Washingtonians Come Together! Washington Peeps

[Kmaria187]

Saw this today and just had to share - "At a certain age, women may have the urge to collect chickens... This is called Henopause and it's the best time of your life"

 

[pennyJo1960]

Old enough to do them, young enough to try it again.

 

[pennyJo1960]

Took a hard fall in the living room dogs running.
Bruised knee hand palms sore left arm scraped.
Lucked out nothing broken but my coffee cup full of coffee!

 

[Kmaria187]

Took a hard fall in the living room dogs running.
Bruised knee hand palms sore left arm scraped.
Lucked out nothing broken but my coffee cup full of coffee!

WOW glad you are okay!!!

 

[ValerieJ]

Took a hard fall in the living room dogs running.
Bruised knee hand palms sore left arm scraped.
Lucked out nothing broken but my coffee cup full of coffee!

Dogs and cats can sure be a hazard!!! Glad you are mostly okay.

 

[Hinotori]

Took a hard fall in the living room dogs running.
Bruised knee hand palms sore left arm scraped.
Lucked out nothing broken but my coffee cup full of coffee!

I'm glad you're mostly ok. Dogs are good at tripping us

 

[pennyJo1960]

Well heck I think most the pain in my hips will eventually go away.
my left arm is not bothering at all today or my hands or knees.
No swelling anywhere lucked out me thinks. Like a Timex.

 

[TeePants]

The good news is that our new Polish hen Oreo is getting along great with the silkies.

The bad news is she doesn’t want to go in the coop at night either. But they have no problem going up there during the day? I don’t get it. Maybe I’ve got the auto door set to close too early? It closes at 6, which is well after sunset. I am flummoxed because last time I had chickens I didn’t even have to teach them to use the coop; they did it on their own.

The run is secure and has hardware cloth under it so it’s not a big deal that they sleep down there, but it reduces the square footage if they’re not utilizing the coop portion and the coop is draft free, unlike the run.

Also, our girls (including Oreo) are about 23 weeks old now. I tried putting wooden eggs in their nest boxes so they know what they’re for, but so far no one’s laying. I guess it’s hard to gauge when they’ll start since the silkies are EE crosses and I’m not sure if our polish is crossed with anything.

I have a couple videos of them being very cute and running around in the yard while I was deep cleaning their run - I tried a new bedding, Gem Softwood Shavings. It’s not supposed to contain cedar but I think it might be too soft; it’s getting stuck to the silkie’s feet feathers more than the other stuff did.

I’m considering bringing the silkies in for a bath so I can address the feet feathers and maybe do a better job trimming around their eyes. Anyone got any tips? I thought about trimming their feet feathers but they always seem to have so many blood feathers in the mix I’m hesitant to cut them.

 

[pennyJo1960]

Ah crud Hard to I Never had things stuck to mine feet.
I had always used shavings in their coop.
Maybe moisture got in it? @Hinotori is our resident silkie person here

 

[Hinotori]

Mine wear off some of the foot feathering depending on how much they scratch. I have to watch for mudballs. I usually have straw down on the dirt for winter.

Trimming in front of the eyes helps them. I usually trim about a quarter inch above the eye going to the point of the comb. Enough feathers are left to flop some and cover the short feathers