Poultry Keeping General Discussion #2

[~Kim~]

Once a had a teaspoon size first egg - soo cute!

Yes they're tiny! Nate pops them in the egg holder in the fridge and they fall right through lol.

[Floweryfields]

I suppose if I were a chook I'd want to start off small and work my way up while things stretched out a bit lol!

[Dansta]

hello ladies - just found the new thread

Bandtom eggs can be small enough to fall though egg holders - mine often do (when we get them )

We lost the last of the fuzzbutts last week due to a neiughabours dog. came over with my neighbour and i didnt lock up the chooks. i screamed bloody muder at the dog for a good 5mins and broke down in tears my neighbour is replaceing them with one day old chooks but it still sucks as they where at the stage they'd sit on your sholder/lap and follow you around (i have photos on facebook)

But the other chooks are going well. after that whole caper with casper and the ticks. i've dusted all the girls i just need to get some of that drop on stuff too...just need to re-roof their shed and work out how to make their run safe - so i can let the dog run around as boofhead will chase them- but they die of shock as such (well the chick he caught did)

ZF have you thought about a no-bark muzle? they can still drink n all but not open their mouth wide enough to bite?

[Starfish]

Hi everyone

We got given 2 baby chicks by DD's daycare a few weeks ago, so I thought I'd join this thread, as I have never had chickens before and don't really know what to do.
They are living inside the house at the moment while we build them an outside coop.

I have a few questions:
1) At what age can you tell a hen from a rooster?
2) At what age do they start growing feathers?

I know that they won't be laying any eggs for a while yet...

[Dansta]

the rooster thing - i think is 6months/crowing (and a full comb my cousin told me last night)
feathers - how old are they? they kinda slowly come in. i think mine where...8weeksish when i could see some *real* fethers come in. by 3 months they had them all.

[~ Zarava Flutterby ~]

I think the rooster thing can be easier/harder to determine depending on the breed. Do you know what they are?
You can probably find a bit of info on sexing chicks on google if you know the breed.

They would be so cute. Enjoy!


Sent from my iPhone, more than likely while I should be doing something else!

[Dansta]

the neighbour whoes dog killed the last of the fuzzbutts just dropped around 6 day old chicks...*sniff* a 5ookm round trip he took for them! it baught tears to my eyes when he told me that.

[Jennifer13]

Oh Dansta, how sad for your fuzzbutts, but how nice of your neighbour. Wish whoever's dog is responsible for the loss and injury of our girls had the guts to own up. I confronted the builder down the road after I caught his cross breed once again roaming the streets and asked him but he denied it. Pretty certain it was that dog though. He can give us the $80 it cost us for vet and medication if he likes. Told him to tie up the dog and haven't seen it again. The neighbours whose house they are building loved our chooks and have also asked him and told him to keep the dog tied up. I love dogs, but if I see it wandering the streets again I'm going to have a serious word with the neighbour. I couldn't bear going through that again!

Starfish, we had our baby chicks sexed before taking them home. You could ask if they did that? The chicken ppl for DD1's preschool didn't send home roosters.

[Dansta]

aww jen thats rough. he saw her do it! and was so angry at her it wasnt funny. she got chained up for 4 days and hasnt been around since. i hope that builders dog keeps clear of your place too!!

but i now have 6 baby chickens (sexed also to be female) i've named one monkey - as i had one called chippy that died 'cus of the bardy ticks so this one is monkey as she looks very simmlar! i'm letting DH name one or two of them too as he'd just started to connect with the last two fuzzbutts.
I'm not sure what i'll call this "lot" i was thinking the mottly crew - dunno why but heh. saves time in talking about them!

[~ Zarava Flutterby ~]

Both our injured girls are going so well back in the chicken hotel, both walking, running and feeding well..
OUr silkies seem to be off the lay now and were only getting 1-2 big eggs every 2-3 days so i think winter has well and truly started
DP and I have discussed tinning up some of the chicken hotel to keep them a little warmer, am thinking of tinning the whole of the back 2 rooms and then maybe half of the front room - it will keep them a lot warmer and will make the nesting box area a bit darker, if we do that aswell then i might actually screw some roosts into the back room and 2 lots on half of the front room so they stop roosting on the nesting boxes and crapping all over them.

[peanutter]

QUICK QUESTION:

Does anyone have chickens AND dogs?

In the 'burbs?

We've got a block around 1000 squares, about half of which is out back yard. We have 2 dogs (a westie/bichon frisse and a schnauser/poodle) and we're thinking of getting chickens, and a veggie patch.

TIA

[HotI]

My labrador dogs have always lived peacefully with my chooks. The only prob has been the dogs getting the eggs before us. Alot of other people find they have to seperate them though. Can you build a chook run?

[~ Zarava Flutterby ~]

Ours were living peacefully together (chickens in their paddock & dogs wandering around) until our border collie x kelpie decided her rounding up skills surfaced again
No matter how trust worthy i would still plan on having a dog proof run, if you don't need to use it then great but just in case you do.

[peanutter]

we could build a chook enclosure - I'm guessing we'd need to have the fence go down a little ways into the ground to stop the dogs from digging under it ... ?

[~ Zarava Flutterby ~]

Yeah they say to run a bit of the wire down under ground level... some people say to dig a wider trench and run the wire on an angle away from the fence so if a dog digs they hit the wire and don't try going deeper.. IYKWIM.

I've taken to locking our dogs up when the girls are out in their paddock as we can't see them and Cassie sneaks off.
When the chickens are locked up and the dogs have free range they don't seem interested in going down there at all, but foxes are an issue but we've been lucky so far, might need to dig a trench around the chook shed and lay some wire JIC (we used an old shed & converted it to a chook hotel )

[HotI]

You could try a (dog proof) chicken tractor if you didn't want to build a run.

What are your dogs like? Do you reckon they would attack the chooks?

[Jennifer13]

We keep chickens in the front yard and dogs and veggie patch out the back. Chickens have demolished my lettuce before, so they're separate from my food growing!

Our current dog doesn't bother the chickens at all (but our other girl would have killed them - she died last year), but he would eat their scraps and make himself sick.

We def live in the burbs! Slightly bigger than quarter acre block, house and granny flat take up a bit of space though.

[peanutter]

Not sure ... they have always been very interested in the cat (when we had her) but never attacked her ...

But it sounds like it can work