Washingtonians Come Together! Washington Peeps

[Chickielady]

Our chicks are getting so big. We've had them for three week now (tomorrow). Some of them are almost ready for the outdoor coop!
This is our favorite chick, Pigeon. The friendliest, most easy going .... and I'm pretty sure a boy (because of the red starting to show, but we'd really love if this was a female), actually I'm pretty sure we have several boys from the Barred Rock chicks we got! I think we ended up with 7 BR and 3 Jersey Giants out of that batch. All of them were suppose to be BR chicks.

That baby have pink legs ?
It really looks like a female Cuckoo Marans to me !
I cannot really tell what color skin it has.
The blurred (Smudged) barring looks exactly like a Cuckoo Marans female....

Where did you get these ?

 

[Chickielady]

You guys like this insane rain ?
We had about 3" yesterday, midnight to midnight.
I has about been the same here today, and inbetween HAIL so hard the ground was completely white as if it'd snowed.
Crazy !

 

[Duck Drover]

Duck drover - do you have a photo of your bunny setup?  I'd kind of love rabbits, but need something cheap and simple to get my husband to sign off on it.

My set-up is definitely not cheap since I am using fence 4' x 12' panels we used for our goat pen years ago. They were $20 each back then and $60 each now. Basically I have three panels on the ground so they can't dig out. Then I have four panels standing perpendicular that are wired to the floor panels with two ends and two dividers. Then there are two more panels on the ends of those panels with everything wired together so that it is free standing without any posts. We had panels over the top as protection from predators but that was overkill and they are very heavy to lift to get into the pens. I had to cover the steel fence panels with rolled wire around the bottom to keep bunnies (and ducklings and chicke, etc.) from getting through the fence panels and that was not cheap either. I don't have any gates in the pens, just small doors between the three runs and one door to the yard. We use pool ladders to get in and out of the pens. We set the coop right next to the rabbit pens with a door that goes into the end pen so the chickens can go in and scratch up the worms from time to time.

For shelters I use the extra large dog crates taken apart so they are covered but they don't have a bottom to them. They are great for shade in the summer and in the winter I use a bus tub for shavings under the half crate shelter because then we can lift them out of the pen to clean them instead of trying to clean them in the pen. I tried using a plastic dog house with a floor and it was too difficult to keep it clean in the pen and too heavy to lift out for cleaning. We use a flat shovel to scrape the rabbit droppings for the garden and then I hose out the pens to remove the urine. I had someone tell me once that I am "cruel" for allowing rabbits to live on the ground,that they should be off the ground in wire cages, but I disagree. Rabbits were made to live on the ground before people confined them to cages.

We have two dog exercise pens joined together that we use to move the rabbits around the yard so they can eat grass during the summer and we don't have to mow the yard. They also fertilize the grass at the same time. Right now I have too many areas that I filled in with dirt to level the yard that we have not had to mow yet. I may try using them to mow the front yard this year because I have not sprayed any weed killer so it is safe to eat. We have also used wire dog crates to move them around on the grass but only a single rabbit per crate because they do not give them the space to run and kick up their heels.

I will try to get out and take some pictures when the rain stops.

 

[BGMatt]

Our chicks are getting so big. We've had them for three week now (tomorrow). Some of them are almost ready for the outdoor coop!
This is our favorite chick, Pigeon. The friendliest, most easy going .... and I'm pretty sure a boy (because of the red starting to show, but we'd really love if this was a female), actually I'm pretty sure we have several boys from the Barred Rock chicks we got! I think we ended up with 7 BR and 3 Jersey Giants out of that batch. All of them were suppose to be BR chicks.

Looks like a pullet to me, cockerels are typically much lighter in color due to having two copies of the barring gene, even if they're hatchery birds.

Cockerel on left, pullet on right, these are not my birds, just first picture I could find on google to show what I was talking about.

 

[Duck Drover]

Duck drover - do you have a photo of your bunny setup?  I'd kind of love rabbits, but need something cheap and simple to get my husband to sign off on it.

My set-up is definitely not cheap since I am using fence 4' x 12' panels we used for our goat pen years ago. They were $20 each back then and $60 each now. Basically I have three panels on the ground so they can't dig out. Then I have four panels standing perpendicular that are wired to the floor panels with two ends and two dividers. Then there are two more panels on the ends of those panels with everything wired together so that it is free standing without any posts. We had panels over the top as protection from predators but that was overkill and they are very heavy to lift to get into the pens. I had to cover the steel fence panels with rolled wire around the bottom to keep bunnies (and ducklings and chicke, etc.) from getting through the fence panels and that was not cheap either. I don't have any gates in the pens, just small doors between the three runs and one door to the yard. We use pool ladders to get in and out of the pens.

For shelters I use the extra large dog crates taken apart so they are covered but they don't have a bottom to them. They are great for shade in the summer and in the winter I use a bus tub for shavings under the half crate shelter because then we can lift them out of the pen to clean them instead of trying to clean them in the pen. I tried using a plastic dog house with a floor and it was too difficult to keep it clean in the pen and too heavy to lift out for cleaning. We use a flat shovel to scrape the rabbit droppings for the garden and then I hose out the pens to remove the urine. I had someone tell me once that I am "cruel" for allowing rabbits to live on the ground,that they should be off the ground in wire cages, but I disagree. Rabbits were made to live on the ground before people confined them to cages.

We have two dog exercise pens joined together that we use to move the rabbits around the yard so they can eat grass during the summer and we don't have to mow the yard. They also fertilize the grass at the same time. Right now I have too many areas that I filled in with dirt to level the yard that we have not had to mow yet. I may try using them to mow the front yard this year because I have not sprayed any weed killer so it is safe to eat. We have also used wire dog crates to move them around on the grass. But they do not give them the space to run and kick up their heels.

I will try to get out and take some pictures when the rain stops. We put our coop right next to the pens with a door into the end pen so I can let the chickens in to eat worms and scratch up the dirt from time to time.

 

[Rainier]

That baby have pink legs ?
It really looks like a female Cuckoo Marans to me !
I cannot really tell what color skin it has.
The blurred (Smudged) barring looks exactly like a Cuckoo Marans female....

Where did you get these ?

I got them from a friend at work. Got a total of ten. The legs don't look pink to me but have a black wash (not sure how else to describe it) down the front. The front of the legs are darker than the back.

Here is a shot of that chick (son named her/him Pigeon) a couple of days ago with other chicks that are from a hatchery.


just 30 minutes ago and better picture of her/his legs.

 

[Rainier]

Looks like a pullet to me, cockerels are typically much lighter in color due to having two copies of the barring gene, even if they're hatchery birds.

Cockerel on left, pullet on right, these are not my birds, just first picture I could find on google to show what I was talking about.

That is good news then. I think we got mostly pullets! Three of them though I don't think are Barred Rock chicks.

These are the chicks that we are not sure about what breed they are.
Here they are first day home




Last week or so (we've had them for three weeks now)




30 minutes ago.

 

[Chickielady]

That is good news then. I think we got mostly pullets! Three of them though I don't think are Barred Rock chicks.

These are the chicks that we are not sure about what breed they are.
Here they are first day home




Last week or so (we've had them for three weeks now)




30 minutes ago.

what color are the soles of their feet ?

 

[ochochicas]

Rainier - Our barred rock pullet looks just like yours. She/he is 4 1/2 weeks and has quite a pronounce comb compared to the other chicks. I was quite upset thinking about the chick being a cockerel since DH said he'll cull the boys so we'll only have hens. In any event, i did a lot of searching on the web and it can go either way at this point. The cockerels have a lot more white feathering and the pullets are mainly black. Both yours and mine are dark so I'm hoping they are pullets. My Barred Rock is the most aggressive of my chicks which also concerns me. I guess time will tell.

 

[lisa1hess]

Could also be australorps??