Texas

[jockeyeba]

I also have not read all the pages in this topic but will when I get the chanch.   We live between San Antonio and Poteet Tx on about 7 acres of sand and weeds. 

I have my backyard chickens for house eggs and have 3 hens who love to be broody in that bunch. They free roam and drive the cats nuts cause they found where I feed them and now they eat the cat food when they know I am feeding the cats.  I have  4 little Basque chicks and am also interested in the Delaware breed.  I have 5 little ones so far and am traveling to Ideal Hatchery to pick up some pullets in Oct.  Also have a nice little young batch of Lt Sussexs.  In July we got hatching eggs for Aussies and now have quite a few of them.   Hatch out was very good for pullets and we got enough roos to keep them happy in the hatch. 

Husband has gotten into SFHens.  He loves the different colors of the birds.  All ours are little at this time we now have 18 of them.  4 from eggs from Ebay and 4 chicks from Greenfires Farm that came in the week of the hurricane.   We drove up to where Glynda on BYC lives here in Tx and brought back 16 eggs one day and out of them 1 was a dudd and 5 decided they didn't want to be chickens so we ended up with 10 little ones born on the 10th of this month. Consider that a good hatch out.  He has crested and noncrested.  Early next year we will sort out the roosters and sell some of them.   He hopes to be able to sell hatching eggs next yr for both the SFHens and the Aussies.   He is so excited as his 4 turkey eggs are due to hatch this Thursday
He got the eggs from a woman on BYC that lives in NY where he came from she sent him 6 eggs and only 2 were duds

All my brother and I have done all summer is build chicken coops and yards.  We finish up the Aussie and Lt Sussexs yards this weekend and then we start on the next trio of coops.  Then we are doing a hoop coop and yard.  Then this winter we will redo the brooder coop as its a very old lean too that my dad built back in the 70s.  

We had a bad yr last yr with coons around and ended up with trapping 5 and feeding them to the buzzards and shoting 3.  I have a dog that smells them before we see them.  He goes crazy when he knows they are around.   This yr no coons but snakes. They got in and got some of my broody hens eggs.. so far the fake egg got 1 snake and my snake trap earlier this week trapped a 3 foot rat snake.  Bird netting is all around the coop yards now. 

I yak too much sorry.   

Nice to meet you, your in our neck of the woods we've had trouble with raccoons off & on, trapped 7 in one week last year & 4 this year

 

[dragonchild]

I'm in Princeton, well, Branch, but it's an unincorporated area, and Princeton's the mailing address! We are about 12 miles east-southeast of McKinney. I have 1 rooster and 9 pullets that are 4 months old, and 14 pullets that are 2 months old, along with 6 miniature horses (soon to be 8, as I'm taking two senior citizen mares for an old friend), one grade pony, 10 cats (former barn cats who moved indoors when a pack of 6 or 7 coyotes came through, then refused to move back out!), and one spoiled rotten powder puff Chinese Crested dog! I'd like to add a couple of dairy goats to the mix--maybe next spring ...
Retired, but working my a#$ off!

 

[ponyup]

Hey Dragonchild, welcome! I am at the other end of 380 east of Denton.

 

[txmel]

Hi everyone. I don't post much but read daily I have a trio of birds for sale posted them on craigslist and thought I'd mention it here too. there are 2 showgirl pullets and 1 silkie roo hatched in early April of this year. pm me if interested i was thinking $25 for all three. Thanks

 

[Texas Chickens]

Nice to meet you, your in our neck of the woods

we've had trouble with raccoons off & on, trapped 7 in one week last year & 4 this year

7 coons in 1 week and 4 this year? Wow thats alot and I thought we had alot. Found out that the neighbor who lived in the house 1 field over was feeding them cat food every evening... caught him with his white bucket of feed ... now someone else lives there and they don't do coons either so between him and us we have managed to hopefully control them as so far this yr no coons seen around here.

Last ones here were up in the tree 2 adults and 4 babies... got my brother and while he is as bad a shot as I am we got 3 of the little ones and after that none came back.

What bait do you use? I searched for something that the cats wouldn't get trapped and found out that peanut butter and marshmellows worked the best cat's don't like it but the coons sure did.

Where about's are you around this neck of the woods if you don't mind me asking?

 

[jockeyeba]

Nice to meet you, your in our neck of the woods we've had trouble with raccoons off

7 coons in 1 week and 4 this year?   Wow thats alot and I thought we had alot.  Found out that the neighbor who lived in the house 1 field over was feeding them cat food every evening... caught him with his white bucket of feed  ... now someone else lives there and they don't do coons either so between him and us we have managed to hopefully control them as so far this yr no coons seen around here. 

Last ones here were up in the tree 2 adults and 4 babies... got my brother and while he is as bad a shot as I am we got 3 of the little ones and after that none came back. 

What bait do you use?  I searched for something that the cats wouldn't get trapped and found out that peanut butter and marshmellows worked the best cat's don't like it but the coons sure did.  

Where about's are you around this neck of the woods if you don't mind me asking? 

We're in Selma & we put whole corn (we have Painted Desert sheep) in a live trap that we borrow from a friend. Since I started feeding my outside cats early & making sure there was none left I think that has stopped most of our critter problems. We used to have possums, raccoons & skunks showing up everynight. One year I had a mother skunk & her 3 babies that came up to eat cat food everynight. Haven't seen any skunks in our backyard in several years now.

 

[Texas Chickens]

We're in Selma & we put whole corn (we have Painted Desert sheep) in a live trap that we borrow from a friend. Since I started feeding my outside cats early & making sure there was none left I think that has stopped most of our critter problems. We used to have possums, raccoons & skunks showing up everynight. One year I had a mother skunk & her 3 babies that came up to eat cat food everynight. Haven't seen any skunks in our backyard in several years now.

Cat food left out Yep I think or know thats why the coons came calling here.. I did the same thing left the left over cat food out at night and the coons and cats got on a first name basis.
Now I put it up at night even tho we haven't seen any coons or anyone else around since last yr.

My neighbor brought down his 2 door trap when the coons came and baited them with fish which only caught the cats till the peanut butter marshmellow came along. The 2 door traps didn't work well as the coons would go in one door and hold it open with their rear eat the bait and go out the other door or back right out when done so I got us a 1 door trap and thats when we started to get them everytime These were big fat coons we caught. The buzzards loved them.

Selma? You are up by the race track. We are at the other end on 16 S towards Poteet.

Like you we keep our fingers crossed here too.

 

[Mrs. Fluffy Puffy]

Hope everyone is doing well. : )

​

I've been thinking about next years breeding and what I'll be needing. If anyone would like to swap eggs PM me. Here is what I need:

Coronation & Light Sussex - I've hatched out a ton of babies from my flock this year, and culled heavily. Out of the 30+ babies I hatched out, I only kept 4. I have some nice birds to work with next year, just need another line.

Olive Eggers - My OEs are from HappyChooks birds. Hatched out 3 nice solid black OE pullets and one EE. I was going to put a barred OE boy with my new girls, but decided against it as his comb is too big and floppy and he has feathered shanks. Prefer birds that all have muffs and lay a dark olive egg. Might also consider Marans.

Basques - I have a nice quad of Basques, with lots off different boys to work with, but need another line before I can hatch out any babies from mine.

Black Orpingtons - I have a nice Bantam Chocolate Orpington roo paired with my one Black Orp hen from the Hinkle line. I would love to have some LF English Orps to work with.

Seramas - I have a super cute quad of Seramas, just need some different genes to work with.

Splash Cochins - Bought my pair of Splashes from 'funkyfeathers in MD. Really liking how they look. Hatched out some nice chicklets from them this year. Need another line to cross w/ mine.

Lav (Self Blue) Cochns - I either need some nice Lavenders or some nice Blacks to put with mine. Their color is good, just need to work on type and fluffiness now! LOL ; )


Open to other swaps too. Just ask. All I can say is NO! LOL


Figured egg swapping was the best way to go about it; that way we could both help each other out.

~ Aspen

 

[Texas Chickens]

Quote: Hi

This is Paul's wife. Sometimes Paul has a problem with remembering where he posted so please excuse him for not answering you. I was reading all the posts today waiting for it to rain here and came to the one he posted in this area and people asking about what breeds he had.

For the breeds he has at this time and hopes to breed for hatching eggs or chicks for pick up or take to next year he has

Aussies... that we hatched out this past July. The eggs were from Missouri and I guess we lucked out as most were pullets and the roosters we seem to have enough for the hens. Will know the correct count of them when they go into their own coop and pen this weekend. I think he has around 20 + pullets. Aussies are from OZ and the climate there is about the same as it is here in Texas and they lay in the heat really good in OZ so they should lay good in our Texas heat.

Swedish Flower Hens. He really likes them and we have 4 different hatches from seperate lines going back to GFFarms. There are 8 in the brooder house and 10 in the brooder in the house and 20 hatching eggs in the incubaor. Crested and uncrested. The colors are really pretty. The 20 in the incubator are black and gray splash only.

Some Light Sussex's again most are hens that came along with the Aussie eggs from Missouri. Not as many tho but a nice little flock of them.

Delaware's belong to me. hope to have a nice little flock of them for breeding in spring and some for the freezer.

Basque's 2 roosters and 2 hens. Would love to get a few more hens. They came from Fl.

1 Naragassett turkey chick named Clyde or maybe Clydete. Clyde is the only one of his turkey eggs to hatch out out of 4. Clyde is in the brooder pen with 6 little chicks from Mrs Browns hatch the same day Clyde hatched out this Tuesday. Thank you God... or Clyde would be very lonely. wrong time of the year to hatch turkeys and we can't find him her a companion anywhere.

And last but not lease our yard chickens. Harvey the PBRock rooster Harvey Campbell and his 5 girls... just odd and ends hens from the chicken broker up the road. They lay the eggs for the house and 3 of them are good broody hens it seems. Most of their chicks are roosters that will end up in the freezer. They have been running the yard and fields since summer and their yolks are a beautiful orange not that dull yellow that you get in store bought eggs. sure taste different too.

So those are the chickens that hopefully he will be selling next year. Am sorry he didn't get back to those who asked sooner. He justs forgets sometimes and has good days and bad days with his health. Its good to PM him as he sees those in his email downloads and will answer them fast.

 

[texaschickmom]

Does anyone in the NE Texas or metroplex area have a speckled sussex cockerel that they would like to part with? Mine got eaten by a fox so my 5 hens are lookin' for a new fella.