Washingtonians Come Together! Washington Peeps

[HoneysuckleHills]

I am so sorry to learn of the many lost or injured chickens.
I let my girls out today and stayed with them. So scary.

I wish everyone a very happy new year!

 

[Stumpfarmer]

Oh. Well.


My daughter just mentioned that the person who will be doing her marriage ceremony next summer would like to be paid in chickens.


No pressure or anything...

Did he ASK for chickens and NOT compensation, or was it just mentioned as a possible form of payment? I think that's great! Maybe he sees her (or your) chickens and wants some for himself?

He's wanted chickens for a while, has just moved somewhere he can have them, and she showed him pictures of the Hamburgs and told him what dynamite layers they are...

 

[Ogress]

I bought a 50 pound sack of DE at the Issaquah Grange 2 years ago, and still have more than 1/3 of it left. I don't recall the price, but I do remember it was much cheaper than the same size bag of organic feed. 50 pounds of DE is a whole lot of dust! HUGE bag. What I have left now fits in the same size container as 50 pounds of feed.

I sure is WINDY here in North Bend! When we get the winds the temperature rises. When I too DD to her harp lesson in Issaquah tonight, I noticedt was 10 degrees colder there! I'm glad that when I pull the ice frisbees from the water bowls in the morning that I don't have to do it again until the next day.

 

[Ogress]

I am so sorry to learn of the many lost or injured chickens.
I let my girls out today and stayed with them. So scary.

I wish everyone a very happy new year!

Happy New Year to you as well!

So sad about all the chickens - some of the attacks, like the one in Oregon, seem to me like they might be weasles. I know I sometimes get rats in my runs, but they seem to stick to eating the grains and have left the eggs and the chickens alone. I have not seen evidence of them entering the coops though that would be easy enough to do as I often leave the pop doors open to the covered runs. Initially we had Norway Rats, but now when I get rats, I see roof rats. They are a lot smarter and harder to kill off.

 

[CarolynF]

That hasn't been mentioned. I want to set another clutch as soon as Malvina shows the first sign of being ready, or botrrow an incubator next month, maybe, but I also want to have sufficient Hamburgs to make it sensible to sell eggs by the end of the next reproductive cycle.
And I need a new rooster for the EEs.

Are you looking for a specific variety of EE roo? I have a friend that wants to re-home one that is super sweet. Should I ask her if he's still available?

 

[LaughingFeather]

Question. What number of chickens has put you from an enjoyable hobby to a awful chore. I can see the chicken math culminating in my own life. I want this one and that one... Reality check. I have 5 now. one too old to lay I think but she will live her life out with us. As will all my pets. I live on 1 1/4 ac in the woods with neighbors who have more chickens than I and several roosters. What number was your tipping point and why. What has caused you to cull your flocks?

 

[LaughingFeather]

Are you looking for a specific variety of EE roo? I have a friend that wants to re-home one that is super sweet. Should I ask her if he's still available?

I am still straining at the bit on this one Carolyn. One of the I wants. Just can not take him to California. ARGH. I am really thinking that they won't bother us down there with a roo unless it is a real loud one because they won't even come out to check on an alarm going off.

 

[justbugged]

As one of the Wyandottes walked by me today, I reached down to sneak a quick pet and she squatted for me. I was fairly surprised, and so was she. I didn't know when they'd be getting close to laying. I scooped her up to give her a hug because she and her sister are not affectionate. She didn't even mind! She watched me and honked a bit while I petted her. When I stopped and started to put her down, she purposefully (and slowly) nipped at one of my fingertips. She then waited patiently for me to lower her to the ground. Her name is Bunny, but somehow I started calling her and her sister "the Christmas geese" because they make little honking sounds a lot. I realized this around Christmas and so I started calling them that. They're the ones that go after the Pine Siskins. Such violent things. But so cute!

LOL This means that you are now the official rooster at your house.

 

[justbugged]

Question. What number of chickens has put you from an enjoyable hobby to a awful chore. I can see the chicken math culminating in my own life. I want this one and that one... Reality check. I have 5 now. one too old to lay I think but she will live her life out with us. As will all my pets. I live on 1 1/4 ac in the woods with neighbors who have more chickens than I and several roosters. What number was your tipping point and why. What has caused you to cull your flocks?

My tipping point is somewhere between 20 and 30. I should only have between 3 and 4 chickens. I live in a sub-division neighborhood. The only thing that has caused any problems is having a rooster for too long. So right now I have 31 hens, and it would be better if I found homes for about 8 to 10 of them. Chicken math can be a very difficult subject for a veteran chicken enabler.

 

[Ogress]

Question. What number of chickens has put you from an enjoyable hobby to a awful chore. I can see the chicken math culminating in my own life. I want this one and that one... Reality check. I have 5 now. one too old to lay I think but she will live her life out with us. As will all my pets. I live on 1 1/4 ac in the woods with neighbors who have more chickens than I and several roosters. What number was your tipping point and why. What has caused you to cull your flocks?

I think that depends on the type of coop you have, the ease of cleaning it, access to teenagers to help with that job, an out-of-the-way compost pile, how muddy your yard is, how many people beg you or eggs, and how many roosters you have.

I started with a wooden arc chicken tractor and 4 hens. The access door for cleaning the roosts was heavy and cumbersome. When it rains, the doors to access the food and water would stick hard and I could not budge them. I made some modifications, but it was not great. I ordered 2 Eglu Cubes from Omelet (U.K. company). One had an attached run, the other I put in a 10X10 roofed dog kennel. Both are great - I had 7 hens in the one I pushed around the yard, and I keep my banty hens in the other. Very easy to clean, takes only minutes. Then I got nearly 3 feet of snow in the yard and I had to dig out the doors to get them food and water, and installed heat lamps in the run and cables running all over the yard, and the yard was nothing but mud when it thawed. What a pain! I was so frustrated that I hired an out-of-work home builder friend of mine to build me a 10X12 house with a 10X24 covered run. I'm still paying that thing off! It is always easy to access, the chickens can go out in any weather. The runs are secure so I need not worry much about predators. Usually my birds forage on more than an acre of fenced yard, but if I won't be home, or the weather is nasty, they are fine in their coop and run. I still used the 2 Eglu cubes as well. My intent was to use the tractor cube out in the orchard with the access open so the hens would not have to go as far to lay their eggs if they were foraging out there - that did work the first year I tried it, and they still returned to the main coop at dusk. Right now it serves as a home for 3 excess bantam cochin roosters that I should get rid of but can't cull because they are too nice. The walk-in coop is nice and warm, convenient, but I can't clean it nearly as well as the Eglu's. Ideally I would have 5 bantam hens and 1 rooster in the stationary Eglu, 24 full-size hens in the big coop and maybe 2 roosters with them. Anything beyond that is too much work for me. (currently my big coop has 20 hens and 6 roosters!) Surprisingly, I've not had problems with fighting roosters, other thatn the bantam roosters when they were in the same coop with the bantam hens. My big boys are all fairly mellow. I think the bigger the rooster, the calmer it is.