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Chickens!

#81
Yup!
Ain't she purty?!
And she calmly walked across the front of the classroom so that all 40 of the hushed kindergarteners could get a good look!
Then she jumped up on a table...poopy feet and all...so that the kids could get an even Better look!
I lifted her up from the table and put her back in her chicken/cat carrier!
Whole program took about 5 minutes.
I couldn't have scripted it any better! :thumbsup:
 
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#82
the harp unstrung said:
View attachment 861903 View attachment 861902 I will always connect this first generation of chicks to my cancerous prostate surgery. We stopped and brought these peeps home 7 days after I got cut.
Renovating this 20 yr old coop is the first thing of any consequence I've done in the wake of being punctured...and, as much time as I spent locking this sucker down using hardware cloth, I came to know more about being punctured than I wanted to.
The girls have already named 3 of the 6...the others are mine to name...2 black ones and one Red Star. Suggestions are welcome.
Here...toward the end of the day...this project has been very good for me, and to me.
I can feel my blood pressure go down as I walk down the slope toward the bottom of our yard...:thumbsup:
Click to expand...

I have been revisiting this thread and checking out your coop photos for design ideas before I build my next one.
 
#83
Thanks!
It really has worked out beautifully...
We bought the shell of it from a young lady with whom I used to Teach...her husband built it from scratch!
All I did was secure it to the best of my ability...I had NO idea what a racoon's imagination or tenacity was capeable of...:eek:...I just knew that I didn't want to wake up to a hrbcat type debacle!
The only thing that's changed since I took those pictures...and it changed immediately after taking those shots...is that the maroon 'bridge' across the run, right in front of the laying box, is MUCH sturdier. It was always intended for the girls to climb up on to harvest the eggs. The wimpy plywood path/stand was replaced right away with a chunk of 2x8...plenty strong enough for even my fat arse to stand on! :woot:

I'd be happy to send some more pictures along, if that might help... :thumbsup:
 
#84
Chicken update:

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- Chicks are about six weeks old.

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- one of our older hens was positively MAULED in a mob pecking attack in one of the coops. When I discovered her, the entire top of her head had been pecked off with giant flaps of skin hanging over her eyes. I thought her brain was going to fall out, but the skull was intact. I cleaned her up and she has started healing up remarkably well, although she looks like a turkey vulture now.

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- our newest rooster, in front of coop #2 that I built out of scraps a couple of weeks ago.
 
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#85
Also: I had an opportunity to intervene in my first cock fight on Saturday morning when I mismanaged my coops and wound up with both roosters in the yard. They immediately started fighting to the death until I managed to move the battle into position in front of the main coop. While they were distracted, I used a shovel to gently hockey-slap the smaller rooster straight into the open door before he even knew what happened. Poor guy was enraged that I threw in the towel on his behalf before he was ready, but I was not in the mood to lose my favorite rooster in a morning mud slop.
 
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#86
bolophonic said:
I have been revisiting this thread and checking out your coop photos for design ideas before I build my next one.
Click to expand...

Roll-away nests. You can buy 'em, you can build 'em, you want 'em. MHO. And no, I don't mean a mile-long conveyer belt. Just a nest that either rolls them out the back outside for easy collection and less poop on them, or back and then forward to a covered collection area in front. Prevents egg eating behaviors as well.
 
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#88
Update: our brood from the incubator is all grown up now and some of them have gone wild and live in the trees! The rest are in with the other birds.

One of the logistical issues that finally came due was what to do with all the roosters (we had nine). A friend came over last week and showed my son and I how to process them, so we wound up with five of them ready to go on the grill today! The other ones are free ranging and we'll see if I even wind up catching any of them.
 
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#89
Catching chickens is no easy task :chicken:

Last week a pair of friends going out of town for 3 weeks had a bunch of other folks going over to "feed the dogs", but when I got there just before darkness started to fall, their list included feeding the 3 cats, a snake, a turtle, & getting the chickens in the coop at nightfall. Being as they weren't ready to go in, I had to singlehandedly chase 7 little cluckers around their run, until they all eventually ran into their pen.

Here's a couple of them giving me the hairy eyeball before i went in, as I tried to explain to them that they needed to go inside now. :laugh:

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#90
catcauphonic said:
Catching chickens is no easy task :chicken:

Last week a pair of friends going out of town for 3 weeks had a bunch of other folks going over to "feed the dogs", but when I got there just before darkness started to fall, their list included feeding the 3 cats, a snake, a turtle, & getting the chickens in the coop at nightfall. Being as they weren't ready to go in, I had to singlehandedly chase 7 little cluckers around their run, until they all eventually ran into their pen.

Here's a couple of them giving me the hairy eyeball before i went in, as I tried to explain to them that they needed to go inside now. :laugh:

View attachment 2450265
Click to expand...
If it's not getting dark yet, it's not chicken bedtime yet. Well-behaved chickens will head in all by themselves at or slightly before dusk. Their ancestors that did not have that habit got eaten rather than making more chicks. Next time, try feeding everything else first, and then see where the birds is at.
 
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#93
T_Bone_TL said:
If it's not getting dark yet, it's not chicken bedtime yet. Well-behaved chickens will head in all by themselves at or slightly before dusk. Their ancestors that did not have that habit got eaten rather than making more chicks. Next time, try feeding everything else first, and then see where the birds is at.
Click to expand...
i did save them for last after feeding the other aminals. It was barely starting to dusk, so I lured about 4 of the 7 in with food. Ran around the coop a few times while flapping my wings & chasing the other 3, until one by one by one they went in. Plus another that wandered out while I was chasing the other 3. And then I took their eggs :)
 
#97
We picked up four new pullets last week. A Salmon Faverolle (the small pale yellow one), a Blue Laced Wyandotte (brown with blue insets in her feathers), a Buff Orpington (larger darker yellow) and a Welsummer (darker brown with light brown neck feathers). You can see our Easter Egger and Black Laced Wyandotte in the background of some of the pictures.

The Faverolle is pretty adventuresome and is not always together in the mini-pack of 4. The Buff is missing some tailfeathers so she might be the low gal in the pecking order, but we had a Buff that died and she was my favorite, they have the sweetest personalities. The Wyandotte is pretty and knows it, she reminds me of our older Black Laced Wyandotte. The Welsummer rooster is on the Corn Flakes box; our hen seems pretty easy going.

We got a second coup for the four new birds but they seem to like the old coop with the 2 older gals. They all fit now, but probably won't when the little girls grow up, so we will move them to the new coop every night until they get the hang of it.

The old girls are not sure what to make of the newcomers but they do like the pullet feed better than their scratch.

No eggs yet from the new girls, but the old girls are still cranking out 4 or 5 a week each. I've mentioned before that getting chickens was my wife's idea. But I am really enjoying them as pets. Whoever said that chickens are the gateway livestock is absolutely correct. We can only have 6 in my city so we are at the limit, may need to add some goats next.

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#98
Johnny Crab said:
Congrats, good looking bunch!
Our 6 have been producing 4 to 6 eggs per day for over a year....with a minor downturn when we had freezing weather during last "winter".

GOATS??!!! You might never get to mow your lawn again and other debris may also "disappear" with one or more goat.
Click to expand...

Thanks.

I got into some nasty rash-producing vines over the holiday and spent some time clearing out some thorny wild rose bushes which laughed at my leather gloves. I should have gotten goats last year. :facepalm:
 
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