Chickens V2:

[Sir Sam]

Guess I never posted this here, back in oct a 'coon got my chickens, so I got some new chicks, they should start laying anyday now.

 

Well, we got a good amount of snow yesterday, about a foot to 18 inches of the heavy wet snow. Let the chickens out this morning, if it were not for the food they would have not dared to go out into the evil white stuff.

 

 

Plus some vids:

[-600JeepMJ]

:dunno: so how many times has some one asked you why the chicken crossed the road?

[possum]

Chickens are cool. My grandfather has about 8 Bennies right now. Four of them he rescued from freezing to death. The four he rescued got frostbite in their feet so they fell off. But they scratch and lay and seem just as happy as the others.

[Yesterday's Danish]

I don't have chickens, but I do have a pekin duck. Did you hatch these chickens yourself?

[Wildman]

How come in the 2nd picture.........it looks like a nail sticking in the chicken's head :hmm:

 

Is that one of them 'hammer head' chickens :dunno:

[Sir Sam]

I don't have chickens, but I do have a pekin duck. Did you hatch these chickens yourself?

 

No, got them from a local feed store, which got them as day olds from some hatchery. But I've had them since they were less than a week old.

 

How come in the 2nd picture.........it looks like a nail sticking in the chicken's head :hmm:

 

Is that one of them 'hammer head' chickens :dunno:

 

That like a big 12" nail for landscaping, it's an extra thats been outside for a while now. Good placement for the pic though!

[Dirteatr717]

How come in the 2nd picture.........it looks like a nail sticking in the chicken's head :hmm:

 

Is that one of them 'hammer head' chickens :dunno:

this made me laugh pretty hard :brows: :cheers:

[Yesterday's Danish]

If you get a chance to hatch some chickens give it a shot. It's actually pretty fun. I bought duck eggs from a farm online and borrowed an incubator from my uncle's buddy. After a month my duck was hatched. I got all the info online. Not hard at all and you learn a little bit too. :thumbsup:

[Sir Sam]

If you get a chance to hatch some chickens give it a shot. It's actually pretty fun. I bought duck eggs from a farm online and borrowed an incubator from my uncle's buddy. After a month my duck was hatched. I got all the info online. Not hard at all and you learn a little bit too. :thumbsup:

 

I could see it being that way, but I would also need to get fertile eggs, which I don't have. Plus I can only have 6 chickens(though I have 7 now), so I wouldn't be able to keep them, only give them away after hatching.

 

Plus our very dry weather here makes incubating difficult.

[Squeegy410]

I'm a small scale chicken farmer myself :yes: we have about 20 chickens right now, we get about 14 eggs a day right now and should start getting more once my pullets start laying. we have allot of good chickens. ones one eyed so we call him reuben cogburn (to any john wayne fans :thumbsup: ). I have a baney rooster i bought from tractor supply almost a year ago. hes a gorgeous baney. big feathers on his feet, great coloration, and looks meaner than sin :yes: . I can take some pics if you want just to keep the conversation steamy :rotf: . oh we also have a peacock named sam, two pea hens, and more guineas than i can count. they run free and mingle with the nieghbors so we probobly have around 20 but you can never tell. the peacocks keep the hawks away. i wouldnt screw with a peacock if i was a hawk, those bad dudes are mean looking haha.

[Squeegy410]

dug through the camera and found a few old pictures of the birds :D

This is reuben J (rooster J cogburn :thumbsup: ) hes a cyclops and proboby 6 years old

Next up is T. Pain :rotf: My baney rooster :D One bad dude :yes:

And finally we have Sam. a peacock... his tail feathers are about 3 1/2 feet longer now and still growing rapidly.

[Pete M]

what's the temperament of that peacock?

[Squeegy410]

Oh hes wonderfull :D curios, but not mean at all. he won't quite let you touch him but he'll let you get pretty close. he craps all over the hood of our 95 dually 460 four door ford pickup all the time lol. just that truck, never mine, i guess he likes to crap in luxury :D anyway, he likes to fan out those feathers and run off the cats to steal their food haha. he chases the guineas more than he does the pea fowls. don't understand that :dunno: but oh well. like i said his main advantage is chasing off hawks :cheers:

[Sir Sam]

dug through the camera and found a few old pictures of the birds :D

This is reuben J (rooster J cogburn :thumbsup: ) hes a cyclops and proboby 6 years old

Next up is T. Pain :rotf: My baney rooster :D One bad dude :yes:

And finally we have Sam. a peacock... his tail feathers are about 3 1/2 feet longer now and still growing rapidly.

 

Nice, what breeds of layers do you have?

 

My I've had lots of Easter Eggers in the past, mostly for the novelty of the color. My last group of chickens(who were killed off by a racoon all at once), had one black australorp, 2 barred rocks, and 2 brown leghorns. The brown leghorns were flightly and jumpy, but were decent layers.

 

the barred rocks were pretty funny and had alot of personality, and were good layers, plus I thought they were pretty.

 

The black australorp was a little egg machine, laid an egg every day for 9 months untill she tried to go broody. If I wanted good layers with a calm temperment I would pick black australorps. Great layers(record holder for most eggs laid in a year is a australorp which laid 364 eggs in a year), and will also go broody. You don't see the broodyness is the other high layers like the leghorns.

[Pete M]

what are you doing this time to better protect them from coons?

[Squeegy410]

we have all different breeds. one baney hen whos small but reallllly mean haha, a few dominickers, and alot of red and white hens. i think the red ones are rhode island reds. I'm not so sure about most of em. we buy alot of them from amish people and they come in variety packs :nuts:

[Sir Sam]

what are you doing this time to better protect them from coons?

 

Not forgetting to lock the coop at night.

[Sir Sam]

we have all different breeds. one baney hen whos small but reallllly mean haha, a few dominickers, and alot of red and white hens. i think the red ones are rhode island reds. I'm not so sure about most of em. we buy alot of them from amish people and they come in variety packs :nuts:

 

Ah, do you sell eggs?

 

 

You can buy chicks in bulk form the hatchery - one day when I have a place with land I plan on having a whole mess of chickens, and a whole lot of parts Jeeps floating around.

[Pete M]

what are you doing this time to better protect them from coons?

 

Not forgetting to lock the coop at night.

 

 

I guess that would be an important step. :D

[Squeegy410]

no we don't sell eggs we give them to all of our neighbors and friends. i love having chickens and parts cars laying around everywhere :D we don't have any parts jeeps yet but dad's wanting to sell off alot of the old fords to make room for new toys :D btw I'm not gunna hijack the thread, but we have an explorer motor and tranny we may need to get rid of. pm me if you know who needs one. but back to chickens, the eggs wouldnt sell for much, and we like to give them away :nuts: one guy we give them to has a son in 4h. he brought our eggs and they got top grade and first place :yes:

[Sir Sam]

Well one of the black sex links was checking out the nesting box today, and then was checking out some other places, even went and crawled up under the Z and was hanging out under there.

 

Went back with a flashlight an hour later to see if she laid an egg, no dice, decided to check the nesting box in the coop and sure enough, one tiny, oddly shaped egg!

 

First egg of the new chickens!

It looks like 3 others are very close behind, at this rate it will only be a couple of days before I have breakfast!

 

[Squeegy410]

good looking eggs :D especialy for a pullet :thumbsup: if i get time ill take a pic of some of our eggs :yes:

[Sir Sam]

good looking eggs :D especialy for a pullet :thumbsup: if i get time ill take a pic of some of our eggs :yes:

 

Nope, not bad, but the odd shape makes it seem smaller.

[streetjeep2.5]

We had about 50 laying hens when I was a kid. Had a chicken coup and small yard. HATED cleaning the thing! When the quit laying, they was a stewing! Let some hatch to replace the stewers, and got one that had it's beak crossed, and it's backbone was not in the middle of its back, and remained kinda small, but it fought tooth and nail for it's place even though picked on a lot.

Brother and I were real innovative in naming this chicken .... "crossbeak" .... and she would run to us and stay with us whenever we were out there because we would make the others quit picking on it and kinda cared for it. Never laid eggs, but she became kinda our pet. Only lived a couple of years and found her dead one morning. No injuries, just dead.

Also remember the time a neighbors rooster landed square in my chest feet first and wings flapping when I went into their chicken coup! MAN, that hurt!

[Squeegy410]

Also remember the time a neighbors rooster landed square in my chest feet first and wings flapping when I went into their chicken coup! MAN, that hurt!

 

Thats called getting flogged by a rooster haha. the big spurs on the back of their legs see to it that it hurts. ive sent a rooster across the coup for that several times.. wel i guess every time they did it to me lol. don't kick their head though (they die :doh: ) just kick their chest and theyll eventually get scared and back down :thumbsup: