impact vegetation with their droppings. We see them up at our lake cottage in Ontario, Canada, too, but their numbers have not exploded on our lake, fortunately. We have no problems with them there. They are impressive divers and eat fish...the adults have cool blue eyes.




Hope this little bird lesson helped! It's fun to learn a few new species each year.......but then I'm a "bird nerd!"


TOB

PS: Bald eagles are making a strong come-back after the pesticide DDT caused their populations to crash by thinning their eggshells and ruining hatches. The pesticide was banned and now they are "soaring" back! Always a thrill to see, and now those sightings are coming with some regularity here in the Finger Lakes region. Awesome! Glad you got to see some by your neck of the woods.

you may be right it ..altho i really didnt get a nice close up of it ..it very well could be an egret..

yes the little heron was just what you have pictured there ..pretty cool i had never seen them before ..and if i had i prolly would have just thought it to be a baby blue or grey heron ..and the kingfishers are always a pleasure to watch ..

its nice to see the progress the bald eagles have made in their come back in stead of just reading about it we get to see it first hand ..we spend alot of time on the lake and in the outlet , so we get to see alot of things most folks have no idea is even there ..

those camarons are pretty cool to watch fish but your right they can really mess things up and not just the trees ..they put an alot of preasure on the fish and i no alot of fishermen who wished theyed just go away ..lol..but it doesnt look like they are going anywere to soon..lol

 

[Pyxis]

Well my scovies demonstrated that they can fly today. I went out to feed everybody and their pen was empty! Torrential rain actually pulled down the tarp and chicken wire covering part of their pen last night, and they took advantage and flew right out to explore the yard! They weren't very happy about me herding them back in with the help of a long stick, but they didn't put up too much of a fight. I'll have to give them treats later to make up for it.

In other news, I candled my first batch of CCL eggs in the incubator last night, and all are developing! Tonight is the first candle for the second batch and if they're doing well too, I'll be expecting a nice hatch in two and half weeks.

 

[Tough Old Bird]

Good morning everyone!
It looks dry out right one so I will run out and open the girls coop for the day. I am pretty sure that at least 3 of my hens have layer eggs but production levels are still low. I did get 11 eggs in 6 days from the 3 ladies. 2 of my amaericaunas have not started yet.. My real issue is that one of my ladies (Amber - the first to lay eggs) decided to lay in furthest corner of the coop that I cannot reach without climbing into the coop. I had golf balls in the nest box but she only ever lye done egg there and since then has been in that corner. Is seems she is training everyone to do the same as my EE (not exactly sure which one yet) is now also laying in that corner. How do I retrain them to use the nest boxes? It will be a real pain to have to crawl into the coop in the winter.
We had a family sized scrambled eggs portion with our first eggs last weekend. Today I think I will roast my first meat chicken

. So very excited to find out how they taste.
Hope you all have a great day!

Hi melbu -

For difficult egg retrievals, I use one of those metal rod grabbing devices you can buy in Walmart or Target that older folks use to pick up things they drop on the floor but can't bend for. They have soft plastic cups on the closing clasps which really grab the egg securely without breaking it. They're not terribly pricey, either. You can find this "grabber" near the brooms and things at Target.

TOB

 

[marquisella]

Quote: Around the beg to middle of August, I cut off the tops of all my tomato plants. Why? so they don't waste energy trying to grow new small tomatoes and put all their energy into the tomatoes that are already growing. If your plants have flowers then, cut them off as well. Theywill never grow into useful tomatoes, and for the same reason, you want the ones that are already growing to ripen. I tried digging up my plants that still had green tomatoes and hung them upside down in a dry covered place. Some of them ripened, but I don't think it was worth the work.