Washingtonians

[Shyla-C]

I wanted to share the variety of colors I'm getting from my girls. Not sure if the first 2 are from the same girl, but I am pretty sure the beautiful blue on is a new girl. I found it this morning and when I went to crack it the shell was so soft I almost crushed it! They do have oyster shell free choice so I hope the shell will harden. The others are VERY hard.

Saturday Sunday Today

 

[Nikki99]

And, I'm sure he'll take video with that new video camera he bought himself for my birthday.

LOL! (two months later, I'm still waiting on my birthday present that he promised - a new cell phone...

)

Have a great day everyone!

And - a reminder to myself to go back and read from 8750

Man, the chicken food goes fast these days! Last year I only had 7 birds and now I'm up to 15 in the big coop and 3 Silkie chicks. I've been buying Flock Raiser the last couple times due to the different ages I have.This last bag I bought is already pretty far gone and don't think it will last more than 2wks!

Tell me about it!! Holy smokes! We bought a 50lb bag of food friday, we have 13 birds and half that bag is already gone! I think it's time to let my LF out of the chicken yard to free range a bigger area, hopefully that will help.

 

[Nikki99]

A couple weeks or so ago, someone posted an awesome article about all kinds of different herbs and how they are useful in the chicken coop. I took notes but they got deleted and I can't find the article anywhere. Anyone remember this, no where it is or what to google b/c "herbs for chicken health" isn't giving me what I'm looking for.

 

[Imp]

Is this it?

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/283192/organic-topics-index

Russ

 

[Stumpfarmer]

A couple weeks or so ago, someone posted an awesome article about all kinds of different herbs and how they are useful in the chicken coop. I took notes but they got deleted and I can't find the article anywhere.  Anyone remember this, no where it is or what to google b/c "herbs for chicken health" isn't giving me what I'm looking for. 

I got this link from haller lake, I'll bet it's the one you want:

http://www.grit.com/fresh-eggs-daily/nesting-box-herbs-chicken-aromatherapy.aspx

 

[Farmin Momma]

I just found out that the house we were looking at buying (untill things on our end fell apart) is still for sale. At this point I may be able to pull some sunshine out of my *** and get this house! Oh I am so excited!
I don't know if I ever told ya'll about this house, but it is huge and devided into two living spaces so my BIL and his wife would be able to move with us. Even with that there are still enough rooms for all the kids to have their own. It is on just under 10 acres, fenced for horses, 9 stall horse barn, with a HUGE COVERED areana!!!!

 

[TerrorBird]

I just found out that the house we were looking at buying (untill things on our end fell apart) is still for sale. At this point I may be able to pull some sunshine out of my *** and get this house! Oh I am so excited!
I don't know if I ever told ya'll about this house, but it is huge and devided into two living spaces so my BIL and his wife would be able to move with us. Even with that there are still enough rooms for all the kids to have their own. It is on just under 10 acres, fenced for horses, 9 stall horse barn, with a HUGE COVERED areana!!!!

I remember someone talking about a house in Monroe that was fabulous. Is this that house/property?

 

[FirewifeJess]

Quote:

Never mind, I now have something else to deal with. One of the new buckeyes has a respiratory infection. Thank you for the offer, but I need to deal with this before any more birds come in the house.

No worries, I understand! I heard a beginning crow attempt this morning, so I should know soon who the boys are that will need to go bye-bye. If I have an extra pullet, I will check in with you again later to see if you're still interested.

Hope the Buckeye recovers quickly.

Thank you for the offer! I ended up returning all the birds. It was hard to do, but I felt I wasn't up to the task yet.

In rare good news, I googled feather sexing again and took a second look at Gimp. Turns out it's Gimpette! In more bad news, the hobble did not work. I left it on for I think 3 days? Still just as gimpy. I took it off and put her with the other chicks and she is so much happier. She can zoom around even with the bad leg.

I am considering going to the Baxter Barn in Fall City and looking at their chicks. Anyone have an opinion on Baxter Barn? They have speckled Sussex and salmon Faverolles. I doubt they will be very pretty birds, but who knows. At this point I just want to round out the flock and get it done.

Jennifer

I had a bad experience with them. Not due to quality of the chicken I bought (Tilda...my favorite who just died), but the service. I called ahead to make sure they had what I wanted. Packed up the kids after reading about all their awards for kid-friendliness and fun kid things there are to do there. I arrived after a 45+ minute drive to a very, very cold reception by the guy working that day, nobody else was there as a customer. He asked what we were there for and I told him to look at the chicks and hopefully bring home one or two GLWs. He marched off ahead of us never saying a word. He told us the fences were electric and didn't offer to pull one back for me and the kids to walk through, instead he had me and 3 kids 5 and under climb THROUGH an electric fence. With all my arm pain and back issues it was near impossible to get all 3 kids through it. They might have great, healthy chickens, but I will never go back there again.

 

[Flaming Chicken]

Congrats on the new babies! Pics please!!

I have a question for you regarding your comment about your girls not laying anymore for the winter. Is this common, for them to completely stop? I thought they just slowed down. We got our 5 girls in the spring, 2-3 of them barely started laying the end of summer/beginning of fall and now all of a sudden, nothin for the last 2 days. I wasn't sure if something was stealing the eggs or if they just aren't laying anymore. I'm really bummed though. This is our 1st flock, 1st time eating home grown eggs, they are soooo good we do not want to go back to buying store eggs but we are getting nothin here!

Most of my brown egg layer slow down even with lights. My blue egg layers seem to stop. I have occasionally had to buy eggs in December and then they pick up in January again. The chicks that are hatching are from my spring blue egg laying pullets. I have decided not to supplement with light and let them take the Winter off.

 

[UrbanEnthusiast]

Yeah, the guy who owns Baxter Barn is most definitely not a "people person" but his farm is beautiful and while I think most of his birds are probably hatchery stock (how else can he sell sexed chicks?), they are well raised, and he has a huge selection of breeds. If you don't mind a bare-bones customer service experience and aren't looking for show quality, I highly recommend him. We got our original seven chicks from him, including Salma, and they all were/are extremely healthy, hardy, happy birds. When we get three more chicks in the spring, I plan to order through him.