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Well Spaghetti is still hanging out there. She is relatively active, still very underweight, and she is not digesting whatever greens she's eating that well, I can make out pieces of grass in her poop. Still, for a starving hen she is one picky chicken. She won't eat yogurt, or cottage cheese, only eats a bit of ham or other meat I give her, some mealworms... and that's it. She loooooves eating grass and clovers, but rejects other veggies I offer. I still offer her different sources of protein during the day and she nibbles here and there, but it's getting annoying  . drat chicken should eat her cheese and get fat and healthy >
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Oct 28, 2011 23:48
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| # ? Apr 23, 2024 15:28 |
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I almost forgot about this thread. It's been 5 months since this thread convinced me to get chickens. I still have just 6 hens, but the run has grown! I have my original 8x3 run that I had built for the 3 young hens I got at first to the right (still need to replace the plastic netting / chicken wire on that thing with hardware cloth). Then I have the 4x10 half-tall run in the back that is half-roofed and butted up against the chicken coop it came with. In between these two smaller runs is the new 8x8 section of the run that includes some roosting spots down the middle.
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Oct 31, 2011 22:55
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Tiny dinosaur hatching....
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Nov 1, 2011 17:41
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Chickens can be so tolerant (reposting from the random thread).
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Nov 1, 2011 18:30
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meriruka posted:Tiny dinosaur hatching.... Awwww...post more photos! Everyone here is a sucker for cute, fluffy baby chick photos.  Chido posted:Chido! What is going on in that image???
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Nov 2, 2011 05:36
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Inveigle posted:Awwww...post more photos! Everyone here is a sucker for cute, fluffy baby chick photos. Magic! (click on the picture and you'll see the torture that it is to be a kid's pet).
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Nov 2, 2011 06:06
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More baby pics:  Jerry the turkey: 
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Nov 2, 2011 13:51
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Silkies are the cutest things ever. I really want to cross breed a silkie with my mille fleur bantams and try to get a puffy, speckled mini chicken.
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Nov 2, 2011 15:16
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meriruka posted:More baby pics: Oh my god! So adorable! What different kinds of chicks do you have? Why is that one chick so much bigger than the rest? What kind of chicken is standing behind Jerry? I really like that grey color.
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Nov 3, 2011 02:15
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rangergirl posted:Silkies are the cutest things ever. I really want to cross breed a silkie with my mille fleur bantams and try to get a puffy, speckled mini chicken. 
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Nov 3, 2011 06:17
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... Roostroyer has gotten so pretty and fluffy, I want another brahman, and I'd love to get a dark brahma hen, but nobody seems to sell them online, at least on the sites where I can order only 3-4 chickens . I need another big fluffy butt running around in my backyard...
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Nov 3, 2011 07:24
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Inveigle posted:Oh my god! So adorable! What different kinds of chicks do you have? Why is that one chick so much bigger than the rest? The chicken behind Jerry is a chicken shaped resin doorstop. It would be cool to have a live one that color!
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Nov 3, 2011 13:46
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I've lurked a while but never posted here. We've got a six-bird flock, three buff orpingtons, two rhode island reds, and one wyandotte. This is actually our third flock: our first was a "rescue" flock of five speckled sussexes that we ended up trading away to some beginners, and our second ended up getting a disease last winter. So we've never had a flock through the entirety of the winter. We've got our heat lamp going but egg production is basically half what it used to be, and I know some of the birds aren't laying at all. Is this normal for the winter months? At the beginning of last winter we had a lamp going all the time in the coop, but haven't set it up this winter yet, and before the girls got sick last year egg production kept steady. One of the reds has also gone broody for no apparent reason (we don't have a rooster.) She lost .2 kilos in 2 weeks and wouldn't leave the nest box unless we physically picked her up and forced her to. We've moved her to an isolated crate under the heat lamp so we can better keep an eye on her, and she hasn't lost any more weight but she hasn't gained any back either - and she hasn't laid an egg since (at least) we moved her in there over the weekend. It's highly possible that with the decreased egg production she hasn't laid in a couple of weeks, which makes her broodyness even stranger. We collect eggs every morning so there's never been a large clutch for her to sit on. Any ideas about the light/decreased laying, and our mysteriously broody hen?
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Nov 3, 2011 15:47
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I read chickens do lay less during winder due to less sunlight. Maybe the needs a well lit coop instead of just a heat lamp to start laying more again? And from what I've been told, chicken are crazy and go broody whenever they feel like it.
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Nov 3, 2011 17:05
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Is there a way to make them go, um, un-broody?
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Nov 3, 2011 17:07
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This is what Velvet Sparrow has on her site about broodies: If you don't want or can't have chicks and want to break the broody cycle, there are a number of things you can do. The normal incubation period for chicken eggs is 21 days. Sometimes a hen will sit a nest for weeks or months to the point of losing a dangerous amount of weight. I've heard people tell stories of putting the hen under a box for three days, squirting her with water, etc. This seems kinda needlessly cruel to me. I simply remove any eggs she has and don't let her sit on any more of them, roust her off of the nest several times a day, carry her around for a bit with me, give her some goodies to eat outside the nest, give her a handfull of ice cubes to brood instead of eggs and/or remove or block off the nest. The idea is to make being OFF the nest more attractive and fun than being ON it. You can cage a broody hen in a wire cage for a few days to break the cycle, it sometimes works--the idea being that since she is on wire with air circulating around her undercarriage there is no soft ground to nest on and she'll give up the idea. http://jackshenhouse.com/VSChickHensBroodiesChicks.htm So basically pester the hen and make her feel as unconfortable as possible whenever, until she stops being broody.
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Nov 3, 2011 17:52
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Chido posted:... Roostroyer has gotten so pretty and fluffy, I want another brahman, and I'd love to get a dark brahma hen, but nobody seems to sell them online, at least on the sites where I can order only 3-4 chickens My Pet Chicken has Buff Brahmas and Light Brahmas, if that would be close enough.
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Nov 4, 2011 07:23
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Peas and Rice posted:Is there a way to make them go, um, un-broody? Chido has mentioned all the usual ways. The alternative is to find someone in your area who has fertile eggs, and slip them under your hen. Or you can order chicks from a hatchery, and slip them under her. Once the chicks get older, and Ms. Broody is done raising them, you can sell them or keep them. Letting a chicken raise chicks is especially good if you want to add birds to your flock. If they are raised by a mother with the rest of the flock, the other chickens will accept them, so you skip the often difficult and occasionally bloody integration part.
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Nov 4, 2011 07:30
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WrathofKhan posted:My Pet Chicken has Buff Brahmas and Light Brahmas, if that would be close enough. I know, I already checked that site and others, but no dark brahmas
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Nov 4, 2011 14:47
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meriruka posted:Jerry the turkey: We wrapped him 3 times around with duct tape, and my dad sharpened the 5 lb splitting maul because the bird's neck was as thick as his wrist. He whacked the tom and... The maul bounced off.  The tom then ripped the tape off Hulk Hogan-style, and proceeded to run around the yard with half a head  , slinging a couple feet of duct tape off each wing tip and beating the poo poo out of anybody who tried to get close enough to grab him. We finally had to straight-up tackle him and saw his head off with a big knife.. He dressed in at 40 lbs.Never raising a tom turkey again.  Inveigle posted:What kind of chicken is standing behind Jerry? I really like that grey color. coyo7e fucked around with this message at 15:54 on Nov 4, 2011 |
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Nov 4, 2011 15:48
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So what you're saying is you're a kill cone advocate.
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Nov 4, 2011 16:00
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WrathofKhan posted:Chido has mentioned all the usual ways. The alternative is to find someone in your area who has fertile eggs, and slip them under your hen. Or you can order chicks from a hatchery, and slip them under her. Once the chicks get older, and Ms. Broody is done raising them, you can sell them or keep them. Letting a chicken raise chicks is especially good if you want to add birds to your flock. If they are raised by a mother with the rest of the flock, the other chickens will accept them, so you skip the often difficult and occasionally bloody integration part. We tried separating her for a few days and I let her out yesterday afternoon. So far she seems more prone to wandering around than sitting in her nest box, but I had to go into my office today and can't keep a close eye on her. If she goes back to being broody, I'll probably go this route, although it's already down into the 30s at night here (Seattle) and I'm not sure this is the greatest time to introduce a chick to the flock.
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Nov 4, 2011 17:21
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Peas and Rice posted:We tried separating her for a few days and I let her out yesterday afternoon. So far she seems more prone to wandering around than sitting in her nest box, but I had to go into my office today and can't keep a close eye on her. If she goes back to being broody, I'll probably go this route, although it's already down into the 30s at night here (Seattle) and I'm not sure this is the greatest time to introduce a chick to the flock. We have one chicken who goes broody constantly. You have to really be diligent about collecting eggs because some switch goes off if she gets more than 2 in the same spot. My broody chickens usually come out of it within the week if I take the eggs away and chase them out a few times a day. I've never had problems with them losing too much weight or anything, they DO get picked on though. The other chickens don't like the crazy broodiness. And speaking of turkeys, trying to take eggs away from a broody 20 pound turkey was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life.
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Nov 4, 2011 19:33
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Came home and checked on her: she seems to be doing just fine, wandering around the run with everyone else.
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Nov 4, 2011 20:54
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Well I decided to put Spaghetti back in the run with the Godzilla, Megatron, and Rusty. I put Roostroyer and Dust the stray hen outside of the run because Roo would try to mate with Spaghetti and she's still very thin and she's also scared of him; Dust is true to her gamey mutt blood and she's the head hen, so she tends to harass Spaghetti, who is also really scared of her(funny thing, when Dust is not around, Spaghetti is the head hen). She eats much better now, and while I can still see that she isn't digesting all that she eats (can still see some semi-digested grass in her poop), her poop is much more solid, she's active and does forage when I'm outside with her, or when she's hanging out with the other chickens. She's still very underweight, I don't know how long it will take her to gain her weight back, but at least she's pretty much back to normal and eating on her own. I'm kinda concerned that she doesn't digest grass and scratch that well, but there isn't much more I can do at this point .
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Nov 5, 2011 21:51
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coyo7e posted:Is Jerry a male or female? Male domesticated turkeys can get huuuuge. We grew three turkeys one year (2 hens and a tom) and butchered them leading up to Thanksgiving and Christmas. The first hen dressed out at 21 lbs and she beat the poo poo out of me while I tried to hold her wings down and my dad lopped her with the axe. The second hen, we wrapped in duct tape to keep her wings from thrashing us, she also was over 20 lbs. The tom.. Oh god..! Here's Jerry with some of his children....he's a great daddy. 
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Nov 8, 2011 20:29
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meriruka posted:Here's Jerry with some of his children....he's a great daddy. Awww that's adorable! I just saw today one of the stray hens in our backyard, eating Spaghetti's food. I hope she shows up tomorrow so I can try and lure her to the garage and catch her. There were three left, but lately I have only seen this brown one still roaming around, I have no idea what happened to the other 2.
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Nov 8, 2011 20:33
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meriruka posted:Here's Jerry with some of his children....he's a great daddy. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one thinking  , what with Thanksgiving in a couple weeks and all...
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Nov 8, 2011 21:21
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daggerdragon posted:I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one thinking I did think that too, but once food has a name, it's hard for me to think of eating Jerry...
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Nov 8, 2011 23:28
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Hey chicken folks I hope this isn't too off-topic, but can you help me identify this chicken I ran into in a meadow   It was pretty big and territorial seemin
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Nov 9, 2011 00:26
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HappyIceCuber posted:Hey chicken folks I hope this isn't too off-topic, but can you help me identify this chicken I ran into in a meadow Isn't that chicken a Light Brahma? Like Chido's Roostroyer (see photos on the past few pages of this thread). Also, Jerry the tom turkey is so handsome and his kids are adorable! :3
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Nov 9, 2011 00:59
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HappyIceCuber posted:Hey chicken folks I hope this isn't too off-topic, but can you help me identify this chicken I ran into in a meadow
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Nov 9, 2011 01:41
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meriruka posted:Here's Jerry with some of his children....he's a great daddy. I want to pet Jerry so bad. He looks so soft. I have never seen such a beautiful turkey. Most of my experience is with wild ones, and they tend to be quite ugly.
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Nov 9, 2011 01:50
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HappyIceCuber posted:Hey chicken folks I hope this isn't too off-topic, but can you help me identify this chicken I ran into in a meadow Looks like Light Brahma to me, too. From page 5: Chido posted:Specially Roostroyer Also:  Okay, I'm done.
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Nov 9, 2011 03:46
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, and half of his body is pure fluff.
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Tendai posted:I don't know why, but it's cracking me up that you're visibly pointing to it. "THAT chicken, PI. That one right there." Well it was smack in the middle of a meadow where chickens shouldn't be  I was just sittin' with my buddy, doing some solar hits when this rooster thing starts making coos at us and like circles us for the whole time we were there. I thought it was gonna peck the poo poo out of me.
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Nov 9, 2011 03:47
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daggerdragon posted:Looks like Light Brahma to me, too. From page 5: It seems to be a light brahma cockerel, they look big and mean, but they are pretty tame. then again roosters tend to be more aggressive, but in general the breed is really calm. My nieces can grab Roostroyer and pretty much do whatever they want with him, and even play with his wattles and I have yet to see him try to peck them or show any aggression. He's a big baby still .Here's a better picture of Roostroyer at 7 months:  Me holding him (I'm an overweight, 5'4" Mexican lady for size comparison).  Roo doing his sexy walk.  Lookit those wattles soo cute 
Chido fucked around with this message at 06:30 on Nov 9, 2011 |
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Nov 9, 2011 06:26
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Chido posted:Here's a better picture of Roostroyer at 7 months: drat, I remember when everyone was watching the stream of him crawling out of his egg. He's a BIG BOY now. And he looks so puffy.
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Nov 9, 2011 06:45
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I can't wait till I live somewhere that I can have a rooster. I want to get the prettiest, fluffiest rooster there is! I don't want our neighbors to hate us too much so we'll deal with just having hens. Has anyone ever dealt with people that don't understand the difference between the words chicken, hen, and rooster? I'm always amazed how many people don't understand the relationship between them. Didn't they have barnyard animal books when they were kids?
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Nov 9, 2011 13:07
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Alterian posted:Has anyone ever dealt with people that don't understand the difference between the words chicken, hen, and rooster? I'm always amazed how many people don't understand the relationship between them. Didn't they have barnyard animal books when they were kids? It's amazing how many people don't understand that a rooster is a male chicken. One of my husband's co-workers thought they were different species completely, and we live in a fairly rural area of N.H. where there are lots of people that raise chickens. There's also tons of people who think chickens won't lay eggs if there isn't a rooster around.
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Nov 9, 2011 17:00
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| # ? Apr 23, 2024 15:28 |
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My mom owned chickens back in the 70s or so.   Not entirely sure how many she had, but the group included a rather mean rooster. Whenever I move out somewhere that has space, I'm totally getting chickens of my own.
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Nov 9, 2011 17:16
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