Pennsylvania!! Unite!!

[HeartoftheMatterFarm]

So next week is teacher appreciation week. I was thinking of getting the kid's teachers a plant for the classroom. What do you guys think of that idea? It would be one that would not need much watering.

 

[FluffyButt789]

I was always told 4 Sq ft of floor space per LF chicken (half that for bantams) and 10 Sq ft per turkey (coop) with 12" roost space per chicken. For run space, 10 Sq ft per chicken and probably 25 sq ft per turkey. That being said, i think that's for birds that are cooped all the time. I routinely break those amounts (for the chickens) but they free range all day, every day

I have about 2 sq ft per chicken in their current coop and it works fine because they only use that coop to sleep or lay eggs, as they are free range all day. So I didn't know they actually needed more room. Good to know. They'll be upgraded to 5 sq ft per chicken in the new coop!

New here. Anyone in NW PA?

I'm near Erie. Welcome to this page! Do you have any chickens, ducks, etc?

 

[BullChick]

I GOT A QUAIL EGG!!!!!!

 

[BullChick]

Duckling sung to it the whole way into the house, and won’t stop insisting we put it in the incubator right away.

 

[fisherlady]

@BullChick
Congrats on the egg! Tell Duckling it will be better to wait a few days so the baby quail can have other baby quail to snuggle and play with. Maybe that will help her accept the wait a little better.

 

[BullChick]

I did. She switched to telling the egg she cannot wait to see what it looks like when it hatches.

 

[OneMountainAcres]

Aww, that's cute! Baby quailies in the future!

@fisherlady are you going to the swap this weekend?

 

[fisherlady]

Aww, that's cute! Baby quailies in the future!

@fisherlady are you going to the swap this weekend?

Yep, at least we are planning to... We have 15 youngsters to sell yet. 7 to about 15 weeks.

 

[fisherlady]

Spending a muggy afternoon in the coop babysitting a new broody. She is a sex link (sold as an australorpe by rural king, go figure) and is only about 10 months old. She has been faithfully sitting for almost 4 weeks. She got kind of freaked when we sold most of the birds out of her coop last weekend and then moved in a new rooster and 2 hens to that coop and run. There was plenty of space and the new ones weren't bothering her directly, in fact they pretty much ignored her, it just upset her zen or something, lol. So today was hatch day for some incubator eggs we had set. Broodies do all of the raising but DH built a great incubator last year to allow us to hatch important eggs inside and give the newborns to the hens. With so many hens trying to brood together it helped avoid egg arguements, lol. Some of our best old girls still get a real clutch but the incubator evens the numbers for everyone....
Anyway, I am rambling.... lol. We set about a 18-20 eggs from our hens hoping for a few more of the mixed girls like we got last year. They have been awesome hens and definitely good for our self sustaining flock goal. Our white rock roosters are aging so I wanted eggs while we could from them. Only about half were fertile, but probably was good since we only have 1 hen who has been sitting over 3 weeks right now. Although we do have 3 more parked from 7 days to 2 weeks.
So back to the sitting girl. I really want sure how she would be about chicks but so far so good. She is talking to them and hasn't shown any agression with them so maybe her nerves and hormones will settle and she will get her broody back, lol. Fingers crossed! I dont want to have to try to graft them to another hen and I should have about 20 silver pencil chicks next week to give to the other hens anyways.

And of course Mindy is helping keep an eye on things.

 

[Werehen]

We may be near each other. I’m just starting with 6 chickens. I bought them in Meadville.

I'm near Erie. Welcome to this page! Do you have any chickens, ducks, etc?