Our introduction to keeping chickens, the high's, the lows and pics of our journey.

[vehve]

Okay, now the flock has been free ranging for about an hour, but 15 minutes ago Veera went into the coop, and headed straight for a egg nest. She then started fixing everything up the way she want's it, but now she's just lying there on top of two golf balls. Please tell me she's not starting to go broody before even laying an egg? Or is it normal for them to just spend time in there when they're about to start laying? How long does an egg laying session usually take? Of course while practicing it might be a bit longer... I decided not to bother her anymore and come in and try to listen through an open window for an egg song.

 

[vehve]

Hahaa, she was just taking her sweet time in the nest! Woohoo, our very first egg!

It's a bit on the small side, but yay! She's going to make a pretty color, as of now it's a bit spotted still, but once she gets a few more practice eggs in, I think the color will solidify, and hopefully they'll gain some size too.


Hopefully we can stop buying eggs soon. The three oldest are 22 weeks now, and the next two pullets are at 14 weeks now so hopefully they'll begin in a month or two. And then Emma the Speckled Sussex a month after that.

 

[cwrite]

Congrats Vehve that is very exciting & what a pretty egg!

 

[cwrite]

I went down to peek through a window to see how things were going in the coop.


The one on the left looks pretty dark.


Turns out, Summer didn't mind the revised curtains after all. See how this goes with attacks from the Rock sisters.

Summer is a beautiful hen. Ben, please tell me you have just painted. My pullets have made a right mess of my white walls. The rock sisters are getting quite the reputation. Lets hope this keeps them in line.

 

[vehve]

Congrats Vehve that is very exciting & what a pretty egg!

I'm Eggstatic! It's going to be interesting to see how the size develops.

The neighbor was out burning some branches, so I asked if I can have his ash once it's cooled. Instead he brought me a bucket of already cooled ash from his sauna, so I put some in the run and out in the forest, next to their favorite bathing spot. Let's see how they like it.

How have you guys usually switched your chickens to a new feed? I just mixed some old and new together now, like you're supposed to with dogs. Not that our dogs tend to react to a change in food. At the same time I took a look at the Progut bag Karin had brought home. It's a 20kg sack, and according to the packaging, you're supposed to add 15g per kg of feed. So I guess we're good for the next ton and a half... So far, I just opened our third sack of feed. And we still had about 5kg left of the previous one. Progut is some sort of yeast supplement, if anyone's wondering.

 

[vehve]

Summer is a beautiful hen. Ben, please tell me you have just painted. My pullets have made a right mess of my white walls. The rock sisters are getting quite the reputation. Lets hope this keeps them in line.

What do you use as bedding? Our walls have a thin layer of peat dust on them, but other then that, they stay white. I should probably wipe the walls when we change the bedding.

 

[cwrite]

I use wood chips in the coop only. I tried sand & it turned into a wet poopy disaster. The problem might be their roosts because it looks like one of them managed to projectile poop onto the wall!

 

[vehve]

I heard a story from a guy who had rescued a baby eagle once. That thing projectile pooped like a bazooka. He said once it lifted it's tail feathers, you had better not be behind it. The stuff flew 3 meters. He kept it inside at first, so once he released it, he had to repaint the walls. They do tend to nest pretty high up, so I guess that's a nice way to keep the nest clean.

We had a bit loose poop that was projected to the wall, but now that they've been on mash and probiotics for a week, I'd say poop quality is greatly improved. I might look into fermenting the feed at some point too, but I haven't made up my mind yet. So far the mash is a nice minimum effort way to feed them with no feed wasted. We still keep dry stuff in a feeder inside the coop, but they usually scratch it all out in a matter of days, then I just leave it unfilled for a few days and let them scratch it up from the bedding. I should put a higher lip on the feeder, that would help too.

 

[Bens-Hens]

Okay, now the flock has been free ranging for about an hour, but 15 minutes ago Veera went into the coop, and headed straight for a egg nest. She then started fixing everything up the way she want's it, but now she's just lying there on top of two golf balls. Please tell me she's not starting to go broody before even laying an egg? Or is it normal for them to just spend time in there when they're about to start laying? How long does an egg laying session usually take? Of course while practicing it might be a bit longer... I decided not to bother her anymore and come in and try to listen through an open window for an egg song.

I see you got your answer, but I will add what I can anyway.

Some of ours are pretty quick, 10-15 minutes and they are back out to see what they missed. Summer and Marrier the Maran are a bit slower, they like to sit and really think about the process! I have seen them in there for well over an hour before emerging.

Hahaa, she was just taking her sweet time in the nest! Woohoo, our very first egg!

It's a bit on the small side, but yay! She's going to make a pretty color, as of now it's a bit spotted still, but once she gets a few more practice eggs in, I think the color will solidify, and hopefully they'll gain some size too.

Hopefully we can stop buying eggs soon. The three oldest are 22 weeks now, and the next two pullets are at 14 weeks now so hopefully they'll begin in a month or two. And then Emma the Speckled Sussex a month after that.

Well hoorah! Bang on the mark Congratulations. I will never forget the day our sons came screaming up to the back door to report the found an egg. It's a great feeling. Even now, after collecting hundreds I smile and thanks the girls when I find an egg in the nests. It's a great feeling.

It will gain in size, and the surface and colour will vary slightly to begin with, but after a couple of weeks they settle down in shape and colour and just slowly get bigger. You might find some with little errors in them to begin with too, like rough surface, or little blood spots when you open them, we got a fair few double yolkers too in the early time.

Our laid most frequently after a week or so and then settled into a pretty regular pattern. Most of ours lay for 2 or 3 days in a row and then have a day off. Some are more often and some a little less but 3/4 days is about average until one goes broody or moults.

Summer is a beautiful hen. Ben, please tell me you have just painted. My pullets have made a right mess of my white walls. The rock sisters are getting quite the reputation. Lets hope this keeps them in line.

She is nice, shame her comb has been pecked so hard. She did get some blood on the nest box wall. We did paint the cubby coop before the girls went in so the paint is only a couple of months old.

I'm Eggstatic! It's going to be interesting to see how the size develops.

The neighbor was out burning some branches, so I asked if I can have his ash once it's cooled. Instead he brought me a bucket of already cooled ash from his sauna, so I put some in the run and out in the forest, next to their favorite bathing spot. Let's see how they like it.

How have you guys usually switched your chickens to a new feed? I just mixed some old and new together now, like you're supposed to with dogs. Not that our dogs tend to react to a change in food. At the same time I took a look at the Progut bag Karin had brought home. It's a 20kg sack, and according to the packaging, you're supposed to add 15g per kg of feed. So I guess we're good for the next ton and a half... So far, I just opened our third sack of feed. And we still had about 5kg left of the previous one. Progut is some sort of yeast supplement, if anyone's wondering.

I am sure they will like a roll in the ash, ours love the garden (of course!) and a patch or dry black sand in the run.

When we change feed we did no real mucking about with mixing. When they got close to the right age we just let the old stuff run low and topped up with the new age bracket.

I use wood chips in the coop only. I tried sand & it turned into a wet poopy disaster. The problem might be their roosts because it looks like one of them managed to projectile poop onto the wall!

Our roosts are about 500 off the wall and I am yet to find much on the wall. They are not perfectly clean as they have a scratch around in the dropping sometimes before I can clean it up, but overall the walls are holding up well.

I heard a story from a guy who had rescued a baby eagle once. That thing projectile pooped like a bazooka. He said once it lifted it's tail feathers, you had better not be behind it. The stuff flew 3 meters. He kept it inside at first, so once he released it, he had to repaint the walls. They do tend to nest pretty high up, so I guess that's a nice way to keep the nest clean.

Pelicans.....man those big birds can poop. We had one poop on our car once, I thought someone had thrown a carton of milk at us, nope, just a big bird dive bombing us!

We are now getting some stubs of wing feathers on the (about) week old chicks.
New Hampshire

Silkie

I have suspicions the Cochin is a male

Wylkie looks to be getting hard feathers.

Blue?! Australorp. Is looking more dark blue, I could be looking through 'desire eyes' though lol

The gang taking refuge from the scary dude with iPhone.


In other news, I finally got back around to trapping the 'freed' white cat the old neighbours let loose some time ago. Going to try find a new home for it. Seems nice enough but it's can't stay here with us. Need to find a new home before one of the kids name it and they get all attached!


Lid stays closed on the brooder....

 

[vehve]

In other news, I finally got back around to trapping the 'freed' white cat the old neighbours let loose some time ago. Going to try find a new home for it. Seems nice enough but it's can't stay here with us. Need to find a new home before one of the kids name it and they get all attached!

That looks like a Einstein. Or possibly Schrödinger. Or Snowball. I'm guessing you're going to be buying kitty litter soon... Anyway, he's a handsome boy.

The chicks are looking good too.

I think Veera spent about half an hour in the nest, trying to squeeze out her bumnut. The shape and surface texture is perfect on it, I'm waiting for Karin to come home before opening it to see what kind of yolk it has. The pointy end had an even pinkish color to it, it's just the dull end that has white spots on it. Apart from it being a bit small, I'd say quite a perfect looking egg

I just did the mixing of the feed because the feeder was running low, and I had only half a bucket left by the coop, so I thought I might as well fill it with some new stuff since I had to get a funnel from the storage room where the feed bags are anyway. They have actually been on layer food already, I let Karin do the decisions when it comes to what we feed them, and that's what she bought (She got it cheaply, they had some agri-supply sales representative at her work holding a presentation about their products). It's a pretty low protein feed (16%), so they grow a bit slower. Traditionally, Finnish chickens are kept on lower protein to not exhaust the animals, especially with the landraces.