[The Shire] Our growing flock!

[MROO]

... last year our winter was HARSH. We don't want any younger birds to be subjected to a potentially tough winter, even though we'll have heated waterers/power in the coops/etc.

I'm just one state north of you, in Maryland, and you're spot on in your "feel" for last winter ... it was a BEAR! I didn't think the cold or the wet was ever going to let up! Heaven help us if Mother Nature does that to us again. If she does, she'd better include real snow. That was the one redeeming factor of last winter's cold. For the first time in decades, we got fairly consistent snowfalls of 3-6" without any overwhelming "dumps." After so many years of month-long ice slicks, it was kinda nice!
And I have to agree with you on the heated waterers. I never realized how much I needed them - not for the birds' comfort ... for MINE!

 

[newchickychick]

I'm just one state north of you, in Maryland, and you're spot on in your "feel" for last winter ... it was a BEAR! I didn't think the cold or the wet was ever going to let up! Heaven help us if Mother Nature does that to us again. If she does, she'd better include real snow. That was the one redeeming factor of last winter's cold. For the first time in decades, we got fairly consistent snowfalls of 3-6" without any overwhelming "dumps." After so many years of month-long ice slicks, it was kinda nice!
And I have to agree with you on the heated waterers. I never realized how much I needed them - not for the birds' comfort ... for MINE!

We were snowed in with well over a foot, and had no power for 7 days in a row then on and off for about two more weeks! It was awful! Thankfully we’ve now got a generator, so if we for any reason ended up with surprise chicks or half-incubated eggs that needed to be brought in, we’d be able to safely keep them warm/going. I’m so thankful we didn’t start with chickens last year because that would have been the start and end of it.

I did really appreciate the snow though at least. It was so much nicer than just ice! But keeping ourselves and three cats warm in 20 degrees tops for a week straight with no ability to cook was… interesting. Memories, at least!

 

[newchickychick]

We’re getting in a second desk for the third incubator but I got everything organized for my incubation station in our gaming room. I’ve got shelves and adhesive arriving Saturday so I can hang some posters on the wall too! So excited.

Hubby culled for the first time last night. One of the pioneer broilers was starting to seriously pluck feathers and as he was slowing down, we figured it was time anyhow. Due to the rain, it did not go as smoothly as he intended but he was able to get it done quickly thankfully. Poor thing! We’d had chicken dethawing for dinner and we ended up just getting pizza. I can’t say I would have felt any differently if it had been me. Good excuse to get some pizza. The flock is a LOT more peaceful today because of it. The Polish are so much less skittish. Poor things! I don’t even think it was intentionally malicious on Big Man’s part - I’ve heard a few stories of the broilers being massive feather pickers. But I’m happy we went ahead with it before any of them got seriously hurt with the plucking. One of our Phoenixes is missing some feathers above his tail but it doesn’t look raw at all, so we’re going to do a triple check tonight for mites but we think it was Big Man so hopefully won’t happen again. Another reason to hurry up with setting up our cam in the coop. We’re going to cull the other pioneers this week, then start on the barred rock cockerels outside. We’re still really undecided about the french copper marans. He’s constantly crowing, like any time he sees anything move, but he is not remotely human aggressive so far and after a brief escape escapade, called everyone back into the run and they calmly went back in. So seems to have really good leadership potential. So long as he would get along with our Polish cockerel, Appa, who we got from the breeder, we would love to keep them both. The Marans has been completely peaceful with all the other boys in his current setup, and Appa was raised with all cockerels/roos, so hoping a very slow introduction with lots of space and plenty of ladies would make it work!

 

[thistlewick]

I don't really think crowing is aggressive.

In studies they have found that it's just neighborly behavior amongst roosters letting other roosters know where he is, so they don't bother him and his hens

"Hey I'm here. You stay there"

It's not for us ppl at all.

 

[newchickychick]

I don't really think crowing is aggressive.

In studies they have found that it's just neighborly behavior amongst roosters letting other roosters know where he is, so they don't bother him and his hens

"Hey I'm here. You stay there"

It's not for us ppl at all.

Oh no, I know it isn’t! That was just how I identified him. I’ve talked about him before. We don’t have neighbors who can hear! He’s shown zero signs of aggression so far. He’s just a talker. We originally weren’t going to keep any from that batch but so far he’s looking like he’s got potential to be a good one, so we’re keeping our eyes out in hopes he will be! He’s been really good at keeping everyone in check and is curious about us but not invasive with our space. He doesn’t try to sneak behind us and isn’t flighty when we pick him or any of the pullets up, and definitely did great by pulling everyone in calmly when hubby was ushering him back to the coop! He’s still young so it could change but.

 

[newchickychick]

Twiddling my thumbs as I see the tracking for this shipment hasn't updated since mid-day on the 15th and is due to be delivered tomorrow. Those eggs will seriously be pushing it if they're much later. They were hubby's pick. Our son's pick does get here tomorrow for sure though! Buff Laced Polish with chance of frizzle! Fingers crossed!

 

[newchickychick]

I couldn’t find hubby last night and found out he was outside building a custom brooder for the babies. He knows I was getting annoyed with our kiddie pool brooder setup as the lack of lid was making things tough. (Hello, little escape artists!) I’m so happy and so touched. He’s going to finish it tonight so we can move everyone over. It’s on wheels too! And more spacious than the pools too. (Thank you, plywood boards!) It’s an 8’x8’ which I think will do fine for decently sized chick batches! We’re going to add a partition later that can slide in and out in case of an injured chick (or anything that isn’t contagious that needs separation). That made my whole year that he did that for me!

 

[newchickychick]

Snuck a pic before running out for errands. SO excited!

 

[newchickychick]

Another progress pic I took for fun!

 

[newchickychick]

WOW. Just wow! I wish we'd built a custom brooder from the get-go. What a life saver! No more chaos, no more extreme mess! The chicks love it, and the lid is a bit heavy due to size to lift up, but we've got a propping system up so it's easy toget the waterers/feeders in and out to deal with. I could cry, this is so much nicer! I'm so thankful it'll be much nicer for the babies too. I love them all so much!

The garage got a SORELY needed deep clean. Everything is finally falling MUCH better into place for our chickens.