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CHICKENS

2/3 of my young White Sussex proved male & so couldn't be kept, after which I got 2 point of lay Calder Rangers. I now have the original 3 hens I wanted but in 2 separate pens for now, as they didn't mix first two times of trying. They're all in sight of each other & the older two are producing eggs, so hopefully all will be okay. The Sussex hen had an injured comb from pecking but was nursed back to recovery & fitness & seems quite bright again now. :)
 
I so want to get laying hens someday. I also want silkie chickens as pets because they are like lap chickens. They don't produce as many eggs but that's okay. Here's what a silkie chicken looks like:

silkie-bantam-chickens_04.jpg
 
Silkies are a nice breed although they can have a tendency to go broody easily. Great if you're hatching eggs under one but not otherwise. I <3 their blue cheeks :)
 
My first and only surviving Japanese quail made it to about 6" and a stray cat managed to hook it through the chicken wire...and yank on it until it got the wire out of the ground, and dragged it under and ate it. One tuft of feathers left with meat on on it. Between the stray cats and the skunk I may have to shut my whole chicken pasture down permanently.:( Sigh!

Man and nature seem to take a perverse pleasure in ruining a persons day...or life.:(
Can't even win on the small things.:(
What will go wrong next?:confused:
 
Elemental said:
Silkies are a nice breed although they can have a tendency to go broody easily. Great if you're hatching eggs under one but not otherwise. I <3 their blue cheeks :)
Click to expand...
I actually love the silkies they make great pets and live a long time. They were bred as pillow chickens the feathers make great pillows. They seem to lay about 3 years, if a person crossed them with a forever laying Hamburg they might be a good egg chicken too as their eggs are a little larger than most of the other Banti breeds. The white silky is most likely the original breed....I do not know if the other colors are better on eggs or not. Broody chickens are not all bad they make good egg hatchers and one chick sells for as much as a dozen eggs.
Silky black meat is prized by the asians it is considered good luck to eat a silky...not something the silky may agree with :rooster::eek:......:)?:chickenleg:
 
When I kept poultry before, it was quite a large free-ranging flock. There were some really great offshoots from Silkies breeding with Orpingtons :)
 
Orpingtons are great birds, very pleasant mild personalities.
No problems with stupid aggressive roosters.
Good large bodied birds.
 
tree said:
Orpingtons are great birds, very pleasant mild personalities.
No problems with stupid aggressive roosters.
Good large bodied birds.
Click to expand...

I <3 their plumage! & yes, absolutely great, placid breed. I bred some Cuckoo Marans with them &the resulting coloured featherage was quite spectacular: great memories! :)
 
am still trying with the Japanese quail bad hatch on the first batch only one viable which a stray cat killed. Round 2 with a upgraded UFO hatcher on a plastic nut jar Ha! ha! with a computer chip fan and old furnace thermostat. Maybe 7 days till hatching time...I lost track!:( in all the life chaos!

Chickens are now all in jail because the starving stray cats were injuring my cats fighting over chicken feed, so much for all my work on making them a nice pasture.:(
 
tree said:
Maelstrom
Maybe you could make a chicken tractor.
Then they'd be safe from predators, but
still be foraging in the pasture.
Click to expand...
Maybe? but the real problem is any food outside the main cage draws too many sparrows, which in turn brings in the city stray cats, which leads to $100 dollar vet bills which make the point of chickens sort of moot.:( One vet bill wipes out a years savings on chicken eggs.

I may just figure out creative rotating fences so I can plant wheat in side or just plant more swisschard to feed them. I cant afford more vet bills it isn't worth it. The quail will fit fine in my chicken arbor if I can get them going....I will just sell the chickens maybe? if I can get enough quail hatched.
I need maybe 4 + quail per chicken hen...6 hens = 30 quail? My chicken arbor is about 20' by 40' that is something like 72 yards....so maybe 80 quail could fit, and still have much more room than the commercial bird farms.
I likely won't do that many I mostly just want to keep my fridge stocked not sell eggs...selling is a bother sometimes people don't like being asked if they need eggs,:( but they forget to come buy them.
I will just have to figure something out....I can toss mowed grass in for them to eat too.

tree your cousin is more adorable than the baby silky:)
I thought crossbreeding the silkies with the blue eggers would be nice for a cute small egg chicken? maybe add some Hamburg in for Forever egg layers too!:)
 
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Thinking again about hens. Quiet, lovable hens that like a bit of cuddling, because they'd be family members (and they'd have to put up with my sci-fi naming conventions -- Firefly, maybe? -- though I'm sure they won't mind much :wink:). I decided a diverse group would be nice, not only for different kinds of eggs, but to diversify the timing of the laying a bit, too. And I like the idea of each looking different; should one start behaving oddly and/or become ill, it'd be easier to keep an eye on.

I'd be limited to four, given space considerations. We can't have roosters here, so I'd have to buy sexed chicks or pullets.

I was thinking about: Orpington, Sussex, Wyandotte, and Brahma.
 
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