Washingtonians Come Together! Washington Peeps

[torrelee]

It certainly seems like raising the chicks makes them happy.  I have been busy trying to break my broodies, I have a few too many with broody tendency right now and no need for more chicks yet!  In a couple of months I should have fertile eggs again to let them try.

I didn't WANT more babies, but after taking her off the nest daily for over a month I gave in to her demands and bought those two at the feed store. Lol.

 

[Shanny050]

Thank you very much! 

 

I checked with her and she is full on room mates. Hope your daughter find something soon!

 

[CarolynF]

Quote:
Thank you very much for checking. I'm sure something will turn up. We just keep spreading the work.

 

[CarolynF]

My mini Aussie is really good with the little ones! I finally decided to let the little chicks out of their enclosed run yesterday and one of the young roosters was particularly calm around my dog.

They went out looking for food together:


Then they found it!


Maila is pretty sure she found the poop factory, or what she thinks of it as, the "chicken nugget" factory... I wish I could teach her not to eat chicken poop she just loves it

.

Looks like you and the animals are having all sorts of fun! Is the heat affecting the chicks much?

 

[KelsT]

what are my best options in Kitsap county for feed? any local places make feed? is there a brand that is good?

how important is it to be organic?

I didn't realize the different brands made such a difference until I had issues with my chicks while on Albers and then had multiple people tell me that brand was garbage. So what do local here use?

THANKS!

 

[Manningjw]

Looks like you and the animals are having all sorts of fun! Is the heat affecting the chicks much?

I haven't noticed any issues with the chicks really, they are still quite active even in the hottest part of the day. I did add an additional water bottle for some redundancy in the case one of them failed and I didn't notice soon enough.

My older birds have been going broody left and right, it is frustrating how much I have had to use the broody buster. I am going to have to make a permanent part of the chicken run devoted to a broody busting cage if they keep this up.

 

[Manningjw]

what are my best options in Kitsap county for feed? any local places make feed? is there a brand that is good?

how important is it to be organic?

I didn't realize the different brands made such a difference until I had issues with my chicks while on Albers and then had multiple people tell me that brand was garbage. So what do local here use?

THANKS!

I cannot consider myself an expert by any stretch of the imagination when it comes to chicken feed. My friend uses Scratch and peck feed, which is a higher priced feed in our area and his birds (which hatched along side mine) came into lay months later than mine did who had the same hatch date. They also have had issues with feather plucking (I presume low available protein from diet contributed?) and generally lower production it seems. I would say that maybe his children contributed to stress on the birds affecting POL but my neighbors kids routinely harass my chickens despite my best efforts to keep them off of my property and away from my pets.

I have had good luck and good production using Nutrena brand chicken feed. They do get a lot of scraps and lots of free ranging on my property so I don't know how much my experience is due to the feed or other environmental factors. I don't always buy organic produce for myself and I feed our left over foods to the chickens so I haven't really even considered using only organic chicken feed because their diets would not be entirely organic anyway.

Are you using a chick starter/grower up until point of lay? Chicks need a higher protein when they are young then switch to a layer feed. What type of issues were you having?

 

[KelsT]

Some groth problems with one. I switched feed seems to be helping they are on medicated starter. Just trying to plan ahead for when they donstart to lay

 

[AmyLM]

Anyone around Buckley, Enumclaw, Puyallup, Tacoma or Auburn areas have chicks available?

 

[rkasper27]

Still planning my coop. Anyone in Seattle willing to give me some hands on training and pointers, as I'm still designing the coop and could probably get some good ideas on making it easier for my self when I finally do get my chickens