Love my chickens

[Pygmy]

Noisy, obnoxious damn things...My father in law used to have a flock of them and unfortunately, they spent a lot of time around my house...

Stick to chickens and smaller....Quail are cool and very good to eat...

Keep Crappy around for awhile...A lot of members would like to see pictures of him when he reaches puberty..

[mowin]

18 minutes ago, cynthiafu said:

Oh guys I am jealous.  I love your coops and runs . I built my coop on a base and I get up at 5am every morning and let the chickens out . Sit outside with them for 1 to 2 hours then I go to work  . Then at 330 I let them out again and they are out there till 630 or 7 . The put themselves  to bed I go out and close everything up  .  On that note I just put geese eggs in the incubator  lolol.  Not sure if they will hatch but giving it a shot .  They are harder to hatch out in an incubator.  

And there the catch 22.  Yours free range. They have to love it.  

Mine are in the run at all times.  

It's the give and take of chickenearing.  Is that even a word???? Lol... 

Good luck on the goose eggs.   Had some goose eggs several years ago.  Not to hatch, to fry.  They were good. 

[cynthiafu]

Yes we cooked 2 of them. I wont be keeping them . I will sell them .I have a become a hatchaholic. Lolol

[cynthiafu]

38 minutes ago, mowin said:

And there the catch 22.  Yours free range. They have to love it.  

Mine are in the run at all times.  

It's the give and take of chickenearing.  Is that even a word???? Lol... 

Good luck on the goose eggs.   Had some goose eggs several years ago.  Not to hatch, to fry.  They were good. 

I can only let them out when I am around or I leave max outside with them . The hawks and eagles would get them

[mowin]

1 minute ago, cynthiafu said:

I can only let them out when I am around or I leave max outside with them . The hawks and eagles would get them

I get it.  Good for you to be able to do that.   

I'm too nervous to.  I know they will instinctively go back to the coop, but what if one or two decide the maple tree is more appealing? 

Guess I'm more comfortable with them being cooped up, but I know they would love to be free. 

One good thing about this thread is I'm figuring out ways to expand my run to make the ladies happy. 

[cynthiafu]

 When I want to put them away I feed them bread and call them 

 My husband thinks it is funny but as soon as I start calling them they come running . And I just throw pieces of bread in the coop and.in they go . 

[cynthiafu]

Well guys get you chickens and eggs now.  Just saw a chicken egg farm in Minnesota. Just shut down . They had to lay off 300 people . they killed 61,000 chickens  and sent them to dog food plant ..  so sad . 

[Marion]

Well guys get you chickens and eggs now.  Just saw a chicken egg farm in Minnesota. Just shut down . They had to lay off 300 people . they killed 61,000 chickens  and sent them to dog food plant ..  so sad . 

In all fairness they'd have been slaughtered for human and dog and probably cat food anyways.

Call Me The Teflon Don

[cynthiafu]

Yes but if one goes down more to follow . Prices will jump up . 

[Marion]

Yes but if one goes down more to follow . Prices will jump up . 

Oh for sure prices will definitely increase as well as the scarcity of chicken will increase due to the diminished supply.

Call Me The Teflon Don

[cynthiafu]

And I just saw alot of the hatcheries are not shipping out chicks now because of the slowdown in shipping chicks are dead on arrival.  The 2 day shipping  is taking 3 to 4 days now .

[mowin]

Just spent the day helping build a coop and run for my nephew like the one I built for myself, just bigger. 

He's picking up ten 17 week old pullets on Monday.  $6.00 each.    There a cross between RIR rooster and white leghorns. 

Edited April 24, 2020 by mowin

[Pygmy]

22 minutes ago, mowin said:

Just spent the day helping build a coop and run for my nephew like the one I built for myself, just bigger. 

He's picking up ten 17 week old pullets on Monday.  $6.00 each.    There a cross between RIR rooster and white leghorns. 

SO, are they  going to be skinny red chickens that lay a lot of white eggs, or fat white chickens that lay fewer brown eggs ?

[mowin]

8 minutes ago, Pygmy said:

SO, are they  going to be skinny red chickens that lay a lot of white eggs, or fat white chickens that lay fewer brown eggs ?

I believe the RIR gene is dominant. They will be redish and have light brown eggs. 

But seeing there 17 weeks old, it will only be 3 to 5 weeks before they start paying rent, we'll find out then.

Edited April 24, 2020 by mowin

[TACC]

Learning alot here

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

[cynthiafu]

11 hours ago, mowin said:

Just spent the day helping build a coop and run for my nephew like the one I built for myself, just bigger. 

He's picking up ten 17 week old pullets on Monday.  $6.00 each.    There a cross between RIR rooster and white leghorns. 

That's awesome . 

[cynthiafu]

This is great . It is almost like collecting  guns . Because now I want a chicken that lays blue eggs and olive colored eggs.  

[Moho81]

22 hours ago, cynthiafu said:

Well guys get you chickens and eggs now.  Just saw a chicken egg farm in Minnesota. Just shut down . They had to lay off 300 people . they killed 61,000 chickens  and sent them to dog food plant ..  so sad . 

The grocery store I've been going to has gone from being able to buy 2 cartons of eggs to now only being able to buy 1 carton. 

[Billdogge]

Just got 6 female chicks. Been wanting chickens for years. Love me some eggs! 

 

[phade]

We have bantam cochin eggs arriving today that we will be putting into the incubator. We're moving toward bantams just because they are easier to take care of yet their egg sizes seem to be just fine for us. We have two large fowl chickens left. A chochin and a gold wyandotte, both of whom are pretty laid back. The chochin none of the others messed with; the wyandotte seemed to be at or near the lower end of the pecking order. We do have 4 silkie bantams, two fluer d'uccles, and one old english bantam, separated from the large fowl. We want to try to merge them....a bit nervous dynamics might change but we will see.

Almost put in an order for blue red laced wyandotte but don't really want to have too many large fowl. Probably a next year thing depending on how these bantam cochins go. We cleared out about 7-8 large fowl chickens last week - they went pretty quick suprisingly. Two people cam and got the bunch. I was bummed to get rid of the lavendar orpington but she was at the bottom of the pecking order too and the one person who wanted her, wanted a more laid back bird, of which she was.

Edited April 24, 2020 by phade

[Paula]

2 hours ago, cynthiafu said:

This is great . It is almost like collecting  guns . Because now I want a chicken that lays blue eggs and olive colored eggs.  

I had those, I charged 2.50 for a doz eggs then $3. When I had the Easter eggers I charged 3.50 doz. 

[cynthiafu]

I had bought a bunch of eggs from some one to try and hatch and only 2 hatched  most didnt hatch . The ones I didnt put in the incubator  the neighbor wanted eggs.  He was like why did you color the eggs . I had to explain  to him that  chickens  lay many different  colored eggs it just depends  on the breed .