Silkie thread!

[kabhyper1]

Heres some pictures of my adorable little fluff buckets !

Oh yeah they are way too young lol. But super cute!!!

 

[daniellecm]

yes agreed way to young to tell but its just such a long time to wait lol
Hard to name them or talk about them when you just dont know what they are !
I call them girls but im pretty sure that will not be my luck
either way im enjoying them and whatever they will be they will be , im good

 

[kabhyper1]

So it really puts a damper on the silkie breeding front when all of your hens go broody, but aren't laying eggs to hatch because they are broody. Little turds!! I have one of my girls hanging out with me on the hardwood cool floor today. She just started trying to brood yesterday, so hopefully this wont take long. Broody is sooooo contagious!!! On a side note though, I have 5 eggs under the first girl to go broody this month, due Saturday.

 

[kabhyper1]

yes agreed way to young to tell but its just such a long time to wait lol
Hard to name them or talk about them when you just dont know what they are !
I call them girls but im pretty sure that will not be my luck
either way im enjoying them and whatever they will be they will be , im good

I find its good to just give them boy names, that way you are surprised when you get pullets.

 

[chickiebaby1]

One happy and proud momma here.

My silky eggs hatched yesterday and I now have 5 new additions. I have several more eggs in the incubator and my silky hen is actually sitting right now. I am in Silky heaven. I love these little fluffy butts.

 

[howfunkyisurchicken]

CUTIES

 

[Sylvester017]

I'm sorry you've lost one so early on! Any snake around here that makes an appearance is a DEAD snake! I'm dealing with a RAT problem as of yesterday! ARGH! Saw it last night while I had Molly outside eating grass. Then it got underneath the enclosed porch area and was making all sorts of noises. That sucker has to GO! I watched an exterminator show way back when and they used some sort of garlic spray to keep snakes away! And I've also heard about the moth ball theory too!

I actually watched a 12 ft black snake slither in and wrap our bantam cochin up within seconds! I had just stepped into the pen to pick her up. I grabbed snake and cochin and pitched them out into a more lit area. My husband was standing there when they came flying out at him. He stepped on one end of the snake and unraveled our cochin. Our little hen was fine, but the snake got the sharp end of a shovel to it's head.

I might need to invest in those vibrating protectors for around here! Our chickens free range and I can't put just anything out to keep the varmints away!

TC

Our neighbor's house is along a highway/freeway landscaping and she got a rat problem in her shed. It was my first year gardening and about a year that we had the chickens. It was a problem for my new garden and new chickens and we all started a neighborhood rat elimination project clearning dry brush, woodpiles, and junk collections.

All we neighbors set out the usual traps every night. To avoid poison traps because of the chickens free-ranging daily I personally used the sticky-type traps around the coop and raised garden bed and along the house foundation every night and removed them early the next morning. We caught a few rodents that way several nights in a row - both mice, rats and many insects. Once a sparrow was trapped in the sticky goo but we managed to rescue him safely.

We removed feeders out of the coop pen completely and left feed outdoors in the early morning only and removed during daytime while the hens foraged and then set the feed out again at dusk when the hens were ready for a last meal before roost. No more messy feed spills in the pen from sloppy hens. We considered a treadle feeder system but chickens scatter feed no matter what they eat out of so a treadle feeder wasn't a solution to eliminating scattered feed in the pen - the only benefit of a treadle feeder in our situation would be to keep wild birds from eating but we don't leave the feed bowls out during the day so it hasn't been a problem and we've saved a lot of feed. Having a wildbird feeder has also been a good solution for the wild bird problem. Our chickens don't touch feed except mornings and evenings so there's no reason to leave feed out all day for the wild birds to consume.

After dusk we completely removed all feed and treats from the outdoors and washed the feeder bowls thoroughly to set out to dry clean overnight. Then we began to leave the patio light on all night over the covered coop - we had a motion sensor light but it annoying went on-off all night so switched to a constant lowlight. This lighting along with feed cleanup every night and an aggressive trap system completely irradicated the rodent problem with a unified neighborhood effort. Even our Leghorn helped by finding a babies' nest and scattered the pink babies in the yard which we promptly picked up. I know chickens are good mousers but personally didn't want them eating the rodents. Two years ago we saw them chasing a mouse around the base of the coop that we caught before they could eat it.

This is our 3rd year with backyard chickens and so far no rodent tell-tale droppings in the patio or on garden plants and no rodent teeth marks on half-eaten garden vegetables! We pick our veggies while they are just beginning to ripen and harvest them before they become tasty rodent food.

We've got a good supply of sticky traps in storage just in case!

 

[dstinett]

I solved my snake problem with blown out eggs filled with every bitter tasting liquid I could find. (Mustard, vinegar,hot sauce, pepper). I'm currently fighting a rat. Time to make more eggs

 

[lightchick]

When is the earliest to sex a partridge Silkie? Mine is almost 5 weeks old and I'm hoping that she's a pullet.

 

[TOOCLOSE]

Our neighbor's house is along a highway/freeway landscaping and she got a rat problem in her shed. It was my first year gardening and about a year that we had the chickens. It was a problem for my new garden and new chickens and we all started a neighborhood rat elimination project clearning dry brush, woodpiles, and junk collections.

All we neighbors set out the usual traps every night. To avoid poison traps because of the chickens free-ranging daily I personally used the sticky-type traps around the coop and raised garden bed and along the house foundation every night and removed them early the next morning. We caught a few rodents that way several nights in a row - both mice, rats and many insects. Once a sparrow was trapped in the sticky goo but we managed to rescue him safely.

We removed feeders out of the coop pen completely and left feed outdoors in the early morning only and removed during daytime while the hens foraged and then set the feed out again at dusk when the hens were ready for a last meal before roost. No more messy feed spills in the pen from sloppy hens. We considered a treadle feeder system but chickens scatter feed no matter what they eat out of so a treadle feeder wasn't a solution to eliminating scattered feed in the pen - the only benefit of a treadle feeder in our situation would be to keep wild birds from eating but we don't leave the feed bowls out during the day so it hasn't been a problem and we've saved a lot of feed. Having a wildbird feeder has also been a good solution for the wild bird problem. Our chickens don't touch feed except mornings and evenings so there's no reason to leave feed out all day for the wild birds to consume.

After dusk we completely removed all feed and treats from the outdoors and washed the feeder bowls thoroughly to set out to dry clean overnight. Then we began to leave the patio light on all night over the covered coop - we had a motion sensor light but it annoying went on-off all night so switched to a constant lowlight. This lighting along with feed cleanup every night and an aggressive trap system completely irradicated the rodent problem with a unified neighborhood effort. Even our Leghorn helped by finding a babies' nest and scattered the pink babies in the yard which we promptly picked up. I know chickens are good mousers but personally didn't want them eating the rodents. Two years ago we saw them chasing a mouse around the base of the coop that we caught before they could eat it.

This is our 3rd year with backyard chickens and so far no rodent tell-tale droppings in the patio or on garden plants and no rodent teeth marks on half-eaten garden vegetables! We pick our veggies while they are just beginning to ripen and harvest them before they become tasty rodent food.

We've got a good supply of sticky traps in storage just in case!

Way before I moved into my husbands home here! He had his stepdaughter and BF renting from him. They were pigs! When he filed for divorce he told SD and BF to move out, he was taking his home back. They wouldn't and so the police got called and removed them for him. They had the chicken room closet packed full to the ceiling and didn't take any of it with them. NOW!

When I got the job of cleaning the place up? I started removing the filth from the closet. I immediately saw there was a mouse problem. They had actually managed to chew a hole thru the wall and were using it to come and go. After catching several on sticky pads I then filled the hole full of stuff and boarded it up! That was back in 2009! The closet is now used for storing boxes full of stuff.

Molly was raising cane the other day from the bedroom floor. I rushed in to see what the problem was. She was staring at the closet. I open the door and low and behold, the hole is back and larger. Crap! I put 8 sticky pads in front of it with some parmesian cheese sprinkled on them. A couple days later I check it and the sticky pads are all stacked on top of each other. Hmmmmmm I get my heavy gloves on and start peeling them apart. Nothing but long gray hair on them. Darn it! So at this point I'm thinking it's larger than a mere mouse! (I check them every day though)!

Sure enough! I see the RAT a night later while outside with Molly. And then last night it was making a lot of noise underneath the porch area. I've already replaced the sticky pads in front of the hole and rigged it to where it won't have too much room to fight them off!

I don't want to put poison pellets out because of what happened several years ago. It was in the master bathroom where I was seeing and hearing it. It ate all the pellets. Then we didn't see it for a day or two. But OH did we smell it. It had crawled up onto the shower ledge behind the wall and died. Hubby had to take the wall off the shower to get it out. So no more poison for my use!

If you get something stuck on them that isn't supposed to be on them? Some oil will peel them right off! I use criso oil. I had three baby chicks stuck on one years ago. I still don't know how they managed to get to it to get themselves stuck on it!

TC