Rhode Island

[pepe1]

Only 10 chicks left from the 29 that hatched, sold 19 so far, they are one week old now, really happy with the hatch, cant wait for the Lavender Orphintons to start laying!!

 

[sassy1637]

That is great!!
I just had a broody hatch 3 silkies, and 2 easter eggers yesterday. She still has 7 eggs under her, so I'm hoping they're just late hatchers, but maybe not! Hatching eggs is so much fun!

 

[pepe1]

well the last 8 chicks were picked up by a lady in Charleston, looking forward to hatching again in February

 

[MollySunshine]

Hello fellow RI'ers! I thought it would be a good idea to join this thread and see what everyone in my area is up to.

Congrats to everyone who have recent hatches. That must be so exciting. I know I love receiving day olds. My youngest 5 are 2 week old silkies. I truly shouldn't have bought them but I could not resist. I was waiting patiently for them and was told they never hatched out. I had to change my order and thought for certain I would not own the ever elusive black silkie. I own 2 now! yay I came 2 seconds away from owning one at the county fair but it escaped me. Now my coop is officially closed to new chickies.

 

[coralbell7]

...

Hello fellow RI'ers!  I thought it would be a good idea to join this thread and see what everyone in my area is up to.  

Hello! I'm from Bristol. We started this spring with chicks and now have a flock of 6 young ladies that love mischief and all are finally laying. We have 2 Plymouth Rocks and 4 Comets.
Right now we are researching how to prepare the coop and run for the winter. Lots of information out there.
I'm curious to anyone's ideas?!!

 

[MollySunshine]

Hello Coralbell7! I'm from Greene. Winterizing....that is what has been on my mind lately and what brought me to this thread. Someone on the thread that is discussing winterizing suggested I find out what's going on in my area. I did a search and low and behold, there are others here from RI. I am very interested in finding out what others are doing.

My brood consists of a total of about 40. Hubby brought home 3 dozen day olds from Tractor Supply late April. Go big or go home, right! I have a dozen (actually I think they gave him a bakers dozen or so) RIR's, 6 white silkies and 6 Buff Orpingtons. Oh, and 6 of those were the Rock Cornish. He didn't know what he was purchasing. 5 have died and we still have one. I have since increased my flock by adding a Silver Laced Wyandotte, Gold Laced Wyandotte, Mille Fleur d'Uccle Bantam, 2 Mottled Cochan Bantams, and what looks like may be a Plymouth Rock, we bought her from the Washington County Fair. They had day old chicks; the others were brooding at the time so I snuck her in with them. All of those are crated in the coop, waiting to be integrated into the older flock. THEN last but not least, are my 5 silkies, 2 black, 2 blue and 1 partridge. They are going into their 3rd week and are in a brooder. So that is my tribe! Yes, all the newly gained chicks are sexed females. We are currently building a bachelor pad for our roosters. They are full of hormones currently and causing too much chaos in the coop. I am hoping that by this weekend they will receive their eviction notice. I love my roo's and would hate to have to rid them. I think there are 5 RIR's, 2 silkies and 5 buff's. The RIR's crack me up. They follow me everywhere. One of my silkies, Eril Flynn, is handsome but so bad! When it comes to mounting the pullets, he is probably my worse offender. He so wants to be alpha but head RIR reminds him he is not. When they transfer into their new digs, I am thinking there will be some resettling but I am willing to put the work into it to make it work out. I know there is some dominance mounting being done to a couple of the lesser pecking order roo's. There may need to be a subdivision of the roo's so they won't be terrorized. See what happens.....

As you can see, I love talking about my chickies

 

[coralbell7]

Hello Coralbell7!  I'm from Greene.  Winterizing....that is what has been on my mind lately and what brought me to this thread.  Someone on the thread that is discussing winterizing suggested I find out what's going on in my area.  I did a search and low and behold, there are others here from RI.  I am very interested in finding out what others are doing.  

My brood consists of a total of about 40.  Hubby brought home 3 dozen day olds from Tractor Supply late April.  Go big or go home, right!  I have a dozen (actually I think they gave him a bakers dozen or so) RIR's, 6 white silkies and 6 Buff Orpingtons.  Oh, and 6 of those were the Rock Cornish.  He didn't know what he was purchasing.  5 have died and we still have one.  I have since increased my flock by adding a Silver Laced Wyandotte, Gold Laced Wyandotte, Mille Fleur d'Uccle Bantam, 2 Mottled Cochan Bantams, and what looks like may be a Plymouth Rock, we bought her from the Washington County Fair.  They had day old chicks; the others were brooding at the time so I snuck her in with them.  All of those are crated in the coop, waiting to be integrated into the older flock.  THEN last but not least, are my 5 silkies, 2 black, 2 blue and 1 partridge.  They are going into their 3rd week and are in a brooder.  So that is my tribe!  Yes, all the newly gained chicks are sexed females.  We are currently building a bachelor pad for our roosters.  They are full of hormones currently and causing too much chaos in the coop.  I am hoping that by this weekend they will receive their eviction notice.  I love my roo's and would hate to have to rid them.  I think there are 5 RIR's, 2 silkies and 5 buff's.  The RIR's crack me up.  They follow me everywhere.  One of my silkies, Eril Flynn, is handsome but so bad!  When it comes to mounting the pullets, he is probably my worse offender.  He so wants to be alpha but head RIR reminds him he is not.  When they transfer into their new digs, I am thinking there will be some resettling but I am willing to put the work into it to make it work out.  I know there is some dominance mounting being done to a couple of the lesser pecking order  roo's.  There may need to be a subdivision of the roo's so they won't be terrorized.  See what happens.....

As you can see, I love talking about my chickies   

I would love to have a Roo! Unfortunately our town ordinance doesn't allow them. I'm in love with out little group of girls. If I had known they were this addicting, I would have made a bigger coop!
As far as winterizing, our run has a solid roof so I was thinking of attaching clear shower liners to sturdy lattice to make panels that will cover the sides. I'll leave a few inches at the top for ventilation. The floor in the run is sand so I don't think I need to do much with that, maybe add some straw? My biggest concern is water freezing. Right now we have a PVC system with the horizontal nipples. I'm afraid if I wrap the pipes the chickens will peck at it.
Inside the coop is just fine. Right now the best boxes are filled with shavings and look toasty enough for me to lay in. Our coop floor is Sweet PDZ which acts just like cat litter and gets cleaned daily. I guess if it starts to get too cold, I could place a layer of shavings there too.
The run is pretty small 5x10 total (including under the coop). We are looking for ways to expand that safely. There's a lot of predators here (coyotes, fox, Fischer cats and Raptor Birds) so we need to dig down to make a solid foundation for safety.
I would love to hear any ideas you or anyone else has on keeping water from freezing! We've thought about the heated bowls but my girls are part pig and that just gets messy.

 

[MollySunshine]

Coralbell7: Someone on the winterizing thread posted a great utube video. Search draft vs ventilation using string. It really explains the 2 well. My initial thought was to keep one side of the coop uncovered but now after viewing that video, I think I will wrap both coops with shower liners and leave the top portion uncovered. This will be for my ventilation. Now, understand I am no expert, I am a 5 month newbie, I am only making claims because of my experience with hay. I prefer Tractor Supplies pine shavings over hay. I didn't like the way the poop just stayed on top of the hay. It would get pasty and nasty and it doesn't break down as readily in the compost. That's just my opinion. I do incorporate hay within my run though. Water, I don't have experience here yet but in preparation for the winter I just purchased the nipple waterers and deicer that is compatible to the plastic buckets. To date, fortunately I haven't seen any predators. That's not to say they aren't lurking about. I see the occasional hawk overhead when they are free ranging and I make my presence known. Now that it's becoming colder at night, the little buggers are looking for warmer places to stay; I recently began using the electric rodent eliminators. They work on batteries. The first night they got rid of 2 mice. I don't want them finding their way into my coop. I haven't seen the fox yet. I have heard them at night and seen them crossing the end of my street in the morning but haven't eyed the little minx in my yard. I don't know if they work but I placed predator lights around my coop. They are red blinking lights. They are supposed to fool the predator into thinking they are another animal so they won't come near the coop at night. I placed one under the windows, 2 on either sides of the main door and one near the chickie door. They come on at night. Solar powered and magnetic but they do have holes you can drill or nail. Yes, I didn't know how addicting chickenry was going to be either. I'm discovering breeds that I would love to have but unfortunately I have to close my coop to more birds. Hubby would have to build another coop. I don't think he would be too keen about that. There's an old time chicken coop that is unused locally. It's in perfect condition and every time I pass by I say I want that! I don't want to build one I just want that one. Do you know how many breeds of chickies I can add to it! aaay maybe it's a good thing I can't have it.....

 

[coralbell7]

MollySunshine: thanks for the video tip! I'll look it up first thing in the morning. Just like you, I'm partial to the pine shavings over hay or straw. Some research indicates that mites and tiny crawls critters like to hide in the hollow shaft of straw and hay. I will never use it in my coop but I think in the run it should be ok when the temps are too cold for these things to live. I'm also a newbie so I guess it's all trial and error (hopefully less error).

 

[dotknott]

Hey folks! Just an FYI, Little Rhody Poultry Fanciers holds their fall show tomorrow.