Pennsylvania!! Unite!!

[LadyJane8]

Here are two closer shots of Sirius. I think he is some sort of BA mix. Any opinions on gender are helpful. Thanks.

 

[fisherlady]

Here are two closer shots of Sirius. I think he is some sort of BA mix. Any opinions on gender are helpful. Thanks.

He does look like many of our BA mixes, and the boys are hard to judge till older. My current head rooster is a BA, Gabby had me hoping he was a she till 15 or 16 weeks! They just don't get their saddle feathers till late and their heads are so 'pretty' with rounded forheads like most other breeds have in the pullets.

Look at the feathers about mid back, just ahead of where the ends of his wings tuck against his upper body, this is where you will see the first sign of the pointed saddle feathers showing up.

 

[AnneInTheBurbs]

Well...in weekend news....
We have a new broody (shocking , right? lol) but she isn't from our stock, she was from a friend's eggs (hatchery barred rock over americauna). We got a dozen off of him in the hopes to get some green egg layers, we only got a couple of green egg layers, so planned to sell these girls and go with a different breed to get blue or green.
Well, evidently being raised by a broody around our place can rub off a bit. This pullet just turned 6 months and I found her setting the other day. She gives new meaning to the term broodzilla! She is the most vicious broody we have ever had, and we have had plenty! She should be great at taking care of the youngsters, no one will dare get near her!

This is shocking, someone call the media!

She does look serious

. Yeah, I'm sure everyone is shocked like me about you having another broody.

It must be the water, lol!

This hen has been a problem child for the past month. She was raised in the eggers coop but decided for whatever reason that she liked the Silver Pencil Rock rooster in another pen. She constantly managed to get out of the eggers paddock (which is surrounded by an 8 ft chain link fence), walk over an elevated board to the edge of that run, fly across the silkie's run to the roof of the other coop and then jump down into the pencil's paddock. We kept finding her cuddled up to the other rooster in the evenings and DH finally caught her in the act and watched her. He caught her and returned her to the eggers paddock and she promptly repeated her escape route. So for the past 3 weeks I have had to mark SPR eggs as questionable since she lays brown eggs like they do!
Her brooding will resolve the egg identity problem for a while at least!

How dare you break up the lovebirds?!

Hubs and I have expanded our flock to 14 as of yesterday. I swear we are done! I am fairly certain our Sirius is a roo, so he needed his own girls. Our rogue EE, now named Bellatrix, was safely captured on Friday. We've added two lady BAs and two lovely Light Brahmas. OnceI figure out how to tell them all apart, they will be Minerva, Sybill, Narcissa and Nymphadora (Tonks).

Here are all the newbies, and also a shot of Sirius. I would love opinions to see if my assessment of his gender is correct.

They look awesome! I'm no help on gender. However, I have a much smaller Roo that is already practice crowing...

Minus the new nesting boxes we're adding this afternoon, here is the just about completed chicken palace. The original coop and run are on the front and right side. The new crew's digs are behind the coop on the left. Their new nesting area is being added to the back left.

Looks awesome! I don't know if I'll be posting pictures of mine. It might be another Mr. Magoo construction style on the additions and run.

 

[BullChick]

I did a bunch of building and repairing today. I will not be sharing photos either.

 

[stake]

I love the rooster pedicure pics! Do you trim a roosters Spurs? Are they just like an extra nail?
That's great! The other have give great advice so I don't need to chic me in, but I'm glad she's making a comeback.
Thanks Stake. I will be there at dusk to make sure they are safe. I think we will be in the clear as soon as I get my new coop. Don't think I'm comfortable with mustard gas route, but I can play music and keep some lights on for now... One of the chicks that got eaten was one of yours.

. The Roo is still alive, and I have named him Rusty Shackleford.

Hopefully I can keep him.
As I said above, I'm hoping to keep one rooster to keep my girls safe. Maybe my husband won't notice...

just to let you know his father is very vocal...and I have a 4wk old brother in the brooder that was testing his lungs...pretty funny....

 

[stake]

I might be looking for a new pullet after I get back from Peru so like mid October. I'm thinking of separating my EE that is broody and getting her a docile friend that hasn't free range and would be ok in a smaller run. I think some of her being broody has to do with her being picked on by all other 12 birds. I think she hides in the nest box. I'm open to whatever just as long as it seems to be low on the pecking order and won't be mean to her.

GHC:

In my opinion, pecking order has nothing to do with broody....hiding in the nest box is hiding not broody...I built my second coop/pen to accommodate a girl that my roo just about killed...it took a hatch of young'in to facilitate getting the roo to accept her. imho get you girl a few chicks to hang with then ...integrate them all..with your flock....my two cents...

 

[BullChick]

The older Rocks are in their own pen now. Now I have a question. When do I add the younger chicks? They are 8 weeks now. The pair is nineteen weeks. I don't know that it matters (not worried about integrating problems) until the babies are 16 or so weeks. But, I'm interested in opinions.

 

[dgibson0604]

hey Jen its Dylan could you post pics of roxy and flo for every one to see?

 

[LadyJane8]

hey Jen its Dylan could you post pics of roxy and flo for every one to see?

Sure!

These lovely Barred Rock beauties came to me from @dgibson0604 when they were about 6 or 7 weeks. Flo is in the center, Roxy is in the rear right. We love our chatty BR girls!!

 

[gonehencrazy]

Do you guys give your flock hay in the winter? I try to pull up grass and clover every day for my flock currently. The goal is to build a large run and try to get some grass to grow in the "yard".
I'd like to find some clover hay. But I have searched CL and no luck. In KY it would be easy to get clover hay. What is the best option? We buy grass hay for our goat. Is that ok for the chickens? I'm sure they would prefer alfalfa.

Trying to get winter ready since I will likely be in Florida for the season and my dad will be on his own caring for the critters.