NY chicken lover!!!!

[pharmchickrnmom]

Afternoon all. Came home and prepped the coops for the winter watch we are under. Food and water is good. Set up 3 buckets in the basement for the morning. Got plastic put up on the one silkie coop. Need more tacks. Let the new group of silkies I have out and (sigh) have discovered that the youngest one is also probably a boy. That makes 5 silkie roosters--3 splash and two blue. I wanted one or two with three hens. So guess what will be for sale come spring??? These are all good, breeder quality boys. I will raise them till spring and decide which I am keeping for my breeding program and who needs a new home so if you are in the market for a good silkie cockeral at that time, let me know! Now I have to figure out what I am doing about hens!

My big girls (aka original 8 hens) are all molting and it looks like there are more feathers than pine chips in their coop. They are the raggediest looking I have ever seen. No eggs either. Come spring they will be replaced with a new hatch from the other coop. Elanor stays. She will be the broody momma. I hope they start laying again when they finish molting. My egg customers are used to the abundent eggs I am getting so any slowdown will make them unhappy. It will slow down as i do not supplement with lights. I prefer to let nature take its course and it gives the hens a breather from the stress of laying all the time.

Tab--sorry to hear about your favorite hen. Hugs

Rancher--sending thoughts and prayers your way. Whatever it is, hugs to you.

Hope everyone is well. We are supposed to get snow and I have to work early tomorrow. Should be interesting/.

 

[Cass]

Ugh, ice in the waterers and my gloves weren't in my pocket. Probably in my car and I was too lazy to walk up to the car to get them. I guess I deserve the frozen fingers.

I now have 8 roosters. Someone needs to go. Several someones actually. I hope it is as warm this weekend as they said cuz I need them gone and freezer camp is the only option right now....no one wants to over winter roos, even if they want a roo for breeding in the spring. (at least no one local to me) I'm going to keep my 2 Ameruacana roos, 2 Sumantra roos and 1 D'uccle roo. That's enough roos for anyone's yard. The crow-offs are deafening.


On a brighter note I have blue eggs again. 2 hens are laying blue eggs almost daily. I am soooo excited. If I could determine who is laying them I would hatch only their eggs in the spring....imagine how pretty the eggs of the offspring would be if their Daddy was an Ameruacana. (oK, I mean I would separate them so that only the Ameruacana roo had access to them, so I knew who the Daddy was so I had pretty eggs from the offspring)

I think the winter is going to be as long as our spring was. What a depressing thought. I hate winter.

 

[featherz]

I changed all my waterers out juuuuust in time to the heated dog bowls.. Only problem is the birds keep tipping some of them so I had to bolster those up today. Bleh. Good news is my one broody NN pullet decided to stop being broody after like eight weeks (don't need chicks so she had no eggs) but now one of the java pullets is broody! Gack. She's been laying for like a month.

 

[Lapeerian]

Afternoon all. Came home and prepped the coops for the winter watch we are under. Food and water is good. Set up 3 buckets in the basement for the morning. Got plastic put up on the one silkie coop. Need more tacks. Let the new group of silkies I have out and (sigh) have discovered that the youngest one is also probably a boy. That makes 5 silkie roosters--3 splash and two blue. I wanted one or two with three hens. So guess what will be for sale come spring??? These are all good, breeder quality boys. I will raise them till spring and decide which I am keeping for my breeding program and who needs a new home so if you are in the market for a good silkie cockeral at that time, let me know! Now I have to figure out what I am doing about hens!

I think LittleCritters in the Southern NY thread has real nice Silkies. About a month ago she had some shipped from FL and had a terrible time with the USPS, end up losing one and the others end up in rough shape. Don't know if she would like some more?

 

[what was i thinking]

Welcome! I got some roos, but I'm sure that is not what you are looking for. Rancher Hicks is from the Syracuse area as well, he thank y0u

thank you for the welcome...back. no really looking for roos.... thanks for the offer thou

 

[Gramma Chick]

I got home from getting the girls and voting this afternoon to find my favorite bird Snuggles dead in the yard. I didn't see any marks on her. I don't even know how she got out. My bantams were all penned up and it's been 2 days since they had been let out for supervised time out. I haven't been letting them out as often as the large fowl because everything seems to think they'll make a nice snack.

Im sorry to hear your favorite was found dead . is there a spot she could of sneaked out of ?

 

[ChickPrincess]

Grrrrr... our roos have been crowing at all hours of the night. It doesn't matter if it's 2:00 am or 5:00 am. Any suggestions? I'm losing lots of sleep here.
I have 5 roos and I think 2 will be going shortly. Anything else I can do?

 

[Adoravachick]

Afternoon all. Came home and prepped the coops for the winter watch we are under. Food and water is good. Set up 3 buckets in the basement for the morning. Got plastic put up on the one silkie coop. Need more tacks. Let the new group of silkies I have out and (sigh) have discovered that the youngest one is also probably a boy. That makes 5 silkie roosters--3 splash and two blue. I wanted one or two with three hens. So guess what will be for sale come spring??? These are all good, breeder quality boys. I will raise them till spring and decide which I am keeping for my breeding program and who needs a new home so if you are in the market for a good silkie cockeral at that time, let me know! Now I have to figure out what I am doing about hens!

I will be in the same boat! Cockerels are poppin' up everywhere. I bought pullets huh? Uh, not so much. I was in the silkies thread the other day, An experienced exhibitionist commented that some silkies can take up to 10 months before knowing if it's a hen or a roo. Can you imagine? I can generally tell by 4 or 5 months simply by their stance and their attitude. Especially feminine cockerels though, pose a problem. Good luck on your hunt for pullets.

 

[Cass]

Grrrrr... our roos have been crowing at all hours of the night. It doesn't matter if it's 2:00 am or 5:00 am. Any suggestions? I'm losing lots of sleep here.
I have 5 roos and I think 2 will be going shortly. Anything else I can do?

Get ear plugs at the Dollar store and make sure that no light is getting in the coop at night. (I know when the wind turns on my motion lights they shine in the coop and sometimes wakes the roos)

 

[vmdanielsen]

Grrrrr... our roos have been crowing at all hours of the night. It doesn't matter if it's 2:00 am or 5:00 am. Any suggestions? I'm losing lots of sleep here.
I have 5 roos and I think 2 will be going shortly. Anything else I can do?

I agree with Cass. Make sure no lights are shining in. Passing cars (headlights) will get them crowing. Do your best to keep them in the dark.