Oh, poor little Lizzie. Time for her to rejoin the family. It will just take awhile. You are doing the right thing, Mom. It has to be done.
Hope it works out well.
I am now down to about 15 Dels. I had to downsize. Of course the original 8 (6 pullets and 2 roos) are still here, and the others are from my Claudia/Cyn hatch (including 2 roos). Tomorrow will be yet another busy day, as they are all moving into the Layers coop. The only roos there will be the Delawares. The 2 younger boys are not interested in breeding yet, but I kept them to grow out, because I think they are looking really good. So, Jacob and # 2 (I gotta think of a name) will have about 30 girls of various breeds to contend with for awhile.
I got rid of so many chicks and chickens today that I will actually end up with 2 empty pens, after the shifting around is done tomorrow. I didn't keep any of my chicks from some of my own eggs, as I can incubate them at a later time, if I
need to. So, from my month long Mega-Hatchathon (about 400 chicks) I kept only 20. In another month or so I will cull even more, as the adolescents are growing out (and there are still lots of roos!). I am still hanging on to them, to see who I will keep. Each cull time gets harder and harder. I hate to let them go.
But, the good thing is, I am getting closer and closer to my goal.
My ultimate goal (
especially for winter) is to keep about 5 or 6 girls each from the breeds I want to keep. They will stay in the Layers coop. There is room for about 50 in there (about 200 square feet). Then, I plan to have a roosters pen. Here I will house 1 or 2 roosters of each breed. This will close up my breeder pens. However, I will continue to keep 2 projects coops going .... Icelandics and Silkied Ameraucanas. Cutting from 14 pens/coops down to 4 will really cut down on work. I will use a breeder pen or two to keep the girls fertile, if I need to. There will be NO roosters in the Layers Coop when I am finished downsizing, so it should be easy enough to grab the girls and roo of the same breed, and pen them together when necessary.
What do ya think? Will this work? Will the roosters fight? If so, I
could keep them seperated in the breeder pens, but don't really want to.