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I've got two kelly. c 0 ckrell head and dusty. and dusty is a big bantom - he seems to be able to mount the RIR i have haha so i have some bantom X RIR and any roosters will end up in the pot...eather mine or my neighbours or both - he's going to show me how to "dress" them when they get big enough.
Lol he must be a big rooster for a bantam lol!!
Girls coped well in the heat. They had their beaks open a bit and hung their wings down. They sat in the shady in areas and I took iced water out to them which they loved.
They have settled down nicely with the new additions. The leghorn which initially was the smallest has helped my Australorp go off being clucky..Yay!!
So we now have 1 Australorp, 1 Ancona, 1 Rhode Island Red, 1 Leg Horn and 1 Isa Brown. The Isa is so tame, she will come up to me and DD to be patted. She will almost jump into our laps.
They are all off the lay at the moment, the Ancona was the dominant one while the Australorp was clucky, now the Ancona seems to have gone to the bottom pecking order, taken up with the Isa (older of the new ones) while the Australorp takes the Rhode Island and Leg Horn as her own...funny creatures.
Thats a very complicated social circle, lol. Girls can be such funny things sometimes :p
he is a good size - its funny but i know c 0 ckrell head is his father so he must have got it from his mum LOL
My girls have been panting away too with their wings hanging i feel so bad for them - yesterday it got to 48 - in the shade and thats not my temp four other neighbours had the same (we dont have one yet, lol) i'm lucky as thus far i havent lost one - where as a neighbour (who breeds them kinda) lost 10 in three days from heat :(
two days down 5 more to go of this stupidly stupid heat
3 chicks gone today, bitter sweet really!
Going to keep 2 & get rid of the rest then try our luck breeding once the boy/s (??? If they are boys) get bigger.
Had a lady ask for the last 6 :( but :)
aww :( i have a few roo's this time around... just waiting to see is they are roo's or not...i'll be putting some on the table/dog meat this time around...might be getting some ducks down the track too - my neighbour has two that hopefully will be a breeding pair.
Is there any benefit for growing cucumbers and pumpkins in their run?:
keeps the bugs away from them and fertlise them too...
wow that is great! Isn't nature clever ;):
naww we lost a chook to the heat :(
Badit - my fav one too :( :(
seeing as its total fire ban for the next few months i've taken a bunch of her feathers to cremate in our first bonfire.... and make a smudge wand out of too..
and monday c o ckrell head will lose his head and go into a pot for soup...(hes getting old and i think wont last next winter) then it'll just be dusty rooster.
That said we have another three chicks hatched and more to go...so thats something....
:( Hun. We lost one this week too.
Had her in the shower resting up but looks like she got a respiratory infection, she wouldn't eat or drink and lost too much weight we had to put her out of her misery.
Chicken hotel guests:
Isa's / Backyard Crosses
Penelope
Charcoal
Rockstar
Silkie
Elina
Old English Game
Bella
9wk chicks (believed to be roo's)
Tiny
Patch
Bernard (If its a boy)
The other 8 chicks were given away last week.
OMG went down to my chook shed the other day to see a very big tiger snake slither between the chook wire/reo and the corregated iron we have.
It was very un-nerving to say the least. My poor girls couldnt get out of their coop quick enough
So i did what everyone should do and got out of there real quick.
Went back hours later after we got home and no sign of it, so i got the jet hose on and tried to fill up the dirt hole i saw it curl up in, to try and get the hole to collapse!
Rang the snake catcher and he said to lay some bird netting to catch it and then call him if it gets trapped.
also chook coops are like 5 star hotels for snakes- so please be careful everyone!!!!!!
apparently he said its not usual to go out and find a snake curled up under a chook for warmth!!!! OMG
chooks and snakes can live together, but if the snake get picked on and angered by the chooks, it will bite and will kill them!!!!
So now i call out before i get to my girls to make sure they are OK and carry a shovel with me at all times when i am in the coop!
dont know if I would be quick enough with a shovel to protect myself, but hey the theory is there!!
so please be careful in your chook houses in this weather- have an exrta look before you stick your hand in to get eggs too!!!
No more egg collecting for my kids for a while!!!!! Look like its back to just me doing it
Wow diva det...scary stuff!
Need some advice..
I introduced 3 new chickens a while back. The younger ones have settled in fine with my existing girls. The problem is one of the new ones, my gorgeous Isa is being absolutely bullied by the original ladies.
Today she was being attacked, I heard it, by the time I got there she was on top of the coop and jumped into our back yard.
I have left her out as the older two seem to really have a nasty thing for her.
What is the best plan? Do I put her back and let them sort it out? Do I keep her separate?
It has gotten worse over the last week or so, it was OK before.
I dont usually post in here BUT my sister had a chicken have a fit and die on her tonight while I was on the phone with her! She doesnt have net access till tomorrow and is a little worried it might be contagious. She has fresh hatched chicks to take care of! She txtd me the following description about what happened:
Pasty yellow poo, general lethargy for a day or 2, picking at feet yest. No sign of egg bound, but acting same way as egg bound chicken that died. No obvious signs of injury.appeared 2b drinking. Chicken is old as anything. The boys said she was dying, and had a cut on her leg just before she fitted and died. She curled her neck in and fitted for a few seconds before dying. I suspect old age or egg bound, maybe both. Or infection somewhere i didn't see.
She also mentioned this:
I found maggots in their nesting box this week too.. When i cleaned It. Under all the hay. My bad for being neglecting, been so busy i missed my usual clean out
Any ideas what it could be or if it is dangerous for her chicks??
She just sent me this too:
Also we had been getting weird eggs, egg pimples, big, cone shaped. Could be from her, showing her reproduction was going haywire
We got our two ladies - Lolly (DD4yr named her) and Princess Leia (DH named her, who is a fan of a pun and star wars haha). Princess has started laying eggs which is awesome! But we are having a huge issue with their plastic feeders (they hand from the roof) as they keep falling down/being knocked over as I see them jumping over them all the time and I am losing so much feed!
Has anyone installed a feed silo like the ones on chooknet. There is make it yourself one.
well we now have two ducks - Scarlowie and Splash.
I have to build a duck-hut for them this weekend. they're so cute. boy and girl. heh.
Chooks are going well, another two roosters will be off towards the pot soon (neighbours friend takes them)
Hows every one elses feathered babies going?
well we now have two ducks - Scarlowie and Splash.
I have to build a duck-hut for them this weekend. they're so cute. boy and girl. heh.
Chooks are going well, another two roosters will be off towards the pot soon (neighbours friend takes them)
Hows every one elses feathered babies going?
Feathered babies going well. Three on the lay and two just thinking about it. One of my hens started with a bantam sized egg and then stopped. So I am waiting for her to come back to lay.
No Mel...we looked at the chooknet style feeders and waters. As we only have 5 hens they were not worth our while and suit our current housing and feeding system.
Our Leghorn is so frosty and flighty, does not mingle well at all with the rest. She is a loner and very smart, I have to heard her in at night as the other night, I locked the chooks up after dark and assumed they were all in asleep only to find her up and about in the morning. My DH thought I hadn't locked them up properly, then I set him straight explaining she must have been asleep elsewhere.
Chook update:
Isa's / Hylines:
Penelope - our only original girl
Charcoal
Rockstar
Elina the silkie
Bella the OEG
Patch the rooster :dance:
5 new babies (silkies or silkie cross) - 2 black, 2 partridge & 1 silver / grey.
Bernard & tiny went walk abouts. :(
Will upload pics to an album soon... Chicks are soooo cute, DP's uncles mate gave them to the girls.
Well it has been ages since I posted in here wanting to get chooks. Since then I have gotten heaps of trios. I have anconas, Australorps, buff and light Sussex. I have partridge brahmas and three pekins plus a little partridge silkie. I also got some silver appleyards ducks. Full sized, and last week I got four little call ducks. A drake and three little girls Most of the ducks have names, but most of the chooks don't yet.
Because most of them I have hatched myself, they are at oldest 6 months old. I have also bought pol chooks, but still waiting for my first eggs. I have been told my Australorps, are likely to start 28-32 weeks. So anyway now. But man the waiting is hard!!!
3677. Here are my calls
3678
And a group shot of the menagerie. :). It isn't all of them. But I now have 20 chooks and 11 ducks ;). It is seriously addictive!
set up the duck run... blardy boofhead got splash. a mad FB BSS call out and i got another - older male on monday called Dash (as he is Dashingly handsom) he's a brown mac-someting duck and scarlowie will be white.
Took a day for them to be "paired up" but now are both snuggled in their duck hut!
chooks are going well... culled out a few more roosters over the weekend - soon i'll be putting one in the pot for myself i think. i need to start eating what i grow from the chooks - a step closer to self relisance. (i will not be eating baby ducks though lol)
Oh no Dansta but yay for finding a friend.
Girls are living the chicks!
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/13/04/12/a5abujeg.jpg
Spot resting on my arm.
Oh that little chicken is super cute Zara!
Will update pics of the chicks & patch the rooster soon.
Looking at getting 5 ex battery hens from Edgar's mission on Sunday, they are trying to adopt out 800 hens... How sad!
Will quarantine them in a desperate room in the shed for a few weeks before putting them with the girls.
Can't wait to see them fatten up & enjoy some sun, grass & fresh air.
3759 some of my little pekins.
A 3760 and a few from my flock.
I got 6 eggs today! Pretty stoaked! Looking forward to putting some in the incubator. I have 23 chooks (6 roosters). And I have 11 ducks of those 2 are drakes :). Gone crazy I know!
Aww your perkin reminds me of a girl i lost over summer 'bandit'.
My two ducks are going well. They get so excited when they get fed!
Chooks are good. Lostva chook tonight dunno why.
But no eggs mine have esther gone off the lay or laying else where...
Oh no! Poor bandit. I think I recall hearing you mention her. :(. We have a dingo hanging about. I haven't seen him on our property, but the neighbors on three sides have seen him. So he is probably out there waiting a chance. Touch wood so far we haven't lost any to foxes or dingos. Well I say that, but we lost two ducks to something in feb. no idea what. When we locked the ducks up at night we stopped loosing them.
Been a while since I popped in.
The ducks sound adorable, Dansta.
Our new chicken we bought last month started laying last week and she's encouraged the others to come back into the coop. So after weeks of nothing, had enough eggs finally!
Our new chicken also thinks she's a dog, she's so friendly it's ridiculous. I've tripped over her several times already. She loves being stroked and patted. She follows me around as soon as I go out the front. After a few days they all settled in pretty well together.
I got 6 eggs yesterday and two today. Pretty happy with that! Can't wait till I have enough to incubate! Yay!
No eggs for me! Lol
Only had a dog and a hawk take some chooks and a,rat too. Seen one fox but he bolted im contemplateing looking into a firearm licance for such pests lucky for me the dog seems to keep them safe. Our chooks n ducks are locked up each night
Danita, ours are locked up each night too. Right now we are dealing with rats eating holes in our cages. Plenty of room for snakes atm :(. I caught three baby rats in a live trap last night. Gonna see if there are any more in the am. I suppose that means I have to drown them tho. That seems to be a sad choice. But what else can you do? They have started breeding like crazy, and you can tell the ducks prefer outside rather than inside atm.
my ducks have a "run" atm until we get our veggie patch happening and fenced right in -and pegged down. then they'll have the space to roam in there.. and they're crazy. its like 0ºc outside and they're sitting in their water?! crazy. I have a white girl and a boy with a green shiney head (clueless as to breeds ha much like chooks...they're all "mungrel" chooks at my place)
With the rats im tempted to ask a friend if he and her hubby will come around and let some ferrits go in the shed and find them - the dog can smell them but cant find them KWIM? I'll have my boofhead by my side when i move some tin.. i think they hide under there...thats where boof caught one mid-run.
AFM : my chooks are annoying they are NOT laying >.< i want eggs for scrambled/fried eggs on toast!! cheeky things. they get grain/layer pallots and the ducks get layer pallots and house scraps. but i know my little scarlowy duck is too young to lay - she's not quite got a red bill yet and wouldnt even be 6 months old yet. but they're cute i empty out their water once every two days and they get soo excited by it!! cant wait till we have a bigger water space of them - figure i can fill the bath (that i hope i can get lol) up with water and then every 3days use the contents of it to water the veggies and fill it up again for the ducks..
You learn something new every day.... Seems my boy patch is doing his job.
Shane I don't have a broody yet!
Help! We added 3 new hens to our current 4 about 2-3 months ago and they are still getting badly picked on. Like grabbing the wings and hanging on to them. Aggressive pecking. Besides two seperate coops, any ideas?
Not much laying going on here either with the cold. Usually one egg per day, 2 if lucky.
You could try taking the dominant hens out for a day or two and then reintroducing them. Sometimes works. Needs to be 24 hrs plus. I would take out anyone who is picking on: