***OKIES in the BYC III ***

[Kassaundra]

I was searching the free smiley site for a specific smiley and didn't find it but look what I did find

 

[Elwood Lightfoot]

Something killed 5 of my hens in one of the 50x50 yards and a rooster is missing in the big rooster yard next to it. It took their heads off of all of them and gutted a couple. Ate the entire inside of 1 of them. Does that sound like a coon or skunk? They were inside their 4x8 coops but the coop doors weren't shut. Those yards are farthest-about 100' from the house. We're going to lock em` up and set the traps tonight. It got 2 of my Orps, both Frizzle Cochins and my Black Star. The rooster who's missing was my last Brown Red Bantam Ameraucana, something got his twin brother last summer.
All the birds I've gotten this year are in roofed pens.

Thats how mine that I found looked and then I caught the bird in the act ate the head then gutted them I think when it had lightened the load it flew off with the rest of the body, I had thought it was a hawk and it may have been but in retrospect it kinda looked like one of my barred rocks when I first saw it then it was so frantic to get away I wasn't sure bu now I'm thinking maybe a barred owl, I saw a big hawk this evening in a tree down the road from here, since I locked up the chickens to protect them i've started to come up short on ducks I think I'm missing like 6 so far,


The power was off for a few hours early Saturday but thankful it wasn't longer, a few years ago it was off for a week,


Found this on FB it kinda reminded me of the good people on the thread here LOL



Kass I guess these are real and available, not sure how it pertains to chickens but it looks like maybe it could be used for egg extraction, you know, it were breech or something.....

 

[bardies]

I was searching the free smiley site for a specific smiley and didn't find it but look what I did find

I am not really sure what to think of this... it is chicken but still....

 

[Ksane]

Bill, will owls go up under trees (it's got a 50' span) and grab this many birds? I lost 5 from one yard and 1 from the yard next to it. I found the 2 Frizzle Cochin girls in the yard next to their yard. Something dragged them over the fence or flew and dropped them but I found them just a few ft apart. They were best friends and always together.
Nothing in the traps but we'll keep setting them. I'm shutting doors on coops and my favorite rooster from the rooster yard is in a sealed pen with a hen now. It's scary to lose so many at once. The rest of the boys in the rooster yard are still vulnerable but they're ones I could at least stand to lose. They refuse to go inside their coop and I'm not going to chase them around and throw them in every night, I have to pick my battles here.

 

[bardies]

Bill, will owls go up under trees (it's got a 50' span) and grab this many birds? I lost 5 from one yard and 1 from the yard next to it. I found the 2 Frizzle Cochin girls in the yard next to their yard. Something dragged them over the fence or flew and dropped them but I found them just a few ft apart. They were best friends and always together.
Nothing in the traps but we'll keep setting them. I'm shutting doors on coops and my favorite rooster from the rooster yard is in a sealed pen with a hen now. It's scary to lose so many at once. The rest of the boys in the rooster yard are still vulnerable but they're ones I could at least stand to lose. They refuse to go inside their coop and I'm not going to chase them around and throw them in every night, I have to pick my battles here.

Too bad you cant bribe them in with some feed and then just lock them in a little early. However, I so understand your 'pick my battle' statement. If the birds are going to be that stubborn.... And it is this stinking cold.... and you have all those others that you spoil rotten. That's what I want to come back as in another life - one of Ksane's birds!!!

 

[bardies]

I asked this on the porcelain thread, but who knows who's on there still.... any thoughts on what might come from a porcelain silky roo over a lavender hen? I have three eggs in the bator from her (lavender breedings, I think) that look like they are developing. We've had her for a week and a half now, and she is still laying (yay!) but when we open them, they do not look fertile (yet the first three are). I am wondering if the silkie eggs, being as small as they are, are harder to tell....
ANYWAY...

She is now with a porcelain roo and once back in the big pen should be laying eggs from him....what might we get with those?

 

[mjgigax]

I sure am no genetics expert but I thought that Porcelain (in Du 'Unccles, sp?) is a Mille Fleur with the Lavender gene?
I have both Self-Blue (Lavender) and Mille Fleur Cochin breeding projects but am a long way off from ever thinking about combining them. The Mille Fleur pattern in Cochins was not developed from outcrossing with Du Unccles, but from Buff Columbian and Black Mottled Cochins. It is going to take a long time to get that pattern consistent and the Calicos are "byproduct" of that process. Calico isn't a recognized color in any breed but just a name we have given those pretty birds that have a butter colored, not Buff, base for their pattern.
The Self-blue is a much more straight forward project- improve type with Black and as anyone that goes to shows knows, there are a lot of really good Black Cochins. To get the Self-blues to have yellow feet is a little tough with crossing to Black but I have it in my birds But the Lavender gene is next to the gene that produces rough feather qualities and that is a big problem with my birds so far

 

[miohippus]

I was searching the free smiley site for a specific smiley and didn't find it but look what I did find

how cute

 

[BetsyOK]

Ksane, so sorry to read of your losses, as well as others'. My experience with raccoons doesn't include taking the heads off and eating just the innards. They WILL kill as many as they can and will sometimes eat them on the spot sometimes drag them away. They'll eat the entire bird--no beaks or feet lef, but maybe the wings with large feathers attached--if they have time. At any rate it is horrid that you had to find that problem.

Nearly all my silkies have always been outside, with small coops they can go into if they wish and covered runs. I rarely put any heat on them at all, and they fare well. One year many of them had a lot of snow on them from the wind blowing in from a different direction, but had no problems. I do put Visqueen on the front of my largest pen because that's the direction rain and snow will usually come from. I also have a tarp and an 85 watt red bulb on a small group that live in more or less a rabbit hutch, which is open underneath. When there are more in there, I don't give them any heat. If they are used to being out and are out as the season changes and the temps gradually cool down, they are fine.

Our yard looks a lot like the pics posted here, with more shrubs and smallish trees bowed clear down to the ground. We have to bend clear over at the waist in several areas to get to the pens to feed and water the poultry. If we brush against it, the branches break.

Porcelain is still a "project" bird in silkies and will probably never have the spotting a true porcelain should have because of the structure of their feathers. An alternate name that has been proposed and is also widely used is "self blue cream". A porcelain (self blue cream) bred to a lavender (self blue) is likely to produce some lavenders, but mostly porcelain because the self blue gene is recessive. A porcelain bred to a porcelain is most likely to produce porcelains, but could also produce some lavenders.

 

[muesky]

But they are DEADLY on chickens, VERY VERY HIGH prey drive and a single mindedness that is beyond belief!!!!!!

I think it depends on the dachshund.. Stella was raised to understand the chickens are hers to protect and that is her job here.. Stanley has been an issue but we are working on him... It is a bit easier with little dogs then big ones since most my birds are much bigger then they are..

We went to see the lights at Chickasha tonight and - because of the cold and predators - chased down the two silly hens that were still out and put them into the coop. Didn't want to wait until we got home to lock them in. The lights were great! Smaller than some, but they had a prarie dog!
Very nice!

Question.... I've got silkies (used to the outside). In an outside pen - sheltered on three sides and roof - then covered with a tarp - with some outside exposure - inches along the bottom. Then there is a secondary smaller three sided shelter interior to that (overturned storage bin type thing) - although I've never seen them in there. With the temps getting so low tonight and tomorrow - do you think I need to rig a heat lamp out there? I do know that the birds have stayed dry throughout this whole thing. There are four of them and, while they are not laying yet, they are older birds.

I think it depends on how you have conditioned your birds. Long ago I stopped putting heaters in the coops. My birds can go into the coop, or they have covered areas to go that has wind blocks and many of them, especially the LF cochins prefer that to going into the coop... If your birds have had heat lamps, etc. it is important to keep it going as that is what they are accustomed to..

i dont know that i'd want silkies or seramas out in the temps we are having, although i have heard of people have a solid coop, and lots of shavings and they do ok, i do have a heater in the main coop so it stays above freezing

i gave mine hot oatmeal tonite.

Silkies should be fine as long as they are out of the wind and have shelter.. Seramas do not handle the cold weather at all from what I have found unless you have conditioned them from very young..

I was searching the free smiley site for a specific smiley and didn't find it but look what I did find

I love this!!!

Thats how mine that I found looked and then I caught the bird in the act ate the head then gutted them I think when it had lightened the load it flew off with the rest of the body, I had thought it was a hawk and it may have been but in retrospect it kinda looked like one of my barred rocks when I first saw it then it was so frantic to get away I wasn't sure bu now I'm thinking maybe a barred owl, I saw a big hawk this evening in a tree down the road from here, since I locked up the chickens to protect them i've started to come up short on ducks I think I'm missing like 6 so far,


The power was off for a few hours early Saturday but thankful it wasn't longer, a few years ago it was off for a week,


Found this on FB it kinda reminded me of the good people on the thread here LOL



Kass I guess these are real and available, not sure how it pertains to chickens but it looks like maybe it could be used for egg extraction, you know, it were breech or something.....

I love the chicken picture, saved it to my files...
The extractor looks wicked and I am not sure I would want to try using that to get an egg out of a chicken... I think my chickens would freak if I came at them with that thing... hehehe!