Southern NY, Dutchess county and below

[Carolyn252]

Carolyn, I'll keep my CFG skills active for you. I got some of Christine's eggs last year and only hatched one girl. UGH but my incubators will be running for the next month or so.

Anyone want empty feed sacks to make totes out of? I have MANY of them, already stripped down and washed. My creativity hasn't kicked in like my hoarding ability. So I have decided they must GO. Except for a few......

Thank you Roberta. If your efforts do in fact produce two girls that lay blue eggs that would be wonderful for me. Remember though about need for Mareks vaccination. Will that be possible?

Or if you hear of anyone who has what I'm looking for... Maybe at the next poultry show that you go to.
Hope it all works out. Stay well.
-Carolyn

 

[Carolyn252]

My legbars don't lay a true blue egg, mine run to the green side, so I am not going to be able to help you that way. There is a poultry show in Sussex county NJ in mid spring though. There is a good chance you can find what you want there. Several folks from your direction travel to the show, so we might be able to get a chicken train going for you.

Oh; OK. Thanks for the reply. ChickenFairyGodmother is also on the hunt for my goal, so maybe between you both, (at the Sussex show or at her backyard) some blue-egg layers (Mareks vaccinated) will be found for me.

Much obliged.

-Carolyn

 

[HippyChippy]

Christine, Roberta or Caroline are either of you interested in a beautiful boy?? I could even give up one of his sisters as well, to make a breeding pair, if that would sweeten the pot, so to speak. I hate to give up Mohawk but he has finally started to find his voice...

i will drive him or them to you... What could be better... Oh, they are porcelain d'uccles and gorgeous. He is developing beautiful feathers. Oh, I so hate to have to give him up..,

 

[Carolyn252]

Christine, Roberta or Caroline are either of you interested in a beautiful boy?? I could even give up one of his sisters as well, to make a breeding pair, if that would sweeten the pot, so to speak. I hate to give up Mohawk but he has finally started to find his voice...

i will drive him or them to you... What could be better... Oh, they are porcelain d'uccles and gorgeous. He is developing beautiful feathers. Oh, I so hate to have to give him up..,

 

[HippyChippy]

I never insulate or heat my coops and I open their windows in the daytime in winter if it is not too breezy. The worst thing for them in the winter is a draft since it gets under their feathers and doesn't let them stay warm. I had a single rooster in my bachelor pad over winter. I hated to do it since they use each other for heat, but I didn't have anyone else to put in there with him. It is just a small tractor coop that I use for breeding trios in the summer. He did just fine in there, in fact, when spring rolled around he was in better condition than my main coop which had several cases of frostbite. The tractor is much better ventilated than my coop since it has an open door all the time, but the position of the door prevents drafts. The key is high ventilation, but no drafts. Tricky. It depends on door, window, and vent placement, along with not having "cracks" in your structure. You cannot shut them up tight in the winter, it is the inclination, but it will do more harm than good.

Frostbite most often occurs when the birds are exposed to humidity coupled with freezing temperatures. I am currently working on my main coop to add more ventilation for the winter since last year they were fogging up the window. That means the humidity is too high in there secondary to not enough ventilation. So, I am adding vents up near the roof that can be closed when needed. This will be better for summer as well since it will allow for better air circulation.
The size of your coop and the number of chickens in it matters as well since the birds themselves generate quite a lot of heat. If you have a big coop and only a few birds it will be colder. If it is too crowded it will be humid and full of ammonia.

The Vaseline trick works well if you get it on them in advance of the really cold nights. It works by preventing the humidity from gathering on the skin and freezing there resulting in frostbite.
While chickens are decendents of jungle fowl and so are originally a warm weather bird, they have been bred to survive in all sorts of conditions. In the end, remember that they are running around with very effective down coats on and they generate a lot of body heat.

Hi Christine. HRU?
I don't heat my coop and all the chicken sleep outside in the enclosed run on a roost. They all cosied up together and even in the worst of the winter they still slept outside on the roost. I don't close the door to the coop so they could go in if they wished.
Also what would I do if there was a power outage. The chickens would be worse off because they would suddenly get cold!
Not sure if you've been on lately Christine but I was wondering if you would like a porcelain d'uccle rooster and a female for a breeding pair? Of those four little chicks I drove upstate for one has turned into a roo. And I can't have Roos here.

I could drive him to you...

 

[JerseyHen]

Hi Christine. HRU?
I don't heat my coop and all the chicken sleep outside in the enclosed run on a roost. They all cosied up together and even in the worst of the winter they still slept outside on the roost. I don't close the door to the coop so they could go in if they wished.
Also what would I do if there was a power outage. The chickens would be worse off because they would suddenly get cold!
Not sure if you've been on lately Christine but I was wondering if you would like a porcelain d'uccle rooster and a female for a breeding pair? Of those four little chicks I drove upstate for one has turned into a roo. And I can't have Roos here.

I could drive him to you...

He is a very handsome boy. Too bad you can't keep him. My banty coop has 5 roosters in it already. I would be hesitant to put him in the big coop. There are 2 standard and 2 banty roosters in there as well. I will check around to see if anyone else around here can home him. I have several isolation cages empty, but it would be an uncomfortable winter for him.

 

[Carolyn252]

Happy New Year wishes from me to all of you on this Southern New York forum. Looking forward to an early Spring and fun with chickens. Hoping you all enjoy the same.

-Carolyn252 in Freeport.

 

[Carolyn252]

My eight hens are all looking beautiful and fluffy with their new feathers all bright and full. They are alert, active, and busy dawn to dusk. Come to me the minute they hear me open the back door and/or see me walk across the yard. BUT THEY'VE GIVEN ME ONLY ABOUT FIVE EGGS IN THE PAST THREE MONTHS!! And that's five eggs total. (Not five from each of them.) All those five eggs were from my EasterEgger called Smoke. There was one other egg, one day last week, a small miniature effort, from one of the other girls. No yolk, I tossed it.

Purina Layena Plus Omega as their always available daily food, plus free range every day with lots of young grass to enjoy and dirt to scratch around in and dust bathe in, treats of dried meal worms, black oil sunflower seeds, and Farmer's Ultra Kibble, as well as Seabuck7 in one waterbowl, and AppleCiderVinegar in the other water bowl. But still some mild molting going on and almost NO EGGS.

Hoping the increasing daylight will make a difference and soon.

We live in hope.

Hope you all are fine and dandy.

-Carolyn in Freeport

 

[ChickenAl]

HiCarolyn, it most likely is the length of daylight. Mine layed through the winter for two years, then they slowed down to summer only. At almost five years old I haven't seen an egg since the end of summer, and those were on a very sporadic basis.

Haven't been on here in a while and hope everyone is doing well.

 

[Carolyn252]

HiCarolyn, it most likely is the length of daylight. Mine layed through the winter for two years, then they slowed down to summer only. At almost five years old I haven't seen an egg since the end of summer, and those were on a very sporadic basis.

Haven't been on here in a while and hope everyone is doing well.

Thanks so much for your posting, Al. Same story here. Layed through the winter for a couple of years, then slowed, and now almost nuttin' . Are you going to get some younger chickens to replenish your breakfast needs? I just hate having to buy eggs. It feels so weird not knowing the hen that produced them.