TheYLWFlock
Crowing
Hello everyone! Unfortunately my thread I posted before didn’t get any replies, which is TOTALLY understandable, as many of you were probably sleeping when I posted it. No biggie!
Anyways, my one little chick got sick and passed on Wednesday night... so now we are only down to 6 chicks. Unfortunately 1 is for sure a boy, 1 is looking like basically for sure a boy, 1 is very boyish looking and 2 are potential suspects. Leaving only one that I am pretty sure is a pullet. Of course I can’t be sure on gender for 2-3 more weeks, there is no doubt that we’ll end up needing to get 1-2 more because we had wanted at least 4, if not 5 hens in the end. We’d be getting them in about 2-3 weeks when our current flock is 5-6 weeks and hopefully the bird(s) we would be adding would be about the same age as well.
So I want to run over a few things. 1. Our coop is 18 s.f. and our run is 40 s.f. According to Mr. Google, chickens need 3-4 s.f per bird inside the coop and 8-10 s.f per bird in the the run. So for 4 chickens they would have 4.5 s.f per bird in and 10 s.f per out and for 5 birds they would be getting 3.5 s.f per bird inside and 8 s.f per bird out. Is this ok for them? Do I have accurate amounts of space? 2. I heard that it is best to get more than one crested bird... this is because they will have a friend and won’t be the odd one out/won’t get picked on so much by the rest of the flock. So we will for sure be getting 1 replacement bird, probably 2 and maybe even 3 (not as likely) if we were only able to get one, should we do a polish or a Silkie? If we do 2 should we do 2 polish, 2 Silkie or a mix of them (like a polish and a Silkie? Could that work?) 3. I’ve also read that they need specialized care because of their big head poofs... what does this involve?
I would REALLY love answers guys! Thanks!
Anyways, my one little chick got sick and passed on Wednesday night... so now we are only down to 6 chicks. Unfortunately 1 is for sure a boy, 1 is looking like basically for sure a boy, 1 is very boyish looking and 2 are potential suspects. Leaving only one that I am pretty sure is a pullet. Of course I can’t be sure on gender for 2-3 more weeks, there is no doubt that we’ll end up needing to get 1-2 more because we had wanted at least 4, if not 5 hens in the end. We’d be getting them in about 2-3 weeks when our current flock is 5-6 weeks and hopefully the bird(s) we would be adding would be about the same age as well.
So I want to run over a few things. 1. Our coop is 18 s.f. and our run is 40 s.f. According to Mr. Google, chickens need 3-4 s.f per bird inside the coop and 8-10 s.f per bird in the the run. So for 4 chickens they would have 4.5 s.f per bird in and 10 s.f per out and for 5 birds they would be getting 3.5 s.f per bird inside and 8 s.f per bird out. Is this ok for them? Do I have accurate amounts of space? 2. I heard that it is best to get more than one crested bird... this is because they will have a friend and won’t be the odd one out/won’t get picked on so much by the rest of the flock. So we will for sure be getting 1 replacement bird, probably 2 and maybe even 3 (not as likely) if we were only able to get one, should we do a polish or a Silkie? If we do 2 should we do 2 polish, 2 Silkie or a mix of them (like a polish and a Silkie? Could that work?) 3. I’ve also read that they need specialized care because of their big head poofs... what does this involve?
I would REALLY love answers guys! Thanks!
