Nest box

Built a new nest box this weekend out of a scrap peice of plywood.Put old carpet pad in the bottom for a liner,going to put wood chips in also. Not having any luck with my duck eggs hatching, so far they haven't been fertile. I made their pond a little deeper maybe that will help. Any advice anybody has will be appreciated. Our blue swede duck started laying too, her eggs are not as big as our pekin's. Maybe some of hers will be fertile. Our easter egg pullets should start laying any day now, can't wait to see what color they are!! Kitty our handicapped brown leghorn should too, don't know if it will take a little longer because of her deformities or not. If she's real hungry she'll fly up on your shoulder. I still have to feed her seperate from the others, she can only eat mash and it's got to be deep.

Winter coop

Fixed up part of our shed for a coop this winter, our other one was getting too small and didn't keep them warm very well. Since we have ducks this winter we had to change to a different waterer. Ducks will empty a regular chick water in a matter of minutes. Sure not going to have to walk through the mud to feed and water any more.

Beadwork

We were do some cleaning this weekend and I found some items I'd been saving. When I was a teen I was in scouts and use to  dress up as indians and dance at different events and parades etc. I ran across some beadwork that I had done. Brought back memories. And no, Dianne never saw me dance!!!

Quail

14 out of 16 quail eggs hatched halloween night,not bad. Sold them yesterday. Done for the season. Our broody hens had 3 hatch this weekend also. Ducks should start hatching next week. They will be hatching off and on till CHRISTmas. We'll wait and see how many we get.

Deer

A friend of ours killed his first deer of the season on the top of the ridge behind our house, a nice 4 point. He's seen some more but they were too small. It's bow hunting only where he killed this one.

Fall thinning

Sold all my quail this weekend, plus have our eggs in the incubator sold when they hatch. We gave our dominique rooster to a friend who lost her's recently. We are missing a black cochin pullet, don't know where she went. Still have 3 roosters left, 2 we will never get rid of. Planning on raising bobwhite quail this spring instead japenese quail. Have a few people wanting them.We still have 28 chinckens all pullets except 3. We have 2 broody hens on eggs, plus I think a golden laced cochin's going broody so I'll let her set on a few eggs and maybe a duck egg or 2. I would like some more ducks. We'll wait and see how it goes!!

Cat wants to play

Our cat tries it's best to play with our chickens but they won't have anything to do with him. So he just pounces on them all the the time. When they get tired of him they chase him off.

Battle of the eggs!!

Guess our duck and one of our pullets are having a largest egg battle! I thought our duck egg was pretty big, then we got a huge brown egg. It's not as round as the duck egg, but it's every bit as long!! Both of them when  I look at them make me hurt!!!

Ex large duck egg

Our largest duck egg yet!!! The last large duck egg we gave to sil kaye. It was a double yoker.  The brown egg is pretty large, it's about 2 and a half inches, and the duck egg is every bit 3 inches. We'll just wait and see how many yolks this one has. Our oldest white duck lays an egg a day, unless she lays one like this, then she'll skip a day. I don't blame her a bit!!

Maran chick???

This is our latest chick we hatched,it's twenty days old. Suppose to be a cuckoo maran, but I don't think so. We'll wait and see what it is when it gets it's feathers.

Brown leghorn

Here is a pic of our brown leghorn pullet that has a crooked beak and only has one eye. She is doing great right now. I have her with  supposedly a maran chick. I give her vitamins in her water quite a bit, maybe that will help. Gonna let her out with the rest of our chickens when she gets some size on her.

NEW RABBIT

We had to get another rabbit because of our over active male rabbit. I don't think it did much good though!!

First quail egg

We got our first quail egg today, comparing it to a duck egg. I don't know what we'll do with one egg though!! I had to seperate 5 males because they were fighting, poking each others eyes out and other stuff. We have 50 + eggs in the incubator that should hatch next week. My marans didn't hatch very well, 2 hatched and one died right after hatching. The one is doing fine and I have it in the pen with our one eyed brown leghorn pullet.

YA THINK????

Dianne was feeding our pets some leftover strawberry cake.We thought they were enjoying it!!!! But were they just waiting for her to get out of their CHAIR. YA THINK????

Buff orpingtons

We now have 5 buff orpington hens, our oldest is chickzilla and is Philip's favorite!! She lays an egg a day and we hope the other 4 which should be laying pretty soon, lay as good as she does. They are very friendly and easy to raise and we get alot of enjoyment watching them. The pic is of one that's not laying yet.

Defective brown leghorn

Our friend at the feed store had a chick he needed to get rid of because he couldn't sell it, so I told him we would take her. She has a twisted beak and only has one eye. We have her in a pen by herself, she's eating and drinking just fine. I felt sorry for her when I first saw her and thought she might as well have a chance to live. I've looked at her beak real close up and trimming is not a option. We're going to let her get alot bigger before we let her out with the rest of the chickens if she makes it. I may put a picture up later of her best side only.

Look alike

Half breeds latest chick is now 8 weeks old and looks just like it's mother. Pretty sure it's a pullet, we hope she will sit on eggs just as well as halfbreed does. You can move halfbreed to our brooding pen and she'll get right back on the eggs everytime. Top picture is halfbreed on the nest fixing to lay an egg.

Roosters

We took our 2 new white silkie roosters to our friend at the feed store. Now hopefully we just have 2 left,puff puff and a barred rock we named roo roo. Roo roo is our youngest and our biggest and it's pretty funny to hear him trying to crow!!!

Quail

Our quail are five weeks old and should start laying in about a week!! I am hoping to get a few eggs before their season for laying is up!! We have 12 cuckoo maran eggs in the incubator and they should hatch next weekend hopefully! I will keep you updated. I also have a better picture of our white quail.

Pair of blue swede ducks

This is our pair of blue swede ducks, I can't tell which is male or female but Philip can. We're hoping to be able to incubate some eggs next spring. Maybe it will work out. Have a pair of white pekin ducks also.

Air nozzle

I saw my brother Tim at the co-op buying an air nozzle and it seemed pretty useful so I went in and got me one. When I wash my waterers and feeders I soak them in water and bleach and then put the hose of the air nozzle in the mix and blow the stuck on dirt off. Works real well especially where the jar and the base screw together, pretty hard to clean without the nozzle!!

Thinning out

We took obamma and 4 other chickens to our friend Bo at the feedstore. Mostly roosters, we had too many. We were surpised because he gave us a bag of feed for them!! We were just going to give them to him. He especially liked the white silkie rooster and a rooster cross.

Excitement

We had our excitement today, I was in the pen catching the small chicks and ducks that haven't learned to go night night on their own when they ran in the corner and there was a 2ft copperhead striking at the ducks, don't know if any got bit or not. I hollered, (cause I live in the south) at philip to grab a gun and he and andrew came running. First one we've seen up here on the ridge since we've lived here. Caught another coon 3 days ago too. Everything be wanting some chicken!!!!

Finally

Finally got some quail eggs to hatch. Got 12 cortinux(japanese quail) and their doing fine so far. I also have gotten 5 black cochin chicks and 3 more ducks, a peking male to go with the female we already have and a pair of blue swede ducklings to replace the one we lost. Also got 2 easter egg chick pullets. We have been pretty busy keeping the varmits out of our pens, so for we're up to 4 coons and 3 possumsin our traps we set. we also made a small pen to let our birds eat the grass, they are having a great time. Going to give obamma and a couple of roosters to our friend at the feed store, obamma stays broody all the time but gives up before the chicks hatch. We use halbreed for setting eggs and she's a great mother too!!! Halbreed hatched another chick that looks just like her.

Duck pond

Our small duck pond ,Andrew Philip and me dug and made.

Think they're chickens

Both our duck who we've named aflac, and our rabbit,Philip named george think they are chickens. They both eat with the chickens, and when the chickens go in for the night aflac goes with them and george goes in his rabbit hutch. We don't have to catch either one of them!! Told Dianne I'm a rabbit and duck trainer now!! HA!! HA!!

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Punked by a duck

We finished our duck pen and put it in the chicken pen so we could lock the duck up at night since we lost our other one. We have been catching her and putting her in with the chickens every night and locking them up together. The very first night we went to put her up in her new pen, she had already gone in with the chickens and that's where she has slept ever since. WE GOT PUNKED!!!!

Stephanie's a mom

The egg stephanie has been sitting on hatched today, pretty cool, nice healthy chick too!!

Cleaning

A couple of days ago I cleaned the old wood shavings and droppings from underneath the hen house and put them in the garden. I put new wood chips and mixed in sevin dust to keep the flies and the mites out. Yesterday Philip and I soaked all the waterer's in clorox bleach and cold water for a while, does a good job and they look almost new again! We put apple cider vinegar in them at least once a week to prevent worms and keep the knats and mosquitos out of them. I don't like using wormers on chickens, it's very hard on them. I think it's better to try and prevent them!! There are real good articles in the backyard poultry magazines on both subjects, and that's where I get most of my tips!! We also have been building a duck house to keep the duck safe at night,we are almost finished with it, tired of losing pets!!! I plan on putting a list of our pets and names of the ones we've named so far, any help with names will be aprreciated since we have about 20 or so to name.

Pets

It's hard trying to keep pets lately!! All our kittens disappeared in a couple of nights, don't know what happened to them. A raccoon got one of our 2 ducks and 3 of our guinea keets, still got 1 keet left,so I went to the feed store to get a couple more so it wouldn't be lonely. But he was out so I got a couple of dominique chicks to keep the keet from being by itself. They seem to be getting along fine. We caught the coon in a trap the next night trying to get the keet and chicks again. We keep reinforcing the pen and making it tighter maybe we'll get it right someday. Nobody in our area sells ducks so we put him in the pen with the chickens till we figure something else out. Still having fun!! Got some new picts to add in the next couple of days so keep looking!!

Shout out

A shout out to asheville city chickens who got an ordinance passed so anyone can raise chickens in asheville nc, a very very large city. They put out alot of work,effort, and time. GOOD JOB!!

Grown up

Finally got the chicks out of the brooder and in the hen house with the rest of the chickens. They seem to like it, of course the big chickens are having a problem with it. Got the brooder taken apart and moved, it comes apart into 4 pcs so we can move it easily. While we have it apart we're going to clean it up and put another bottom in it to prevent our coon buddies from having a midnight snack. Also we're going to paint it and get it ready for more broody hens and chicks. Philip loves to paint!!

Rabbit doing fine

Our rabbits doing great,we let him out in the pen with the chickens and he acts like he loves it. He will run around the pen wide open several times and likes it when he can chase a chicken or a chicken chases him, pretty fun to watch!! Philip and Andrew are taking very good care of him(yep Andrew helps too!!!). Still have not came up with a name yet

Jacked up!!!

Went to the surgeon yesterday and not very good news, he said my back is in his own words was (jacked up!!). Then this morning I made Dianne's and sis in law Kaye's day cause I jacked up and locked myself in the chicken pen! Ha!! Ha!! Ha!! Dianne always tells me if I go outside to always carry my cell phone. THANKS!!! I had to call Andrew on his phone to let me out. No he wasn't laughing but he was grinning from ear to ear!!

Philip and chickzilla

Chickzilla is Philips chicken and is 9 months old and lays some nice large brown eggs. She lays an egg a day and hardly ever misses a day. We're very proud of her!!

DUCKS

We went to the feed store to day and got 2 ducklings, something else to have fun raising since I'm off for a while, so far their doing great!!

puff puff

Puff puff is 9 months old now and our only rooster. Notice his comb and wattles!! Dianne says he's ugly. This is Andrew's chicken but Andrew won't let us take his picture.

out of room

Room getting pretty scarce for our chickens. We have 17 month old chicks in one pen, obamma and halbreed are in another pen with 3 three week old chicks, and we had to build a partition out of pvc pipe and 2 inch wire to separate stepanie who just went broody so chickzilla won't lay eggs on top of her, yep she will. They like to lay eggs in the same nest whether a chicken is in it or not. Chickzilla is our biggest hen we have right now and is also the calmist and will jump up on your lap to be petted if your sitting down!! She will also follow you around the yard!!

caught in the act

Finally caught the coon that's been killing our chicks and removing their toes. We've been trying to upgrade our pens so nothing can get in, we recently added 2ft to the top to make it 7ft tall so obamma and stephanie can't fly out. We also have a motion sensor light that's how we got the coon. Andrew saw the light on and saw the coon run up the tree, I held the light while Andrew shot him. A few days ago two of our chicks got killed (a white silkie, and a buff orpington) and halbreed lost a toe. The night we got the coon it got one of our barred rockchick's toes. We now have the pen where cats can't get in so we now have traps under the brooder just in case!! Don't know what else to do, we just keep trying.

Who's is who's???

We figured out the 2 newest brown chicks are halfbreeds, because they have feathered legs like their mom!! The black chick does not have feathers on it's legs and we know it is obamma's. Stephanie does not have feathers on her legs either. Apparently they didn't get any of puff puff's traits, because he is solid white,( he's the dad) I thought at least they would be speckled with white spots. Guess I was wrong!!! Also thought they would all have feathered leggs too.

chicks 19 days old

momma

We don't know whose chicks the 2 brown ones are till they get older, their either halfbreeds or stephanie's, we know the black one is obamma,s!!!

puff puffs a daddy!!

Halfbreed and obamma have been sitting on 7 eggs, this morning I went and checked on them and saw a cracked egg shell so I moved them and found 3 baby chicks,1 black and 2 brown ones.The kids and me were excited!!

1st chick loss

we lost our first chick on the second day we had them, a red wasp got in the brooder and stung one of the white silkies on the leg!!

new chick video

NEW ARRIVALS!!!

Shipment from ideal poultry came today!! GOOD JOB IDEAL!! Chicks arrived in great shape and are doing great, very lively. I got a mix of ones we wanted!! We got 2 rhode island reds,3 barred rocks,5 buff orpingtons,2 buff cochins,3 golden laced cochins, and 5 white silkie bantams.20 total.

New chick order

Placed an order for new chicks, should be getting on march 12, I will have new picts and a lot of updates. I ordered them from ideal poultry, same place where we got the last ones!!

Cold weather

Oh I so don't like cold and icy weather!!!! I had to take stephanie and put her and her eggs back in the regular coop because I don't have any way to keep her water from freezing and no way to keep her warm especially if the electricity goes out and it did.I've read several places that say you can't leave a broody hen in the pen with the other hens or there will be problems and now I know first hand why!! When stephanie got off her eggs to eat and drink, chickzilla jumped on her nest and layed an egg, so stephanie couldn't get back on her eggs but there were 2 other eggs in a nearby nest that had just been laid very recently so she sits on the 2 eggs and leave the 6 she was sitting on so they stayed uncoverd in below freezing weather for several hours!! I took the 6 eggs out and discarded them and gathered the rest of the eggs, I guess that ticked stephanie off so bad that she's not broody anymore!!! women!!( saying this very softly). If she goes broody again when its warmer, we'll try it again!!

Couldn't take the pressure

I gave in and am letting stephanie sit on about 5 eggs since she wants to set so bad!! We'll see if she lasts out the 20 days or so and maybe we'll have baby chicks for her to care for!! Waiting to see!!

Isolation pen

Well put stephanie in a seperate pen, she is so not liking it!! I had already taken the eggs out earlier, like I suspected she was just sitting on the nest and aggravating the rest of the hens and there was not even an egg under her!! I'll leave her in there for a couple of days, maybe she will straighten up!!

Broody

Well stephanie has gone broody, you try to move her and she makes an awful racket and will peck you pretty quick!! I'm trying to decide whether to break her or let her sit on 5 or 6 eggs. The only problem with letting her set is you get pullets (female chick) and cockerels(roosters). Don't need any more roosters and kind of hard to give them away too!! Hard choice!!!

halfbreeds legs

Halfbreeds legs are doing a whole lot better. She also has started laying, legs must have been bothering her more than we thought. Philip my youngest son says she started laying cause we turned her upside down.(if you turn a chicken upside down and grab them by their feet they become very calm and you can get them use to whatever they're scared of or do anything you need to do like put vaseline on her feet) We put vaseline on her feet again this weekend and will probably do it again next weekend just to make sure!! Oh by the way she's getting a little easier to catch too!!

Puff puff's eye

The medicine we gave puff puff worked very well,his eve still has a spot in it, but he is keeping it open and can see out of it. He's strutting for the ladies pretty regular too!! (pretty funny to watch)

homemade feeder

I made this feeder out of a 5 gallon bucket and an old garbage can lid, works very well too!!

Home made water heater

I like doing stuff myself and save a little money at the same time. I built this water heater from a metal pan and a 2 socket light holder. Did a very good job at 12 degrees lately.

Hen cam

A pretty cool website and blog to check out!!! She has a camera in her chicken pen and in her chicken coop!! Also has a rabbit. Have to catch it during the day,it cuts off at night. She also has books she (Terry Golson) has written. Quite impressive so have a look. Her link is the first one in my favorite links.

Ohwell!!

The quail eggs didn't hatch, we have a lot more projects we're going to be doing the next few weeks so we'll keep you informed! The eggs were probably damaged during shipping, not hard to do. We'll get some more from another source and try them . It's probably going to be chicken eggs this time.

OOOOOHH!!! Impressed!!

Went out this morning and checked the nest, found 1 egg. Went out before dark to put them up and checked again. there were 3 more!! GOOD JOB!!!

New updates

Two things happened today. Obamma laid her first egg today, about the same color and size of stephanies. Puff puff crowed for the first time also, his right eye is still closed and he had a cold. I've been giving him antibiotics and he seems to have more pep in his step,( saw him strut yesterday) so maybe he's getting better!!! We now have 3 hens laying, 1 rooster crowing, 1 chicken (halfbreed) is neither laying or crowing(don,t know why) and 4 quail eggs in the incubator!!! (We'll see!!!) Halfbreed looks like she has a case of leg mites so I'm going to have philip catch her and we'll put vaseline on her legs and it should clear it up!

Quail eggs

Still waiting to see if our quail eggs or going to hatch,they should hatch tues or weds if they're going to.

Dog scare

We had a couple of large dogs show up this morning, nothing bad happened. Obamma flew the coop as usual,don't know where she was hiding she just showed back up later on. Stephanie and chickzilla was doubled up in one nest together, took a while for them to start moving around again. Puff puff was just hid on the ground not very easy to do if your a bright white color. Halfbreed was in the middle of the coop where they all sleep, she didn,t come out for several hours!!! Pretty sure they'll come back, just hope I've got their pen secure enough to keep them out!!!

nest

the nest are in the very back of the coop and completely lined with wood chips. This does a real good job!! We haven't had to wash an egg yet!!

Chickzilla

Chickzilla laid her first egg recently,(no mistake this time) pretty good sized egg. both chickens are laying their eggs under the nest instead of in them. We put a egg in one of the nest and chickzilla laid one in the nest today.