Southern NY, Dutchess county and below

[smkchick]

Suzanne, the coop is beautiful! Love it! What are you planting in their window boxes? Kale?

Kale, escarole, lettuce, collard greens.

The big chicks were dust-bathing in the brooder box, showing Lavinia how to do it:



And here they all are, giving me the stink eye.

 

[Imprfctme]

Actually, I was thinking of Gloria in honor of Gloria Gaynor, and her rendition of "I Will Survive". It fits with the Gladys/Aretha thing. But I'm sort of used to Lavinia.

Love it! Lavinia Gloria Gaynor it is.

 

[Toxic Chicken]

I know it's too early to give up but I see no signs of
life in the styrofoam bator (day 2) I moved the 6 legbar eggs,
3 of the java, and 2 Appen spitz. To my brinsea. For now.
It has the auto turner and auto thermostat so I trust it more.
I still have 6 Ameraucana (day 7) and 7 orps (day 13?)
going strong. When I put the orps on lock down everyone else
Gets moved to styrofoam. I still can't believe I killed my
Cream legbar eggs. Ahhhhhhhhh.

Anyways I won 3 auctions tonight (I quit smoking 7 days
ago so I need something to distract me)

12 welsummer. From imported lines whatever....
Like that makes them better?

6 Barnevelder
6 golden cukoo

I now have $16 in my bank so no more eggs for me
I don't know what I'm gonna do with the chicks
But EBay is fun. And the egg thing is kool.

 

[Imprfctme]

Hey -

I put together two videos of a chickadee nest in my yard and the baby chicks meeting the big hens.

I counted 10 eggs in the chickadee nest - 10!

This is the chicks first time outside, we only had them out there for an hour while I scrubbed down the brooder box since it's still chilly out here.

I also found these two videos on YouTube on butchering a chicken, not that I'm planning on doing it myself anytime soon, but I found it helpful in the sense of understanding their anatomy better.

 

[Toxic Chicken]

Yeah. If I can't stop hatching. I better learn to butcher.
I'm kinda hoping my CSA farm will adopt any unwanted
chicks. Unwanted is the wrong word.

 

[Toxic Chicken]

Hey? What chickens survive best in the wild?

 

[Cheeky Chick]

Thanks for the compliments. Once I looked at the coops on the BYC coop thread, I had to go whole hog on this. It's right on my patio, so I wanted something I could stand looking at!

I love to see the work you're doing on your coop. I'm sorry we didn't make our run bigger from the start. I LOVE the house with the shingles and everything. And the best part is your husband and sons working together! We had a good time doing this project together.

Thanks! The roofing is leftover from when we built the shed (the thing in front of the coop) My sons like helping their dad, before he became a firefighter, he was a carpenter, and now has his own side business, so they have someone to teach them, AND employ them if they ever need it. LOL!! My back is killing me this morning-that may look like a small henhouse, but even all 4 of us lifting it, it weighs a TON.

I have to plant my vegetables today, and rake up more of the debris from the cleared area. Thanks goodness for Aleve and heating pads. I hope the weather is good this week. I want to get my big girls outdoors for a little while as soon as the pen is up.

Do you think I'm going to need to keep the silkies separated from the bigger hens once they're all grown up?

 

[Cheeky Chick]

I know it's too early to give up but I see no signs of
life in the styrofoam bator (day 2) I moved the 6 legbar eggs,
3 of the java, and 2 Appen spitz. To my brinsea. For now.
It has the auto turner and auto thermostat so I trust it more.
I still have 6 Ameraucana (day 7) and 7 orps (day 13?)
going strong. When I put the orps on lock down everyone else
Gets moved to styrofoam. I still can't believe I killed my
Cream legbar eggs. Ahhhhhhhhh.
Anyways I won 3 auctions tonight (I quit smoking 7 days
ago so I need something to distract me)
12 welsummer. From imported lines whatever....
Like that makes them better?
6 Barnevelder
6 golden cukoo
I now have $16 in my bank so no more eggs for me

I don't know what I'm gonna do with the chicks
But EBay is fun. And the egg thing is kool.

Good for you, quitting smoking! I quit 5 years ago, it's the best thing I've done. It's so hard but stick with it! you'll feel great!

 

[smkchick]

Thanks! The roofing is leftover from when we built the shed (the thing in front of the coop) My sons like helping their dad, before he became a firefighter, he was a carpenter, and now has his own side business, so they have someone to teach them, AND employ them if they ever need it. LOL!! My back is killing me this morning-that may look like a small henhouse, but even all 4 of us lifting it, it weighs a TON.

I have to plant my vegetables today, and rake up more of the debris from the cleared area. Thanks goodness for Aleve and heating pads. I hope the weather is good this week. I want to get my big girls outdoors for a little while as soon as the pen is up.

Do you think I'm going to need to keep the silkies separated from the bigger hens once they're all grown up?

My shoulder is a mess from all the raking, etc. Don't tell my surgeon!

Lots of people here on the thread raise silkies. They'll know what to do with keeping them all together or not.

That brings me to my current chicken problem. Lavinia is 3 weeks behind the bigger chicks and will be 3 weeks ahead of the next batch. She's bonded with the bigger chicks, but they're getting to be big enough to go out to the hen house - in their own separate area. I can't possibly send Lavinia out there, but she'll freak if I leave her alone. What do you all think of keeping one of the bigger chicks with her in the house and sending the other two out to the coop? Blanche sort of watches over Lavinia, so I'd keep them together. Or should I have the ever agreeable Bobby build a bigger brooder box to keep everyone in here until Lavinia is ready to go out to the coop? Since there are 15 eggs in my incubator at the moment, I think I should go with the bigger brooder box no matter what.

I should go to the thrift shop and see what I can find. Maybe a small bookcase that I can lay flat with the shelves out...

 

[goldeneggtees]

Yeah, like the mountain lion that was hit by a car in Greenwich, CT last year. It was as far south as Eastchester, NY before it turned around and headed north. Everyone saw it, but we kept being told that it wasn't true, can't be - then it got creamed by a Range Rover. Had a tracking collar on it that placed it as originally coming from South Dakota.

Hmmm, possibly bobcats? I keep editing my post because I'm wondering if people are seeing bobcats thinking they are mountain lions but I finally read the whole post above and see the animal was collared, so was positively ID'd.

On another note, Large Marge is wheezing, yesterday and again this morning, wonder if it is the air in the coop? We have leaks in there from the old roof and it's been so damp lately, wonder if it's mold growing inside or something much more sinister like a virus. I hate when I have chickens problems, I go into panic mode.