Washingtonians Come Together! Washington Peeps

[Chicken Rustler]

Must get these chickens out of my garage. Week one of quarantine will be done tomorrow. I'm not sure my garage will ever smell the same. One of the hens, probably the BSL, is laying a small light brown egg every day, but it's been cracked every day except one. Garage floors aren't very forgiving of egg shells. I have been cooking it and feeding it to the aracauna with the injured neck.

The little araucana's neck seems to be a little better. Still odd looking, but not as bad as it was the first day. I think she bumped her head or someone pecked her hard. She's definitely at the bottom.

When I do introduce the new four girls to the old four girls...is there some sequence I should go in to make the pecking order transition easier (like highest to highest or my old middles to my new lowest, old lowest to new highest?) or do I just let them have it out and figure it out on their own? I have my coop set up now to be two small coops with a sliding door between. One coop enters the yard and the other coop enters the run. So I think my plan is to put the new girls in the coop attached to the run for a few days, separate from the old girls, and then if all goes well, one night when they're asleep, open the door between the two coops. Then they'll get up the next morning and forget they were ever separate...right? Or would it be better to let the new girls out into the yard one day and keep the old girls penned up in the run for a while.

I just now realized that the new hens won't have nest boxes if I don't let them in the other side of the coop. I'll have to make a temporary one and put it in during the day.

Just thinking out loud. I'm trying to avoid talking endlessly about chickens IRL and on FB. I'm becoming 'that lady'. I had a physical on Monday and the doctor asked me about my exercise habits. I really used to be very good about exercise..lifting weights 3x a week, I even started running around Green Lake....until I got chickens. I seriously haven't done a moment of formal exercise since I got the chickens. And I've been paying for a gym membership. Saying it outloud to the doctor made me realize how dumb that is.

As for when / how to add new birds. I have had my best results by waiting until dark. Then set the new birds on the roost among the others. They all wake up in the morning and think they are one big happy family!! I know others will have other ways that works for them.

 

[FlyRobinFly]

Catching up again...welcome new peeps, congrats to all who have new chicks, and hope everyone is doing well.

Jess, those blue eggs are absolutely beautiful! Where did you get those EEs? I want some that lay that color egg.

Farmin Momma, sorry to hear about the pullet and hope it doesn't happen again to any others.

CR periodically does a very useful reminder about the proper heating fixture (like Trav has) to avoid fire. Recently a couple from the dog world were badly injured and lost three of their dogs and much of their home in a house fire. Scary stuff, and really makes one realize how blessed one is in comparison. Stay safe all.

 

[Hinotori]

A couple of my 6 month old brahma pullets laid me eggs today. It's about time someone laid an egg. I was expecting the 8 month old ameraucana to lay first. She's gotten very red in the comb the last several weeks.

 

[CarolynF]

As for when / how to add new birds. I have had my best results by waiting until dark. Then set the new birds on the roost among the others. They all wake up in the morning and think they are one big happy family!! I know others will have other ways that works for them.

I keep hearing about doing this, but I must be doing it wrong. It seems that no matter how late at night it is chickens are always half awake. As soon as I open the door they are reacting to my presence. And the bird I'm holding is not all that easy to put up onto the perch when they start clucking and wiggling around.

Miss Bossy wakes up and pecks Miss Newbie.

Then in the morning it just continues.

These birds don't seem nearly as stoooopid as some say. I'm beginning it's a bit like the proverbial snipe hunt!

 

[Farmin Momma]

Well I don't know what happend,, but I went out this morning to check on the girls, one hen that I hatched back in April was sitting on the coop floor. It was no biggy untill I noticed that her legs were laying straight out behind her and that her comb is partly missing with blood runn8n down her beak! I picked her up and she can not move her legs. I am probably gonna have to cull her. I don't have any clue as to what did this to her.

How secure is your coop? Any other birds with any injuries? How far off floor is the roost? Do you have a rooster with them?

My coop is pretty secure, but I forgot to closr up the coop last night.
No other chickens are hurt or missing.
Yes I have roosters with my girls, but they have never hurt any of the hens like this. Also I am not sure what a Rooster could have done to make her legs not work.
But she is still eating and drinking, and now she has her legs under her.

Well I don't know what happend,, but I went out this morning to check on the girls, one hen that I hatched back in April was sitting on the coop floor. It was no biggy untill I noticed that her legs were laying straight out behind her and that her comb is partly missing with blood runn8n down her beak! I picked her up and she can not move her legs. I am probably gonna have to cull her. I don't have any clue as to what did this to her.

I'm SOOO sorry!  What a terrible thing to find, the poor little girl! 

Ueah it was sad. Thank you.

 

[FirewifeJess]

RObin - I got those 2 EEs from Seattle Farm Supply. He orders from Cackle Hatchery.

 

[Clumber]

I have to side with everyone else and go with sexlinks. I love my black sexlink. She's a very chatty friendly thing. I think they are very attractive with their red feathers on the face and chest. And that hawk face! I have a golden sexlink who likes to creep up behind me and stab me in the back of the knee to show her affection. She is seven and only recently stopped laying.

Okay, that's it. We will have to get some sexlinks next chick-additions we make. We also have Orps on that "want to try" list. Anyone around planning to have some chicks of both in early Spring?

 

[Clumber]

[snip] How many chickens should I get with the best possibility of getting at least two females?
Thanks!

Unless you are us. Our first batch of chicks we ended up with 3 hens out of a dozen chicks. We just got a 6-pack of new chicks and will be delighted if we end up with 3 hens. (Though young roos are tasty!) (Our neighborhood doesn't allow chicken Roosters. Nothing about Coturnix Quail roosters, though, which - if you ask me - have an annoying crow as well. Which is why Fowlcatraz is located on the opposite side of the property from our bedroom.)

 

[Slinglings]

Quote: It worked for me the first time~ I had 3 and added one. I just let the old hens go to sleep in the coop as usual, the new hen was in the run. Once she was asleep, I opened the door to the coop and put her in. All was well the next day. She is younger than my other three, but much bigger. She is at the bottom of the social order, but is never bullied or pecked or anything.

I just didn't know if it would be different adding 4 new to 4 old. One of the new ones is quite a bit smaller than my largest old one. Is there anyway to make sure she isn't at the bottom? or to knock the top new hen down a peg or two?

 

[Clumber]

Thought I'd toss in a couple photos of our newest chick additions. They should be ~2½ weeks though they have a much bigger size variance than the other 2 batches did. This will be "batch #3" though batch #2 was really just adding to batch#1 because we were getting pretty certain the majority of batch1 were turning into roos. We just bought some SS of the same age from a localish breeder and they all integrated fine. (8 SS chicks and we ended with 3 hens, one of which just fell over dead one day. No injuries, healthy-looking aside from being dead...?) We got this 6-pack at auction and spoke with the seller after. He said that the brown one is a Welsummer but the other 5 are all Black Copper Marans from the same clutch. You may notice that we have some reason to be less than certain about those other 5....



The silver/blue/lavander chick we named Billie for Billie Holiday - Lady Sings the Blues. She is very much smaller than any of the others. Maybe half the size of the largest. Hard to tell that from the overhead angle. Searching for names for the others... NNY#1 and #2 we think look like penguins... Though #2 looks like she's wearing a Lone Ranger mask, too....



Even Po is suspicious. So named b/c I mentioned to Spouse that the all deep black chick with dark brown wings looks more like a crow than a chicken. The camera flash +heatlamp make her look much more brown than IRL.

We don't actually mind whatever they all turn out to be -- we'd love to have a couple BCMs but meh. Main thing is we'd like HENS. The chick-math gods just laugh at us... batch one of 12 - ended with 3 hens, though one was killed in The Back Fence Incident. So out of 12, 2. Batch #2 of 8 - ended again with 3 hens, but 1 tipped over dead one day for no apparent reason.... so out of 8 we have 2 hens. 20: 4 currently. (We have more chickens than that, though. We bought some older hens as well.) We think we are due for a majority of hens....? Okay, can we get half at least this time??

Tracy