Washingtonians Come Together! Washington Peeps

[Hinotori]

It seems that there is always a chick every few hatches that just can't get the concept of following mama into the house no matter how much she calls and shows. This hatch has been smart. No lost chicks.


Some just will sit out there and freeze. I've found them just barely breathing and holding on to life. All stiff and unresponsive. Those go off to hot tub it in my little tea cups in 95 degree water trickling in. I've saved several that way. Once they are lively, they get toweled and off to the incubator to dry. Usually they stick to mama like glue after that ordeal.

How are yours handling the heat we have a massive old maple that sheds
the chicken yard nicely so most spend the days outside.
I think what you do is great but it only enforces my lack of wanting to hatch.

Heat hasn't been an issue. They are in a pen with a roof and wind break/shade cloth around it. It's a new pen so there is even cool grass. All the birds have a shady place to hang out in the heat.

I've had few issues really. Some of my silkies are good egg wranglers and some aren't so Ive been using an incubator. I'll probably give the silkies that hatch in a week to a large fowl hen. Angel will have been broody long enough and she's people friendly. Very good mother and teaches her chicks to come to me

 

[Leigti]

I know alot of people like the olive eggs to increase the colors in their egg baskets but I just like the blue and green pastel eggs from hatchery Ameraucanas. I would actually raise pure Ameraucanas but I like the hatchery ones better (the true Easter Eggers) because I like the variety in the feathering and egg colors. They were my first love, before I ever bred chickens according to the SOP in order to preserve Heritage breeds.

I started with my Easter Eggers (hatchery Ameraucanas) before the Orpingtons and Silkies but I have only raised four with egg colors I like because I thought buying Easter Eggers from a breeder would be better than buying hatchery chicks from the feed store, and then I sold one of my favorites with a beige egg layer because I do not sell single chickens. Another one turned a plastic nest box over on herself and suffocated before I found her so I only have two left.

I would raise Ameraucanas but I am trying to go back to the less "improved" chickens I had in the 1980's by breeding hatchery Ameraucanas (Easter Eggers) to my Quechua rooster. This may be a hopeless endeavor but I am hoping to have more "true" Easter Eggers than I can find anywhere else. The term Easter Egger seems to mean many things to different people. If only I still had my original flock!

I got my three Easter Eggers from a hatchery. Two of them have the little muffs on their heads but I think the one that lays green eggs doesn't have those. Blue eggs would have been nice. But oh well. People have told me they don't lay well, granted mine just started laying but I get an egg almost every single day from each one of them. Each chicken is a different color, which I thought was kind of nice. The funny thing is my black and white one has decided that she must be a Wyandotte because she hangs out with the two SLW I have.

 

[Duck Drover]

Hi, My thought with them being that dirty! Is she collecting every day? Did she find them laying on the ground and just picked them up or are the pens just muddy? Have you tried candling them to see if there is a big air pocket from being old and not good. I had a egg shipped that had a baby forming in it once! I hope all goes well and you get a good hatch!

So my daughter said one was even bloody when she washed them last night! I know some were pullet egg sized and apparently one was a first egg. I sure hope this entire hatch is not doomed for failure.

 

[marchick]

So my daughter said one was even bloody when she washed them last night! I know some were pullet egg sized and apparently one was a first egg. I sure hope this entire hatch is not doomed for failure.

All you can do is put them in the bator and wait. You might end up with a good hatch!

 

[vasher]

Bantam versions of dual-purpose/layer breeds would be nice, or maybe a small standard laying breed. All the bantams I've seen have been cochins, silkies, or OEGB (we picked up a couple!), and I'd like a useful kind of little chicken (if those exist!). BF wants also a "cool looking" and preferably blue but not weird (silkies, frizzles, turkens

) bird. Kinda specific but also pretty vague, but we're still pretty new to chickens and doing research.

 

[Mortisha1010]

Hi. We just moved here from CA late last year and have been staying with friends while we go through the home loan process. Unfortunately it has taken too long and they're asking us to be out in a month. It's going to be impossible for me to find somewhere that will take us with our cats and dog, let alone 3 little hens. I have 1 sultan, 1 bcw polish, and 1 silkie. I just bought them the cutest little coop too. I'm reaching out to my fellow chicken lovers in hope that someone can take them in while we continue this home loan process. My daughter and I (she's 6) are very very attached. If possible we would like to visit them sometimes. I can provide their food and $20 a month, which is negotiable. (we're very broke atm with this house process). We're looking to move into yelm/lacey but can travel to surrounding areas. If there is somewhere else I can post this please let me know.

P.S. they just started laying

 

[Leigti]

My three youngest just put themselves back in their coop and up on the roost by themselves tonight. This is the first time they have done this. I'm very proud of them. They are even on the roost and not on the poop bored

 

[Marty1876]

Aww...im in Port Townsend or else id volunteer. If youre truly desperate, we can hen sit.

 

[Duck Drover]

I got my three Easter Eggers from a hatchery. Two of them have the little muffs on their heads but I think the one that lays green eggs doesn't have those. Blue eggs would have been nice. But oh well. People have told me they don't lay well, granted mine just started laying but I get an egg almost every single day from each one of them. Each chicken is a different color, which I thought was kind of nice. The funny thing is my black and white one has decided that she must be a Wyandotte because she hangs out with the two SLW I have.
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The original Easter Eggers that the hatcheries used to call Aracaunas had beards and muffs. I did not think they had crests but looking at the British tailed Aracaunas it is possible they had a small slicked back crest that blended into the muff because I remember the feathers being so full on their heads that it gave them a unique look, as if they had a mane.

They were not meaty birds like dual purpose but the roosters made a meal. They had compact pea combs, not straight combs, and dark slate to green tinted legs. The chicks were always chipmunk striped but in different colors. The adults were primarily in shades of red and brown, no blue or splash feathering. I have a bunch of chicken pictures on my phone but I don't think I ever took pictures with a camera back then.

The eggs were beautiful pastel colors, like eggs soaked in food coloring for Easter. They were shades of blue, green, and pink (I have heard of purple eggs too but I have not seen any). There were light mint green eggs and darker slightly avacado green eggs but not olive eggs. Every hen had a slightly different colored egg and looked a bit unique within the flock.

I miss my true Easter Eggers! I had no idea they would be so hard to find again.

 

[Marty1876]

My mom had those (easter eggers) and also true rumpless aricona. Both are so hard to find now.