Ribh's D'Coopage

Ugh! :( If I wanted to breed I'd be thrilled to bits about having such determined broodies but I don't & their antics are just a PITA. Lavender is complaining long & loud about the injustice being done her! :rolleyes:
I must admit, I find it hard to tell a broody hen she can't hatch chicks. So far I've been able to let every hen that wants to sit do it at least once.
 
This past spring, I dealt with my first broody... A barnyard mix. So I gave her a half dozen fertile eggs (she lives in a convent) and kept taking away the others. She more than once tried to take my hand off. She hatched four and turned out to be a terrible mom, which didn't bode well for the chicks. So I really have no practical experience with broodies. Best of luck to you breaking her. :fl:hugs
They are as terrible as you can imagine and as delightful as one might wish.:)
 
My supplier has offered to get me eggs...:oops: But eggs lead to chicks & chicks have a 50/50 chance of being cockerels. Then what do I do? Unlike the states not many people here have hands on experience with butchering their own meat & my supplier already warned me they won't take the cockerels. :( Plus I'm on an island so there's transport... What we need is more land to run a closed flock on. All Campines. :lol: Naturally!
This may sound a bit brutal but once they're dead it doesn't really matter if you mess up the processing while you learn.
 
I grew up with waterfront.
I grew up with other people's boats moored on my doorstep.
I know well the frantic phone call to inform an owner their mooring chain is too short & if they want their boat above water they might want to do something about that. Like now.
Storms, King tides, big winds ~ all of them can signal trouble.

So I've never wanted to own a boat.
My sons collect them. Ok, they moor their boat on my waterfront & the motor goes under it's on them. I'm too old to be bailing out tinnies, dragging waterlogged dinghies through the mangroves or rowing frantically against wind & tide to rescue a drifting boat. No. Just no. The lads get it. It just doesn't stop them.

Which is why we now have someone else's tinnie moored down the bottom. No idea. The lad arrived with it in tow last week & announced he's just pulled it out of the channel before the ferry scuttled it. My mother, cheerful soul that she is, hoped it's owner hadn't fallen overboard. I suspect a larger vessel lost it's tender & never noticed till they wanted it.

So there it sits, like a bird in the wilderness, waiting on the water police tracking its owner down. With the big winds we've been getting it makes me nervous. It has a pretty good motor still attached. Wondering if the lad can claim salvage rights...?​

View attachment 1960507
Keep one with petrol in the tank and sea worthy. If the fires cut you off it's another way out.
 
2 of the 3 big girls are done molting. The littles never really "molted" but they took a break too.

I don't think I'm doing anything special, but when they were molting I switched to meat bird feed for higher protein. I have since switched back to layer feed and cracked corn. I don't add extra light or anything.

In addition to the eggs, my 2 silkie hens are broody again. They are sharing a nest box and 4 eggs, so I'll see what happens. They have co-parented before, so I'll let them do it again, if any hatch.
I've just had a three hen sit spread over two side by side nests. There were problems with one hen leaving the nest with her first hatch which made the others follow and a lot of fertile eggs didn't hatch.. But, they hatched 3 and they all do their bit looking after the chicks.
 
I've just had a three hen sit spread over two side by side nests. There were problems with one hen leaving the nest with her first hatch which made the others follow and a lot of fertile eggs didn't hatch.. But, they hatched 3 and they all do their bit looking after the chicks.

I really do prefer to let nature take it's course. I have not had a very high hatch rate with my silkies, I'm only had them 6 months, so I'm not holding my breath that any even hatch.

I'm please that Thunder is still letting his son, BG co-habitate with him and his women. BG is turning into a beautiful boy, so I'm happy to be able to hang on to him a while longer.
 
I really do prefer to let nature take it's course. I have not had a very high hatch rate with my silkies, I'm only had them 6 months, so I'm not holding my breath that any even hatch.

I'm please that Thunder is still letting his son, BG co-habitate with him and his women. BG is turning into a beautiful boy, so I'm happy to be able to hang on to him a while longer.
Father and son work here. I tend to have problems with brothers.
I pretty much convinced that most hatch problems are to do with the type of nest they sit in. This will save me some typing.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...e-make-a-sitting-hens-job-so-difficult.74389/
In the past, provided the nests are not discovered by predators the hens that sit and hatch in these have a good hatch rate; alarmingly so.
 

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