Washingtonians Come Together! Washington Peeps

[Sweetlilbaby]

Corn on the cob, It was left over and covered in corn when i hung it.



Oscar and zeus chilling together. Zeus (the brown one) is only 15 weeks old.



Daisy (a muscovy duck) going for her first walk ever. Used an old small dog harness.

 

[LyleChickens]

PRAISE THE LORD, PRAISE THE LORD!!!!!!!!!!! We finally got someone to talk to us. I won't go into the details but needless to say, today we got an email, with conditions, that we can have chickens as pets in the Yelm city limits. WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT!

 

[Hinotori]

[COLOR=FF0099]PRAISE THE LORD, PRAISE THE LORD!!!!!!!!!!! We finally got someone to talk to us. I won't go into the details but needless to say, today we got an email, with conditions, that we can have chickens as pets in the Yelm city limits. WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT![/COLOR]

Congrats!

 

[LyleChickens]

Quote:
THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!

 

[BGMatt]

[COLOR=FF0099]PRAISE THE LORD, PRAISE THE LORD!!!!!!!!!!! We finally got someone to talk to us. I won't go into the details but needless to say, today we got an email, with conditions, that we can have chickens as pets in the Yelm city limits. WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT![/COLOR]

Hooray! Very glad to hear!

 

[catelb]

Hi all,

Am super new to this whole chicken raising awesomeness, and thus have some beginner questions for all you experts!

1 - Our hens seem to have quite suddenly decreased their laying. We have six hens and a rooster. Our birds are just shy of 9 months old and we tend to get anywhere between 4 - 6 eggs a day, most days. They are out all day, every day so I just assumed they found a new place to lay and we couldn't find it. But today we kept them inside for most of the day and still only got one egg. All this time too, we have continued to get 1 - 2 eggs in the nest boxes each day. Oddly enough, our rooster (who we thought we were going to have to get rid of) has almost completely stopped crowing. He crows 2-3 times/day max now. This is in stark contrast from his usual, albeit sporadic crowing sessions. Our 7 birds are given 2+ cups of feed each day, have a 1/4 of an acre of grass and brambles and trees to scratch around and explore, and receive a ton of kitchen scraps (sour raw milk, whey, cabbage, kale and chard stems, etc etc etc). Do you all think they might be calcium deficient? In the past we had oyster shell and grit out for them, but have been lax in making it available as of late. Besides the seemingly overnight decrease in egg production and lack of crowing, our birds seem to be happy and healthy. I have put out a bunch of oyster shells and grit, but am curious if you all think anything else might be up?

2 - Totally unrelated. On a whim, and since we have a rooster, we decided to try to hatch a couple of our eggs as we would like to more or less double our flock. 18 eggs to be exact. All with our cuckoo maran rooster and our hens (ameraucana, rhode island red, gold laced wyandotte, buff orpington, barred rock, and dominique). It was 21 days yesterday and to date almost all of our brown eggs have hatched (9/11), but only 1 of the green eggs - the amerucana x cuckoo maran cross, have hatched (1/7). Any ideas? I have seen mention of a lethal gene with amerucana's - could that be to blame here? Also how much longer do you all think we should incubate the eggs that haven't hatched?

Thanks so much! I appreciate any and all advice. I have attached a couple photos of the new babies. At the time they were still in the incubator, so they are not the greatest quality.


The incubator set up. It is a friend's and she said she had never seen condensation like that. Could that have been a problem? It appeared post-hatching though ...


Hatching is hard work!



But not so hard, apparently, that you can't get up to cheer your brother / sister on!

 

[poularde]

Ameraucanas do not have a lethal gene. That is Araucanas. Maybe the Ameraucanas are not the favorites of the rooster.

 

[catelb]

Ameraucanas do not have a lethal gene. That is Araucanas. Maybe the Ameraucanas are not the favorites of the rooster.

Ahh! Well that makes it all the more puzzling. Poor Scout (our ameraucana) is definitely the favorite of the rooster. We like to joke that he mounts her every half hour. She is our smallest hen and her eggs are pretty small too. Could that have something to do with it?

Thank you for the ameraucana / araucana clarification!

 

[Lutefisk]

We had lost our 5 1/2 yr. old Golden Retriever very suddenly in January to an auto-immune disease. After living with his loss for a while, I began looking to bring someone new into our home. We are confirmed on a list from a Golden Retriever breeder for a puppy due in July, but thought with our only daughter graduating from college in 2014 and both of us retired that we could find room and time in our lives for a rescue as well. I scoured various sites for several weeks but seemed to just keep missing the dogs I was interested in. Last Friday morning this young girl became available. I had thought we'd get an adult rescue but sometimes things work out differently. We made and appointment to visit her that afternoon. This girl and her siblings hadn't had a very good start. All were listed as lab/pit X's, but I think our girl is showing some shepherd. From a very sad and frightening start I am pleased to report that we have a happy, playful, puppy living with us now. She's learning basic commands quickly and is a sweet, affectionate girl. We had a wellness visit yesterday and she'll be starting Puppy K on June 1st for some classes and socialization with other puppies. So far is getting along okay with our 13 year old Pom who tolerates her, (he's a cranky old man), doesn't chase the cats and is mildly curious about the chicks in the house and LF outside, but is thus far being respectful. We named her Luna. I think she's going to be a GREAT dog! In the visiting room on DD's lap - a very frightened, needy puppy...

After her first night home -

and two days later visiting a new friend -

she looks so smart, cute and just wonderful! Keep us posted on how she does.

 

[MizzPeabodyIV]

Thought I should post an update, my three chicks are doing well and getting larger everday! It's amazing how quickly the grow! Here are a few pictures from last week I'm still on the fence about keeping them and need to make up my mind ASAP. I'm just worried about the neighbors. For the most part I don't think anyone will care as long as they don't get too noisy. My backyard is TINY, 40' x 30' and everyone can see right in. I have a coop picked out and need to order it if I'm going to keep them. Otherwise my husband's coworker will take them. Here's the backyard. I am planning on putting the coop along the fence where that metal stock tank is. So the coop will be roughly 30' from my bedroom window and about the same distance to several of my neighbor's windows. What do you think? Too close?