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Calling all poultry nuts! WHat is going on in your coops? Got those incubators fired up & going? Checking out the poultry catalogs,camiping out in front of the feedstore waiting for the next chick shipment to come in?
Not camped out in front of the local feedstore yet but just trying now to learn more about the best breeds for layers. Got the coop but not the poultry yet.
My girls have started laying again after taking some time off for winter..getting about 1 doz per day now. Gosh it's good to have some "real" eggs for a change
I have Buff Orphingtons..very docile birds, golden brown. The roo has a nice deep crow..not the high pitch shrilly type. Buff's are dual purpose birds (eggs/meat) but I have them for eggs and not meat.
I am sooooo looking forward to having my chickens again! I had a coop in SC with about 35 banties that produced baby chicks and eggs, far more than we could eat or handle. Then we were ordinanced out of my chickens - boy were the neighbors pissed, because they were getting free eggs!
Now we've moved to a place where everyone has them. Since winters here don't end until April, I am thinking about going with Barred Rocks - pretty black and white hens and *****, big brown eggs, and meaty without the leg problems that many meat birds have; plus they will lay all year. I like chickens that are 'homey' - good mamas and like to be around people. The banties were not either! I'm looking at the places online; debating - lessee, should I get 15 ***** and butcher all but 2 at twelve weeks, and 15 hens to keep up the egg and chick production? Less of one, more of the other? Hmmmmm...
I don't really like 'feed store' chickens; they order what they and most of their customers want and not always what I want. Plus I like getting the mail order babies and being their first "mama" so that they attach more easily. Planning the layout of the run and coop, getting everything set up before the babies arrive, is half the fun. We used to have to pen for wild packs of dogs and chicken snakes; here it is more planning for invasions of hawks and skunks. I have lots of ideas and am always looking for more!
FWIW, some feed stores will place your "special" order in with their "regular" order if you ask them. Then let you know when they're arriving so you can pick them up right away.
I'm a new chick mama, we just got 13 chicks this week! In the mail, since I'm not at all rural and have never even been in a 'feed store'. But we now have a yard so we're doing female chickens, a garden (soon) and going to plant a little orchard.
Anyhow, the chicks are all still alive and looking happy in their litttle plastic tote box brooder. Don't ask me where they are going when they outgrow this because I don't know LOL. We do have a shed we're going to use part of as a coop but it's too cold out yet.
Not camped out in front of the local feedstore yet but just trying now to learn more about the best breeds for layers. Got the coop but not the poultry yet.
In the same boat, my research says the Rhode Island Red and White Leghorn are the best egg producers.
I take care of pheasants and quail for a hunting preserve and this was the first time we kept birds over the winter, What a mistake!!! Only nets cover the pens so the snow built up to only a three foot crawlspace.You can imagine the hassle to dig out the feeders every other day.
Now they're starting to kill each other.I never knew they were so mean.I separated all the hens and put one male in with them.That seemed to calm them down.
Late last spring we were getting almost a dozen eggs a day with maybe a hundred hens and two hundred ***** all together. The Quail kept laying all summer so we got plenty of them.
I'm new to this so any suggestions to make their short time left better would be appreciated.
Last edited by cvap; 03-19-2009 at 07:17 AM..
Reason: miss spell
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