UK Member Please Say HI

[LittleGecko]

Hi and thank you!
The original four were in a local pet shop in a rabbit cage, the owner of the shop told me that they had been brought in by a lady who's boyfriend had bought them as day old chicks to feed live to a pet snake. (It is illegal to feed live chicks or mice to pet reptiles in the UK.) But she couldn't bear to see them killed and had been keeping them in a box in the kitchen.
I had already fallen in love with the four scruff part feathered chicks particularly a runty one who looked like they wouldn't survive.
To cut a long story short, we adopted them and they moved into a four foot glass fronted wooden vivarium in the sitting room and I got a coop for Christmas! We got three bantam hens and a cockerel to make a nice sized flock and the runty chick grew into the most beautiful, sweet natured brahma cockerel! The gang are... Lovejoy the brahma cockerel.
Tinker the pekin cockerel
Clara the brahma hen
Rose and Donna the easter eggers who with Clara and Lovejoy are the rescue birds.
Amy the pekin hen
And Martha and Harriet the wynnadotte bantam hens.
There are also four chicks a sultan a araucana a sablepoot and a brown one.
We are also taking in a small flock at the end of the month from a lady who is moving abroad.
So I am getting a second coop and a small duck house (two call duck also needed a home and the other half fell in love! ) before they arrive.
We also have a eggs incubating for a fellow chicken keeper who wants easter egger/brahma hens and a cockerel to add to her flock and another friend who wants more hens.
Final flock size should be about 16 and two ducks when the chicks have gone to their new homes at least until we get a smallholding which is the goal we are working towards! Until then it's selling eggs at the gate and hatching eggs for other local chicken keepers who want easter eggers and brahmas!

 

[LittleGecko]

Lovejoy is a very lovely silver blue golden duckwing brahma and Clara a blue partridge brahma so we get a lot of interest in chicks and we are thinking of showing them maybe next year!

 

[hxgumdrop]

Thats an awful start for the chicks but its so lovely that you managed to save them from their fait! sounds live you have totally caught the chicken fever! Sounds like youv definitely managed to get a good thing going for your self :-D

 

[rebrascora]

That's quite a story LittleGecko! I'm so pleased your chicks found warm hearted people to care for them. I'm very surprised that the original 4 turned out to be mostly pullets. People usually keep pullet chicks and discard the males. I'd heard that hatchery male chicks went for snake food, but that they were killed first. Do you think this was just someone local whose hen had a brood they didn't want and they gave the chicks away? Also quite surprised that 2 are brahmas? That was lady luck repaying your kindness I think. Do your easter eggers lay blue eggs or do you just mean they are farmyard crossbreeds?
Good luck with your little enterprise and I hope you realise your goal of a small holding. I'm just in the process of buying the one I have rented for the past 19 years. It's wiping me out financially, but such a relief to have the security of knowing it is nearly mine, as it was put on the open market before they accepted my offer and I was at serious risk of losing it.

Anyway, keep us updated with your progress.

@hxgumdrop

A hen ark is a portable, triangular shaped hen house and run all in one, that has the roost house either at one end or above the run and handles on the ends for 2 people to pick it up and move it to a new location every few days, so that the chickens get clean ground to scratch. It's not ideal free range but useful for small numbers of hens that you want to keep together without having to fence large areas of garden. Unfortunately for me the ones at the sale made more money than I could afford, but at least that means they made more money for the family of the young farmer friend whose place it was, who died of cancer earlier this year. Very emotional to see someone's life's work all laid out to be sold, especially in such sad circumstances.

On a happier note, I got the ladder and crawl board out and went up into the attic above my spare stable that I use as a hen house and found that Tasha has started stashing eggs in her old nest in the rafters. She was laying in the proper nest boxes until a week ago when suddenly she stopped and I got suspicious, so I checked today. She is such a crafty hen and has 5 eggs so far safely stashed in the same nest as before which is actually an old jackdaws nest..... mostly twigs but she has lined it with a bit of hay. I will leave her to get on with it and then move her once she goes up to sit. She laid and hatched 14 last time but the nest looks smaller this time (she must have done some rearranging of it) and it looks like it will only take another 2 or 3 eggs, but we will see. She is only a little hen but it's amazing how she can flatten and spread herself to cover such a large number of eggs. Can't decide which eggs I will give her to hatch this time. I let her hatch all her own the first time, but I imagine it will be easier to find homes for pure bred pullets/cockerels. I have exchequer leghorns and cream legbar breeds. Hope this is the last brood of the year though as I've gone from getting a trio in January, to now having 28 chucks of varying ages in just 8 months and more on the way! I need to start selling eggs at the gate and also selling chucks I guess, unless I am going to start getting firm with my broodies!

Hope you all had a good weekend and your chucks didn't get too wet!

Regards

Barbara

 

[hxgumdrop]

Oh I have seen those! thats a pain about the pricing thought, Im very lucky my dad is so good at making things and a hoarder (probably the only time iv said that!) so we used up alot of the wood he had lying around making the coop and run. That sounds really hard to see but at least his life work is now helping others with theirs
Aww bless her but so sneaky! none of mine has done that yet but then there arent many safe places to hid a clutch. Gosh thats a big jump in numbers! I sell my eggs to the neighbours and family as it helps to cover costs of food and treats, I dont charge enough to get a profit as its a hobby to give me something todo during the day. I wanted to get into breeding the hens but I dont think there are enough people local to me that would buy them,
My weekend has been good, tiring but good. Me and the girls got soaked! Been busy redecorating and sorting my room so thats nearly done just needs finishing touches now so im really pleased with that early night for me and the girls tonight I think!

 

[LittleGecko]

Thank you for your lovely replies!
We definitely have chicken fever and I am so happy that my other half and daughter are enjoying our little friends as much as I.
My easter eggers do lay blue eggs, it came as a shock at first but we were delighted. I don't know where the chicks might have come from originally, there are no big hatcheries round here just a few smallish breeders and they charge far more for chicks than you would pay for pre killed. Also the brahmas look pure bred and cockerels of Lovejoys colour are hard to produce, my research suggests about five generations of specific colour crosses. Also I have tried to get a second brahma hen and found none.
So it's a bit of a mystery.
I am so pleased that you have managed to get your own smallholding! It sounds like it has been a struggle but very much worth it! What breeds of chicken do you have?
A picture of the big man himself, our Lovejoy

 

[hxgumdrop]

Well isnt he one handsome Mr!
I started with 3 and a year and a half later I have 8, Id have alot more if I let my silkies hatch as much as they seem to want to but I cant handle more right now :-( Although the coop could fit another 10-15 maybe more as they all huddle together to sleep so there is plenty of space in there!

 

[rebrascora]

Wow! He really is a stunner! I think his name really suits him too. I can see why you would think of showing him.

I was a bad girl yesterday because I added two more to my flock, so that makes 30. In June I gave a swarm of bees away to someone local who breeds hens. They had some young Marans and offered me a couple in exchange for the swarm, as I had mentioned that I was keen to get some dark brown egg layers. I had forgotten about their offer until I received a text on Saturday, saying they were point of lay and when did I want to collect them. Oops! I now need to find names for my new girls, but I guess I will have to get to know them a bit first and then find a name that fits each.
Keeping my fingers crossed that they integrate OK. One or two of the juvenile males and a couple of the adult hens were picking on the younger chicks yesterday, so I had to fasten them in the big cage to keep them safe. Actually, I watched 1 of the young chicks (4 weeks old) try to stare down my RIR hen,. It was really funny to watch and I can't blame Henrietta for being upset at such cheek.... talk about David and Goliath! Eventually she gave it a peck and it ran away, but there were 20 seconds or so of squaring up that was priceless to watch. Henrietta is probably top of the pecking order, so this chick obviously has serious ambitions to be Queen of the roost one day!

As you may have gathered, I have a very mixed flock, exchequer leghorns, cream legbars, an RIR, a blue haze, a red sex link, an araucana cross and her 13 offspring by the cream legbar cockerel, a silkie, a silkie cochin cross, these 2 new marans I just got yesterday and 2 welsummer chicks.

I had another run in with my leghorn cockerel yesterday. He is just getting too big for his boots and will get his wings clipped if he continues and his head clipped if that doesn't sort it..... there might not be much flesh on a leghorn but I've read that they are very tasty! The leghorns have the taken over ownership of my garden.... they have an exclosure but come over the top, because they much prefer to wreck the rest of my garden than stick to their own quite extensive enclosure. They have had nearly all my gooseberries and blueberries this year and I'm not happy about it, so I really need to find time to make them a more secure pen. The others are all up at my yard but the roosters fought, so it was a concession to Horace that I brought him down home with his girls, but he is abusing my hospitality.

Heather, what colours did you redecorate wiith? I'm afraid housework comes low on my list of priorities these days as there are more interesting things to do outside, It amazes me how some people make and decorate their hen houses so ornately.... and bee hives too sometimes.... I wish I was artistic. There are some photos in the gallery here that are just mindblowing... real palaces for their chickens! I love that people make their coups such a central feature of their garden.

Anyway, I must head out and get some work done as coffee time is over.

Best wishes

Barbara

 

[hxgumdrop]

Couldn't reply yesterday as ended up in bed with a migraine, such fun! My room is still a work in progress but its pretty much there just needs a few finishing touches and it will be perfect. Its not been decorated in 10 years so was definitely in need of a redo! plus im not 14 any more so needed to be made at least a little bit more grown up! All walls bar one are baby pink then one wall is bright pink (yes still pretty girly!) the bright pink wall has random black frames dotted over it which has a couple gaps and we also ran out of nails so that still needs finishing, then on the chimney breast I have shoe racks and a shelf on the top for my bags and jewellery hangers down the sides and another few shoe racks in the alcove bit that has a belt hanger behind the telly and shelves for dvds and books and my dolls house at the top so it wont get damaged as it was made for me by my great granddad so I just cant part with it, it does need a bit of love as it was played with alot so that will be another job for me to restore it back to its former glory. Managed to get some pot plants to fit on my window sill. Managed to put all my craft things away and my desk fits perfectly next to my bed so I can sit on my bed and use my sewing machine in the sun or make cards or do my knitting there out of the way. Its been alot of hard work and still alot to do but its been worth it and it is all coming together now finally!
My coop doesn't need decorating although I do want to paint the door as it was maid from someone's old painting which i dont like but im not sure what colour to paint it as you can tell I like pink but I fear it will show the dirt way too much!
Iv not seen a decorated bee hive i will have to have a look, I didnt even no that was possible!
My two red sex link chicks are sizing up to each other and it is hilarious but they dont stand up to the others yet not even the silkies which they now tower over the silkies can still make the reds run for their lives which is also really funny to watch! Babs got a fright from a cabbage white butterfly the other day she really wasnt sure about that one bit!
Have your newbies shown any characteristics yet?

 

[rebrascora]

Sorry to hear you were poorly yesterday. I'm not sure a bright pink bedroom is a good idea for someone who suffers migraines though! I have a friend and a sister who are both rather keen on pink too. I'm more of a pale green person myself. I find that restful.

My 4 youngest chicks(4 weeks old) went up to roost last night for the first time.... I was a proud Mam! They were incubator reared, so I think I qualify for that title in their case although I can take no credit for showing them how to roost! I just went up to lock them in and there they were 3 feet off the ground (my roosting bars vary from about 14 inches to 6ft+), all snuggled together. I've made them a little cage up on short stilts and put their chick crumbs and water in there so they can get underneath to feed but the other hens can't get it and they can hide there if they get bullied by the older hens, but they looked to be quite at home in the main part of the hen house today. It's starting to look like one of the welsumer chicks is a cockerel, but I'm pretty sure we got the other 3 right as pullets.

My new arrivals, the two marans, have settled in incredibly smoothly. It seems like the bigger the flock gets, the easier it is to integrate new birds.(I think taking the leghorns out of the equation and keeping them down at home helps a lot too as they are overly dominant)The marans are sticking together and keeping out of trouble. If they get told to move on by one of the other hens they do, but they don't seem particularly frightened, just submissive, which is fine with me. I've not noticed any little quirks that would help me to name them yet, so will just have to wait and see what suggests itself as I get to know them.

Anyway, must head up there to shut them in now.

Best wishes

Barbara