NY chicken lover!!!!

[vmdanielsen]

Morning all!

Little Man is outside proclaiming to the world that he here and he is the man. Being a silkie, he sounds bigger than he is but it is not an unpleasant crow and he only does it for a short period of time. So far only one pullet egg from the silkie girls. Hoping for more soon. Now my LF hens seem to be ramping up production! I got 4 eggs yesterday from my 8 girls. After 2 months of nothing, they are finally starting to lay. They made quite a ruckous yesterday morning with all the eggs songs and squabbling over the favorite nesting box. They are eating me out of house and home as well. My egg customers will be happy when they are back to full production!

Hopefully we will be dropping a massive oak soon so we can start on the woods openair coop that we laid the footings for this fall. Since it split during Irene, we decided that it was too unstable for it to stay as a shade tree where we are building the coop. Going to be an interesting drop.

Loving not having snow but this cold kills me when I am out taking care of everyone. I can only imagine how you must feel Rancher. I suppose things could be worse. In europe they are sending out troops in Italy and Serbia to dig people out of their houses because they have had so much snow. One town was buried under 33 feet of snow. I cannot even imagine that and I grew up on the tug hill plateau and have seen heavy snow!

Everyones talk of hatching eggs is killing me. I so very badly want to order eggs and hatch some chickies but must be patient. Gotta have a house for them first!!!

Have a fab day everyone!

Amy

33' of snow????? I can not imagine! Have a good day everyone!!

 

[happyhensny]

I used to intern with the DEC and I helped release stocked pheasants many times. A few things of note:
-- Most places that raise these birds do so in conditions that don't allow for the pheasants to gain much survival education. Because of this, many succumb to predation, starvation, and other mishap. I know raising pheasants isn't the same as raising chickens, but if you want your birds to make it anything you can do to make them self-sufficient during the raising process will increase their odds. You want to distance yourself from them as much as possible so that they don't get too friendly with people. Sadly nearly all the birds I helped release were completely clueless. Smart birds are far more likely to survive the season and then the winter afterward! Some regions of NY are far more like pheasant habitat than others.
-- The DEC generally announces the location and date of release of birds so that hunters know where they have been stocked. When we did it, it was a day or two before the season opened, but I think that some areas also stock during open season?? I'd have to double check on that! We actually busted a few hunters trying to get on to the newly released, confused birds, before they legally could hunt them.
-- Usually the DEC distributes the pheasants via ECOs and biologists (and .. interns like me) for release-- I am not at all certain that you'd be able to request where your birds were released or not. When we did it, we went to a central location where all the pheasants for the WMU were distributed to us, and then we traveled all day to various locations to release them.

An important note: This was a few years ago and the way that the program works may well have changed. If you have questions I'm sure they'd be happy to answer them for you!

Do you happen to know where I can find a guide on raising them for release? I still haven't decided on do it yet because I need info first. I called the hatchery and they said I could even have eggs to hatch. Which would be more educational for our 4-H group anyway. Thanks for the help.

 

[greymane]

Happy Valentines Day, all! Don't forget to give your girls (all ot them) a little extra love today!

 

[stonykill]

Happy Valentines Day, all! Don't forget to give your girls (all ot them) a little extra love today!

60 girls .... I'm going to be all day giving love I guess.....

 

[Nambroth]

Do you happen to know where I can find a guide on raising them for release? I still haven't decided on do it yet because I need info first. I called the hatchery and they said I could even have eggs to hatch. Which would be more educational for our 4-H group anyway. Thanks for the help.

Off the top of my head this is the only guide I know of-- they may have updated information (again it's been a few years since I was with them): http://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/wildlife_pdf/dayoldchicks.pdf

You can email or call them and they are usually quite good about getting back to people!

 

[happyhensny]

Off the top of my head this is the only guide I know of-- they may have updated information (again it's been a few years since I was with them): http://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/wildlife_pdf/dayoldchicks.pdf

You can email or call them and they are usually quite good about getting back to people!

That is a great brochure. I need to figure out how much space I can provide before I get to far into this "adventure"

 

[Glasshen]

My girls seem to be trying to teach me everything at once this month. There is the victimization of Stewie, the incarceration of the two mean girls, today Stewie had a sort of tear on one of her feet, so I washed it and put the new BluKote on it...and one of the nice red girls seems to be getting broody. Yikes! And there have been an awful lot of striped feathers in the coop, but neither BR looks naked. Stewie is a little sparse on her head...is this more being picked on or the beginning of molt?

I think they should have kept me in the easy class, this feels like AP.

 

[featherz]

Wow! This nice warmer weather has cranked up the egg production here.. I was warning my few egg customers I might have to miss a week since I was only getting 8-12 eggs a day for the last few weeks from my 38 hens - and some of those were smaller pullet eggs..

Last 5 days have been getting an average of 20 eggs a day and today I made the two dozen mark for the first time! Wow.

 

[vmdanielsen]

60 girls .... I'm going to be all day giving love I guess.....

I hope there is enough of you to go around!!

Happy valentines day everybody!!

 

[Cass]

Happy Valentines Day, all! Don't forget to give your girls (all ot them) a little extra love today!

Extra love? I gave my smallest rooster a boot in the *** and a couple of stones aimed his head (which missed, darn it)....he flogged the back of my legs and I don't think he had love on his mind. The girls got extra BOSS, so I get fewer eggs tomorrow, but they enjoyed it.