Washingtonians Come Together! Washington Peeps

[Manningjw]

My first baby chicks have arrived!! I ordered 15 brown egg layers,2 Welsummers, and they were shipping 1 rare breed for free from McMurray. I got a notice that they replaced the Welsummers with 3 Dark Cornish...I was bummed. Then when I got them home, one little baby didn't make it

. But, we still had 19. And it looks like I still got the Welsummers! They are the only ones I can make out.

I am so excited! They are doing great. So far only 1 pasty butt.

Congrats! Welcome to the world of chicken math

.

We also started with shipped chicks. The 15 brown egg layers I presume is part of a whatever breed hatches well will be included type of deal? This one? https://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/brown_egg_layers.html Good way to get into chickens and gives you exposure to a different breeds. I think i see at least 1 red sex link, which are amazing egg layers, the best brown egg layers we have had. Don't be too shocked if you have a couple more losses in the next few days, shipping is hard on chooks. I imagine you have read a lot considering you are already an active member here but watching their behavior queues you into the proper amount of heat they need and having the heat to one side of the brooder to allow them to choose warmer vs cooler is helpful!

Good luck! Post pictures as they grow!

 

[Carolei]

I re-arranged my chicken run yesterday so they would get fresh grass/mow the other area of the yard

. As usual, my Red Star hen found a new secrete nesting place now that she has long grass and an area covered in blackberry bushes to hide her eggs in!


I had been averaging about 7 eggs a day for the past week out of my 8 hens, I knew something was up when I looked in the boxes at noon and found 0 eggs. My red star taught the other hens in only 1 day to lay outside

.

My girls are also very good at copying each other's bad habits. Chickens are such copy-cats!

 

[ochochicas]

Mine like to lay in the hay bales in the barn. At least they don't get too far and I don't have to go searching!

 

[Manningjw]

Mine like to lay in the hay bales in the barn. At least they don't get too far and I don't have to go searching!

When my redstar was younger she stopped laying(or so I thought) for about a week. I was worried about her, examined her head to toe to see if anything looked wrong and she was perfectly healthy. The next day I realized she was missing from the yard and I went out looking for her for a good 30-45 mins until she finally decided to stroll back to my property along the fence line of my neighbor. She had dug a hole under the fence and escaped to lay an egg in my neighbors yard somewhere (never found them) and then came back home when she was done. I have been threatening to rehome her for quite sometime...

 

[torrelee]

Congrats on the new babies! They grow so fast

I have a speckled Sussex who flies out of the run every day and lays in weird places. The biggest nest we found so far was 21 eggs. Would be less bothersome if we didn't find some of her eggs in the driveway after the coyotes have found the nest. Makes me worry about her, but she's insistent upon hopping the 6 foot fence to greet us when we get home!

 

[sphinxface]

Congrats on the new babies! They grow so fast

I have a speckled Sussex who flies out of the run every day and lays in weird places. The biggest nest we found so far was 21 eggs. Would be less bothersome if we didn't find some of her eggs in the driveway after the coyotes have found the nest. Makes me worry about her, but she's insistent upon hopping the 6 foot fence to greet us when we get home!

Before she lived with us my speckled Sussex used to sleep in a cedar tree above their coop. When she moved in with us she tried to jump into the cotton wood tree but it was too far up for her, she has resigned herself to the coop. She also used to fly over the fence despite having super short cut wing feathers. Now we have some bird netting over everything... Maybe that's why she's so grumpy all the time

 

[SeattleSelkie]

Had to take pictures of the new kids this morning.....as there is nothing cuter than a day old chick.
One little guy had to check out what I was doing.

 

[QuiltinGramma]

Ah...she's cute. My babies have grown so big now that I didn't hear one "peep" from them this afternoon when I went out to see them. All I heard were big girl "clucks." They grow up so quickly.

 

[OverEggstended]

Seems to be pretty much anything out here, at the moment. Last year, it was exclusively my apple trees and my neighbor's saw them in their cherry trees. This year seems to be a free for all! My apples got hit, but so did my plum and rose bushes out front. Saw them in my peony too! They're all over the neighbor's fruit trees, I've seen them in some of the maple trees down the road... they're just particularly bad this year. We didn't get a good cold winter, that seems to be what everyone is blaming it on. This is only my second spring out here so I'm not too sure exactlywhat they're after or what makes them better/worse.


We have a family of starlings in the neighbor's roof (they have some sort of vent for their attic, momma's living in there and raising a batch!) but they don't seem to have much interest, which is a shame. Neither do the song birds, the robins, or blackbirds I get in the yard. I wonder if that's part of the problem with their spread - nothing eats them! We tried to just cut them away first this year, as soon as we saw the nests but that wasn't enough so we've brought out the BT and it's working wonders. Encouraging the wasps is something I haven't heard of - is there a specific species I should research into attracting? I'm terrified of the boogers (one got caught in my hair as a kid, stung me 9 times on my ear!) but if it'll clear out the pests I'm game. As long as it won't discourage the bees I've coaxed in, that is! I love my big woolie bumbles all over the garden haha

Parasitic wasps are not what you think of as a wasp. They are tiny. Fruit fly sized even. They lay eggs on the backs of caterpillars and their babies eat the buggers alive! They like many types of flowers, especially "wildflower" weedy types. Echinacea, queen Anne's lace, cosmos, dill, yarrow... those types!

 

[OverEggstended]

I guess I am lucky, I have never seen any tent pillers here, ever. Maybe it is due to the constant humidity to the point of rain in just fog...you know how it can get so foggy it is tiny droplets that even blow sideways ? That kind of moisture can seriously screw up a tent system. I have seen my fruit trees producing like gangbusters this year ! 10x more than usual...pears have never had a pear and this year are LOADED...same with the apples...Peaches loaded last year are once again loaded this year...no wormies. have any of you done pruning and winter oil spray ? I have been using Neem Oil for my winter (dormant) spray rather than insecticidal chemicals, and I am having really good luck. I have also used Neem oil spray when we had the red mite attack from hell 2 years ago, and it worked fantastic ! And I worry about the bees, so listen to this: http://www.discoverneem.com/neem-bees-beneficial-insects.html

Neem is AMAZING! Also great for roses in warding off both aphids AND diseases. Also good for skin disorders! The smell is... memorable.