NY chicken lover!!!!

[queenchick16]

Hens can't count but they can play TIC TAC TOE. I saw it in Vegas

I have never done what you are proposing, but let me repeat what Rancher Hicks says he does...parapharsed, not word for word. He takes the first chicks to hatch from the momma and then puts them all back under the cover of darkness when the last chick hatches. So that seems to mean that hens will accept the addition of chicks when they are hatching eggs.

Personally I would not move eggs in lock down. Too high a risk of turning the egg (by mistake) and causing the chick problems (premature puncture of the air sac, neck twisting etc) and decreasing the hatch rate. Again, Personally, I would wait for a few chicks to hatch under the hen then add the incubator chicks under her, after it is totally dark in the coop. I'm not sure she can cover 24+ chicks, so you might want to only add 1/2 of the bator chicks to her load. The nice thing about chickens is they don't have to nurse their young, so you are not limited to the number of teats the animal has when determining adoption numbers.

PS Hens can't count. She won't know that she has more chicks than eggs she sat on for 21 days. Also, she won't leave the nest until the last chick hatches....and once she leaves the nest she won't return to hatch the last eggs in it (meaning she has decided that they are duds) She might leave to poop and eat, like regular broody does, but once she takes those chicks for a walk, she won't return to the eggs and may roll the eggs out of the nest to make room for the little ones.

 

[vmdanielsen]

Hello! I just joined the board a few days ago-! Fellow NYer here, just outside of Troy/Albany. There's so much great information here, but sometimes I get so lost trying to sort through it all- I figured I'd ask you guys!
I was wondering if any of you knew of a local place or person that I could get a few EE chicks from? I should be getting six chicks in the mail around the 16th and I'm belatedly realizing that I should've ordered more (what with shipping trauma and predators ;_; eek)! I'm really only looking for about three (I'm living in fear of chicken math- though I know it'll get the better of me, I still feel like I should put in some effort to keep my flock small-ish...!)

Anyway, any help or information would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

Welcome to the ny thread on byc. In addition to contacting happyhensny, I would also contact tabschickenobsession or admnhotel (wife/husband). I got some EE/leghorn crosses and some EEs from them.

Tab and Travis I hope you don't mind my suggestion for kit-kat to contact you. It looks like I have 2eepullets, the blue is a pullet and the OE is a huge cockerel. Of the LH/EE x's it looks like I have mostly pullets! Yay!

 

[pharmchickrnmom]

Morning all and welcome Kitkat. Babies in the brooder are doing well. I will be happy when I dont have to clean butts anymore and so will they! Chickens must have short memories because noname wandered accross the road again yesterday when dh let the girls out to freerange. He had to chase her back. That hawk might get lucky yet if she keeps that up. Elanors foot looks better. Another soak and inspection today but I think its healing okay.

Silkie eggs go on lockdown tomorrow. I think I have to pull one more and am hoping for the rest to hatch. Everyone says silkies are broody but mine are a year old now and no signs of it yet. I am hoping one of the girls goes broody as I would like to hatch their eggs under them. I guess time will tell. My dd informed me I need to make a spot for the surprise they are building me. I am pretty sure its another silkie coop. So excited. She said the end of april but we will see as they are busy but I will post pics when I get it.

Speaking of coops...we are at the framing of the walls stage. Had to put down 2 layers of plywood on the floor as the first layer seemed really light and cheesy. It sounded like it was going to break when my dh kneeled on it. sigh. another 56 dollars. Cant believe the price of lumber. Good thing we have quite a bit of our own rough cut lumber but we might have to get some more. It takes a little more finageling with rough cut to get everything just right and dh is a perfectionist about it, even for a chicken coop, so its going to get real interesting now. Taking pics as we go so we can make an album to post for you all to look at.

I hope that all of you who are hatching right now have a good hatch. Keep your fingers crossed for mine!!!

 

[featherz]

oo, I was ALSO thinking of coops today. My coop is already built, but I want to build a 'real' run, something like this one:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/ace-coop-progress-pictures-included

I wonder if I can get DH to help. Hmm. It's got to be rather large. We don't have a truck capable of transporting anything larger than 8 foot lumber - any thoughts on best way to fasten 2x4's end to end? I am thinking run will be 24' long, 16' wide, but getting out there today to measure.

In other good news, my missing chicken was NOT missing. Well, she was, but she is not dead. Was out at sunrise today to start filling up feeders and hear a chicken grumbling. Sure enough, there she was. I guess she just decided to bunk out under my trailer coop for some reason!

In even MORE good news, I have 18 chicks out with more on the way. and 6 so far are NN (not my eggs). To the person looking for EE chicks, I have EE mutt eggs pretty much all the time, but my EE roo I believe probably does not have the blue egg gene - his hatchmate ladies all lay brown eggs. I have two blue egg gene roos, but they are hopefully going to another byc'er today.

 

[admhotel]

Welcome to the ny thread on byc. In addition to contacting happyhensny, I would also contact tabschickenobsession or admnhotel (wife/husband). I got some EE/leghorn crosses and some EEs from them.

Tab and Travis I hope you don't mind my suggestion for kit-kat to contact you. It looks like I have 2eepullets, the blue is a pullet and the OE is a huge cockerel. Of the LH/EE x's it looks like I have mostly pullets! Yay!

We don't mind. We have 4 of the leghorn EE's in lockdown right now due tomorrow. We also have some 2 week olds (EE,OE, some mixes) coming back this afternoon from a school hatch we donated eggs to. We had told them that if they didn't find homes for them they could bring them back. We have lots of room.
Ginny thanks for the update on the chicks its nice to know that they are doing good. We candled the buckeyes last night. 50% growing 50% not, the ones that aren't look to be the same size and color pattern. Our theory is that you may have one hen that doesn't let the roo near her.

 

[Tab's chicken obsession]

I made the above post didn't realize travis was signed in. We've had computer issues lately so some things don't show on the screen. We've tried updating explorer and it didn't work so trav downloaded google chrome and things seem better, but not the same.

 

[horsekeeper]

I used landscape timbers and 2x4s to make a 12x16 run all by my 60-year-old self and it came out really good. Charging the batteries for my camera now so I can take some pictures for you. It's built like Fort Knox and nothing has bothered my chickens.

The 8-foot timbers were set upright 2 feet in the ground (couldn't get any deeper with all the clay and rock) and 8 feet apart (minus the width of a timber). I dug a trench between them and put in 2-4 inches of crushed stone/stone dust mix to help drain and level a horizontal timber laying between the uprights that were toenailed with 5-inch nails into the posts. The run is 6-foot tall. On to of the posts I nailed 2x4s, leveled everything up and pounded stone mix around the base of the posts to make everything stable. Simson Strong Ties makes a metal bracket that holds a 2x4 on a flat surface and those attached another 2x4 3-foot up the pole horizontally so there is support and a nailer for 3-foot wire. I set another post in the middle and ran headers lenghwise to attach 2x4s across the top with the brackets and used heavy fencing staple to wrap the entire thing in heavy duty stock wire (leftover horse fencing). On the inside 1-inch chicken wire keeps the birds away from the stock fence for the bottom 3 feet. When finances allow I plan to add a 2-foot layer of hardware cloth on the bottom of the stock wire. The door was made by snadwiching 1-inch hardware cloth between 1x4 and is quite sturdy.

Home Depot carries a good selection of metal ties for about anything you want to do, including patch plates that would connect two pieces of lumber end-to-end. I used those for the top plates and ridge pole of the run I am working on now and it holds pretty good if you use screws to fasten them on. My daughter drives me an hour one way to get materials and is nervous about getting anything that won't fit in the truck bed so I am limited to 8-foot lumber, too.

The whole thing was done with a hand saw because I was afraid to use a power saw, so it took way too long! I have since gotten a small framing saw and become proficient in all kinds of cuts. Just couldn't face the prospect of building the duck house by hand after all the hard work of building the chicken house without power tools.

 

[Kit-Kat]

Thank you so much for the information-! I'll send out those PMs, I really appreciate the help!

 

[featherz]

Oo! I am sending this to DH now. I don't mind building it myself, but I'll need his help to get the lumber home. Right now we just have a fence made of 6' fencing, with hardware cloth on the bottom and those green metal fence post things. It's more of a 'chicken containment run' than anything predator proof. This is a large coop, could hold up to 40 chickens (it's 12x14) so I want a larger run. Please take pics when you can!

You can see the coop here, but not much of the 'run'. They free range most of the time, as you can see - once they get used to snow.

I used landscape timbers and 2x4s to make a 12x16 run all by my 60-year-old self and it came out really good. Charging the batteries for my camera now so I can take some pictures for you. It's built like Fort Knox and nothing has bothered my chickens.

The 8-foot timbers were set upright 2 feet in the ground (couldn't get any deeper with all the clay and rock) and 8 feet apart (minus the width of a timber). I dug a trench between them and put in 2-4 inches of crushed stone/stone dust mix to help drain and level a horizontal timber laying between the uprights that were toenailed with 5-inch nails into the posts. The run is 6-foot tall. On to of the posts I nailed 2x4s, leveled everything up and pounded stone mix around the base of the posts to make everything stable. Simson Strong Ties makes a metal bracket that holds a 2x4 on a flat surface and those attached another 2x4 3-foot up the pole horizontally so there is support and a nailer for 3-foot wire. I set another post in the middle and ran headers lenghwise to attach 2x4s across the top with the brackets and used heavy fencing staple to wrap the entire thing in heavy duty stock wire (leftover horse fencing). On the inside 1-inch chicken wire keeps the birds away from the stock fence for the bottom 3 feet. When finances allow I plan to add a 2-foot layer of hardware cloth on the bottom of the stock wire. The door was made by snadwiching 1-inch hardware cloth between 1x4 and is quite sturdy.

Home Depot carries a good selection of metal ties for about anything you want to do, including patch plates that would connect two pieces of lumber end-to-end. I used those for the top plates and ridge pole of the run I am working on now and it holds pretty good if you use screws to fasten them on. My daughter drives me an hour one way to get materials and is nervous about getting anything that won't fit in the truck bed so I am limited to 8-foot lumber, too.

The whole thing was done with a hand saw because I was afraid to use a power saw, so it took way too long! I have since gotten a small framing saw and become proficient in all kinds of cuts. Just couldn't face the prospect of building the duck house by hand after all the hard work of building the chicken house without power tools.

 

[Cass]

oo, I was ALSO thinking of coops today. My coop is already built, but I want to build a 'real' run, something like this one:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/ace-coop-progress-pictures-included

I wonder if I can get DH to help. Hmm. It's got to be rather large. We don't have a truck capable of transporting anything larger than 8 foot lumber - any thoughts on best way to fasten 2x4's end to end? I am thinking run will be 24' long, 16' wide, but getting out there today to measure.

In other good news, my missing chicken was NOT missing. Well, she was, but she is not dead. Was out at sunrise today to start filling up feeders and hear a chicken grumbling. Sure enough, there she was. I guess she just decided to bunk out under my trailer coop for some reason!

In even MORE good news, I have 18 chicks out with more on the way. and 6 so far are NN (not my eggs). To the person looking for EE chicks, I have EE mutt eggs pretty much all the time, but my EE roo I believe probably does not have the blue egg gene - his hatchmate ladies all lay brown eggs. I have two blue egg gene roos, but they are hopefully going to another byc'er today.

I'm happy to hear her henliness showed up unharmed.

End to end butting of lumber is best done on a support post. Sure you can use metal plates (or wood ones, cuz I''m cheap) but don't plan on EVER laying anything on top of it, including wet sticky snow,it will fail sooner than later. IF you are determined to butt it, use a brace, either metal or wood, twice as long as you think it need to be and on BOTH sides of the abuttment, cuz when it snows around here, it really snows. (well, except this past winter, but it's gonna catch up with us sometime soon)