NY chicken lover!!!!

[happyhensny]

he survived the fox attack.

Great-it is so sad when they are "taken". Glad he made it!

 

[Cass]

Ok, that was the easiest flock integration I have ever participated in. I went out to dinner last night and the chickens were still outside. Couldn't convince them to go in, so I just left them out. It was dark when I got home, so I just closed the doors and went in the house. This morning ALL the chickens were in one coop and walked out like they had been friends forever. Soooo Now I can get 1/2 the chicks out of the enclosed back porch and open up the brooder so the other chicks have twice the space to grow in. woohoo....Sometimes God smiles.

 

[featherz]

Ok, that was the easiest flock integration I have ever participated in. I went out to dinner last night and the chickens were still outside. Couldn't convince them to go in, so I just left them out. It was dark when I got home, so I just closed the doors and went in the house. This morning ALL the chickens were in one coop and walked out like they had been friends forever. Soooo Now I can get 1/2 the chicks out of the enclosed back porch and open up the brooder so the other chicks have twice the space to grow in. woohoo....Sometimes God smiles.

Woot! Hope mine goes as well.

 

[Henicillin]

I believe I have a broody at last, but she isn't one of the BOs I figured would succumb first. Instead, it's my favorite girl, the BLRW in my avatar, whom I shamelessly coddle and spoil and pet.

The girls occasionally continue to lay in the playroom half of the coop, in one corner and under a folding chair. My nest boxes are (were) arranged in the main part of the coop in a 3X3 square perfect for playing the Chicken Match Game. As the top tier of boxes is essentially unused by anyone other than my Marans, who likes a challenge, I figured "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em." So, I collected the three playroom eggs and three more from the boxes, and put them in the center middle box while I schlepped the top tier into the other room. The inspection committee followed me and, after carefully evaluating the newly relocated boxes, called it good - the boys sang the egg song and tuk-tuk-tukked at the girls, and the girls cooed and clucked in approval.

I went back in to the main room of the coop to pick up the rest of the eggs and take them up to the house, and found my girl inspecting them. She then climbed into the box, tucked five of them under her, then hunkered down and assumed a thousand-yard stare. As all six eggs are nice and clean, I figured, what the heck, and tucked #6 under her wing, which she snapped back down into place. I'm going to check on her later. If she's still at it and hasn't decamped, I'll mark the eggs, find her a new spot, and let her have at it. If she has decamped, into the fridge they go! She's one of the top-ranking hens if not the top bird (she won't even hesitate to administer a smackdown to the roos when necessary), so she has good mom potential.

I'm curious to see if anything comes of it. There's one Leghorn egg from Trucker Chick, a couple of "who's your mommy?" medium to large brown eggs, and one Speckled Sussex egg, which I can only identify because she was busy laying when I went down there. The SS egg is probably a dud, as her brothers rarely if ever bother her at all. The others, though, who knows.

 

[Aria]

I know we won't be getting goats soon. We have 3 acres. We have all we can learn
raising Silkie Chickens.

We did NOT do well with our first hatch. One egg hatched. All 3 nesting boses
were filled with Broody Silkies and no eggs for us.

We are raising the one chick.

Next hatching season we will separate 2 hens and one rooster and keep
gathering the other eggs. LIVE and LEARN.

 

[Henicillin]

Scratch everything I said.

I went down to toss some stuff in the compost bin, and saw Miss Would-Be Broody out perched on the dead tree "roost" in the run, happily sunning herself and preening her feathers. When I checked, she had added an egg to the collection, then abandoned ship. She, along with several others, has been showing broody tendencies on and off - apparently, however, she decided that motherhood is not for her at the moment.

So, that's seven more eggs for the fridge.

Technically I probably should leave some in one of their hidey spots to see who's making a clutch, and see what happens, but I won't. I need an incubator.

 

[Cass]

Scratch everything I said.

I went down to toss some stuff in the compost bin, and saw Miss Would-Be Broody out perched on the dead tree "roost" in the run, happily sunning herself and preening her feathers. When I checked, she had added an egg to the collection, then abandoned ship. She, along with several others, has been showing broody tendencies on and off - apparently, however, she decided that motherhood is not for her at the moment.

So, that's seven more eggs for the fridge.

Technically I probably should leave some in one of their hidey spots to see who's making a clutch, and see what happens, but I won't. I need an incubator.

A broody hen will pull her chest feathers out, growl when you come near her and leave the nest once or twice a day to eat, drink, poop and make sure the rest of the flock hasn't forgotten their face. They can be off the nest for as long as an hour,depending on outside temps....I swear they have an internal clock/thermometer that tells them exactly how long is "just right" and back they go to the nest the second that alarm goes off on their clock. Now if they get back to the nest and someone is in it laying an egg (which is why you should mark the ones you want hatched) they will wander around moaning and sighing until the hen gets off THEIR nest. Personally, having been pregnant 3 times I would go back out and play until the nest was empty again....but they don't.

I don't assume a hen is broody until I find her in the same spot 5 days in a row....THEN I give her eggs. I have one witch, that if she goes broody I'm gonna need body armor to collect the eggs from under her while I wait the 5 days to see if she is serious about hatching. I still have the bruise from the last time I tried to move her to get eggs. (not HER eggs, mind you, but eggs she thought she would add to)

 

[Cass]

I know we won't be getting goats soon. We have 3 acres. We have all we can learn
raising Silkie Chickens.

We did NOT do well with our first hatch. One egg hatched. All 3 nesting boses
were filled with Broody Silkies and no eggs for us.

We are raising the one chick.

Next hatching season we will separate 2 hens and one rooster and keep
gathering the other eggs. LIVE and LEARN.

Did you crack the unhatched eggs to see if they started to develop and stopped or if they were even starting to develop? Maybe your roo is only doing one or two hens?

And hens don't know "hatching season"....they go broody whenever and where ever they want.....my silkie hatched eggs in the corner, on the floor in FEBRUARY. Silly bird. (White too, and they pooed all over her til I was able to move the eggs slowly out from under the roost....again, silly chicken)

 

[Henicillin]

Quote:

A broody hen will pull her chest feathers out, growl when you come near her and leave the nest once or twice a day to eat, drink, poop and make sure the rest of the flock hasn't forgotten their face. They can be off the nest for as long as an hour,depending on outside temps....I swear they have an internal clock/thermometer that tells them exactly how long is "just right" and back they go to the nest the second that alarm goes off on their clock. Now if they get back to the nest and someone is in it laying an egg (which is why you should mark the ones you want hatched) they will wander around moaning and sighing until the hen gets off THEIR nest. Personally, having been pregnant 3 times I would go back out and play until the nest was empty again....but they don't.

I don't assume a hen is broody until I find her in the same spot 5 days in a row....THEN I give her eggs. I have one witch, that if she goes broody I'm gonna need body armor to collect the eggs from under her while I wait the 5 days to see if she is serious about hatching. I still have the bruise from the last time I tried to move her to get eggs. (not HER eggs, mind you, but eggs she thought she would add to)

My candidate for Most Likely To Go Broody is still my "medium" BO (I have a small one, a medium one, and a large one). I've caught her sleeping in the same nest box on and off during night checks for the past couple of weeks (I throw her out - the squabbling over that box is epic), and I've also found her in the playroom corner happily mothering the stealth eggs laid there. She's still like a little girl playing with dolls, though. Then again, she also has a habit of placing random discarded feathers, strands of hay or straw, and pine shavings on her back both while in a nest and while moseying around in the coop, so she's a bit odd to begin with. I'd like to go all-natural with a hatch at some point, but I'm rapidly succumbing to the alluring idea of a small incubator, purely for the fun of it. The Brinsea sirens are calling my name...

It's probably a mercy that Leghorns don't go broody. If Trucker Chick were to go broody, she'd have to be locked away in a Plexiglass pen like a feathered Hannibal Lecter for everyone's sake, as she's already a beast on the nest, and tries to peck my hand off if I dare check under her to see if anything needs to be collected. I just hold her head and neck aside with one hand while shoving the other underneath her, which does not make me popular, but she'll get over it.

I love the hen growl. My Jersey Giant sounds like she's possessed when anyone dares look into HER nest box while she's laying. "There is no Lenore - only Zuul."

 

[featherz]

Quote:


It's probably a mercy that Leghorns don't go broody. If Trucker Chick were to go broody, she'd have to be locked away in a Plexiglass pen like a feathered Hannibal Lecter for everyone's sake, as she's already a beast on the nest, and tries to peck my hand off if I dare check under her to see if anything needs to be collected. I just hold her head and neck aside with one hand while shoving the other underneath her, which does not make me popular, but she'll get over it.

I love the hen growl. My Jersey Giant sounds like she's possessed when anyone dares look into HER nest box while she's laying. "There is no Lenore - only Zuul."

I have seen several broody leghorns here on BYC so you never know!! My 'most likely to go broody since she was broody all last year' is at Cass's house now (and was very nice and never pecked me).

I am betting a NN will go broody next - if I leave the eggs till the end of the day I'll find her sitting on them. Once I take them out she hops up to the roost.. but I am betting she'll be first.

Here's my broody from last year giving me stink eye. Hahahhaa..