Pennsylvania!! Unite!!

[sharron]

So I got a bit of a surprise when I went out to check out my chickens one last time tonight. It was about 11:40 at night, and we had just gotten in. I heard a strange noise... So glad I had my flashlight!

sure hope that you put it down, once they find out they can get in, will be back killing your chickens

 

[BullChick]

It’s dawned on me that I am having an exciting day on the farm. No, I didn’t know until now.
Pullets have begun laying in the past week, I have ducklings halfway baked under a broody, I get to camp on my property, and I have my first apples growing!!!

Now! If someone can refresh me on bug management, I’d appreciate it. I checked my Pinterest pins, looked online and scanned memories. I can’t remember what natural repellent I have for the apples.
I have a small bug problem in the duck pen too. There’s a nest with a broken egg. I meant it when I said I was staying clear of Aretha. Now I’m confident she will not freak if I’m near, I will go into the pen daily to get the other eggs. Anyway, I might need advice on flies in open areas too.

 

[troyer]

If he makes any aggressive move toward a person, better to get rid of him. I have never had success reforming a bad roo, but I have so many nice ones, it doesn't matter for me. I used to think there was some genetic basis, and there could be, but I just killed a really mean roo last weekend and his sons are wonderful, to the very last one. He just got too "uppity" and could not be changed. He attacked one time too many and now he is an "ex-rooster". I don't feel the least bit bad about killing him, it was inevitable.

I had a conversation several years ago with an old cocker that raised American Games back when cockfighting was legal. By then he had been raising them for 40+ years and zero issues with manfighters. I "met" him on another fowl site. Whenever someone came on complaining about their rooster attacking them he always told them to kill it. He would also try to explain that the mean rooster tendency can be bred out by selection and careful record keeping. I decided to private message him and ask him how to do it: this is what he told me. He said for the last 35+ years he has not produced one known manfighter, but he had a friend that had almost nothing but manfighters. Each man kept what he preferred. He decided to do an experiment, he took a pair of his own non-manfighters and bought a pair of his friends birds that were known manfighters. He decided to breed his pair to his buddy's pair. He said that if you have a manfighting rooster and you breed from him expect all his daughters to inherit the manfighting gene, but because they are pullets/hens they likely won't be manfighters, as pullets/hens usually don't display aggression toward their keepers on a normal daily basis. When he bred the daughters of the original manfighter to his own non-manfighting roosters, all of their sons turned out to be manfighters as the hens had inherited the trait and passed it on to their sons. He kept breeding manfighter to non-manfighter for ten years and said that this held consistently true for all those years. The hens out of the manfighting roosters produced the manfighting sons and the hens out of the non-manfighting roosters produced the non-manfighting sons. If this doesn't make sense I'm sorry. This is from a man that loved what he did and as far as I know has not necessarily been recorded anywhere. I am in the process of experimenting with it and am only into it 4 years. I did have a rooster sent to me 4 years ago that was as mean as a rattlesnake and the hen that was sent with him was a real sweetpea. her sons so far are all sweetpeas like her. I never did get any daughters out of him as he produced only sons for me.

 

[LadyBehir]

Number 9. Welbar girl. No spot. So the final count is 2 Welbar, 2 Silver Ameracaunas, 5 Lavender Ameracaunas. Now that I know the one is a boy, I am no longer hoping the Silvers are boys, even tho they are gorgeous. The Welbars are Fred and Myrtle. The lavenders won't get names until I know if they are boys - those get named Stewie. Right now they all look alike. I think going by the feather test that the Silvers are both girls.

 

[BullChick]

Anyone want some ducklings? I’ll have plenty! A Pekin has joined the broody wagon. I don’t think I can break her if I’m leaving Aretha.

 

[BullChick]

Someone asked why I wasn’t collecting eggs. The nest was hidden. Duckling found it, and my hands were full of her toys. I really didn’t think anything of it. I seriously thought until last night she was just lying in a shady, cool spot.

 

[Lelanae]

I worry so when one of my hens goes broody in this heat!

 

[OneMountainAcres]

Today was another chicken shift day. The chocolate orpingtons that are heading to the swap this weekend moved out to the temp pen outside so they'd have more room. I had a small group of Seramas in the original pen with them. They stayed put and the Seramas that were out in the hutch joined them. I have a few little babies in there too behind a barrier so they can be seen but not touched. The quail moved from their brooder pen out to the hutch (which they are absolutely loving) and the two young turkeys that were in with them moved out to a cage in the turkey coop. Now I have to clean out the brooder that they were in and move the theme pulls from my inside brooder to the outside one lol. After the swap this weekend, I have a group to move out to the main coop and get out of my screen porch. I have a big hatch due this weekend and one more small one next weekend then I'm pretty much done for the season. I'm just thankful that most of the ones due this weekend aren't mine! I get to give them back to my friend lol.

Pictures uploaded out of order of course...

 

[BullChick]

I worry so when one of my hens goes broody in this heat!

A strong storm came through, and it sounded like it was splitting trees in half! It’s not quite done yet, but the worst is over.
I was worried about Janice sitting there in the open. It’s not as bad for a duck of course, but I was tempted to cover her up!!
The rain, the lightning, the loud thunder shaking the world!

 

[sharron]

A strong storm came through, and it sounded like it was splitting trees in half! It’s not quite done yet, but the worst is over.
I was worried about Janice sitting there in the open. It’s not as bad for a duck of course, but I was tempted to cover her up!!
The rain, the lightning, the loud thunder shaking the world!

scary