Washingtonians Come Together! Washington Peeps

[MargaretYakoda]

I live in woodland and we must have the same "bugs" here cuz I've been bitten too!

... there is no cure ...

 

[RainMom]

Anybody have any sebastapol babies or eggs for sale or trade??

I wish I did! I was so, so sorry to hear Sherry in Port Angeles had to dispose of her flock (bird flu- ugh!). I hear she had gorgeous sebatapols.

I'm loving my ducks we hatched from your eggs. I sent you private pictures, but because they are SO adorable, I'm going to brag about them here and post pictures for everyone to see.

These are the 2 runner ducks that we got from BlueDuckling- one was stuck in the shell (not enough humidity- first time duck hatcher mistake!), so we helped it get hatched using warm, moist paper towels. The little one is a tough little booger- keeps up with the bigger one.

I'm not sure who thinks they are cuter- me or the big guy in our house!

 

[RainMom]

... there is no cure ...

Margaret, you are SO right!

I started out with 6 hatchery hens, and once we got a couple acres, all heck broke loose. I mean, since 2 acres is really not enough land to have cattle, why not more chickens? I could not JUST have hatchery birds, so invested in some cool birds to own/breed/sell.

I've got 2 auto-sexing breeds: Bielefelders & Cream Crested Legbars. I LOVE my nice calm huge Bielefelders, and those CCL hens are adorable with their wigs.

Then I decided I REALLY liked the blue eggs so much that I should get some Wheaten Ameracaunas. They are "almost" auto-sexing, since they can be feather-color sexed after a couple weeks, so I could justify them.

I wanted some dark layers, so that meant getting some welsummers & marans, right?

Of course, I needed some broody hens, so collected some Wyandotte's. Then, how could I resist the Red frizzled bantam cochin? I mean, besides being a good broody, watching a waddling pine cone coming to the feeder is worth every minute of that. Then, after all the city folks that buy my eggs loved seeing the olive colored eggs, I decided I needed to make some more olive eggers, and am working on auto-sexing olive eggers.

Oh- and then because I have such cool colored eggs, I really, really needed some plain brown and white eggs - so got some production hens for those city folks that buy my eggs. The white leghorn eggs really make those olives, dark browns, and blue eggs stand out, right?

Moral of story: don't count them anymore. As long as they are all scattered around the back acre, they don't look like "too many". Ha!

 

[Chickielady]

Alright Washingtonians, I got my first incubator (brinesea mini eco) and put my first set of eggs in last night. I have a hygrometer in there so I have one more thing to worry about, but with one of the tanks full of water it was running at around 70% humidity. I looked it up and that seemed too high so I took out the water and it is holding around 40 dry. I live right next to the beach so it's about 50% in my house. Being the typical worry wort I am stressing about potentially killing 10 babies! There are so many opinions on what is the right humidity when you look in the threads... what works for washington? I weighed them last night when I put them in, do I just weigh in a week and add water if they lose more than 5% since they should lose 15% in a week? HELP!
Crazy first time incubator

I am on the coast too, and run 40% for 17 days then up it to 60 or so, never over 60.
And you are correct, our humisidty is high in the first place.
You would find very different % if you lived farther inland.

 

[Chickielady]

The orange guy was the bottom of the pecking order. I haven't had any issues with the silkies and people. Some are a bit too friendly and will walk right underfoot. The blue guy thinks he's a large fowl. He brushed off anything the large fowl rooster who I put him in with tried to say. He's also the only silkie I've seen able to fly three feet on to a roost.

Yup, both these boys sleep on the ground.
They are cute, kinda grow on you.
So far, they are happy in there all alone..............and I am not using that coop so they are fine in there.
They love grazing & today in the sun, they were ROLLING IN THE DIRT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Chickielady]

Great grandma sold eggs as a business. She always mixed a few grains and that was what they got for food. It's desert over there so you must feed your birds. In this area, if I let the birds out for free range most of the year they eat very little feed. Plenty of grass and plants they love and even the silkies pull up bugs I wouldn't think they could find. The large fowl seem able to trick worms to come up. A few of the large fowl girls will go wade into puddles and dig around for water bugs.

I just uncovered my compost pile the size of a small Mt Rainier..........and pitched 3 manure trailer loads & hauled up the hill with the tractor...filling the raised beds ready for the squash & tomaters........AND ya would not believe the GIANT nightcrawlers the size of small snakes & bazillions of red worms !

So the Silver Cuckoo Marans are free ranging today, and they are right in there rotovating the freshly laid compost...probably spill it all over the edge of the raised bed......................

 

[Chickielady]

My 1st Dozen Day!!!




To be fair to my girls it probably would have happened many times the past couple years if I didn't keep having to give away my layers to make room for my hatching. Should change my screen name to BatorAddict

 

[Chickielady]

Amberjem that's quite a green thumb you've got going! I just put some starts into larger peat pots yesterday myself. Your coop is really coming along too! We had to take some time out to get some construction work done due to rats getting into our house.
E.S.

EEEEwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww !!! You gotta Rat terrier ! Put her to work !

 

[Chickielady]

Wow! That's awesome Chickielady! Kudos to you both! All that working your Arse off paid off! How are you gonna celebrate?

REST

 

[Chickielady]

Chickielady, you mentioned that we were possibly overfeeding our chicks, but how do you know if the jar on top is just 16 oz and the bottom part gets shavings in it. I clean it out several times a day of the shavings but... ? I am now trying to add dried fruit or trail mix. Ruby, the sweet one we got from you and the RIR are top of the pecking order and kind of hog the treats and run over the others with their rear ends.
We had to take time out of building the brooder due to prescription woes with Walgreens mail service which took days to rectify and had me running to Aberdeen two days in a row. I love the stuff about the bygone days. (reminds me a bit about having to walk to school in the snow stories) I keep telling Claire that in most countries the chickens run in the streets and what she drew up is a fancy hotel compared to that. It seems many of us get bogged down in the detail but we do get a hell of a lot of rain here in Pacific County and she says we want them to be able to get dry and warm. She has a point. Mine's on the top of my head I think. Gotta go take care of dinner. I got steaks for a nice change. Yahoo! We are meat and potatoes kind of gals!

We are doing steaks too !
Put your chick feeder in a pie plate, and the bits they are scooping out will hopefully go in the pie plate.
I would not recommend feeding trail mix nor dried fruits to birds, even older birds.
They have no stomach acid, and dried fruits, or round fresh fruits (like grapes) can lodge in the tunnel from the crop to the gizzard, and block food, and the bird thus has an impacted crop and starves to death.
I even cut cherry tomatoes in half, they have such tough skins.