NY chicken lover!!!!

[pharmchickrnmom]

Morning all. No rain as of yet and a cool breeze. Didnt touch the bator. Today is the official hatch day but nothing yet. Still waiting. Dont hear any strangulations going on this morning. The boys must be chillin. The wild birds are even low key this morning. Working again today so I wont be obsessing over the eggs.

Dragonlord--I see two roos, the third could go either way. When I hatched out sexlinks this year, one did fool me. It had white smudge on the back of its head but has turned out to be a pullet. Good luck with your babies!

Have a nice day everyone!

 

[Metella]

So I got a lovely Frizzle EE from Tab - Now called Lizzy the Frizzy. She is in that teen stage.

I got a BCM Teen from Marqu. Also teen stage.

I had my own batch of babies about a week or two younger than these - but put them in the same big brooder as the temperments seemed to match. That was at chickenstock. They all did super - and 2 weeks ago I moved them to an outside coop in the middle of the big run - so everyone could see each other. The door popped open last week for an earlier mix than I planned -as the others are much smaller than those two teens I mentioned ..... but all went well ! A few hens gave a half hearted peck now and then to a peep .... and my two lav orp peeps have taken to following any rooster around - which I think is great - the roo kind of ignores them - but they are following a sentinel around !

Like so many here - I have to say my peeps may not discriminate in anything other than friendship - but all the BCM and mostly black mixes hang together, the lavs do, the two splash ... they have once again self-segregated by color - and all but the above two were hatched out at the same time - not integrated.


NOW my very last batch of peeps is in that middle coop - they are a mix of this and that with 4 guinea keets in the mix ! Hope the door stays for a while - I hear the keets need more time than peeps to adjust to new situations.

So - I don't update much - but there we are - all the babies have grown out very well this year - and all have integrated nicely. I do have one rooster that has learned how to egg eat ... guess who's coming to dinner ?

 

[Cass]

I did a experiment with the chickens this year ...and the garden
My original flock always come running when I grab a shovel .
I put up a plastic barrier where I was doing major weeding . Grabbed a chicken or two and put them in with me .
It worked fine they helped with weeding some ...nibbled on turnip greens ( I have them for them anyway ) debugged & dewormed the soil .
I think I will put some scratch outside the fence maybe they can weed the outside before the plant invade the garden .

Does any one know how to teach a broody to turn eggs? Alls I see them do is set .
Luney Monkey didnt hatch any successfully ..she only wants to attack when I try to get her to turn her eggs .
Chippy is sweet ...she will let me check her egg & then will roll it back ...
she does this spiked hair / spiked feather thing on her head..so cute

You don't need to turn a broody's eggs. She will do it herself. If at no other time when she gets on and off the nest. Now you say one of your broodies wasn't successful in hatching eggs....several things could have contributed to that. Lack of fertility being the major one. Spending more time off the nest than the eggs could tolerate in the weather conditions being another. (meaning she isn't a very good broody) But I suspect that the eggs weren't fertile or were early quitters (for whatever reason that might have been, probably genetic). Chickens don't have to be taught how to procreate. It is instinct, but not all chickens get the same amount of that instinct and those with less don't wind up with many grandchildren.

 

[Cass]

.

I think my one Blue Americana I got from you is Mean Marges chick ...boy is she Mean as a broody .
She is on the end of the nesting boxes ..so I have to reach past her to get eggs , etc ...
She loves to nail hands & shes got my arm a few times
Im okay with it too ...some people wouldnt like their location shown ..It does help to see where everyone is ...so if we wanted to swap .

Mean Marge is an Olive Egger, so there is 0% chance that any Lav Ameruacana you got from me is her offspring. However my lav Ameruacanas are fierce mothers, so that might explain her actions. Put on gloves? With mean Marge I use the bottom of one of the chick feeders/waterers (plastic bottle) to hold her head to the side while I do what I need to do. (I took her duckling this morning....she is NOT amused)

 

[armorfirelady]

Gramma chick- I just let my co broodies take care of the eggs. I didn't turn them. Out of 6 eggs left with them 5 hatched. The 6th egg was hard to candle it's a BCM egg. So it easily could of been a dud.

 

[Lynzi777]

Morning All! Candled my 5 eggs I added to Brinsea "A". 2 weren't developing but 3 were. I think they were both from my blue Silkie hen. So I added two from my other splash and kept the newest dated one out for the next add. So right now I have 2 eggs I'll move to Brinsea "B" on the 6th, 3 that I'll move on the 11th and 2 (if they start developing) on the 14th. I'm glad I bought this second Brinsea so I could keep things rotating.

On another note, one of my splash Orp chicks isn't doing too well. It's the smallest of the bunch, sleeps all the time, it's legs are wayy skinnier than the others, doesn't seem to be growing. I have it separated for now hoping it'll eat and drink without being pushed out of the way by the 10 others it was with. Gonna try some yogurt too.

 

[wny egger]

well i went out last nite to the coop about 930 and all my birds were on the perches..which never happens and they were very quite for some reason ..at one end i kept hearing movement in the straw and i figured one had desided to bed down at the food end of the coop..i looked but no bird ..i heard it again and caught site of something moving..it turns out my birds truely are chickens all afraid of a big old bullfrog ..i have no idea how it got in the coop..but it was lucky it went in the new birds pen because my old birds would have had froglegs for bedtime snack..lol

i had one of the new birds slip threw the temp fence i put up to split the run inhalf for my old flock and new flock to share the run..everyone keeps asking me when i will put them all together ..well from what i seen in the short time she was in with the old birds ,its not going to be for awhile ..she was trying to stay away from the old birds but they were not happy she slipped threw and i think she learned her lesson about those older birds too ..i rescued her as fast as i seen it happen ..she was bit up pretty good ..no blood but maybe some emoitionel scar's..and maybe some nite terrors .but she was ok..anyways i figured i wouldnt attemped to put the 2 flocks together till they are all on layer feed..



oh yeah one more thing ..a buddy of mine just lost a bunch of birds to an animal called a fisher cat ..i never heard of one and in all my yrs spent in the woods never seen or heard of one ..if you dont no what they are look them up ..they are killers and are all over ny it looks like ..i seen a vid of one attacking a fox ..it wasnt letting the fox go ..anyways he lost a bunch of birds and its just anotrher preditor to watch out for....

 

[Piercingqueen]

I live in Macedon NY and i am currently looking for a female duck or two. Hopefully Cayuga female.

 

[pharmchickrnmom]

Wry--fishers are part of the weasel family and as such, are killers through and through. They are elusive and seldom seem but yes, they are all over NY. I know there is one living down in the swamp by our house. A friend of mine killed a rabid female fisher on his property. They can chew through lots of things and are tough as nails. Tell your buddy to set out a trap and bait it cause it will be back. SSS if he catches it.

Cass--Love that you have a Mean Marge. I had one but she passed away last year. I have a mean red broody now but I dont put up with her crap. I usually grab her beak or the back of her head and take the eggs under her. She growls and screams and tries to get me but I dont let her. She is learning.

Lynzi--good luck with your moving and shaking! Dh heard chirps from the bator this morning so I am hoping that when I get home that maybe someone will be hatching. However, if my track record holds, they will hatch tomorrow or friday as all my hatches have been late this year!

Ok, running off to work. Peace all.

 

[kimmerjo]

Fisher cats are a pain in my area! But I haven't lost any animals to one. Funny story ....... My brother in-law is from the city, we were having a fire one night and a Fisher Cat started "screaming". He freaked out started yelling " get a gun someone is killing girl " and started running in to the field toward the screaming!!!! It was one of the funniest things I have ever seen!