A tangled web
Did the silkie hatch?
We didn’t have a silkie egg; we have a silkie chick from Dog Days, which is doing just fine.
Have you had to add more nesting boxes to the new coop?
Nope, there are 12 in the big coop and 4 in the small one. They actually only use about 10 of the boxes so far. The answer to the next question may explain why some boxes aren’t used.
Do the chickens just use the boxes when they are laying eggs or broody and just hang out on the roosts the rest of the time?
Generally, yes. Some of the youngsters (and Charlie, who can’t roost because of her malformed feet) spend the night in nestboxes (and they poop in there, which is gross), but the vast majority use the roost. There’s nothing as cute as seeing a hen with a bunch of babies lined up next to her on the roost.
Will the turkey(s) share the same coop with the chickens?
The turkeys will most likely have a different coop, but we may raise some meat chickens with them. That’s not set in stone, though. You’re not supposed to raise chickens and turkeys together because chickens can carry a disease (blackhead) deadly to turkeys, but my understanding is that the likelihood of that being a problem in a clean, homestead-like coop is pretty slim.
How’s your wonky foot and arm holding up?
Mostly good. My elbow still hurts a little when I do something like hammering or using the heavy 18V screwdriver, and my right heel has started hurting again just the tiniest bit, but other than that all is well.
I’m starting to think the Amish chickens are defective. They seem to be growing slower than other chicks we’ve had, without nearly the same amount of frenetic energy. They’re active, of course, just not as active as we’ve seen in the past.
And they’re dying.
First, the chick I helped hatch last week had to be put down. I expected that, but it still sucked to do it (as it always does). It just wasn’t improving, stumbling around the incubator unable to stand. Then, on Monday, one drowned in the waterer. This one may have been my fault; I took the marbles out of the water that morning because they make cleaning the waterer a HUGE ass-pain. I put the marbles back in after that, and we didn’t lose any more to drowning.
However, we’ve lost two to something else. They just…run down, for lack of a better phrase. I see them eating and drinking, but they just get weaker and weaker until I find them dead in the shavings. I don’t feed those to the pigs because I’m not sure what’s going on, whether there’s a disease thing happening or not.
Out of eighteen original hatches, there are fourteen left. I hope the dying is about done — even though I just found the most recent dead one this morning — because it’s getting old.
The eight chicks left (Miss Mama got one) from Dog Days are doing well: very active, growing nicely, and not having any problems except for a tendency on the part of the Ameraucana to get poop balls caught in its down.
It’s been a bad couple of weeks for chickens here at Crooked Acres. We lost a teen female to unknown causes. I think someone tried to sex her up and killed her; she died in the middle of the afternoon with her head kind of twisted under her at an odd angle. Then, Miss Mama got one of the Rhode Island Red chicks and ate it all except for the gizzard, a wing, and a leg. The four chicks I mentioned above died.
And there’s the one I hate the most of all: When I was cutting the grass on Thursday, I hit a rock with the mower. It slung out the side and snapped the leg of our only cuckoo maran, which we received as a “free rare chick” with our McMurray order back in March. I had no choice but to chase her down — her leg was swinging freely, but she could really move on the one good one — and put her down.
Of all the chickens in the yard, I managed to kill the only one that we only had one of.
To answer what you’re wondering: Yes, yesterday. Chicken enchiladas.
And now, pictures of a couple of girls from this morning.
Sorry to learn about the spate of chicken losses, Fred. With all of the care you take to raise healthy, happy chickens it seems especially cruel.
Thanks for answering all my questions. Glad to hear your arm and foot are doing pretty well.
Is it past the time of year for the chickens going broody or is it more of a random thing?
Every year at this time, I get two or three BIG spiders building webs in my tiny little patio garden. The first time they showed up I was pretty freaked out by them. Now I find myself checking to see where they set up web every morning and enjoy watching them. Fascinating, as long as I’m on the other side of the sliding glass doors!
Sorry about the Cluckers. I know how much care you and Robyn put into your critters.
Love the spider pics. We had our 4yr old neice for a sleep over last night and we watched Charolette’s Web and ate popcorn. She and I have decided it’s not nice to kill spiders unless they try to bite you.
; )
GREAT spider pics!!!
I wonder if the Amish chicks are not too inbred? It could explain the lack of vigor they are showing. I’m not sure how you could ask them without being insulting but it was a thought.
Bummer about your Maran
I still have a half dozen or so of the old girls (they must be 7-8 years old now) and they are very nice. My Maran roo is a sweet old boy too….now that I have the Welsummers coming along, I don’t know what I am going to do with them all….probably nothing if I am honest (sigh) The damn things will die of old age.
Anyhow don’t feel too bad — I actually dropped a wet, full water container on top of one of my Welsummer chicks and killed her
Talk about guilt. Shit happens I guess.
I just realized that I haven’t seen my usual cat spiders this year….I may have to go searching.
I was wondering the same thing as Farmwife as I was reading through the post… are they too inbred? My college genetics course was a LONG time ago, but it was the first thing that came to mind.
FAB spider pics!
Hope the week gets better.
You are so cutting edge; I had never heard the saying about lipstick on a pig until I asked you why you didn’t paint the pig shed like you had the chicken coop. And you said in effect that painting a hog house was like “putting lipstick on a pig–it would still be a pig.” Seems like I hear it several times a day, now. In so many ways, you keep me in the loop.
Sammi
I’ve always heard that if you help a bird(of any species)to hatch,it will most likely die.
Something to do with the chick needing to exert themselves hatching to be able to survive. You know,”you get stronger when you exert” yourself sort of philosophy.
Also check your humidity and egg turning.
Best of all,let the hens dowhat hens do-brood eggs.
I found that the less I interferred with mother nature when I was raising cockatiels,the better they did. I made some mistakes when I first started that ended badly for a few chicks. Ever since then I “stay out of the way”.
Holy shit! A little warning would have been nice before those pictures.
I have to go change my pants now…..
Do NOT like the spiders pics! PLEASE warn us first!!!!
Serious issues going on here.
I, on the other hand, love spiders.
Sammi
Chickens, pigs … how about a cow?
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080923.wlpetting23/BNStory/lifeMain/home?cid=al_gam_mostemail
Fred,
Just wondering, with the current events (financial crisis) if you might not be a “closet survialist?” And hey, NOT a bad thing, considering the way things are going…. Small farms, self-sufficient people were the ones who weathered the 30s depression era. My grandmother told me a lot about that era, as she and my grandfather personally lived through it.
your lifestyle intrigues me
I’d be wondering about those Amish chickens, too, especially after reading about the Amish puppy mills. I was truly shocked.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CEEDF123FF933A1575AC0A965958260&scp=1&sq=amish%20puppy%20mills&st=cse
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