Washingtonians Come Together! Washington Peeps

[TurtlePowerTrav]

I think it's funny that all it took was a super clean coop and nest box, and wooden dummy eggs, to make a girl go broody. Sounds like me when I'm pregnant...everything has to be spotless!

Good theory, but probably not the reason if she is broody.

 

[FirewifeJess]

Quote:
But it's fun to think that she's acting like a typical woman

 

[FirewifeJess]

Should I move her sooner or later to the rabbit hutch? I can't let her stay in the big girl coop, the chicks wouldn't be safe enough. If I need to move her ASAP, I'll have to get that curtain over the front of the hutch so she can be warmer. It's SO cold for me to think of putting her outside in the covered run in the hutch. Poor girl!But the nest boxes in the coop aren't any warmer I guess.

 

[Greg Richardson]

Some of my raised beds.
Snow around here just won't melt.
Sitting at 30 right now.
So much for their fourcast as it's colder today then yesterday at this time.







Lake Margarets swim dock.
Lake is all the way frozen now.
Kids around here love throwing the ice chunks out there.

Some of you may recognize this sign.
I've always loved this sign.

 

[Hinotori]

My second broody silkie came off the (empty) nest today. She sat 1.5 weeks after the other and came off 1.5 weeks after. I wasn't letting them have eggs in December. So with them I have 1.5 to 2 months and they will be broody again. That's how they've done it since September. I guess that means it's time to get that breeding pen set up and think about getting birds separate.

 

[Hinotori]

And I want to say that I've very glad I didn't have to stand in that line to buy a ticket for the gun show. WOW was that a huge line. Giant when we went in, giant when we left. The line inside to buy membership was huge, too.

 

[TurtlePowerTrav]

Should I move her sooner or later to the rabbit hutch? I can't let her stay in the big girl coop, the chicks wouldn't be safe enough. If I need to move her ASAP, I'll have to get that curtain over the front of the hutch so she can be warmer. It's SO cold for me to think of putting her outside in the covered run in the hutch. Poor girl!But the nest boxes in the coop aren't any warmer I guess.

Jess, calm down. You don't even know yet if she is broody and you don't have eggs under her(at least I hope). Once you know she is committed, yes you should move her to a safe location to hatch out the chicks. Move her at night in the dark so she wakes up on the nest where ever you move her to. She would be fine in the run in your rabbit hutch. I had my broody in the tractor with the tarped sides down to protect from wind and side rain. She will do fine in the cold by herself. You may consider feeding her Flock Raiser while she is brooding, higher protein content will help her keep her body temp up. And definitely don't give access to layer feed if that is what you feed your flock, that can hurt the chicks. Please do not use a heat lamp on her, it will actually be counter productive to the chicks healthy growth. They feather in much faster when broody raised than brooder box raised.

 

[TerrorBird]

Quote: How much does that cost? I could see paying as much as $50 maybe,but it has been much more than that for my cats..

The last one I took in was a very old Belgian (tiny bantam). The charge was somewhere around $100. It is not a financially-wise choice. I just can't kill a chicken myself. I don't want the last thing it experiences to be a knife to the neck or whatever the process is. Just a small needle prick, and drifting off to sleep. To me personally, that is worth the money. But you're right, they do need to make kits with chloroform or something.

 

[Slinglings]

Sara - we had a sick bird who didn't seem to be getting better and she was suffering. I know it's graphic and oh so sad, and we did cry, but there's no way I'd ever pay any money for someone to kill a bird I could do myself. I held her deep inside a trash can after a good long cuddle and talking to her and thanking her for eggs and being sweet, apologizing for not being able to save her, and DH cut her head of with one quick motion. We both dropped all into the trash can and ran out of the garage until the flopping around stopped. DH even cried, it was hard because she was a pet, not some hunting animal like a deer that DH would have no issue shooting. But we were glad we had the guts to do it ourselves. I still cry sometimes when I think about what happened to her but it was for the best that she be put out of her misery. I don't think you need a class honestly, it WILL upset you. When I took roosters to the processing class I was very upset by it all and my food didn't settle right for days. That said, I couldn't kill my own roosters on that day, but I did process quite a few birds on my own after learning how, which is a great skill to know!

That's the direction I'm leaning...if I need to, I could kill a bird like you did, but I certainly would never process/eat one of my own, so what's the point of going to the class. I think it would be traumatic to see other people's perfectly healthy chickens be killed. Yes, I eat chicken, and I know that they have to be killed in order for me to eat them, but that doesn't mean that *I* have to watch or do it.

(If you don't mind telling me, what did your DH use to cut the head off? I just want to be prepared for this, because at *some* point, I assume it will have to happen.)

 

[FirewifeJess]

Sure. We thought about a knife first, DH sells Cutco...SUPER sharp kitchen knives...you know, really high end stuff. They have a pair of scissors called the kitchen shears which DH is very handy with; they are so strong and sharp they can cut through a penny without much effort. He used those in one swift cut to do it.

But it was better for him to work with something he knew could do the job quickly rather than choose a knife that may not have worked fast and proper without any former "practice" on that sort of thing. HTH