NY chicken lover!!!!

[Chicken girl 15]

I figured you may have put it in the soup pot by now. My bad, thought I sent you a pm awhile ago but I don't see it so must have not went through , made a trip to Binghamton. We pretty much haven't had any time for anything except that day.
I'm working 12hr shifts this week. Maybe Sun, or following week, weekend, maybe quick stop day of chickenstock.
We'd like to take the kids to see that baby giraffe and all sometime, not sure when DW plans on it. Our 4yr old is going the end of the month for a pre-school class trip.
Do you still have a need or want for some naked necks still? I hatched 13 on Easter.

i still have Chubb she is sweet as can be. If you dont want her no biggie.

 

[baunlee]

i have multiple breeds of roosters just that the man looking only wants bcm.

Half the time, I hatch bcm males but live 4 hours away (WNY) so not really any help to you LOL how desperate is he?!


If the answer is very- then I will try to sex the bcm chicks I have now by next week, and throw one at you out my car window on my way to NYC (going there to graduate; driving because idk why). (JK about throwing birds out windows). Its a long shot for a few reasons haha because they are often harder to sex compared to other birds. I heard someone advertising sex linked bcms but Idk how is that really possible? Maybe I need to re-google what sex link even means because I was too tired to get into the science when I pulled up the page. To me sex linked always meant like a legbar where you can tell --at hatch-- but again i'm fully ignorant of the term.

 

[Chicken girl 15]

Half the time, I hatch bcm males but live 4 hours away (WNY) so not really any help to you LOL how desperate is he?!


If the answer is very- then I will try to sex the bcm chicks I have now by next week, and throw one at you out my car window on my way to NYC (going there to graduate; driving because idk why). (JK about throwing birds out windows). Its a long shot for a few reasons haha because they are often harder to sex compared to other birds. I heard someone advertising sex linked bcms but Idk how is that really possible? Maybe I need to re-google what sex link even means because I was too tired to get into the science when I pulled up the page. To me sex linked always meant like a legbar where you can tell --at hatch-- but again i'm fully ignorant of the term.

he actually wants a roo not a cockerel. He needs it for breeding.

I do love the throw him out the window idea. Think its possible to catch him in a net? Lol

 

[boskelli1571]

Hi all, sad to report our first 'sudden death' of an older hen. Miss Pearl our Plymouth Rock was one of the original pair of chickens we got as a young chick 3+ years ago, and she was in charge of our little flock of 4. Even when our second pair of chickens were added a year later, and grew bigger than her, a smart peck on the head soon reminded them who was in charge around here!

Here she is at 3 months



She had bags of personality and was always front of the pack if I got home when they were out free ranging to run up to me and cock her head as if I was going to magically produce some scratch or other treat from my pocket!



She has been a great egg producer, laying almost daily, even through the winter (and we don't use lights) since she was 4 months old. Recently I had noticed she seemed a little skinny, bony feeling on her chest when I picked her up, and despite being fed layers pellets, and my adding free choice oyster shell, was always trying to pull eggshells out of the compost bin. Recently her eggs also changed from their usual shape to being almost the same width all the way down......



Putting all these things together, I'm now wondering if she may have had some kind of cancer? She was fine one day, eating, drinking, laying - then dead in the coop the next. Unfortunately she passed away while I was back in the UK visiting family, and my husband disposed of her body (he did check if she was egg bound, but she wasn't) so no way to do any kind of autopsy to look for a problem. I do not believe it was anything contagious, it's been more than a week now and our other 3 chickens are fine.

The remainder of our mini flock are Sylvia a Brown Leghorn who we got at the same time as Pearl, so she's 3, Fern, our Silver Laced Wyandotte, and Fern our Partridge Rock, who came from Nature Berry Farm and are now aged 2 years.

I could do with some advice on a replacement bird(s), obviously adding a younger chicken is what I'm thinking, however, I'm not desperate to raise tiny chicks. I'm wondering about trying to find an older bird(s) 2-6 months. I have an adjacent pen and a small ark that I can use for a temporary quarantine set up, and then move to the main area for a 'look but don't touch' introduction.

Would this be too stressful for a single bird, should I look at getting a pair? I think our coop could accommadate 5 birds.

I had a few thoughts about new birds, but do not have specific breeds in mind (I thought Catskill Homesteaders may be a good fit, but due to incubator problems no birds available at the moment) hence my appeal to this group. Nature Berry Farm has closed down, and the neighbor I got my original 2 chickens from lost the rest of her flock to a fox. So I'm hoping someone out there may be looking to sell a few young birds.

Wish List - with just 4 birds, it's been great to try and track who is laying and how frequently, Sylvia gives us white eggs, and Pearls were a darker brown, sadly the younger 2 actually lay almost identical color eggs, but slightly different shapes so I can tell them apart. So I'd like the new addition(s) to lay something that looks different, maybe an olive, blue or green egg, or something very dark, or speckled. Here's what the current colors look like:


I also hadn't realized, until this week without her, how much I relied on Pearl's white coloring to find the gang when they were free ranging in the scrubby areas of our garden - the 3 dark ones disappear now once they get in the bushes. So I'd like to add a different color bird(s) maybe lighter, like buff or lavender coloring, or another white one.

I'd welcome any advise from the group, although we lost a week old chick that we'd had for just a few days before, this is our first time losing an adult hen that we've spent time with on a daily basis, for 3+ years and I miss that boss lady getting 'in my face'



I'm not able to make it to Chickenstock, I live 3+ hours drive away, between Buffalo and Warsaw, and have to work that Saturday until early afternoon, so couldn't get there till everyone was already heading home. I am willing to come and pick up birds if anyone within a few hours of Bflo has anything available. Sorry this is a long post, so I'll summarize my questions....

One bird or two - given it/they will spend time in quarantine pen initially?
Suggestions for breeds that could help the 'eye candy' aspect of our mini flock, lighter color for spotting when out free ranging, and different egg color to what we already have would be nice, not too flighty, and would fit with our existing breeds OK
Does anyone have anything suitable, female 2 - 6 months

Thanks all

I'm with Tao chick, a pair would be better. I have a pair of silver Spitzhauben that I could sell you. They are 1 year old now and laying well. The reason I'm willing to part with them is that I find them a bit 'high strung'. They are quite raucous at times and do not like to be picked up, although they will come and check out treats

. I prefer quieter birds.......let me know.

 

[Beer can]

i still have Chubb she is sweet as can be. If you dont want her no biggie.

I need need need one from somewhere. Wish I already had one.

 

[Beer can]

Not sure if it was mentioned on this thread but in case somebody hasn't heard BYC is going to be down a few days I think starting tomorrow morning?
And come back different.

 

[Chicken girl 15]

Not sure if it was mentioned on this thread but in case somebody hasn't heard BYC is going to be down a few days I think starting tomorrow morning?
And come back different.

grrr why mess up whats not broken!?

 

[Pyxis]

grrr why mess up whats not broken!?

The platform that BYC is hosted on is not going to exist soon, so they're moving over onto the same platform that the sister sites are on. It's gonna take a few days, so they're going to put BYC into read only mode while they move it. Nifty has said that he often can't tell whether he's on the new testing site or the live one sometimes when he's checking on things, so I don't think it'll be too different. There will be some new things though like trophies.

 

[Chicken girl 15]

The platform that BYC is hosted on is not going to exist soon, so they're moving over onto the same platform that the sister sites are on. It's gonna take a few days, so they're going to put BYC into read only mode while they move it. Nifty has said that he often can't tell whether he's on the new testing site or the live one sometimes when he's checking on things, so I don't think it'll be too different. There will be some new things though like trophies.

as long as we have it back in time to get everyone here on the 20th.

 

[Pyxis]

as long as we have it back in time to get everyone here on the 20th.

We could also start a thread on Backyard Herds if we needed to, a lot of BYC people are creating accounts there for the few days the site will be down