NY chicken lover!!!!

[Beer can]

@rancher hicks Do you have a Hannafords grocery store in your area? They sell local honey at ours, not with the other honey but on its own display rack. I think wegmans does also. Might not be from your back yard but NY honey. Ours has dark buck wheat honey also, tastes a little different, not sure if I like it. Not as sweet and kinda a grapenut cereal flavor.

 

[Beer can]

@Gramma Chick I still can't get over that price for layer mash, I'm paying almost that for 50lb bags. The mills don't even sell 100lb ones. I live too far away to take advantage of that price.

 

[Pyxis]

Well I'm probably annoying Greenfire, lol. I sent an email a couple days ago and hadn't heard back but wanted to change my order so I just emailed again. Never ordered from them before so I'm not sure what the procedure is and what info they need in the email either. Hopefully I did it correctly.

 

[Beer can]

@BakerzDozen Don't quote me on this, I'm no expert, I'd go ahead and feed them the scratch. I did for awhile once to save $. Fermented the scratch, three days. They had oyster shell free choice and I gave them whole ground fish and condensed whey for extra protein and dandalion greens for vitamins, have kale now. I didn't notice any change in growth in the dozen cockerels or egg production/quality in the pullets.
You can get two pound bags of dry pinto beans for a dollar at real dollar stores for added protein, soak and cook them first, I've done this also.
None of this is recommended I'm sure, but do what we have to.
I hear too much corn makes them fat and not lay good, winter time though I don't think the extra carbs will hurt.

 

[xpchick]

Just wanted to stop in and say hello! New to the board, and hoping to get our first chickens this spring. I'm in Wayne County. My hope is to get some egg layers of a few breeds and then some meat birds. I'd like to get them from a place though where the parents are treated well. I don't know what the hatcheries are like and these big commercial places. I have a lot more research to do to get ready I posted a picture of our barn in my intro thread, we plan to build a coop inside the side barn and give them an outside area that is fully fenced in and covered for when we aren't right there.

 

[cutipatooti]

Just wanted to stop in and say hello! New to the board, and hoping to get our first chickens this spring. I'm in Wayne County. My hope is to get some egg layers of a few breeds and then some meat birds. I'd like to get them from a place though where the parents are treated well. I don't know what the hatcheries are like and these big commercial places. I have a lot more research to do to get ready  I posted a picture of our barn in my intro thread, we plan to build a coop inside the side barn and give them an outside area that is fully fenced in and covered for when we aren't right there.

Welcome!. It's very smart the way you want to set up. Bears and Hawks have been a problem in our area. You should look into chickenstock. There will be lots of chicks available af various breeds .

 

[PhoredaBurds]

Just wanted to stop in and say hello! New to the board, and hoping to get our first chickens this spring. I'm in Wayne County. My hope is to get some egg layers of a few breeds and then some meat birds. I'd like to get them from a place though where the parents are treated well. I don't know what the hatcheries are like and these big commercial places. I have a lot more research to do to get ready  I posted a picture of our barn in my intro thread, we plan to build a coop inside the side barn and give them an outside area that is fully fenced in and covered for when we aren't right there.

Welcome! Sounds like you are doing things right from the start. Lots of good people with healthy, happy chicks on this thread! Give us some more specifics on what you are looking for and there's a good chance there's someone in the area has chicks or eggs that will work for you.

 

[Lady Loveall]

My first chick came today. Had to share, couldn't be more proud if I sat on the egg myself. Good Job Mayor!

 

[Devona]

Hi everyone. I hope you are all healthy and in good spirits in this cold weather. I've been lurking over on one of the FF threads. Haven't made my presence known there yet, though. I started reading it from the beginning, but I'm only at about page twenty or so. It's a couple hundred pages long. I started trying to ferment a few days ago. About six days now, because I have four jars, and I've fed FF two nights now. I'm not sure if it's really fermented, because there's not much smell. But four days soaking with acv added is supposedly enough. As I feed each jar, I leave a little scraping in the bottom and add the new stuff on top. I'm not sure if a scraping is enough, so I've still been adding a few drops of acv as I go. I think I'll try to make a bottle of acv on my own. I had 'borrowed' some acv from my cousin down the street. (I'm probably not the kind of neighbor you would want, because the other day I ran out of salt, and schlepped around the corner to my mom's and borrowed some of hers

). Anyway, my cousin had Braggs in her cupboard, so I got an ounce or two from her. I suppose if I add some Braggs to a bottle of grocery store pasteurized acv, I can make acv with the mother? I'm thinking to forego the 4 different jars and just do one big container, because on Saturday I'm going to New Jersey to pick up two Ameracaunas that I saw on Craigslist. So I will need more FF. I don't think my present jars are big enough to fit enough FF for three chickens. I would have some stirring issues. I've only been feeding FF once a day so far. In the evening. In the morning, chick gets dry feed, maybe mixed with cooked and mashed kitchen scraps. I've been mixing in a little bit of meat scraps for him a few times a week, and every time hes's fed now, it's one part grower and one part cracked corn. That's also what I'm putting into his FF. Sometimes I mix the scraps/meat into his FF in the evening or into his dry feed in the morning. At least I hope it's FF. If not, it's soaked feed.

. I'll try using filtered tap water like what we drink in the house, instead of unfiltered tap water and see if there's a
difference in the smell. Anyway, these Ameracaunas I'm supposed to be getting are about two years old, give or take, the guy said. At what age do they usually stop laying regularly? He said they're current not laying because of the shorter days, and that they're supposed to start again in the spring. From what I've read, that's quite normal. I just hope he's telling the truth about their age, and not selling me old hens! I have no idea how to tell if a chicken is old. It's not like dogs, that get gray around the muzzle.

So my new chicks have grown quite a bit in the ten days that I've had them. I transferred them from the Rubbermaid box into a rabbit cage. I hope they don't outgrow that before they're ready for outside temps. I'm not even sure if I should put them outside before spring. But by then they'll definitely be too big for the cage. At what age do you all think they can be outside in the winter? I know I'd have to take them outside gradually, if at all. Anyway folks, til next time.

 

[Gramma Chick]

Hi everyone. I hope you are all healthy and in good spirits in this cold weather.As best as can be expected

. I think I'll try to make a bottle of acv on my own. I suppose if I add some Braggs to a bottle of grocery store pasteurized acv, I can make acv with the mother?It will doctor up the cheap stuff with time

two Ameracaunas that I saw on Craigslist. Anyway, these Ameracaunas I'm supposed to be getting are about two years old, give or take, the guy said. At what age do they usually stop laying regularly? 2 years is when they start slowing down ..How much are you paying for these ? They may lay in the spring or they may not ...it depends on how many eggs they have already laid