# Spring chick chat



## AndersonRanch

As any poultry lover knows it’s chick season! 
I thought it would be fun to make a post about what everyone has going on in the poultry department. What are we ordering? Hatching? What do you have right now? Hopefully just a fun little topic and maybe pass the time for those that are waiting on eggs to hatch or orders to get to you. 
So I’ll go first. All my incubators are full! Even bought another one but need to spring clean to make room for it lol I have Millie fluers, splash silkies, and anconas baking and hatching. Also have my heritage turkey eggs in there. Instead of keeping all the turkey verities apart I decided to let them all run wild and free together and maybe come up with some unique colors. Also since I’m maxed out on the eggs I have been selling the Turkey eggs like hot cakes.
The order department, I like pretty chickens and sweet chickens. Everything that I wanted to try was so far out, so on a bored night I looked into the bargain deals (stay away from those unless you want sucked down a rabbit hole!) so I thought hatchery choices would be fun, it would be fun to figure out what I end up with and worse case chickens are selling for so much right now I could just sell the ones I don’t like. So I ordered rare breed hatchery choice, hatchery choice and a surprise box. The surprise box is where it’s not just chickens they throw anything in there so that one should be super fun. I already got the first try on the rare breed but only 3 of them made it  it ended up taking 4 days to ship. But cackle made it right and I will get my next try shipped out may 17. My hatchery choice should ship out tomorrow and my surprise box will be here in July, hopefully when my husband is not home because he has no idea about that box! 
So what does everyone else have going on?


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## MissMiniNubian

We have some Tolbunt Polish that we ordered that are in an incubator right now. They are kind of rare I think and it’s our first time doing this so we are super excited! We also just got a second incubator so that we can hatch our own Mille Fluers. It’s about 2 more weeks until the Polish are supposed to hatch. Love spring!


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## Kass

I'm getting some auracona (?) Chicks from a friend soon. 
I have a question. I was going to make my own thread ( tell me if I need to) but I figured I can ask here. 
A friend has a few extra quail chicks and she asked if I wanted them. Does anyone have quail? What do you think of them? Pros and cons?


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## LittleGoatMama17

We have polish cross with Buff orpington, Rhode Island Red and 8 more in our incubator! This is our first time incubating our flocks eggs! Also, I see that @AndersonRanch has a Nurture Right 360 incubator?? We're using that bator too!!
To @Kass, just so you know, quail are pretty small, so better for predators if you free range them, so I would think you would need to keep them confined.


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## FizzyGoats

AndersonRanch said:


> I ordered rare breed hatchery choice, hatchery choice and a surprise box. The surprise box is where it’s not just chickens they throw anything in there so that one should be super fun. I already got the first try on the rare breed but only 3 of them made it  it ended up taking 4 days to ship.


Sorry to hear that. Glad you’ll get more. This scares me. We have notoriously unreliable and slow mail here and I ordered (from Cackle) 11 Bourbon Red Turkey poults and 4 chicks. I’m so worried the shipping will take too long or my local mail people won’t get it to me in a timely manner and it’ll be a box of horror when I get it. 

Do they deliver to your house or does the post office contact you for you to come pick it up when it gets there? 



MissMiniNubian said:


> We have some Tolbunt Polish that we ordered that are in an incubator right now. They are kind of rare I think and it’s our first time doing this so we are super excited! We also just got a second incubator so that we can hatch our own Mille Fluers. It’s about 2 more weeks until the Polish are supposed to hatch. Love spring!


How fun! You’ll have to share pics once hatching begins. 

So as stated above, I’m getting some heritage turkey poults end of this month. Excited and nervous. Turkeys will be something I learn as I go. I’m also getting a few Rhode Island Red chicks. Nothing flashy. I actually choose them because they are, for whatever reason, my most surviving chickens (aerial predators). I think they’re a little more camouflaged in all the brush and leaves or something. Or maybe they run faster. Not sure. Or maybe it’s pure coincidence.

ETA: I have the brooder ready to go and just got a camera in so I can monitor the babies. Gotta have my nanny cam, lol.


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## SalteyLove

@FizzyGoats I am convinced those true RI Reds (the deep red color, not the production crosses so may people try to call RIs) are smarter than other breeds! I know, it's a little crazy. But they are so much more dinosaur-like in my experience. Mine definitely had higher survivability. And they were astonishing hunters in the small wetland near our house. I'm sadly chicken-less the next few years but had to chip in on the reds here!


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## MellonFriend

Oh man, your poultry chick happenings are way more exciting than mine! We got 10 (11?) buff orpington chicks from our local feed store. They are supposed to be all hens, but we are suspicious about a couple of them. We got them because we are trying to add a little more egg production, size, and hardiness to our flock.


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## FizzyGoats

MellonFriend said:


> Oh man, your poultry chick happenings are way more exciting than mine! We got 10 (11?) buff orpington chicks from our local feed store. They are supposed to be all hens, but we are suspicious about a couple of them. We got them because we are trying to add a little more egg production, size, and hardiness to our flock.


Mine aren’t exciting either, lol. Those are my mom’s favorite chicken. She had great luck with them for years when we lived in Colorado. 



SalteyLove said:


> @FizzyGoats I am convinced those true RI Reds (the deep red color, not the production crosses so may people try to call RIs) are smarter than other breeds! I know, it's a little crazy. But they are so much more dinosaur-like in my experience. Mine definitely had higher survivability. And they were astonishing hunters in the small wetland near our house. I'm sadly chicken-less the next few years but had to chip in on the reds here!


That’s so funny. We call ours the little T-Rex’s. They are the most curious about everything (and into everything). They are great bug eaters (greatly diminishing our tick population) and know enough to stay near my big dog (not an LGD) who watches over them when he’s out. Also my reds are the only ones who, without a rooster around to warn them, seem to realize their only real threats come from the sky. We have one cross who is still with us, but the darker red they are, the longer they’ve lived, the more eggs they’ve laid, and they’ve seemed more resilient against injury and sickness as well. We just thought it might be a coincidence, but we’re sticking with it just to be safe.  I’m sure there’s absolutely no science behind it. 

Now our Bourbon Red turkeys will match our chicken flock, lol. We didn’t do that on purpose though. Just picked one we liked and clicked purchase.


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## AndersonRanch

MissMiniNubian said:


> We have some Tolbunt Polish that we ordered that are in an incubator right now. They are kind of rare I think and it’s our first time doing this so we are super excited! We also just got a second incubator so that we can hatch our own Mille Fluers. It’s about 2 more weeks until the Polish are supposed to hatch. Love spring!


I had to look those polish up and I want those! People also call them candy corn polish, at least around here. But they are on my bucket list, not this year but one year. You will have to share them when they hatch.


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## MissMiniNubian

AndersonRanch said:


> I had to look those polish up and I want those! People also call them candy corn polish, at least around here. But they are on my bucket list, not this year but one year. You will have to share them when they hatch.


I will!


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## AndersonRanch

Kass yes quail are very small and not.....fully domesticated like a chicken. I do not have any but a friend bought some. She thought they would just stick around if she had them free range but they packed up and left. I think quail are so cute! But with my cats, the snakes and everything else I’m not sure how I would keep them contained and alive. Although if someone offered me eggs I sure would give it a shot lol
Little goat mama, that one is actually some knock off one, I forget the name but I got it from Amazon and it holds 12 eggs. I wanted the 360 last year before I got these since it had such good reviews especially with turkey eggs. So this year I picked up 2 of them. They have the turkey eggs in them so will see how they do.
Fizzy goat the post office will call you when they come in. Our post office is slow too but to be fair to the post office and cackle this was the first time this happened and I think for some reason shipping has just been super slow a few times. That’s normally not how it is. I THINK maybe because it’s tax season so they are flooded because of that ????? I’m honestly not sure. And you will LOVE your turkeys. My chickens just kinda do their own thing and leave me alone but those turkeys follow me very place. Speaking of T-Rex I call mine my baby dinosaurs lol they are not overly smart and people say they have a hard time keeping them alive because of it but I have had great luck with them. Maybe it’s because I have had broad breasted turkeys and those are a whole other level of stupid lol


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## FizzyGoats

AndersonRanch said:


> Fizzy goat the post office will call you when they come in. Our post office is slow too but to be fair to the post office and cackle this was the first time this happened and I think for some reason shipping has just been super slow a few times. That’s normally not how it is. I THINK maybe because it’s tax season so they are flooded because of that ????? I’m honestly not sure. And you will LOVE your turkeys. My chickens just kinda do their own thing and leave me alone but those turkeys follow me very place. Speaking of T-Rex I call mine my baby dinosaurs lol they are not overly smart and people say they have a hard time keeping them alive because of it but I have had great luck with them. Maybe it’s because I have had broad breasted turkeys and those are a whole other level of stupid lol


Lol. I’ve heard that about the BB breeds. I know heritage ones are a smidge smarter. Even on Cackle’s site they warn that they’re not the brightest. But everyone says they’re super sweet. My chickens don’t really care if I’m around or not, so it’ll be nice to have some poultry who want to hang out.  Hopefully I’ll be a good turkey mom. I’ve done a lot of research but it’s always different once you have them. 
And thank you for the info on the post office. We have such a tiny little office and they are just slow. Plus we live in the middle of nowhere and have yet to receive a delivery on time. I’ll have the brooder warm and ready for when they get here though. 

I love this thread. I have to Google 90% of what people have to see what it is, but that’s fun too.  Maybe someday I’ll venture into the rare and pretty birds. Let’s see if can keep my crew alive first.


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## happybleats

We have so many brooding mama's of mix variety. My son collects newly hatched babies, leaving moms a few to try to raise. Often they end up with a single by end all..so we raise them. We also got sucked in by TSC dollar a duck day and for 30 mallards lol we love duck eggs. Last summer my son stuck everything from guineas, ducks, turkey and chixken eggs under brooding hens. He did pretty good with hatch rate. He will do that again this year. Funny as I sold my cabinet incubator that sat for 4 years..now he wishes we had it lol. We have buff geese who are trying to hatch babies but sadly she over packed her nest and smothered new hatchling this is her second season so we hope she does better. We are keeping watch.


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## Kass

AndersonRanch said:


> Kass yes quail are very small and not.....fully domesticated like a chicken. I do not have any but a friend bought some. She thought they would just stick around if she had them free range but they packed up and left. I think quail are so cute! But with my cats, the snakes and everything else I’m not sure how I would keep them contained and alive. Although if someone offered me eggs I sure would give it a shot lol
> Little goat mama, that one is actually some knock off one, I forget the name but I got it from Amazon and it holds 12 eggs. I wanted the 360 last year before I got these since it had such good reviews especially with turkey eggs. So this year I picked up 2 of them. They have the turkey eggs in them so will see how they do.
> Fizzy goat the post office will call you when they come in. Our post office is slow too but to be fair to the post office and cackle this was the first time this happened and I think for some reason shipping has just been super slow a few times. That’s normally not how it is. I THINK maybe because it’s tax season so they are flooded because of that ????? I’m honestly not sure. And you will LOVE your turkeys. My chickens just kinda do their own thing and leave me alone but those turkeys follow me very place. Speaking of T-Rex I call mine my baby dinosaurs lol they are not overly smart and people say they have a hard time keeping them alive because of it but I have had great luck with them. Maybe it’s because I have had broad breasted turkeys and those are a whole other level of stupid lol


Yeah, from what I've read they shouldn't really be free ranged since they are such a predator magnet. They actually love to hide and be in small areas. So I was thinking a large rabbit hutch( 2×3 ) for maybe 4 of them. Then make a predator proof ( is there such a thing? Lol ) chicken tractor for them for during the day.


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## AndersonRanch

You will be a great turkey mom! The only real issue I had with them was when they were little, and it was hot, they thought they were ducks. That wasn’t great since they were free and could get in with the goats and their water troughs but easy fix. I just stopped using the deep water troughs and just filled up the more shallow ones where they could reach to bottom if they went in. Sometimes they would fly over the fence and forget how to get back over but they have seemed to have grown out of that. Just spend a lot of time with them and they will be your best friends. They can be a little annoying about what they find they have to peck. For awhile it was my toe nails and any scab I have they have to go after it but they get swatted and usually knock it off.
Happybleats that is the story of my life! I will hang onto something for years and not long after I finally get rid of it I wish I had it lol but it sounds like all the broody animals are doing a great job! I think they hatch out better rates anyways. I was trying to leave Turkey eggs out for the hens so they would go broody but it seemed to only attract issues. First was this fellow







you can see the egg in there, so he got dumped in the far corner of the lower field and today a crow/raven was after the eggs. So no more leaving eggs out


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## FizzyGoats

happybleats said:


> We have so many brooding mama's of mix variety. My son collects newly hatched babies, leaving moms a few to try to raise. Often they end up with a single by end all..so we raise them. We also got sucked in by TSC dollar a duck day and for 30 mallards lol we love duck eggs. Last summer my son stuck everything from guineas, ducks, turkey and chixken eggs under brooding hens. He did pretty good with hatch rate. He will do that again this year. Funny as I sold my cabinet incubator that sat for 4 years..now he wishes we had it lol. We have buff geese who are trying to hatch babies but sadly she over packed her nest and smothered new hatchling this is her second season so we hope she does better. We are keeping watch.


I need to borrow your son until I know what I’m doing, lol. And isn’t that the way it goes? Once you finally decide to get rid of something, you then realize you should’ve kept it. And cute ducks!



Kass said:


> Yeah, from what I've read they shouldn't really be free ranged since they are such a predator magnet. They actually love to hide and be in small areas. So I was thinking a large rabbit hutch( 2×3 ) for maybe 4 of them. Then make a predator proof ( is there such a thing? Lol ) chicken tractor for them for during the day.


I would think you could make a small tractor for them that’s predator proof. I’ve seen tons of chicken ones and you could even go smaller. 



AndersonRanch said:


> You will be a great turkey mom! The only real issue I had with them was when they were little, and it was hot, they thought they were ducks. That wasn’t great since they were free and could get in with the goats and their water troughs but easy fix. I just stopped using the deep water troughs and just filled up the more shallow ones where they could reach to bottom if they went in. Sometimes they would fly over the fence and forget how to get back over but they have seemed to have grown out of that. Just spend a lot of time with them and they will be your best friends. They can be a little annoying about what they find they have to peck. For awhile it was my toe nails and any scab I have they have to go after it but they get swatted and usually knock it off.


Oh dear. I’ll have to pay attention to water dishes. I have a big indoor space for them until they’re ready for outside. Then I have an attached outdoor pen, complete with aerial netting (to keep out the big hungry birds around here, but maybe it’ll help keep them from fence flying for a bit) to keep them in for a while. Plenty of space. Once they’re close to full grown, we’ll start letting them have some free time during the day out of their enclosure. But I do have a pond, so I’ll be keeping a close eye on that now. 
I’ll make sure I spend lots of time with them. And try not to let them peck me too much. 
And that snake. Yikes. We’ve been fortunate not to deal with that quite yet but I’m sure it’s a matter of time.


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## happybleats

FizzyGoats said:


> need to borrow your son until I know what I’m doing, lol. And isn’t that the way it goes? Once you finally decide to get rid of something, you then realize you should’ve kept it. And cute ducks!


Yup. Bought that cabnet..used it one or maybe two seasons..then sat for 4 years in my barn...still In its box lol. Saw a ad where someone was looking for one so sold it. Told my son to keep his brooders happy because I'm not buying another one lol. The pix is of my geese Edward and Eleanor


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## MellonFriend

happybleats said:


> Yup. Bought that cabnet..used it one or maybe two seasons..then sat for 4 years in my barn...still In its box lol. Saw a ad where someone was looking for one so sold it. Told my son to keep his brooders happy because I'm not buying another one lol. The pix is of my geese Edward and Eleanor


Your geese are so pretty. Are they friendly or are they mean ones?


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## happybleats

Not really in your face friendly but not mean at all. I got Eleanor to raise as a pet...wasn't wanting to raise geese..but my friend called and said her other boys were picking on a smaller boy and do I want him.. so in comes Edward. So they bonded together and not with me lol. Oh well..we still enjoy them out here


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## FizzyGoats

happybleats said:


> Yup. Bought that cabnet..used it one or maybe two seasons..then sat for 4 years in my barn...still In its box lol. Saw a ad where someone was looking for one so sold it. Told my son to keep his brooders happy because I'm not buying another one lol. The pix is of my geese Edward and Eleanor


Lol. Please don’t tell them I called them ducks.  I promise I actually know the difference. This is what it get for talking to my husband while replying to threads. My brain isn’t firing on all cylinders today.


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## happybleats

FizzyGoats said:


> Lol. Please don’t tell them I called them ducks.  I promise I actually know the difference. This is what it get for talking to my husband while replying to threads. My brain isn’t firing on all cylinders today.


🤣😂 I went back and check my picture to make sure I posted the geese and not ducks lol


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## AndersonRanch

When I was younger my brother loved ducks, well he still does he has like 20 of them. Anyways he went to the feed store with my mom and was so proud he bought 3 ducks. I kept looking at them and something wasn’t right with 2 of them but he kept saying they were a different breed. It turned out 2 were geese. He was so upset lol something happened to the one and the duck and that left us with Jeffery. He ended up claiming me and was so protective over me. Which was cute until I got a boyfriend (now my husband) and he would beat him up every time he came to visit lol needless to say even 20 years later there is no way keith will let me get geese lol 
Happybleats do you let your ducks free range? I had mascovey (spell check) cross once but I could not keep them out of the goats water troughs. I know they are more flying type but what about the ones that don’t fly? There’s a chance of ducks in my surprise box and if that happens I want them gone as soon as I can but my daughter wants to keep them. 
And good news! Murray has sent out my order again! They should be here tomorrow or Saturday. Fingers crossed they are alive this time.


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## FizzyGoats

I hope it’s a much happier surprise this time! Keep us updated.


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## FizzyGoats

Oh, and mine won’t ship until the last of this month but I keep checking on the brooder, making sure I can get the temp where it should be in different weather conditions. I just got my camera and am still trying to decide where to put that so I can see everything. 

The babies are just so fragile. I heard heritage turkeys are very delicate until about 8 weeks of age, then they are really tough. I hope that’s true.


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## AndersonRanch

Honestly I didn’t find them that different then chickens. They defiantly can find themselves in more stupid situations but in a brooder they should be ok. I have heard they are more sensitive to the cold, I really don’t know if that is true though and if it is I’m going to say not by much. Water seems to be a issue with them lol I have heard of them drowning in shallow water, only had the issue with the troughs but I used a normal chick waterer and they were ok. Another issue is they say they are stupid about eating and drinking and it’s a good idea to have chickens in with them to remind them how to do that. Again didn’t have a issue with that, they always wanted to peck everything!!! But I think as long as you have at least a few, keep their bedding dry they should be ok. Oh another thing that I have heard is turkeys have more of a issue with black leg. I honestly have never even heard of that until I joined a Turkey group on Facebook and they say to keep them up off the ground for a few months. I didn’t do that so I’m guessing I don’t have that here or maybe it’s all a lie lol


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## FizzyGoats

AndersonRanch said:


> Honestly I didn’t find them that different then chickens. They defiantly can find themselves in more stupid situations but in a brooder they should be ok. I have heard they are more sensitive to the cold, I really don’t know if that is true though and if it is I’m going to say not by much. Water seems to be a issue with them lol I have heard of them drowning in shallow water, only had the issue with the troughs but I used a normal chick waterer and they were ok. Another issue is they say they are stupid about eating and drinking and it’s a good idea to have chickens in with them to remind them how to do that. Again didn’t have a issue with that, they always wanted to peck everything!!! But I think as long as you have at least a few, keep their bedding dry they should be ok. Oh another thing that I have heard is turkeys have more of a issue with black leg. I honestly have never even heard of that until I joined a Turkey group on Facebook and they say to keep them up off the ground for a few months. I didn’t do that so I’m guessing I don’t have that here or maybe it’s all a lie lol


Well this makes me feel a little better. Their brooder is in the barn, the part that will eventually be theirs. So I’m always worried about drafts but I haven’t felt any in the actual brooder. I’ve heard of blackhead but not blackleg (will be googling soon). I did get a few chicks from the hatchery to brood with them to help teach them to eat and drink. We built the brooder off the ground because I’d also heard they weren’t supposed to touch dirt for a while (not sure if it’s true, but didn’t want to chance it). I’ve also read that they pile up in corners for no reason (other than stupidity) so we made ours without corners. 

Here’s my set up. First time ever making/using a brooder so I hope I’m getting it right. I have also added a camera to this set up to monitor them. And we have it so we can keep expanding the size of the brooder until they’re ready to touch the actual ground. 

If any of you have pics of your birds or set ups, I’d love to see!









ETA: No idea why the pic shows up twice. I’m using the app and it only shows me one on here when I write or edit, then when I post, there’s always a duplicate pic.


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## AndersonRanch

Sooo no your right it’s black head not leg, lol that’s is a black leg though for livestock just not poultry, so I haven’t totally lost my Mind lol 
I think your brooder is just fine! Good on the no corners, I remember when I was first starting to let them go out in one of those cheaply made chicken coops (that are not cheap!) they would all go to the corners, they were older so they were fine but I can see that being a issue with really young ones. I use a water trough that is round, only because I have a ton of water trough so always just grab one for the chicks. Maybe that’s why they went swimming hmmmm 
Well I got my order this morning! So much better then a box of dead ones this time. I opened it and only 1 didn’t make it. Got some water in them and they were so cold and I was working fast so I could take My som to school so I threw them in a heat blanket to warm them up for the 15 minutes it took to get him to school. One was weak and just passed and one has a splay leg which I put a bandaid on. I have never had to do that before but the chick is not impressed with that! So we are making sure to move him to the water every hour to see if he’s thirsty until he figures things out with his bandaid. I know I have a white created polish, 2 buff laced polish and I’m pretty sure a blue laced wayndot (please I hope I’m right!) and I have absolutely no idea on the other ones lol


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## FizzyGoats

I’ve already proven in this thread that I’ve lost my mind too, lol. 
Oh they are so tiny and fluffy. Love it. I would not know what any of them are. You’ve got a good percentage figured out. How fun. So glad it went better. Hope the baindaid one gets better and figures out how to move around soon.


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## MissMiniNubian

AndersonRanch said:


> Sooo no your right it’s black head not leg, lol that’s is a black leg though for livestock just not poultry, so I haven’t totally lost my Mind lol
> I think your brooder is just fine! Good on the no corners, I remember when I was first starting to let them go out in one of those cheaply made chicken coops (that are not cheap!) they would all go to the corners, they were older so they were fine but I can see that being a issue with really young ones. I use a water trough that is round, only because I have a ton of water trough so always just grab one for the chicks. Maybe that’s why they went swimming hmmmm
> Well I got my order this morning! So much better then a box of dead ones this time. I opened it and only 1 didn’t make it. Got some water in them and they were so cold and I was working fast so I could take My som to school so I threw them in a heat blanket to warm them up for the 15 minutes it took to get him to school. One was weak and just passed and one has a splay leg which I put a bandaid on. I have never had to do that before but the chick is not impressed with that! So we are making sure to move him to the water every hour to see if he’s thirsty until he figures things out with his bandaid. I know I have a white created polish, 2 buff laced polish and I’m pretty sure a blue laced wayndot (please I hope I’m right!) and I have absolutely no idea on the other ones lol
> View attachment 207445


Aww! Fluffy cuties!


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## Kass

Awe I want to cuddle all the Fluff balls!!!


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## AndersonRanch

They are so stinking cute and I still have no idea what most of them are lol my breaks of doing chores are now spent looking up chick pictures to try and figure out what I have. I THINK this little one is a speckled Sussex, but I’m sure I won’t know for sure until it’s older.








Well I got busted on my hatchery choice order lol they changed my ship date to may 3. Husband will be home so I had no choice but to come clean lol he took it well although he didn’t ask just how many chicks come in that order lol I think he is expecting the 25 like the other orders and I sure am NOT going to be offering the real number on my own


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## FizzyGoats

Lol. Yep, you’re busted. 
They’re so cute and fluffy! I can’t wait for mine. My ship date got changed to May 3rd as well and I’m supposed to be gone the 6th and 7th for a wedding. I already have someone lined up to take care of them but I’m not sure if the babies will get here before I leave now. And I’m also not sure if someone else is allowed to pick them up. Plus, this is my first time and I’m so paranoid that it’ll be tough to trust the initial set up and care to someone else.


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## AndersonRanch

Oh no! I’m sorry you will miss it!
It will be ok though. I would call your post office, or when they call you, let them know they came earlier then expected and X will be picking them up. These are ladies and gentlemen that are used to working in a semi quiet place so I’m sure they will be fine letting them go lol I know my postal ladies like to take a look and get them gone as fast as they can lol 
Your set up is fine! You have really covered all your bases and you will have chicks to show them the way. Just make sure your person knows to dunk their beak in water as they come out of the box and keep a eye on anyone that looks a little tired. And so you don’t miss the cut off time, I think you said you ordered from cackle and they want you to call after 72 hours with any loss so they can refund or ship them out again. But if you will be home the morning of the 6th you should be there to get them and you can even separate the ones that had a hard trip so your helper can keep a closer eye on them. That’s usually how I do it. Good strong ones go in the brooder and the ones that had a hard go of it stay in the house in a tote (that’s a huge no by the way but common sense goes a long ways) until they are strong enough to go with the others.


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## FizzyGoats

That’s great advice. Thank you! 
I sent all the care instructions to my son (he’ll be taking care of them). And luckily I can annoy him by drilling what needs to be done into his head, lol. No matter how much I pester him, he usually agrees to come take care of the animals if he’s off work. 

I just want my fluffy babies here, lol. Hopefully your husband doesn’t take to asking a lot more questions between now and when you get your next box.


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## goathiker

Lol, mine are when they hatch, probably the first week of May. 14 purebred show worthy Brahmas, in 3 colors, plus 4 brown leghorn pullets. 2 India runners due in June, 2 white Chinese geese and 2 khaki Campbell's in the brooders.
The chicks have a long trip, I hope they do well.


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## Calistar

Last year was my big poultry year. This year I'm trying to fill in gaps from where predators took out a big chunk of my free-ranging flock. (Including my sweet little lavender orpington that I paid $25 for as a day-old chick, ughhhh!) Both my black copper marans were lost to predators last year so I currently have three black sex-link marans in my brooder that I got at the feed store. They are supposed to be getting black coppers on Friday though so I may need some of those just in case! I bought a brand new hovabator and am planning on hatching some of my blue and green eggs to hopefully add more color to my egg basket. My only rooster is a cream Legbar, so hopefully he will produce offspring that lay pretty colored eggs! I wouldn't mind getting a marans rooster too, but my feed store only orders hens, understandably. I will have to wait on hatching my chicken eggs though because I have ordered some celadon quail hatching eggs! I got quail last summer and they're pretty neat, but I've been in love with those tiny blue eggs since I first laid eyes on them and I'm really anxious to add some to my flock!


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## FizzyGoats

goathiker said:


> Lol, mine are when they hatch, probably the first week of May. 14 purebred show worthy Brahmas, in 3 colors, plus 4 brown leghorn pullets. 2 India runners due in June, 2 white Chinese geese and 2 khaki Campbell's in the brooders.
> The chicks have a long trip, I hope they do well.


That’s awesome! What a collection. Maybe we’ll get some pics when they hatch? 
I hope next year my turkeys are hatching here and not having to be shipped. That’s so hard on them. 



Calistar said:


> Last year was my big poultry year. This year I'm trying to fill in gaps from where predators took out a big chunk of my free-ranging flock. (Including my sweet little lavender orpington that I paid $25 for as a day-old chick, ughhhh!) Both my black copper marans were lost to predators last year so I currently have three black sex-link marans in my brooder that I got at the feed store. They are supposed to be getting black coppers on Friday though so I may need some of those just in case! I bought a brand new hovabator and am planning on hatching some of my blue and green eggs to hopefully add more color to my egg basket. My only rooster is a cream Legbar, so hopefully he will produce offspring that lay pretty colored eggs! I wouldn't mind getting a marans rooster too, but my feed store only orders hens, understandably. I will have to wait on hatching my chicken eggs though because I have ordered some celadon quail hatching eggs! I got quail last summer and they're pretty neat, but I've been in love with those tiny blue eggs since I first laid eyes on them and I'm really anxious to add some to my flock!


I’m sorry about the predators. I lost a few chickens to aerial predators and a few to domestic dogs (not mine, but someone who was visiting). I learned a hard lesson on letting family bring their dogs when they stay with us, but I’ll never fully solve the aerial predator issue. 
Sounds like you’ve got quite a collection too. The colored eggs are so cool looking and fun. I’m just boring. RIR chickens and bourbon red turkeys are all I’m getting. But I’m still ridiculously excited for them.


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## AndersonRanch

The Brahmans are one of my favorites. I had buff brahmas and they were so sweet. Also lost them to a dog. There was a stray that showed up and I felt bad for him and he wasn’t causing any issues so I left him alone to find his way back home. Huge mistake, lost my brahmas and my 2 turkeys I had before he decided he was full and could move on to someone else’s place. Hard lesson to learn but it won’t happen ever again if a stray shows up again. 
Calistar I’m sorry about your loss  those colorful egg layers are not cheap either! The feed store has some and I asked how much they wanted for the marans and they are $18 a chick. As cute as they are I had to walk away lol if I was selling the eggs I might have gone for it. 
Hey fizzygoat you are consistent on what you like! You like red birds, nothing wrong with that at all. My road island red may not be anything fancy but she lays nice big brown eggs every single day. My fanciest bird I have out there is my silver laced wayndot and she lays these dinky little eggs and only when she is in the mood lol


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## MellonFriend

So you don't have luck with silver laced Wyandottes, Jessica? Most of our flock is wyandotte and we love them.


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## AndersonRanch

Well in the egg department not good luck but it might just be her. The other one lost half her wing after getting stuck in the fence, she is free range and thinks she is a turkey but I have no idea what kind of eggs she lays. I haven’t found any eggs of hers yet. But this is her first year laying. I really though her eggs would get bigger but they have not yet. She is consistent on laying every day, I can’t say that about all of them lol I’ll show you the size difference when I gather the eggs this evening. But she is beautiful! And honestly the main reason I have chickens is to enjoy and bug control. The eggs are just a bonus but I would LOVE to hatch out some eggs since the rooster in a Ancona. I think those would be so pretty but I’m not sure if they would ever hatch being that small


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## Kass

Calistar said:


> Last year was my big poultry year. This year I'm trying to fill in gaps from where predators took out a big chunk of my free-ranging flock. (Including my sweet little lavender orpington that I paid $25 for as a day-old chick, ughhhh!) Both my black copper marans were lost to predators last year so I currently have three black sex-link marans in my brooder that I got at the feed store. They are supposed to be getting black coppers on Friday though so I may need some of those just in case! I bought a brand new hovabator and am planning on hatching some of my blue and green eggs to hopefully add more color to my egg basket. My only rooster is a cream Legbar, so hopefully he will produce offspring that lay pretty colored eggs! I wouldn't mind getting a marans rooster too, but my feed store only orders hens, understandably. I will have to wait on hatching my chicken eggs though because I have ordered some celadon quail hatching eggs! I got quail last summer and they're pretty neat, but I've been in love with those tiny blue eggs since I first laid eyes on them and I'm really anxious to add some to my flock!


I'm getting some 3 week old quail next week! Any advice? Feeding, water, housing, etc.


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## FizzyGoats

AndersonRanch said:


> The Brahmans are one of my favorites. I had buff brahmas and they were so sweet. Also lost them to a dog. There was a stray that showed up and I felt bad for him and he wasn’t causing any issues so I left him alone to find his way back home. Huge mistake, lost my brahmas and my 2 turkeys I had before he decided he was full and could move on to someone else’s place. Hard lesson to learn but it won’t happen ever again if a stray shows up again.
> Calistar I’m sorry about your loss  those colorful egg layers are not cheap either! The feed store has some and I asked how much they wanted for the marans and they are $18 a chick. As cute as they are I had to walk away lol if I was selling the eggs I might have gone for it.
> Hey fizzygoat you are consistent on what you like! You like red birds, nothing wrong with that at all. My road island red may not be anything fancy but she lays nice big brown eggs every single day. My fanciest bird I have out there is my silver laced wayndot and she lays these dinky little eggs and only when she is in the mood lol


Yeah with the dogs visiting with family, they’d been here two days with no issues, then poof, they kill two chickens in about 20 chaotic seconds. I get really attached to my stupid animals so it was pretty hard for me. My dog is a big 85 lb puppy (1.5 year old) mutt. And he’s so gentle with chickens. He isn’t a LGD by any stretch of the imagination, but he has no prey drive, thank goodness. The only time he bugs the chickens is when one wanders off, he goes and stands near it until it gives in and joins the others again. Then he just lies nearby and watches them. 

And I guess I like red birds, lol. I didn’t do it on purpose. I have a ton of cardinals around here too. It’s a theme. Accidental, but a theme nonetheless.


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## Calistar

Kass said:


> I'm getting some 3 week old quail next week! Any advice? Feeding, water, housing, etc.


Be prepared for mess! They fling their food everywhere! That was something I wasn't prepared for. And keep them in a low cage because they WILL fly straight up and risk breaking their necks! Other than that they're surprisingly hardy! I've only lost one so far and that was during an extreme heat wave. They're like messy little chickens that throw their food. They're super cute though and I love the sound the roosters make! The celadon eggs I'm awaiting will be my first attempt at hatching them though. Well, aside from when I tried to get my silkies to hatch some for me. That was a tremendous failure!

Oh, one more bit of advice would be to keep a backup cage of some sort. Even just a dog crate or small wire cage. Every once in a while they'll gang up on one and I'll have to separate it for a few days. I found it was easiest to keep several small groups than cramming one larger group in a cage like you see done in larger operations.


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## FizzyGoats

I just talked to someone at Cackle Hatchery and they worked with me to push the ship date back a few days so I can be here when my birds arrive. I’ve never ordered from a hatchery before. Are they all this nice? The lady spoke to me for a long while, not just about the shipping date, but gave me a rundown of what to do and answered a bunch of questions I had.


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## AndersonRanch

You will HAVE to show pictures of your baby quail when you get them. I think they are absolutely adorable!
Oh that is great they pushed it back. I do have to say that is one thing that I like about cackle, they are usually pretty good about things like that. And I think their birds are much more Hardy then others. Everyone has such good luck with them and they always throw extras in just in case. I wasn’t thrilled that Maury didn’t do that and had to call and get a refund on the ones I lost. If they just threw in a few extras I wouldn’t have even bothered calling about a refund of $8, but $20 i did lol


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## AndersonRanch

So my next arch of chicks hatched! I have been a nervous wreck since I did a semi dry hatch for the first time but all hatched but the last guy is having some issues. But I have 3 blue silkies that I’m excited about. If you look you can see a black chick and a totally white chick. I for the fun of it put my RIR X Ancona eggs in, one chick came out white and one came out black! I thought that was pretty cool. 
AND I am happy to say 1. My small batch of turkey eggs went on lock down today! And 2. I candles all of the other turkey eggs that are due to hatch later this month and out of 66 all but 1 are alive and swimming around. So I think I’m sold on the dry hatching!


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## BarnOwl

Kass said:


> I'm getting some auracona (?) Chicks from a friend soon.
> I have a question. I was going to make my own thread ( tell me if I need to) but I figured I can ask here.
> A friend has a few extra quail chicks and she asked if I wanted them. Does anyone have quail? What do you think of them? Pros and cons?


I have coturnix quail.

*Pros*: fast maturity--they don't take as long as chickens to grow for meat or before they start laying, and they are productive layers of cute little speckled eggs. They're small, cute, and relatively quiet--don't need as big of a coop as chickens and won't bother the neighbors if that's an issue.

*Cons*: They toss out and waste a lot of feed, and they poop A LOT. In my experience, they're kind of dumb (the chicks especially look for ways to kill themselves, haha). I haven't experienced this yet, but they can be vicious towards each other--lots of posts on my FB quail group about them scalping each other.

They generally cannot be free-ranged like chickens, they'll just wander off/get taken by predataors.

I enjoy my quail, and I'll keep my current set, but I probably won't raise any more simply because I also have lots of chickens, and I'm getting overwhelmed with eggs. I mostly just throw the eggs to the pigs or give them away so why go to the expense of buying feed?


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## BarnOwl

This is a fun thread! 

I don't have goats yet...my babies won't be weaned and ready to leave their farms until the end of May. It's so hard to wait, but I am distracting myself with chicks, haha! 

I ordered 5 chicks from a hatchery (a swedish flower hen, two easter eggers, a cream legbar, and spangled hamburg) that arrived mid April. I was supposed to get a white leghorn, but that one was missing from the order. boo. 

Then, I sold 10 hens from my current flock to make space for the new ones. I immediately felt a bit sad and nostalgic about the old gals, came home, and stuck 20 of their eggs in the incubator. What is WRONG with me?! 

Last week, 18 of 20 eggs hatched, my first time hatching chicken eggs, and it was SO much fun! They are just barnyard mixes, but it will be exciting to see what they look like when they grow up. I can't keep them all, sadly. Anyone want any chicks.


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## NigerianNewbie

@BarnOwl Those are cute little chicks sitting in the rooster planter. Behind them are lovely azalea flowers as well. Heads up, azalea and/or rhododendron are toxic to goats. Read you would be getting your goats soon and felt the need to warn you about the flowering bush in the background.


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## FizzyGoats

AndersonRanch said:


> So my next arch of chicks hatched! I have been a nervous wreck since I did a semi dry hatch for the first time but all hatched but the last guy is having some issues. But I have 3 blue silkies that I’m excited about. If you look you can see a black chick and a totally white chick. I for the fun of it put my RIR X Ancona eggs in, one chick came out white and one came out black! I thought that was pretty cool.
> AND I am happy to say 1. My small batch of turkey eggs went on lock down today! And 2. I candles all of the other turkey eggs that are due to hatch later this month and out of 66 all but 1 are alive and swimming around. So I think I’m sold on the dry hatching!
> View attachment 207786


 That’s awesome on the dry hatching. And soon you’ll have lots of turkey! Those chicks are so cute. 



BarnOwl said:


> This is a fun thread!
> 
> I don't have goats yet...my babies won't be weaned and ready to leave their farms until the end of May. It's so hard to wait, but I am distracting myself with chicks, haha!
> 
> I ordered 5 chicks from a hatchery (a swedish flower hen, two easter eggers, a cream legbar, and spangled hamburg) that arrived mid April. I was supposed to get a white leghorn, but that one was missing from the order. boo.
> 
> Then, I sold 10 hens from my current flock to make space for the new ones. I immediately felt a bit sad and nostalgic about the old gals, came home, and stuck 20 of their eggs in the incubator. What is WRONG with me?!
> 
> Last week, 18 of 20 eggs hatched, my first time hatching chicken eggs, and it was SO much fun! They are just barnyard mixes, but it will be exciting to see what they look like when they grow up. I can't keep them all, sadly. Anyone want any chicks.
> 
> View attachment 207789
> 
> 
> View attachment 207788
> 
> 
> View attachment 207790


Aw, cute chicks. I’m sort of in the same boat, except I don’t even have my birds yet. Well, I have a few hens but my turkey poults and a few new chicks will get here next week. Goats will get here mid-May.


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## BarnOwl

NigerianNewbie said:


> @BarnOwl Those are cute little chicks sitting in the rooster planter. Behind them are lovely azalea flowers as well. Heads up, azalea and/or rhododendron are toxic to goats. Read you would be getting your goats soon and felt the need to warn you about the flowering bush in the background.


Thanks for the heads up! The goats will (hopefully!) stay in the back field well away from where this photo was taken.


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## AndersonRanch

Awww I like barn yard mixes. You never know what they are going to end up looking like! 
Well a day early! It was so hard though! He peeped and I had to go to work! So I raced
Home and just missed him hatching. I have another almost out and 2 more peeped eggs and 1 that doesn’t seem to be doing anything yet. But Isnt he sooooo cute!!!


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## BarnOwl

AndersonRanch said:


> Awww I like barn yard mixes. You never know what they are going to end up looking like!
> Well a day early! It was so hard though! He peeped and I had to go to work! So I raced
> Home and just missed him hatching. I have another almost out and 2 more peeped eggs and 1 that doesn’t seem to be doing anything yet. But Isnt he sooooo cute!!!


Ahhhh, what a cutie! Did you wake up to any more? Hatching eggs is so exciting. I wish I had more coops so I could put more eggs in the incubator!


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## FizzyGoats

So cute! And so brand new. Love it.


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## MellonFriend

Here are our Orpington pullets. They are all almost feathered out now and living in our chick palace in our garage. We have to cover the cage in tulle because we've had trouble in the past with snakes eating our chicks. Saw one trying to get in this year to no avail.

There's still hope that they are all hens. Some of them have larger combs but they haven't turned red yet some there's a chance. They already been give boy names by my sisters so they've been talking about, for example changing "The Dude" to "The Dudette" 🤭


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## FizzyGoats

Lol. Love the middle pic. They are super cute.


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## AndersonRanch

Awww your chicks are like little princesses with the tule lol that’s a good idea though! I might have to take that idea because I am worried sick about the snakes :/ although we found a racer snake where the turkeys hang out and it was packed to death. So maybe the turkeys will help keep them safe :/ 
Yes I did wake up to more! So 4 all together. I looked the last 2 eggs over threw the incubator and didn’t see anything so grabbed them out and when one egg rolled I saw a little beak. I sure hope he doesn’t get shrink wrapped. The humidity is a little on the high side but if he doesn’t make progress by this evening I will help him out. 
What I actually woke up to was my phone call about my order getting to the post office. I ended up getting 47 chicks, it’s a bit over whelming so all I can say is I got 4 polish and 8 with fuzzy feet that I hope are Cochins lol Oh and I turken. I also got 2 poults, one is white so probably a broad breasted :/ will have to get him gone before I fall in love with it. And 2 ducks, the one thing I really didn’t want but my daughter grabbed the Ancona duck up and said it’s name is dream since it’s a dream come true so how can I not keep them. My son was excited about the ducks too so I told them if they ever find their way into my troughs they have to either find a new home or the two of them are building a duck pen. I have to admit they are stinking cute though lol








All my poults








And all the chicks. I gave them a hour in that tote to make sure they got warmed up and cold and water in them and then they went out into the trough outside in a dog kennel. They are all healthy and didn’t loose a single one on the shipping


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## MellonFriend

They are all so beautiful! And so many!


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## BarnOwl

AndersonRanch said:


> Awww your chicks are like little princesses with the tule lol that’s a good idea though! I might have to take that idea because I am worried sick about the snakes :/ although we found a racer snake where the turkeys hang out and it was packed to death. So maybe the turkeys will help keep them safe :/
> Yes I did wake up to more! So 4 all together. I looked the last 2 eggs over threw the incubator and didn’t see anything so grabbed them out and when one egg rolled I saw a little beak. I sure hope he doesn’t get shrink wrapped. The humidity is a little on the high side but if he doesn’t make progress by this evening I will help him out.
> What I actually woke up to was my phone call about my order getting to the post office. I ended up getting 47 chicks, it’s a bit over whelming so all I can say is I got 4 polish and 8 with fuzzy feet that I hope are Cochins lol Oh and I turken. I also got 2 poults, one is white so probably a broad breasted :/ will have to get him gone before I fall in love with it. And 2 ducks, the one thing I really didn’t want but my daughter grabbed the Ancona duck up and said it’s name is dream since it’s a dream come true so how can I not keep them. My son was excited about the ducks too so I told them if they ever find their way into my troughs they have to either find a new home or the two of them are building a duck pen. I have to admit they are stinking cute though lol
> View attachment 207862
> 
> All my poults
> View attachment 207863
> 
> And all the chicks. I gave them a hour in that tote to make sure they got warmed up and cold and water in them and then they went out into the trough outside in a dog kennel. They are all healthy and didn’t loose a single one on the shipping


They are so stinking cute!! I would love to try ducks someday; they look like so much fun. Are your odered chicks straight-run? Are you going to keep them all?

I have 23 chicks right now. I really wish I had enough room to keep them all! Sadly I think I can only keep about 10 at the absolute most--otherwise I get overwhelmed with eggs, and I have to admit cleaning is easier with fewer chickens and buying less feed is nice too. I suppose I'll keep the five chicks I mail ordered. That means I can only keep 5 of the 18 I hatched. Wah.


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## FizzyGoats

So much fluffy cuteness! You are brave to get so many. Actually, all of you are braver than me, lol. I thought getting 15 was living on the edge. (11 turkey, 4 chicks). And I only have 3 hens now (and won’t be able to introduce the wee ones until they are not wee because I think my hens would kill them if given the chance). Amelia, Lucy, and Ethel can be quite rude to other birds. 

I went to our tiny post office today to talk to the one and only office worker. I introduced him to my son because if they get here on the 7th, he’ll pick them up. If they get here on the 8th, it’ll be me. The guy at the office said he’d call right away because when chicks come in, he can’t hear himself think, lol. It’s a small room and I guess the cheeps echo through it. I went through the whole list of what do with my son if they come in while I’m out of town. So rude for family to have a wedding when I’m expecting my babies, lol. 

Here’s my current little flock chilling with my dog (sometimes I think he thinks he’s an LGD).


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## goathiker

The Brahma chicks are on their way from Ohio.


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## goathiker

I also have 2 mixed chicks drying off in the incubator. They are light brahma and Easter Eggers lol.


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## FizzyGoats

Fun!


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## Kass

goathiker said:


> I also have 2 mixed chicks drying off in the incubator. They are light brahma and Easter Eggers lol.


Do you have much experience with the Buff Brahmas? I got one with a broken leg, and I've never had them before. I've heard they are supposed to get huge! 2.5 feet! Is this true?


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## Kass

I finally got quail! 3 coturnix right now. They are 4 weeks old. 1 might be a male but I'm not sure. If it's a female ill get a male so I can hatch some eggs! 
And 3 barnyard mixe chickens, I think Americana. Super friendly and I can carry them around perched on my arm. 

Anyone know what breed the rooster in the last picture is?


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## AndersonRanch

No defiantly not keeping them all. The plan is to raise them and see which ones we like, kinda get a idea for all the breeds, keep those and sell the other ones. So far I’m thrilled I did this because I love all the Cochins and I honestly never would have went that way if I didn’t get my hands on them. My son loves the polish and my daughter just wants to keep them all lol even the white ones which I said no to white ones, they are just too easy for every predator to spot. 
Fuzzy goat definitely keep them apart for now. Road island reds are good chickens but can be so rude! The ones I had/ have are always the one with attitude. Once chick was terrible! She always beat the other chicks up and would peck the crap out of me. I tossed her out of the little pen to give her a time out and she vanished! I felt so bad about it but didn’t miss her moody butt. The turkeys took a long time to realize they could defend themselves against the chickens. Still the one rooster keeps them in line so they have learned to just stay away from him. 
Jill I think that is going to be a good cross! You need to share pictures. 
Your quail are so cute! They sure don’t stay tiny for very long though do they?


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## goathiker

Yeah, that's a partridge Penedesenca or a brown leghorn.


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## goathiker

The Brahmas do get quite large, mature roosters average 16 to 18 lbs.They mature late, don't lay daily like hybrids but, their laying life is years long.
They are super gentle and particularly good with children. They need good protection from predators as they are slow.


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## goathiker

They're here


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## goathiker

The 2 dark grey are the home hatched crossbreds.


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## Kass

goathiker said:


> Yeah, that's a partridge Penedesenca or a brown leghorn.
> View attachment 207902


Thank you! Just looked them up... looks like they lay white eggs. Thats the chick's dad in the picture, and their mom is auracauna/Americana ( I don't know the difference beyond roosters tail feathers ) . I wonder what color their eggs will be?


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## goathiker

What color are mom's eggs?


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## goathiker

I found it, the extra mystery chick is a reddish colored leghorn. Was driving me nuts trying to count them lol.


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## AndersonRanch

Lol good you got yours figured out, now you can start helping me figure out what I have  there’s one really cute one and I have been trying to figure it out and finally did today, a Plymouth Rock. Another 1 down MANY more to go


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## goathiker

Hm, I was looking at a chick ID guide earlier. I'll see if I can find it again.
Since I always buy a few leghorn chicks to lay until the heavy chickens start laying most hatcherys send an extra leghorn pullet.
I've never used Mt Healthy before however so, it could be a production red, welsummer, or Hampton. All I know is that it doesn't have feathered feet lol.
Tomorrow I'll get a picture of my water fowl. They are living out in the green house under a heat lamp at the moment. 
Nobody can stand geese and ducks in tubs for long lol.


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## FizzyGoats

My flock arrived. They came while I was gone but my son took great care of them. All made the trip alive and stayed alive the 10 hours or so until I got home. Cackle also gave me one extra of each (so I had 12 turkeys and 5 chicks). Then one turkey poult died.  No idea why. It wasn’t smothered. It was eating and drinking and moving. Then it went to sleep and died. That was last night around 9pm. Poor birds could hardly sleep after that. Every time one would try to sleep, I’d see it lying there on the camera and run out to the barn in a panic. I finally realized I had to leave them alone. And I had to sleep as well. So around midnight, I went to bed. This was my flock this morning around 6. All zooming around, cheeping, and rushing to peck my fingers when I reach in to brush wood chips off the thermometer so I could check the brooder temp. So all surviving 11 turkeys and 5 chicks made it through their first night. I know I’ll likely lose more in the next few weeks. I just get paranoid that I’m not taking good enough care of them.

They are super fluffy and so tiny. Keeping them alive is really my only goal for the next few weeks, lol.


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## BarnOwl

So cute! Congratulations!


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## FizzyGoats

I have a brooder temp question that all you more experienced people can hopefully answer. I think everything is ok but want to make sure. So the poults and chicks have been very active running all over, napping in various places, and eating and drinking a lot. But rarely do they huddle right under the light. On occasion a couple will stand and/or nap under the heat lamp, but they tend to nap rest more sort of just out of the direct light. Is it too hot? According to the thermometer, it’s fine. And they are evenly disbursed throughout the brooder, just rarely right under the light and rarely at the very edge of the brooder. Is this fine?


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## goathiker

This is perfect and exactly what you want. The environment is warm enough everywhere with the little extra when they get cold in the early morning. 

My birds apparently got chilled on the airplane. I've had 7 cases of pasty butt so far. They are still doing alright though.


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## FizzyGoats

Ok. Thank you. That makes me feel better. Sorry your little ones had a rough trip. But they’re lucky to be with someone who knows what they’re doing. Unlike me, lol.


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## goathiker

So pasty butt is where a dried poop ball glues the vent shut. The chick can't poop and it will die within a few hours.
I put about an inch and a half of water in an old cereal bowl and give them a hottish sitz bath until I can gently wipe the poop away.
You can't just pull the dried clump off as it might pull out some of the inside as well.
This happens when chicks get too cold normally. Cleaning them up and checking the temperature usually fixes the problem.
Since mine were wet I added a heating pad for them to lay on tonight.


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## FizzyGoats

Aw, sweet babies. I’m glad you said how you clean it off and glad none of mine had it because everything I had read on it said to wipe it off with a damp, warm cloth. The mini sitz bath makes more sense. 

I got lucky this morning. My poults and chicks are constantly setting off the motion alarm for the camera and it sends me a notification, which I usually ignore. I had already checked on them twice by 8 am when the notification chimed for about the 20th time this morning and I decided just to look. At first it was normal, chicks zooming around. Then I noticed one in the background flipped on its back with others pecking at its feet. I sprinted out to the barn and put it upright then picked it up to inspect it. All was well. But they’re so stinking fragile at this age. And the turkeys especially seem to have a good time trying to injure or kill themselves and I’m just constantly running interference.


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## BarnOwl

I've never used heat lamps. I'm kind of paranoid about the risk of fires because I brood chicks in the garage attached to our house. I use heat plates, and I love them.


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## goathiker

Mine are in the living room where they are observed constantly. The outside building that is the next step is almost completely glass. 
There's a set of rules I follow with lamps. Each is secured 3 different ways. If the 2 failed then they would swing against the wall breaking the bulb. 
Once they get put into their wooden hut they are feathered enough for a little infrared ceramic heater like those used for reptiles.


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## FizzyGoats

Mine are out in the barn but monitored by camera, so not as good. But we do have the light bolted, chained, and hooked to a big wooden structure so we’re as safe as we can possibly be. They do make me nervous though (which is why it’s secured 3 ways). If I brood again I might try the infrared ones.


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## goathiker

Here's the greenhouse group


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## FizzyGoats

They are too cute!


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## AndersonRanch

Ugh that pasty butt is so annoying. I am still fighting it with my Murray order. I have tried upping their worms, changing feed, giving scrambled eggs and nothing is working. Every morning and evening the kids and I wash a few chicks butts. As odd as it is so far only 1 out of the cackle group. 
Well today I screwed up. I wanted to get the last batch of chicks and divide the dog crate in half and put them in their instead of the water trough. I drug the trough out and put new bedding in and got their diver up. I had the kids watching the chicks to make sure that the outside chickens and turkeys didn’t bother them but they didn’t realize they were baking in the sun. We got them in the shade as fast as we could and I was dipping beaks in water as fast as I could to cool them off. Luckily they all came out of it but I had 46 limp little chicks to start with. I felt so bad and thought I lost the whole group. I also separated the ducks since they were making a mess and getting everything wet. They are so unhappy but they will get over it. 
Turkeys though are doing great! I have 22 eggs that went on lock down today and tomorrow I am selling 3 of them  but I have to be strong because I am conning them husband into getting me a cabinet incubator lol
Oh! And 17 out of 19 turkey hens are broody. My toms have take up loving on a empty feed sack since they don’t have so many girlfriends. I have left the sack there for them and just look the other way LMAO!!!


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## FizzyGoats

Don’t you hate it when you accidentally do something that isn’t good for the animals? It happens to anyone who has ever had them but it just makes you feel so bad. Maybe they’ll have amazing Vit D levels now. 

I’ve heard both ducks and geese make a mess and usually have to be separated from other birds. I’ve always wondered what the heck they do to make such messes? Are they just pooping machines? Do they kick bedding everywhere? Or just splash like crazy in the water dish?

That’s amazing numbers on your turkeys! Lots of eggs and broody hens. And I think you’ll make excellent use of a cabinet incubator. Sell some birds now. Hatch lots more later. Oh and I had to actually LOL at the toms and the empty feed sacks thing. 

I had my first bout of pasty butt yesterday. Well, not me, the birds. I upped the temp 5 degrees, so if it’s worse today, I’ll lower it I guess. So much can cause it that I’m at a loss. Only a few had it, but it makes me feel bad to wash their little butts and put them back with wet hind ends. Can’t be very warm and cozy.


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## FizzyGoats

So I read that you shouldn’t handle the baby birds, especially turkey poults too much. Not that I really handle them other than when I need to. But I heard that if you do, you’ll imprint on them and that can mess everything up come breeding time. Hens will not submit to a tom but will to you, and toms will do their puff dance to impress you instead of the hens. 

Anyone have any input or thoughts on this?


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## AndersonRanch

Well I can tell you the feed sack never handled them a lot and they sure have imprinted on that sucker lol
Ok jokes aside  I’m not saying I have years and years of experience with them, just a year now not counting my broad breasted I have had before. But I handled mine a LOT! The Toms are in a constant fluff. They come up to me fluffed, they go over there and here fluffed so I don’t think they are really fluffed at me and trying to impress me. That’s just them right now. I have two very very sweet girls that come up to be pet and loved on and they will lay down for me but they even laid down for me when it wasn’t breeding time. They just genuinely love me and want me to pet them. I know for sure Snoodless let’s the boys breed her. I have marked her eggs since she is the all time sweetest and favorite and I want to keep all her poults and she has a good amount of eggs ready to hatch right now. 
The one issue I can see happening is maybe the Toms have more of a chance being aggressive. My poor daughter has the worst luck with chickens. The ones she picks and loves on the most end up being roosters. Those roosters always end up being jerks and we have to sell them. I think with the lack of fear and being spoiled rotten probably plays a huge part in that. When I figured out who the Toms were we started to kinda distance our selfs from them but they are all good boys so far. I keep a eye on them with ir being breeding season but so far nothing they have done has made me nervous about them attacking me. 
So I say love on them. It is so fun having my friendly side kicks follow me around doing my chores every morning and when I sit down Snoodless snuggles up to me.


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## FizzyGoats

Well that’s good to hear. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t plan on being out there bothering them in their brooder all the time, but I don’t want them to be terrified when I reach my hand in either. I want them to like being around me but not need to be, like my problem child, Little, lol. I love that he jumps at the wall trying to say hi when I come in. 

So one more noob question. (Sorry.) I read that (seems all my question start this way) when the wee ones start to climb on things like their little waterers or feeders, it’s time to put in some low and small roosts. I also read that you shouldn’t put roosts in for a few weeks. Mine were hatched and mailed the 5th but a few are climbers already. Should I put in some really low (like an inch high) dowel rods or something for them to roost on? Or are they in too much danger of falling off and hurting themselves still?


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## AndersonRanch

I don’t know the answer for sure on that one. I didn’t start giving mine anything until they were able to fly up and swing on the chain that the heat lamp hung off of. But I don’t see how they would hurt themselves on it being a inch off the ground. Or they might just like getting up higher and exploring and I wonder if maybe a brick or two but in there would be fun enough for them. I think either way though would be fine.
I also realized I forgot to answer about the ducks. Unlike the chickens and turkeys those things play in the water. They wash their mouth out in it and do this a LOT. They end up splashing water all over.
But I put the poults in with the chicks since I needed their little tub for the chicks that have hatched. That didn’t go well at all and those stinking chicks were pecking their feet like crazy. So since they don’t seem to like the turkeys and the ducks don’t like being away from the chicks the ducks went back with the chicks and the turkeys went in their trough. Everyone is happy now. With their new area I can keep the water far away from the food and heat so they should be fine with the ducks now. 
I have one older chick that jumped the divider into the youngest chicks area and I sat and watched her with them and she is so sweet to them. She lays down and the chicks just cuddle her and she just lays her head on them. So I’m going to let her stay with them.


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## Calistar

Omg Jessica, your toms must be a spectacle! XD That poor feed sack!



FizzyGoats said:


> I’ve always wondered what the heck they do to make such messes? Are they just pooping machines? Do they kick bedding everywhere? Or just splash like crazy in the water dish?


Usually they just do all three and then mix it all together! 

Well, my quail eggs got delayed by a week but will hopefully be going out this week! I'm going to try to set up the new incubator today if I have time between trimming goat hooves, vaccinating babies, and shearing that last sheep! I was planning on dispatching some of my excess quail roosters to free up pens for the new chicks I'll be hatching, but they're probably close to a year old now. Are they going to be too tough to eat? I haven't butchered my own quail before so I don't want to set myself up to fail because I'm working with unfit birds. I'm perfectly happy to feed them to my cats instead (which is why I wanted to raise quail in the first place) but it seems like a shame to feed them the very first ones, I don't know lol.


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## goathiker

Put them in the slow cooker on a bed of vegetables and a tiny bit of water and butter.


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## FizzyGoats

AndersonRanch said:


> I don’t know the answer for sure on that one. I didn’t start giving mine anything until they were able to fly up and swing on the chain that the heat lamp hung off of. But I don’t see how they would hurt themselves on it being a inch off the ground. Or they might just like getting up higher and exploring and I wonder if maybe a brick or two but in there would be fun enough for them. I think either way though would be fine.
> I also realized I forgot to answer about the ducks. Unlike the chickens and turkeys those things play in the water. They wash their mouth out in it and do this a LOT. They end up splashing water all over.
> But I put the poults in with the chicks since I needed their little tub for the chicks that have hatched. That didn’t go well at all and those stinking chicks were pecking their feet like crazy. So since they don’t seem to like the turkeys and the ducks don’t like being away from the chicks the ducks went back with the chicks and the turkeys went in their trough. Everyone is happy now. With their new area I can keep the water far away from the food and heat so they should be fine with the ducks now.
> I have one older chick that jumped the divider into the youngest chicks area and I sat and watched her with them and she is so sweet to them. She lays down and the chicks just cuddle her and she just lays her head on them. So I’m going to let her stay with them.


That is so sweet. My little chicks (in with poults) are a mixed bag. 2 seem pretty docile and 3 peck at the poults like little beaked demons. Luckily the poults (most of them) will bat the smaller chicks away or sit on them until they squirm away. 

So below is my solution to the climbing and hopefully some chickens pecking. I put the rings from the stack toddler toy in there. They can hop up on them if they want. They can peck at them. And as shown below, they can apparently use them as pillows during nap time. Not expecting that one. The do seem to enjoy them though. I’m just going to watch closely and make sure they’re ok with them. 











Calistar said:


> Omg Jessica, your toms must be a spectacle! XD That poor feed sack!
> 
> 
> 
> Usually they just do all three and then mix it all together!
> 
> Well, my quail eggs got delayed by a week but will hopefully be going out this week! I'm going to try to set up the new incubator today if I have time between trimming goat hooves, vaccinating babies, and shearing that last sheep! I was planning on dispatching some of my excess quail roosters to free up pens for the new chicks I'll be hatching, but they're probably close to a year old now. Are they going to be too tough to eat? I haven't butchered my own quail before so I don't want to set myself up to fail because I'm working with unfit birds. I'm perfectly happy to feed them to my cats instead (which is why I wanted to raise quail in the first place) but it seems like a shame to feed them the very first ones, I don't know lol.


So duck and geese are messy babies, lol. 
And I’m tired just reading your list of things to do! Good luck with all that.


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## AndersonRanch

Omg that is awesome with the rings!! I need to find rings for mine. When I was taking the poults to sell (I was SO STRONG!) one laid its head on the other and passed out standing up lol they sure are entertaining little things. 
So totally unhealthy but what I do with doves when we hunt them is put a bunch of butter and a little oil in a pan, get it nice and hot and then flour those breast and cook them slowly. I’m sure we get a good amount that are not young and the whole lean wild thing going for them but it tastes so good. But again I’m not the healthiest eater lol either way I say try it. If you don’t like it then have a back up easy meal ready and then give to the cats


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## goathiker

My credit card got dinged for the NPIP registered show chicks I ordered months ago. 
They're supposed to be sent the end of this month. Crossing fingers...


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## Kass

Calistar said:


> Omg Jessica, your toms must be a spectacle! XD That poor feed sack!
> 
> 
> 
> Usually they just do all three and then mix it all together!
> 
> Well, my quail eggs got delayed by a week but will hopefully be going out this week! I'm going to try to set up the new incubator today if I have time between trimming goat hooves, vaccinating babies, and shearing that last sheep! I was planning on dispatching some of my excess quail roosters to free up pens for the new chicks I'll be hatching, but they're probably close to a year old now. Are they going to be too tough to eat? I haven't butchered my own quail before so I don't want to set myself up to fail because I'm working with unfit birds. I'm perfectly happy to feed them to my cats instead (which is why I wanted to raise quail in the first place) but it seems like a shame to feed them the very first ones, I don't know lol.


A quail person! 
I just got a three quail that should start laying soon if they are all females ( not sure about 1) and I want to get more but I have a few questions. 
Why did you choose quail? 
What do they add to the farm? 
Do you make any money selling eggs and chicks?
If I were to get more and make it a thing, they would have to pay for themselves. I'm wondering how much a dozen eggs sell for and how many quail I would need for it to be sustainable. 
Sorry for all the questions!


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## FizzyGoats

AndersonRanch said:


> Omg that is awesome with the rings!! I need to find rings for mine. When I was taking the poults to sell (I was SO STRONG!) one laid its head on the other and passed out standing up lol they sure are entertaining little things.
> So totally unhealthy but what I do with doves when we hunt them is put a bunch of butter and a little oil in a pan, get it nice and hot and then flour those breast and cook them slowly. I’m sure we get a good amount that are not young and the whole lean wild thing going for them but it tastes so good. But again I’m not the healthiest eater lol either way I say try it. If you don’t like it then have a back up easy meal ready and then give to the cats


You were strong! Good job. They really are characters. Mine make me laugh a lot. The turkey poults have such a different disposition from our hen chicks we ordered with them. They seem more curious about everything and not as skittish or aggressive. Of course there are exceptions on both sides but they are all a lot of fun. 



goathiker said:


> My credit card got dinged for the NPIP registered show chicks I ordered months ago.
> They're supposed to be sent the end of this month. Crossing fingers...


Nice! I definitely want pics when they arrive. 



As far as quail go, I know even less about them then I do turkeys (and I know almost nothing about turkeys). All I really know is I think they are some of the cutest little babies.


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## Calistar

Kass said:


> A quail person!
> I just got a three quail that should start laying soon if they are all females ( not sure about 1) and I want to get more but I have a few questions.
> Why did you choose quail?
> What do they add to the farm?
> Do you make any money selling eggs and chicks?
> If I were to get more and make it a thing, they would have to pay for themselves. I'm wondering how much a dozen eggs sell for and how many quail I would need for it to be sustainable.
> Sorry for all the questions!


I'm still a very new quail person! I bought a flock of 13 six-week-olds late last summer. I ended up with 4 or 5 hens and the rest roosters. I meant to eat the extra roosters before now, but I didn't have an incubator and didn't want to spend big bucks for a good one, and hated the thought of eating any of my original flock before I had a way for them to reproduce. I finally bit the bullet and bought a nice incubator about a month ago, so now I'm wanting to really get into hatching so i can be more in charge of my populations. My original quail are "normal" Coturnix, but the eggs I have coming soon are celadon, because I LOVE those blue eggs. I also discovered that there are some really gorgeous (feather) color varieties out there that I'd love to try hatching if my celadon hatch goes well!

So far my quail are not making me money. I already had chickens, ducks, and geese. The quail were a novelty and something that I could hopefully process myself, since I've still been too intimidated to try processing my extra chickens. And to be honest, the main reason I originally wanted quail was to raise them for cat food in an attempt to give my cats a healthier diet. As I mentioned, I haven't actually butchered any yet since I didn't have a way to replace them (don't bother trying to hatch them under silkie hens!) but my old diabetic cat LOVES the daily quail egg he gets (along with a splash of goat milk) on top of his canned food when he's getting his insulin injection 

Im hoping that once I have steady hatches going and more females, I'll be able to offer eggs and chicks, while having plenty left to grow out for the table (or the cats'!)


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## AndersonRanch

You need a incubator and you can hatch them  maybe I can sell you one of mine because I am happy to say I didn’t even up getting nothing for mother’s day lol I really thought I wasn’t getting anything and that was fine, but my husband told me today I need to be home Thursday because my Mother’s Day cabinet incubator is coming and I need to sign for it! Of course though he didn’t know he needed to buy trays for it too so I ordered those today and they won’t be here until the 20th and all my turkey hens are broody but hey I sure will enjoy it next year lol yeah who am I kidding I’m throwing chicken eggs in there lol 
Well another oops day. I left the bathroom window open a crack today and went to work. Came home and had 6 poults hatched, 1 chick stuck and dried out and 7 dried looking pips :/ the humidity dropped down to 45 and I think because it was a windy day it screwed with my humidity. So got the one chick out, I have 2 that have now zipped but that membrane is like leather so will have to help them if they don’t come out soon and probably help the last guys too. Such a pain in the butt but I’m trying to see if they can do it on their own because I’m scared to death they are not ready just yet. So wish me luck! 
But here are the new boys and a silkie chick, my first successful splay leg fix! And a Ancona chick. They hatched a few days ago.


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## Calistar

Oooh, a cabinet incubator! Not a bad Mother's Day gift at all! That'll be loads of fun!
Bummer about your poults, but congrats on the ones that did hatch successfully! I must have missed it, what breed are they?


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## FizzyGoats

Sorry about the ones that didn’t make it. And congrats on the ones that did and the leg fix! 
What a fabulous Mother’s Day gift. Next year, you’ll be a poultry hatching pro, lol!


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## AndersonRanch

I’m working on them. I have gotten 4 more to hatch so far. I think I got to one too late. Just the tip of his beak was out and the membrane was so hard, I don’t think he could breath. I have one more that I should be able to get out tonight and another I might just have to leave be. Part of the shell is off but no hole. I’m afraid if I just rip into it I’ll grab the inner membrane and if he’s not totally ready I’ll kill him. I’m just not sure what to do on that one so I just have it wrapped in a damp paper towel. As long as the other 7 eggs don’t pip by the time I get this last guy out there should be a end to this madness.
So I have Royal palms, bourbon reds, black Spanish and blue slate, one Tom of each and a bunch of hens. I decided instead of splitting them up by variety I would just let them all run together and see what kind of cool colors I get. 
If you check this out, this guy has come up with his own varieties by mixing them up. He of course has kept track of what has bred what, I have no idea lol but there are some really cool turkeys from mixing them up. If you notice a lot of them are Narragansett cross on the really cool looking ones. That is why I was so excited to get one in my surprise box. Hopefully it’s a boy. 





__





Porter's Rare Heritage Turkeys


Rare and or Heritage turkey color genetics resource



www.porterturkeys.com





Oh I’m going to be hatching turkey eggs like a mad man next year. I took my extra Toms down to the sale this year and got between $150-165 each. One of the buyers called the auction and said that they were the best turkeys she has ever ate and gave her number so whenever I bring them in they can give her a call. She has me super curious about my turkeys now though and I am debating on butchering one, I’m just honestly not a huge turkey meat fan but maybe the family would enjoy it for thanksgiving.


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## FizzyGoats

4 more to hatch is awesome. It’s a bummer one dried out. Sad. Hope the yet to hatch eggs do ok. 

Crossing the turkey breeds seems really interesting. I want lots of pictures! I had no idea they went for that much at the sale. Were they gigantic or something? We plan on butchering our rudest toms for our own consumption (this will be hard, I’m such a softie), but maybe we should take them to the sale instead. Have you ever had heritage turkey? If I have, I don’t remember it. I’ve heard it is much better than store bought turkey, like an entirely different taste. I like turkey meat, so I have no doubt I’ll want a couple of the means one in my freezer (I better have mean ones, lol).


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## FizzyGoats

So another noobie question. My poults and chicks are a week old today. And they are crazy. I already had to expand the size of their brooder because they get the zoomies. They sprint, they flap, they leap, they jump tall buildings in a single bound (ok, not really but they can clear their feeders and a line of their siblings). My brooder is 16” tall on one side so we can reach in and I have to add height to it today because I’m worried one will hop out on accident soon. They are so tiny and so active. Then they go from zoom-zoom mode to death naps. Luckily they don’t quarrel much, so at least their energy isn’t directed at each other. I mean they also have their chill times of just walking, pecking at fun things, eating, and drinking but they have so much more energy than I was expecting at this age. Is this normal?


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## AndersonRanch

I would say that is probably normal. They sound like they are super healthy to me. By any chance are there flies around when they are doing that? That seems to be when mine go nuts like that, or when I give worms, but they also might do that on their own too I don’t have a camera on them  but I wouldn’t be worried about it. I know they love jumping on and off of their heating plate though, that seems to be the “cool thing” to do for them right now. And the dang turkeys keep escaping their trough. The older chicks seem fine with them but I was kinda shocked they could get out already. 
I ended up saving all but that one and a few other eggs hatched over the night. I was just hoping the two made it all the way out since I just wrapped them with a wet paper towel and went to bed but woke up and there was 6 of them in there! Humidity is fine, I was also stressed over that. I think maybe I didn’t get the lid on all the way when I took the Turner out. That is one thing I can complain about with that 360 incubator. It’s not round and it’s not square and you have to have the top just right when you try to close it. It doesn’t help that I have them shoved into the cupboard of my bathroom either lol


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## Zenhen1

AndersonRanch said:


> As any poultry lover knows it’s chick season!
> I thought it would be fun to make a post about what everyone has going on in the poultry department. What are we ordering? Hatching? What do you have right now? Hopefully just a fun little topic and maybe pass the time for those that are waiting on eggs to hatch or orders to get to you.
> So I’ll go first. All my incubators are full! Even bought another one but need to spring clean to make room for it lol I have Millie fluers, splash silkies, and anconas baking and hatching. Also have my heritage turkey eggs in there. Instead of keeping all the turkey verities apart I decided to let them all run wild and free together and maybe come up with some unique colors. Also since I’m maxed out on the eggs I have been selling the Turkey eggs like hot cakes.
> The order department, I like pretty chickens and sweet chickens. Everything that I wanted to try was so far out, so on a bored night I looked into the bargain deals (stay away from those unless you want sucked down a rabbit hole!) so I thought hatchery choices would be fun, it would be fun to figure out what I end up with and worse case chickens are selling for so much right now I could just sell the ones I don’t like. So I ordered rare breed hatchery choice, hatchery choice and a surprise box. The surprise box is where it’s not just chickens they throw anything in there so that one should be super fun. I already got the first try on the rare breed but only 3 of them made it  it ended up taking 4 days to ship. But cackle made it right and I will get my next try shipped out may 17. My hatchery choice should ship out tomorrow and my surprise box will be here in July, hopefully when my husband is not home because he has no idea about that box!
> So what does everyone else have going on?


I also ordered 15 rare breed chicks that are hatcheries choice. Mine are 8 weeks old now. I am interested to know what they will be. I believe 2 of mine are phoenix and a phoenix roo is one of my dream chickens! You will have to update us on what yours end up being! I have also added 3 production reds, 3 frizzles, 2 mallards, 4 pekins and a doeling to our homestead this spring!


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## FizzyGoats

AndersonRanch said:


> I would say that is probably normal. They sound like they are super healthy to me. By any chance are there flies around when they are doing that? That seems to be when mine go nuts like that, or when I give worms, but they also might do that on their own too I don’t have a camera on them  but I wouldn’t be worried about it. I know they love jumping on and off of their heating plate though, that seems to be the “cool thing” to do for them right now. And the dang turkeys keep escaping their trough. The older chicks seem fine with them but I was kinda shocked they could get out already.
> I ended up saving all but that one and a few other eggs hatched over the night. I was just hoping the two made it all the way out since I just wrapped them with a wet paper towel and went to bed but woke up and there was 6 of them in there! Humidity is fine, I was also stressed over that. I think maybe I didn’t get the lid on all the way when I took the Turner out. That is one thing I can complain about with that 360 incubator. It’s not round and it’s not square and you have to have the top just right when you try to close it. It doesn’t help that I have them shoved into the cupboard of my bathroom either lol


This settles it. Mine are a normal kind of weird. They are so super cute! I just can’t help but watch them on my phone all the time. Lol. I did have to add height to the brooder today. I hope I can keep them in there. 
And you did awesome on those eggs. And the not round or square incubator sounds like a bit of a pain. 



Zenhen1 said:


> I also ordered 15 rare breed chicks that are hatcheries choice. Mine are 8 weeks old now. I am interested to know what they will be. I believe 2 of mine are phoenix and a phoenix roo is one of my dream chickens! You will have to update us on what yours end up being! I have also added 3 production reds, 3 frizzles, 2 mallards, 4 pekins and a doeling to our homestead this spring!


That sounds really fun! Do you have any pics to share?


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## AndersonRanch

With the box that was mostly dead I ended up with a Phoenix hen and roo too. I thought they would be super flighty and I don’t really want flighty so I told my sister she could have them. Both of them and the lakenvelder are so sweet. So if she waits much longer to come get them I’m going to keep them lol who did you order your rare box from?


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## Calistar

A flock of mixed breed turkeys sounds like it would be a lot of fun! I'd love to have a pair of Narragansetts. A couple years ago I was looking for them and couldn't find any. Now there's someone local who sells hatching eggs on occasion. I have my hands full with all my other animals right now, but one day!

My celadon quail eggs have shipped and are expected to arrive on Friday! But they're in a town an hour away as of this morning (according to tracking) so I wouldn't be shocked if they arrived tomorrow. I guess I better get that incubator set up tonight!

Lakenvelders, sweet? The one I had was a total spaz! She was one of the many I lost to predation. I do miss her fun coloring.


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## AndersonRanch

I honestly wasn’t over the moon about the lakenvelder when I figured out that was what she was. She was on my sell for sure list but she will fly up onto my arm or the turkeys trough and just hang out with me. She will let me pet her and everything so as long as she keeps that up she stays. But one thing I have noticed is the cackle chicks are WAY friendlier then the Murray chicks, they also seem to be a lot more hardy too. Knock on wood I haven’t lost a single Murray chick, after the late batch, and I think I have lost 7 of the Murray and my poor buff polish isn’t looking too hot this evening. I will be so sad if that one dies, he always scratches on my feet and says hello to me when I go in there. 
I never answered you but no I have never eaten a heritage turkey as far as I know, I don’t see any of the turkeys we get from the store being heritage lol and I know we butchered some broad breasted when I was younger. That’s actually where my love for turkeys started. I don’t remember why but we ended up with some BBW turkeys from the neighbor. We butchered them as we were ready when I was a kid, of course the last one I fell in love with and named her Marry Ann and bawled my eyes out until dad finally gave in. That turkey was awesome though.


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## FizzyGoats

I too was the reason many “meat” animals were spared when I was a kid. I would cry and plead. If that failed, I’d try to kidnap the animal. Hard for a five year old to run away with a full sized pig but didn’t stop me from trying. It took me well into my 20’s for it to click in my brain that it wasn’t necessarily cruel. This crop of turkeys will be my first ever animal I own then butcher a few. I’m already having chest pains thinking about it. 

And I realized I never answered you on the running, leaping poults and if there are flies around. No, there’s no flies. Just birds who think they’re airplanes and their brooder is a runway. 

How is your buff polish doing today?

@Calistar definitely keep us update when your quail eggs arrive (hopefully today but maybe tomorrow). How exciting! My box-o-birds got here a day earlier than expected, which shows me the usual delay of mail here is because our tiny post office.


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## AndersonRanch

I lost the polish :/ I kinda knew it was going to happen but it still sucks.
I was always in charge of feeding the butcher animals and I’m also the one that names everything lol I was fairly good though and only cried over the turkey and a pig. But that ungrateful brat I shouldn’t have gotten attached to her. She ended up coming into heat and going WAY out into the subdivision behind us, probably 2-3 miles away. While they were trying to figure out who’s pig it was they made her pancakes and bought her a dog bed and a fan and spoiled her rotten. They finally called and mom sent me and my brother walking to get this dang pig. Yeah she wasn’t coming home after that. We tried for a hour and just couldn’t get her to leave. The guy said she can stay if it’s fine with us. So she stayed there with her new family.
So we missed out on good bacon for nothing! Lol we had a butcher heifer one year. That year steers were worth over and beyond what a heifer was worth. I hated her, I could have eaten her 100 times. A few weeks before we were going to butcher her we realized she was making a udder. To this day I am still cursed with dealing with that stupid cow. I was a teen back then and I’m 36 now lol oh farm life, there is always interesting stories to tell


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## FizzyGoats

That pig was smart and that cow will live forever. Lol. 
To be fair, we raised mainly horses and dogs. I was not accustomed to eating what I had named and tended to. Also, I watched my dad (a large animal vet) save every kind of animal and I thought that was what you did, save them. He never really took me on the calls where that wasn’t the intended or likely outcome when I was little, so I was not nearly as wise as I should have been. I have also always liked animals more than people, and I was a relentless brat. So glad my mother’s wish/curse that I’d have a kid just like me never came to fruition. 
Sorry about your buff. At this point, I’ll be glad if I get just a few poults of the dozen to adulthood alive. I’m down to 9. One died right away (chalked that up to stress of travel). Little was sickly from the beginning but made it a week. This one was lively as of this morning. Listless this afternoon, and I tried very hard to save it but it died right away. I love my little birds. I’m trying to take good care of them but I’m obviously messing it up. My chicks (ordered 4 and got 5) are all still alive...for now. We knew to expect losses but I’m still wondering if I’m fit to raise these little ones.


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## AndersonRanch

You are too fit to raise them! Don’t think that for a moment. There is something odd going on with hatching eggs and chicks this year, no one can figure it out, so it could possibly just be totally out of your hands. If you do think it might be something that could be prevented then you have a bunch of poultry people on here. Sfwife I believe has had many years of experience with turkeys and poults, we can get her on here. 
I think that would have been so cool to have a parent as a vet! And that makes so much sense as a kid having that in your life and then they want you to eat animals that should be saved lol my problem was just I get attached easily. I still do. I have my favorite goat that doesn’t like having kids, I paid SO MUCH for her but I love her. As a business I should send her down the road, but that will never happen. I’ll keep trying to breed her every year, cull any kids she does have, and her purpose in life is to make me happy lol


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## Calistar

Well my quail eggs did arrive today, a day early! Unfortunately not all survived the trip. Of the 18 I ordered, one was crushed, 3 more were cracked, and one is questionable. It either has a tiny tiny crack, or a seam/imperfection in the shell. I put it in the incubator anyway because I'm leaning towards it being a shell imperfection and because the seller didn't include any extras. I wanted about a dozen quail which is why I ordered 18 eggs. I didn't expect a 100% hatch rate but I did kind of expect them all to arrive intact. All I can do is wait and see and start counting down! On the plus side, the eggs that did survive the journey are so pretty! I've been in love with the celadon eggs since I discovered them a couple years ago and I'm so excited to try hatching some!


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## FizzyGoats

AndersonRanch said:


> You are too fit to raise them! Don’t think that for a moment. There is something odd going on with hatching eggs and chicks this year, no one can figure it out, so it could possibly just be totally out of your hands. If you do think it might be something that could be prevented then you have a bunch of poultry people on here. Sfwife I believe has had many years of experience with turkeys and poults, we can get her on here.
> I think that would have been so cool to have a parent as a vet! And that makes so much sense as a kid having that in your life and then they want you to eat animals that should be saved lol my problem was just I get attached easily. I still do. I have my favorite goat that doesn’t like having kids, I paid SO MUCH for her but I love her. As a business I should send her down the road, but that will never happen. I’ll keep trying to breed her every year, cull any kids she does have, and her purpose in life is to make me happy lol


Well thank you for the encouragement. It helps. If one more drops like the last one, I’ll be at a total loss and definitely be asking her for advice. All my chicks are still kicking. Are turkey poults that much more fragile? Or is this just an anomaly?
And it was pretty cool that my dad was a vet. I’m the youngest out of five kids and my dad and I weren’t real close but animals were the one thing we had in common (or so we thought until one day when I was in my teens and we went on a road trip together and were equally shocked to find out we’re basically the same person).
And I also tend to get overly attached to my animals. It’s so hard not to. Of the three goats I’m getting ready to bring home, even if they end up being duds as breeding does (they come from excellent lines but you never know), I doubt I’ll be able to sell them. It’s going to be so hard to sell their babies down the road. But I’ll have to if I want milk and don’t want to be overrun with goats.  Not to mention, the financial aspect of not selling. So I’ll have to be strong. Gah, someone here is going to have to make me be strong, lol. 
How is your feathered crew doing? Do you have many more yet to hatch? Is the pasty butt pandemic coming to an end (so to speak)? 


Calistar said:


> Well my quail eggs did arrive today, a day early! Unfortunately not all survived the trip. Of the 18 I ordered, one was crushed, 3 more were cracked, and one is questionable. It either has a tiny tiny crack, or a seam/imperfection in the shell. I put it in the incubator anyway because I'm leaning towards it being a shell imperfection and because the seller didn't include any extras. I wanted about a dozen quail which is why I ordered 18 eggs. I didn't expect a 100% hatch rate but I did kind of expect them all to arrive intact. All I can do is wait and see and start counting down! On the plus side, the eggs that did survive the journey are so pretty! I've been in love with the celadon eggs since I discovered them a couple years ago and I'm so excited to try hatching some!
> 
> View attachment 208237


Those are pretty eggs! I can’t believe some were crushed and cracked. It seems like they’d have those suckers packed so a truck could land on them and not squish one. I hope you have an amazing hatch rate with your remaining eggs. And when they hatch. I want pics. I think baby quail are just about the cutest things ever. 
I did the same numbers game. We wanted 8 turkey and 2 chickens (our RIR hens aren’t laying as much so these two are just to bring in fresh layers but not replace anyone yet). So we ordered 11 turkey and 4 chicks (received 12 and 5). Now we’re down to 9 turkeys (and really hoping at least 4 or 5 make it to adulthood) and 5 chickens. We do not want 5 more chickens, lol. We’re going to have to build an expansion on our chicken coop if they all make it. And of course, I hope they do. All but one seem really docile and sweet. The one little monster is coming around too, haven’t seen her pecking at anyone for a few days. That one is the smallest and the boss, even of the turkey poults.


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## Zenhen1

AndersonRanch said:


> With the box that was mostly dead I ended up with a Phoenix hen and roo too. I thought they would be super flighty and I don’t really want flighty so I told my sister she could have them. Both of them and the lakenvelder are so sweet. So if she waits much longer to come get them I’m going to keep them lol who did you order your rare box from?


Pretty positive I have a hen and roo phoenix too and they are super flighty. I also have 2 that are the same, but unknown breed and they are flighty as well. You are doing better than me bc it I have no earthly idea what mine are. I think I have 5 Cochin who are all barred except one. I have 5 all white ones who's faces are turning red around the eyes. I looked them up several times but when I saw what the 2 white and black ones may be, I was kinda disappointed, so I stopped looking. 🤭 You seem pretty knowledgeable of breeds so I will post some pictures.

I got mine from cackle. Ordered 15 got 17 which was the perfect amount of extras. One died like 15 minutes after getting them home. Pretty sure the post office had them the day before (had notifications being sent for my package) but they either forgot to call me or it was later in the day, so they did not wanna wait for me to come get them before closing. I had several with pasty butt which I checked for immediately and like 8 of them had it. I am an obsessive researcher of all things so I knew the brooder was set up right, temp, electrolytes, water, food. For some reason though I had to clean pasty butts for almost 2 weeks. No one died or got sick. I had one with a serious splayed leg. I was able to correct that with bandaids and vet wrap after a little over a week. I can't even tell which chicken had it now! Then I had one with a bare and red butt who's vent was swollen and it was constantly itching/pecking it and it wasn't growing. I tried every kind of spray, ointment and peck no more but the poor baby passed away anyways. It was way behind on growth so I don't think it would have made it either way. I really think it I ever decide to get more that I will just drive to a hatchery or find someone local with what I want. It broke my heart when the first one passed away and when I saw how week all of them were. I was so upset with myself for putting them through that. My SIL conveniently love in the same town as the cake hatchery 😁.

Now they are all happy and healthy. I have integrated 3 production reds and 3 frizzle (only one has the frizzle feathers) in with them really well. They are about 3 weeks in age difference. Then I also integrated my 6 duckling in with them successfully and there is about a 4 week age difference in them and the ducks.

I will post some pictures of the ones already in my phone and then I will get better ones later. Let me know if you have any guesses on what they may be!!


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## Zenhen1

Ok I really will have to take more pictures lol these are all I have. The single chicken is fat fat, he's/she's one of my favorites.


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## Zenhen1

Alright here's the crew. All my white ones look to be the same breed. Any guesses on breeds are appreciated.


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## AndersonRanch

Oh how disappointed on the eggs  that is one thing I’m afraid of with buying shipping eggs and I think the seller should guarantee they make it there whole but no one does. I don’t see it being any different then if someone did a bad job shipping anything else and it showed up broken, they replace it. I get not guaranteeing how many will hatch but I find the shipping part to be crap. I do hope you have great success with the eggs hatching though. How many days does it take for quail to hatch?
Fuzzy goat I have good luck with my poults BUT SO MANY people say how fragile they are. I highly doubt they are wrong. But I have no idea what I do that is different. I give them water and food and a heat lamp and love on them sometimes. That’s it. 
You will be ok selling the kids, it is sad but you definitely don’t want to get over ran. This has been my whole life just with the cows and I know the rules, never get attached to boys and the offspring need to support the mother’s. I have to remind myself every once in awhile that the more I keep the less attention everyone gets. There are way worse things then butchering, and my mamas always come first. Over the years there have been some I still miss, but other then actually loading them up and the whole selling part it’s not that bad. I just hate loading them because I feel like a trader to them. But I know it’s what needs to be done.
Zenhen1 that is kinda disappointing you didn’t get a real big verity in your batch. I mean we know there is a chance of that since the bargains are what are boxed up after specific orders but still! I’m already kinda regretting even buying the rare breed and if I don’t get some polish and Cochins I’m going to be so upset! 
But you are right you have a lot of barred Cochins. I’m really loving Cochins! The black one looks like it has some feathered feet so black Cochin on that one.
The two mostly white with black are the lakenvelder. The white ones are Chantecler, I looked them up real fast and although not super flashy birds they are for both meat and eggs. It seems kinda like the Cornish just not the health and breeding issues plus good amount of eggs.
And I think you are right on the Phoenix, by the looks of the feathers on the neck I would say a silver duck wing.
I don’t blame you though and if you have someone that close I would definitely go straight to the Hatcher. They sometimes run deals as well. Someone posted on FB they got a buy one surprise box get one 1/2 off. You won’t have such a huge variety to choose from then ordering but that’s how I would do it if I lived close. Just make sure to do your shopping on tuesdays and thursdays, on their Facebook page they seem to sell out fast. 
All my birds are doing well. I have another batch of turkeys eggs on lock down. I have realized when I open the air port on the nature 360 that is what is killing my humidity. I filled the water troughs up and opened it up all the way last night and it was at 42% this morning. But I did get my cabinet incubator! Kinda sad I won’t get the trays until Monday but in a way that is ok, that gives me time to figure out where to put it and make room for it lol I was going to put in the bathroom but yeah it’s bigger then I thought it was lol so today the plan is to figure out where to put that sucker


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## Zenhen1

AndersonRanch said:


> Oh how disappointed on the eggs  that is one thing I’m afraid of with buying shipping eggs and I think the seller should guarantee they make it there whole but no one does. I don’t see it being any different then if someone did a bad job shipping anything else and it showed up broken, they replace it. I get not guaranteeing how many will hatch but I find the shipping part to be crap. I do hope you have great success with the eggs hatching though. How many days does it take for quail to hatch?
> Fuzzy goat I have good luck with my poults BUT SO MANY people say how fragile they are. I highly doubt they are wrong. But I have no idea what I do that is different. I give them water and food and a heat lamp and love on them sometimes. That’s it.
> You will be ok selling the kids, it is sad but you definitely don’t want to get over ran. This has been my whole life just with the cows and I know the rules, never get attached to boys and the offspring need to support the mother’s. I have to remind myself every once in awhile that the more I keep the less attention everyone gets. There are way worse things then butchering, and my mamas always come first. Over the years there have been some I still miss, but other then actually loading them up and the whole selling part it’s not that bad. I just hate loading them because I feel like a trader to them. But I know it’s what needs to be done.
> Zenhen1 that is kinda disappointing you didn’t get a real big verity in your batch. I mean we know there is a chance of that since the bargains are what are boxed up after specific orders but still! I’m already kinda regretting even buying the rare breed and if I don’t get some polish and Cochins I’m going to be so upset!
> But you are right you have a lot of barred Cochins. I’m really loving Cochins! The black one looks like it has some feathered feet so black Cochin on that one.
> The two mostly white with black are the lakenvelder. The white ones are Chantecler, I looked them up real fast and although not super flashy birds they are for both meat and eggs. It seems kinda like the Cornish just not the health and breeding issues plus good amount of eggs.
> And I think you are right on the Phoenix, by the looks of the feathers on the neck I would say a silver duck wing.
> I don’t blame you though and if you have someone that close I would definitely go straight to the Hatcher. They sometimes run deals as well. Someone posted on FB they got a buy one surprise box get one 1/2 off. You won’t have such a huge variety to choose from then ordering but that’s how I would do it if I lived close. Just make sure to do your shopping on tuesdays and thursdays, on their Facebook page they seem to sell out fast.
> All my birds are doing well. I have another batch of turkeys eggs on lock down. I have realized when I open the air port on the nature 360 that is what is killing my humidity. I filled the water troughs up and opened it up all the way last night and it was at 42% this morning. But I did get my cabinet incubator! Kinda sad I won’t get the trays until Monday but in a way that is ok, that gives me time to figure out where to put it and make room for it lol I was going to put in the bathroom but yeah it’s bigger then I thought it was lol so today the plan is to figure out where to put that sucker


Wow, thanks for identifying them for me. Idk how you can tell so easily but that's awesome! It is a huge bummer that I didn't get much variety and I am not too happy about the lakenvelder and chantecler but I still love them all the same! I knew that would be part of it though. At least the one breed is a good layer (main reason I got chicken's lol) and meat chicken and I have my phoenix roo. I would have loved a polish and will for sure be getting some of those next year. I would really love a polish frizzle! 

Thanks again for your help. I'm interested in knowing how the cabinet incubator works out!


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## Calistar

Seriously, count yourself lucky if you don't get any Polish! Those were the stupidest, most fragile chickens I have ever owned! One baked herself to death inside her hut on a hot day. And my rooster was an absolute jerk- my dad finally got sick of him one day and gave him the axe. That is the one breed I would never raise again! Which is a shame because they're supposed to be sweet!

It sounds like the seller is going to reimburse me for the broken eggs in the form of a credit to her shop. So it's better than nothing, but obviously I was hoping to hatch enough that I wouldn't have to buy from her again. But we'll see what my hatch rate is like and go from there! I think incubation takes about 18 days, which means I only have 17.5 days left to go!


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## FizzyGoats

And the count down begins.


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## AndersonRanch

I have only had 1 polish, well I now have 4 chicks, but he was a rooster and he was mean too! I took him to the auction, a man fell in love with him but he had a very small kid. I told him not to buy him but he did anyways. He attacks adults but is fine with that little toddler. Fine with the kid or not I wouldn’t have it around but hey I guess some people need to learn on their own. 
Yes!!!! I can’t wait to see your baby quail! I have to hand it to the seller, that is better then what I normally see. I am part of a group that sells hatching eggs and no one guarantees the shipping. I think that’s crap. If need be put insurance on it so you can pay back, or credit, for the broken eggs. It’s not expensive. When I shipped my ultrasound I put $800 insurance on it and I think it was like $7. I know you were not looking for a credit though :/


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## Calistar

My boyfriend is of Polish descent, so I added the Polish chickens to my order so they could live at my farm but be "his" chickens....the three hens lasted anywhere from a few days to a few months, and that damn rooster lasted about a year before my dad sent him to Jesus XD The boyfriend was pretty bummed, but since he doesn't live here he wasn't the one always getting chased by that damn rooster!

Im glad the breeder offered something at least! This was my first time buying eggs through the mail so I didn't know what to expect. I'll really just have to see what my hatch rate ends up being and go from there. It would be a shame to have to find an excuse to buy more hatching eggs  Although my plan was that if the celadons hatched well, I'd buy some fancy-patterned quail from another breeder next. I forgot to implement the part of my plan where I was supposed to hatch some of my own eggs first to make sure I could do it before dropping $25/dozen +shipping on the fancy eggs, oops


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## goathiker

How many of you use a stag pen to keep your roosters from getting too big for their britches?


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## goathiker

The white chicks could be sport legbar.


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## FizzyGoats

I’ve never herd of a stag pen. I have so much to learn from all of you.


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## AndersonRanch

I haven’t heard of a stag pen either, so curious on that one. But I also just don’t keep any that turn mean. If they are nice they stay and mean they go. Well except for my silkie rooster, I mean he’s not mean to humans but he and my mama hen are teaching the puppies birds are off limits. I even have a turkey hen now that the puppies have seemed to offend. She was hissing at Phil and chasing him away from the birds. 
I got home from a wedding late last night, half asleep and went to use the bathroom before bed and my whole incubator was full of little poults! I can’t even begin to count how many have hatched. I only let the air vent open a little over half way and that seems to be keeping the humidity under control. 
I’m also playing with the water trough on the incubator. I filled the trough up yesterday, kept humidity at 47% but 12 hours later it was half empty. There’s a bucket system that can be purchased with it that has a 5 gallon bucket on the outside and a line that goes to a trough on the inside with a float. I went ahead and bought that this morning since having to open it every day won’t be good during lock down. Dang incubator is a investment that you keep having to buy more investments for lol 
But here is a cute picture I got this morning 








And here is my lakenvelder buddy. She’s gonna have to be a keeper lol








And because i got a picture of my poults I hatched last week to see if anyone wants to buy some (cry!) but thought I would show you my mixed babies. I’m really loving the different colors and the ones in the incubator are even more mixed colored


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## FizzyGoats

Congrats on all the hatches! Such a cute pic too. I love the bird on your shoulder. So sweet. I had a chicken who used to do that. She was eaten by a hawk. I actually cried and cried over that chicken. I know, ridiculous, but she was something special. 
The fluffy crew in the last picture is so cute! Such a fun mix.


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## AndersonRanch

I love the little girl on my shoulder. She cracks me up all the time. At least she better be a girl. My luck it’s a boy! 
Well been busy here. I went and got another dog kennel before everything goes up too much more. I need to break down and get 1 more but I just can’t swing it just yet....hurry up tax return! My daughter and I rushed and got it all together and ready yesterday and I was going to move the older birds in last night but the wind took off blowing and I didn’t feel comfortable putting them in and not being able to keep a eye on them. My last order came in this morning so it was a race to shuffle everything around but got it done. Here are the older birds and the ducks in their new pen. They are so much more happy having all that room. They just ran and flew all over the place, and a little play fighting lol








Here’s the next oldest on their side of the original kennel








The semi young ones and all the turkeys, well a few can fly from one side to the other.







and the new babies on the block







I got a lot of Phoenix which I didn’t want. But I was talking to my sister this morning and I was on speaker phone and my nephew heard I got them and he said that was his dream bird lol I told him they are chickens not real Phoenix and he knew so I’m going to give them all to him. He is over the moon about that. So problem solved and now he has his dream chickens lol 
One of my little poults feathers are coming in really well and she is going to be so pretty. I am loving the color and got a picture of her feathers to share








I also moved all the turkey eggs out of the little incubators into the cabinet. That last batch I ended up having to help one poult out, the goo that covers them ended up turning rock hard and the poor little guy took another day soaking in a damp paper towel just to get it off and so he could move. I think what the issue is when they take a little longer to hatch that fan blowing right on them is drying them out. If they are super fast there’s no problem but when they struggle a little it just seems to go even more down hill. But he is alive and doing great, his name is crusty lol but I wanted those eggs out of those incubators to cook and hatch since the cabinet the fans are on top and they hatch on the bottom. So It shouldn’t be so much air blowing on them. Today is hatch day for one batch. I have to lay on the floor with a flash light to see what is going on lol but so far there are a bunch of eggs that have pipped. So fingers crossed. But here’s my bad boy full of eggs







well not totally full but it’s doing it job anyways


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## BarnOwl

AndersonRanch said:


> I love the little girl on my shoulder. She cracks me up all the time. At least she better be a girl. My luck it’s a boy!
> Well been busy here. I went and got another dog kennel before everything goes up too much more. I need to break down and get 1 more but I just can’t swing it just yet....hurry up tax return! My daughter and I rushed and got it all together and ready yesterday and I was going to move the older birds in last night but the wind took off blowing and I didn’t feel comfortable putting them in and not being able to keep a eye on them. My last order came in this morning so it was a race to shuffle everything around but got it done. Here are the older birds and the ducks in their new pen. They are so much more happy having all that room. They just ran and flew all over the place, and a little play fighting lol
> View attachment 208453
> 
> Here’s the next oldest on their side of the original kennel
> View attachment 208454
> 
> The semi young ones and all the turkeys, well a few can fly from one side to the other.
> View attachment 208455
> and the new babies on the block
> View attachment 208456
> I got a lot of Phoenix which I didn’t want. But I was talking to my sister this morning and I was on speaker phone and my nephew heard I got them and he said that was his dream bird lol I told him they are chickens not real Phoenix and he knew so I’m going to give them all to him. He is over the moon about that. So problem solved and now he has his dream chickens lol
> One of my little poults feathers are coming in really well and she is going to be so pretty. I am loving the color and got a picture of her feathers to share
> View attachment 208457
> 
> I also moved all the turkey eggs out of the little incubators into the cabinet. That last batch I ended up having to help one poult out, the goo that covers them ended up turning rock hard and the poor little guy took another day soaking in a damp paper towel just to get it off and so he could move. I think what the issue is when they take a little longer to hatch that fan blowing right on them is drying them out. If they are super fast there’s no problem but when they struggle a little it just seems to go even more down hill. But he is alive and doing great, his name is crusty lol but I wanted those eggs out of those incubators to cook and hatch since the cabinet the fans are on top and they hatch on the bottom. So It shouldn’t be so much air blowing on them. Today is hatch day for one batch. I have to lay on the floor with a flash light to see what is going on lol but so far there are a bunch of eggs that have pipped. So fingers crossed. But here’s my bad boy full of eggs
> View attachment 208458
> well not totally full but it’s doing it job anyways


I love your idea of using dog kennels as brooders! I have my grown chickens in a big chainlink fence outside, but never thought of bringing one inside for a brooder. I wonder if I could make one fit in our garage... If I hadn't spent so much money getting ready for the goats (they're coming home next week, woo hoo, I can't wait!) I'd run out and get one right now. If I could find any.  I was actually looking for some 10 x 10 dog kennels to use as a temporary pen for our doelings, I couldn't find any for the price I wanted to pay, and we ended up making a temporary pen out of cattle panels.


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## FizzyGoats

Wow, your place is a bird haven! Love the incubator. 

I just had to put deer netting (the kind with tiny holes) across the top of our brooder. I have one turkey who decided to fly right out. And the brooder has tall sides. They are only two weeks old today. 

When should let them out of their brooder? They are in a part of the barn that will be their pen. Their brooder is two pallets lying down, covered in outdoor carpet and lots of wood flakes and sided with aluminum sheeting and cardboard. The walls are about 2.5 - 3 ft tall. Eventually, I’ll remove the pallets and the walls and give them the entire 8x23 foot room. But it has a natural dirt floor, so I’m worried their still too fragile right now.


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## FizzyGoats

Well my flighty poult made my choice for me. I had to throw together a pen for them. I covered the ground with outdoor carpet and lots of wood shavings and put up some plywood walls, then lined the exterior barn walls with plastic for a draft shield and hung another heat lamp. The other brooder is now for my two weak ones. I’ll try to get some photos of the new digs tomorrow. I never thought the birds would be more work than the new goats.


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## AndersonRanch

Dog kennels are stupid expensive! I paid almost as much for this stupid chain link one as I did for one of the better ones with the welded wire 5 years ago. It was a very hard pill to swallow. But this dinky chain link will be fine for the chicken, I wouldn’t trust it with goats. Tractor supply has smaller kennels that are portable and have roofs on them. I got one from a friend of mine for free awhile back. I think it is 4.5X4.5 so would be perfect for a brooder. These I actually have outside but the weather is nice here and the heat lamps on just in case they get cold, although the chicks seem to enjoy that heating plate a lot more so I’m going to buy more for next year.
I think they will be fine having more room. I mainly worry that when they are super young they are too dumb to find the heat lamps if the area is too large. I’m sure they are smarter then I give them credit for but I worry. 
@MissMiniNumbia I was thinking about you today. Did your polish ever hatch?


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## FizzyGoats

I still have two weaker turkey poults in sick care (the original brooder). Weeble and Wobbles. They are soooo sweet together. I had to do turkey physical therapy to re-teach Weeble to walk and it actually worked. He could not stand, sit, or walk right. Legs jutted straight out and he’d tip back. But through a lot of helping, he can now move around on his own. I still don’t know if they’ll make it but I’m trying to give them the best possible chance and they are starting to run around every once in a while. 

I have to say I am loving the bigger pen I built in the barn for the baby turkeys doing well and all the baby chickens. I get to walk in and interact with them now rather than being a big scary hand reaching from the sky. 

This was this morning’s feeding. A chick jumped on my arm and a turkey jumped on my head. Loving these birds way more than I thought I would. 

ETA: pic didn’t work, so I posted it in the next one


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## FizzyGoats




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## NigerianNewbie

Oh my goodness, the little turkey peeking out over the top of your head is such an adorable kodak moment. It's like, what's that object you're holding, wonder if it's edible?


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## FizzyGoats

That’s exactly what it looks like it’s thinking. Everything I bring in, they want to peck, including myself.


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## AndersonRanch

Omg I love it!!! And yes it is so awesome being able to just sit with them. I did that a lot with mine last year when they moved to a larger cage. I have 100 pictures of them climbing on me and my favorites are when they are up close to the phone checking it out when I get a picture lol I’m so happy you are enjoying them. I think they are the best!
So did the poult have splay legs? I got mine out of the incubator this morning and one has it so bad. Poor little guy. I put a bandaid on his legs to keep them together more but the other ones peck at it so bad I had to put him back in the incubator by himself. Poor little guy was like “no not the black hole again!!” Lol


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## FizzyGoats

Aw, poor little guy. He worked so hard to get out of there, lol. I hope he gets all better quickly. 

Mine wasn’t splayed leg. I was so confused. His legs were together and strong but it was like he forgot how to use them. From research, I think he got really weak during the time the brain “cements” how to walk. Then he got stronger but he just couldn’t figure out walking again. It was so bizarre. So I went out every two hours during the day and balanced him on my fingers in one hand and used my other hand to physically move his legs they way they should move to walk. Then I’d have to tuck his legs for him to get him to sit properly. He took days to get the sitting down, then days to stand, then a few more to be able to take steps. Now he can stand up and walk. He’s not fully recovered yet so there’s still a chance I could loose Weeble, but he and his recovering buddy Wobbles are working hard to get better. Wobbles never forgot how to walk, just got sick. So they stay together and are the best of friends. 

And I do have an embarrassing amount of pictures of my little birds climbing all over me now. My husband’s family thinks it’s gross. They ask if they poop on me, and I’m like yep, they sure do. Pooped on my head today. So I guess I might be turning into a crazy old farm lady.


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## AndersonRanch

His bandaid came off this evening and his legs are almost all better. I put another one on just to make sure he gets 100%. I think the slick ground on the Hatcher part is what caused it so I need to go get some no slip shelf liner stuff and put down for next time.
Lol yeah non animal people and poop, they just don’t understand. I’m not saying poop is my favorite and actually part of the reason I dislike ducks is their poop along with the troughs. I’m not sure why duck poop is different for me but it is lol 
That is so weird with weeble and wobble, but those are stinking cute fitting names! That’s kinda how mine get names. I have Flyzilla because she would go nuts over flies as a poult and Snoodless because her snood was always so small almost not there lol I could go on with all the odd names around here that have been earned lol


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## AndersonRanch

Ok was just on FB and saw this in a turkey group and thought of your little ones, and also thought it was interesting 









Prevent Early Poult Flip-overs - Forest Hill Farm


Prevent Early Poult Flip-overs (EPF) in Turkey Poults by placing newly hatched turkeys into a brooder with varying sizes of sticks or small tree branches.



foresthillfarmiowa.com


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## FizzyGoats

That is interesting and two of the ones I lost were flippers. I was always having to right them. Weirdly, when they died, they died asleep on their bellies, looking as peaceful and normal as any napping bird. Hmm, I’ll keep that trick of putting sticks or uneven bedding stuff in the brooder in mind if/when I have young turkeys again. 

Weeble was just weird. And I do think it was neurological. I think it started with a respiratory infection that went through the little birds (just my best guess) and most were able to fight it off without issue. Wobbles got sick and unsteady. Weeble got sick and couldn’t move. Probably should have passed. But I’d hand feed and water and use Nutri-drench (just a drop on the side of his beak) a few times a day. Then when he got strong, he couldn’t remember how to work his legs. There was a complete disconnect between brain and legs. Everything I read said he probably needed to be disbatched because he’d missed the window for the brain to form a solid understanding of motor skills. But as long as he was eating and drinking and not in any pain, I figured why not try physical therapy. So that’s what I did. Have no idea if it actually helped, but it helped me feel like I was doing something for him. He was running and flapping and being very funny this morning. Wobbles is also energetic. Neither are super steady though. Still have slightly labored breathing and still have a slight swaying back and forth sometimes. But their improvements give me hope. 

I love the name Flyzilla! And Snoodles. So funny. We do have one we call CrazyFoot because something scuffed his foot and it drives him insane. Poor guy is always pecking at his own foot and running and chirping. I feel so bad. We put BluKote on it and that worked to lessen the pecking and disguise the small patch of scuff. Then he started pecking anywhere on that foot so we put a bitter spray on it last night and so far, that has seemed to stop the pecking. I’m really hoping that works and I don’t have to repeat it too many times. I don’t mind my hands being died blue but having the bitter spray on my hands and in my mouth was not fun. 

And yes, I say “he” for all of them, though I’m hoping most are female. Time will tell.


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## AndersonRanch

And that makes sense too. Getting sick and loosing strength. No matter what it was your doing great with them and their recovery. 
Lol depending on the chick on if it’s a he or she. Bandaid is a he, most of the chicks are she’s lol I just pick and choose. Although the lakenvelder was a he and I’m 99% sure it really is a she


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## FizzyGoats

It’s funny how we just pick to call them either he or she. All mine default to “he.” No idea why. I assume the baby chickens are female, as they are sexed and that’s what we ordered, but if I’m not careful, I still call them boys. 

And I’m so glad for this thread. It’s helped me so much with taking care of my little birds. Plus, I love seeing all the cute pictures of other birds and learning. And all the hatching you pros here do (which I’ve never done or seen done) is fascinating and fun to see/learn about.

ETA: I almost forgot to ask, how is Bandaid doing?


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## FizzyGoats

Quick questions, my 9 turkey poults and 5 RIR chicks are in a makeshift (solid walled) pen in the barn that’s about 5.5’ x10’. They are 3 weeks old today. Everyone gets along well, the two sick/weak ones have been reintegrated but one is still off though seems happier with all his buddies. At what age will I need to expand their pen and by how much?

And when should I let them have field trips outside? The pen attached to their barn is fenced and covered with aerial netting but I’ll probably build a smaller, temporary enclosure for them for when they first venture outside. I’ve read articles that say 4, 6, and 8 weeks is when to let them spend an hour or two outside. I think 4 weeks is too young for my comfort level. Just wondering what everyone else does with theirs.


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## BarnOwl

FizzyGoats said:


> Quick questions, my 9 turkey poults and 5 RIR chicks are in a makeshift (solid walled) pen in the barn that’s about 5.5’ x10’. They are 3 weeks old today. Everyone gets along well, the two sick/weak ones have been reintegrated but one is still off though seems happier with all his buddies. At what age will I need to expand their pen and by how much?
> 
> And when should I let them have field trips outside? The pen attached to their barn is fenced and covered with aerial netting but I’ll probably build a smaller, temporary enclosure for them for when they first venture outside. I’ve read articles that say 4, 6, and 8 weeks is when to let them spend an hour or two outside. I think 4 weeks is too young for my comfort level. Just wondering what everyone else does with theirs.


It's getting warm here, and the chicks have been off heat for a while, so I just moved the 11 chicks I'm keeping outside to the coop. Six are 4.5 weeks old and the others are about 6-ish weeks old. They have their own run within the main run and the coop is split; so they can see the big girls/rooster, but are seperated from them. I don't free range, but I'm not worried about them being outside in the coop/run.

I usually try to move them on a day that I'm home all day so I that I'm around to make sure things go smoothly. This year is the first that I've joined younger and older chicks and I was really nervous about that---and it couldn't have gone any better. I am so pleased and happy (and relieved). They acted like they had always been together, no squabbling at all.

Unfortunately, I still have 12 chicks in the garage. Ughh. They are getting big and I am READY to get all the birds out of the house. Going to concentrate on getting ready for our goaties, and then put up ads to try to sell my extra chicks...hopefully next week.


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## AndersonRanch

Oh gosh I think those are the hard questions lol and I don’t think there is anything really set in stone. Your just going to have to use your best judgment. I don’t have anything set in stone really on space. Once they start looking a little crowded for my liking I move them to the next larger pen. The ones that have that big area I didn’t move them in there until most of their feathers were in since I only have 1 heat lamp out there. But I have been checking on them before dark and no one is really using it except the ducks. And the ducks don’t have their feathers yet they are just huge so I needed to move them lol 
No matter when you move them or where too though make sure they don’t get too cold, especially the poults. And if it is a larger area for them then I would probably put a few feeders and waterers out for them so it’s easy to find. I know a lot of people will start with just a small brooder and go straight to the coop once out grown. I personally like stages between then though but I’m a super worry wart lol


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## FizzyGoats

BarnOwl said:


> It's getting warm here, and the chicks have been off heat for a while, so I just moved the 11 chicks I'm keeping outside to the coop. Six are 4.5 weeks old and the others are about 6-ish weeks old. They have their own run within the main run and the coop is split; so they can see the big girls/rooster, but are seperated from them. I don't free range, but I'm not worried about them being outside in the coop/run.
> 
> I usually try to move them on a day that I'm home all day so I that I'm around to make sure things go smoothly. This year is the first that I've joined younger and older chicks and I was really nervous about that---and it couldn't have gone any better. I am so pleased and happy (and relieved). They acted like they had always been together, no squabbling at all.
> 
> Unfortunately, I still have 12 chicks in the garage. Ughh. They are getting big and I am READY to get all the birds out of the house. Going to concentrate on getting ready for our goaties, and then put up ads to try to sell my extra chicks...hopefully next week.


I’m actually thinking of taking the chicks when they’re about 5 weeks old and moving them to the coop with my 3 big girls. I have to add on to it anyway, so I thought I’d make the addition with a removable divider where they can see each other but not get to each other. Then once I feel comfortable, making it so the chicks can move to the big girls part but also run for cover back to their side through openings only they can get through in case my big reds are mean (and I think they will be). Right now they’re housed with the poults in the poults’ permanent night area and I’m afraid if I don’t try early integration with them and my other chickens, they’ll forever be trying to go in with the turkeys at night. Also, I’ve been reading some things that say joining them stage by stage when they are small usually leads to the adult hens accepting the new comers quicker. Have you ever tried this?

I’ll make sure I’m able to do lots of supervision when I make each step. It’s been warm here but they still like the heat. Actually, it’s more the poults who still sometimes snooze under the lamp. The chickens are usually quite a ways off to the side. 

What do you have left to do to get goat-ready? And remind me when you are getting them. 



AndersonRanch said:


> Oh gosh I think those are the hard questions lol and I don’t think there is anything really set in stone. Your just going to have to use your best judgment. I don’t have anything set in stone really on space. Once they start looking a little crowded for my liking I move them to the next larger pen. The ones that have that big area I didn’t move them in there until most of their feathers were in since I only have 1 heat lamp out there. But I have been checking on them before dark and no one is really using it except the ducks. And the ducks don’t have their feathers yet they are just huge so I needed to move them lol
> No matter when you move them or where too though make sure they don’t get too cold, especially the poults. And if it is a larger area for them then I would probably put a few feeders and waterers out for them so it’s easy to find. I know a lot of people will start with just a small brooder and go straight to the coop once out grown. I personally like stages between then though but I’m a super worry wart lol


They are hard questions. That’s why I came here. Lol. No real answers to be found. I think you’re right though, I just have to go with my gut. Luckily, I can move the dummy wall I built in their actual pen, and I can just unscrew it from the actual side walls and move it back to the next 2x4 wall stud. So I definitely plan on stages. They are already out of the brooder and in a small sectioned off area of their actual pen (for when they’re grown). Right now they have 3 feeders and 3 waterers in their pen. I need to get bigger ones though. Every few hours I’m in there cleaning and/or refilling the food and water. 

I think I’ll wait until they use the lamp less or are just seeming too cramped. Though they are literally bouncing off the walls at times. And they don’t huddle as much under the lamp but still use it. I built a roost for them today and they love it. It’s about 6 inches off the ground and 2.5 feet long. 

I also plan on building a little sun room pen out their door and letting them get a bit of outside time on really nice days. Maybe just an hour or so at first. I’m just don’t know when they are ready for that. It would be a small space at first. Then like their pen, gradually increased. I just worry about letting them out on real ground for the first time too early. 

The chicks could go on little field trips now and be fine. I’m just not sure about the poults yet.


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## BarnOwl

FizzyGoats said:


> I’m actually thinking of taking the chicks when they’re about 5 weeks old and moving them to the coop with my 3 big girls. I have to add on to it anyway, so I thought I’d make the addition with a removable divider where they can see each other but not get to each other. Then once I feel comfortable, making it so the chicks can move to the big girls part but also run for cover back to their side through openings only they can get through in case my big reds are mean (and I think they will be). Right now they’re housed with the poults in the poults’ permanent night area and I’m afraid if I don’t try early integration with them and my other chickens, they’ll forever be trying to go in with the turkeys at night. Also, I’ve been reading some things that say joining them stage by stage when they are small usually leads to the adult hens accepting the new comers quicker. Have you ever tried this?
> 
> I’ll make sure I’m able to do lots of supervision when I make each step. It’s been warm here but they still like the heat. Actually, it’s more the poults who still sometimes snooze under the lamp. The chickens are usually quite a ways off to the side.
> 
> What do you have left to do to get goat-ready? And remind me when you are getting them.


I've read about people who put their chicks in with the older hens by adding lots of "clutter" and escape routes, multiple feeders and waterers, and hidey places big enough for the chicks and not the older hens. It seems like it would work, but I've never tried exactly that. I just let mine live side-by-side until the chicks are old enough to go out with the main flock. Then, I make sure they have lots of space and multiple waterers and feeders, and keep an eye on things to make sure no one is getting beaten up too badly. Has worked okay for me so far.

Goats are coming home MONDAY! it is going to be really hard to work all weekend. I think we are all set up.... except for names. Husband doesn't like some of my top picks.... but who told him he gets a say in the names, hahah!


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## MellonFriend

BarnOwl said:


> Goats are coming home MONDAY! it is going to be really hard to work all weekend. I think we are all set up.... except for names. Husband doesn't like some of my top picks.... but who told him he gets a say in the names, hahah!


I'm so excited for you!


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## FizzyGoats

Monday is so close. How exciting. I was super nervous right before I got my goats. For about five days prior, I was sort of freaking out. I felt like I had so much to do and had to learn everything still. The excitement didn’t hit me again until I was driving to get them. Now I’m excited every morning I wake up and it’s time to go see my goats. I still need to learn everything, lol. And I’m raising poultry for the first time too. Need to learn everything with them too.


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## AndersonRanch

Are you planning on keeping the turkeys and chickens apart? I’m not sure if you plan to free range so they are all together or keep them apart but turkeys are very smart when it comes to their chickens. I kicked the laying hens out of the coop to get them all together. I mainly lock them up because they will roost on my kidding stalls and make a mess. Anyways those turkeys are NOT happy about the new guys just yet. They keep their chickens with them and chase the others away from them. I’m sure they will get it figured out but it was a bit shocking that they were that smart and protective over their chickens. The worse are the broody hens when they come off their nests to eat in the morning. Talk about some out of wack hormones lol but I just thought I would share that with you. I know some people say keep turkeys and chickens apart. The only issue I see with that is it the toms see the hens as their girlfriends, which mine have not. They are very happy still with their feed sack.


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## FizzyGoats

That is so funny that they know “their” chickens. I’m sure they all settle in. I only plan on them having separate night areas. During the day, once everyone is getting along, I’m hoping they free range together. My only 3 adults (all RIR hens) free range until a couple hours before sunset. They’ll meet the turkeys through a fence first that’s attached to the turkey pen. So I’ll have to see how it all goes. I’m hoping I can get my turkeys in their barn pen and my chickens in their run/coop area. Both are secure. Neither have proper housing for the other and are very species specific. It’s nice to hear they can range together without incident though. And I’ll have to watch my toms with my chicken hens. 

I know I can’t tell what my turkeys are yet. But a couple of them bump chests like two drunken idiots about to brawl. They don’t actually fight but they occasionally throw noisy insults and hop around bumping chests. Does that likely mean they are toms?


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## Calistar

Ok well today is day 15! I just added more water to the incubator and my quail are now in lockdown! I've been having trouble keeping the humidity steady so hopefully it doesn't drop too much during lockdown, but from what I've read, if it does it's better to just let it be than to open the incubator to add more water. So fingers crossed for my little chicklets! I'm not feeling optimistic since it's my first hatch, the eggs were expensive, and so many of them arrived broken- makes me skeptical of how damaged the ones that weren't visibly broken might be. We'll know soon- chicks are due on Memorial Day!


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## FizzyGoats

That’s exciting. I hope your hatch rate is amazing. We’ll definitely want pictures.


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## AndersonRanch

Some hens are pretty dominate from the start and they will do things like that if a Tom is not in the mix. So it doesn’t totally mean they are boys but it could be a very good sign they are. Just keep a eye on those two. The good thing about having a good amount is you probably do have a few of each gender and as they get older you can compare them and figure it out. 
Calistar if you HAVE to open the incubator, first look in, if you can see threw it and make sure no one has pipped. If they haven’t it is safe to open it. If you can’t see in or they have then take the incubator into the bathroom and turn the shower on, wait until it’s nice and warm and humid in there and then open it. The problem with opening it is once they have piped and you open it your letting cool dry air in there and could shrink wrap the babies. And that is not fun. But I don’t stress about humidity unless it drops below 50%. Once they start to pip and hatch that humidity will go up.
So two of my turkey hens that were sharing a nest hatched out 9 poults. That was fun herding them into the coop. The plan was to just leave each hen with 2 poults and take the rest but I picked up half of them so there wasn’t so many to herd and they knew some were missing and kept trying to go back and find them. So they get to keep them all for now. I checked on the next nest and herd peeping so they are in the process of hatching those eggs. There is 3 on that nest and the one hen hisses at me every time I give them water so that should be fun to move them when it’s time lol


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## FizzyGoats

A hissing hen is never fun, lol. But a good mama at least. I will be bugging you like crazy when it’s that time for my turkeys. I want the moms to raise them (even though I know I’ll suffer a lot of poult losses). I want to eventually figure out who is the best at hatching babies then keeping them alive. I hope to keep two toms but we’ll see how many hens I have and how the boys act. If I don’t have many hens, I’ll just keep one Tom and when the time comes to fill my freezer, I’ll be an emotional mess. 

I definitely want lots of updates (and details) on where your turkeys lays eggs, nest, hatch out, and raise their young so I can start planning. That’s not too much to ask, right.


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## Kass

FizzyGoats said:


> Quick questions, my 9 turkey poults and 5 RIR chicks are in a makeshift (solid walled) pen in the barn that’s about 5.5’ x10’. They are 3 weeks old today. Everyone gets along well, the two sick/weak ones have been reintegrated but one is still off though seems happier with all his buddies. At what age will I need to expand their pen and by how much?
> 
> And when should I let them have field trips outside? The pen attached to their barn is fenced and covered with aerial netting but I’ll probably build a smaller, temporary enclosure for them for when they first venture outside. I’ve read articles that say 4, 6, and 8 weeks is when to let them spend an hour or two outside. I think 4 weeks is too young for my comfort level. Just wondering what everyone else does with theirs.


Mine out grew their brooder at about 6 weeks. They are now in a large rabbit cage outside until they are big enough to join the other chickens. Yours should be fine going outside at 6 weeks as long as the temps don't drop too low and they have shelter. 

Sent from my SM-A115U using Goat Forum mobile app


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## Kass

I have a question. What is lockdown in an incubator and when do I do it? My chicks are on day 13. 

Sent from my SM-A115U using Goat Forum mobile app


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## AndersonRanch

I will absolutely update you on everything! In case you didn’t notice I love my turkeys and like talking about them lol 
Lock down happens the last 3 days of incubation. You remove the turner, or stop turning them, bump up the humidity and lock them down. Not moving them gives the chicks time to get in the correct position to start hatching, and the higher humidity kinda softens the shells and also keeps the chicks from shrink wrapping. Shrink wrap is not fun, the membrane will dry out and kinda wrap around the chicks so they can’t move or bust free.


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## Calistar

Hmm, I think my humidity was 56 when I left for work this morning. I have a Hovabator Genesis and added water to the second trough like the instructions said, but it's never gotten to 65% . I'm afraid if I add water to the third trough it will be too much. Since dry hatching is a thing, should I assume that too little humidity is better than too much? I guess this is why they tell you to do a practice run first lol!


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## Kass

AndersonRanch said:


> I will absolutely update you on everything! In case you didn’t notice I love my turkeys and like talking about them lol
> Lock down happens the last 3 days of incubation. You remove the turner, or stop turning them, bump up the humidity and lock them down. Not moving them gives the chicks time to get in the correct position to start hatching, and the higher humidity kinda softens the shells and also keeps the chicks from shrink wrapping. Shrink wrap is not fun, the membrane will dry out and kinda wrap around the chicks so they can’t move or bust free.


Thank you for clearing that up! 
Another question. I have some duck eggs in there and I just added some more chicken eggs today. Will the lockdown affect the hatching of the other chicks? I don't have another incubator to move them to. 

Sent from my SM-A115U using Goat Forum mobile app


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## AndersonRanch

When did you put the duck eggs in and how much later did the chicken eggs go in? If it was about a week between the 2 then they should hatch at the same time. If it’s more like 10 days you might run into the issue of needing to take the ducks out while the chicken eggs have piped. If we are talking a few weeks apart you SHOULDN’T run into a issue. This cabinet incubator is supposed to have eggs added weekly and if done correctly lock down could be happening when I have eggs anywhere from just put in to 1,2,3 weeks old (if turkey eggs). Right now I’m playing with it to see if In the end my hatch rates go down having spikes of humidity threw out their time. There are also people who do a total dry hatch, never add water and keeps their humidity about 35%, and there are ones that add eggs in daily and keep their humidity at a constant 50%. I think it all works to a degree just for some you may not have a super high hatch rate but I don’t think you will end up with a total loss.
Calistar I’m not sure which is better, humidity too high or too low during lock down. One can cause sticky chicks and drowning and the other can cause shrink wrap. I like it around 60%. If you can open it (no one has busted threw just yet) you can add a TINY bit of water to that third one and see what that brings you up to. If it totally spikes up you can crack the top, again if no one has piped, and let it out. It is SO hard to get it just right. Or just keep it at 56 and see what it does. I know with my 360 that sucker goes up and down so dang easy I’m sure some has hatched piped when it was only 50-55.


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## Calistar

Whoa, you can add eggs into an incubator at different times without causing big problems? I would assume the hatched eggs would contaminate the ones that needed longer to incubate.
I thought a cabinet incubator was to hatch large numbers of birds at a time. Is it to stagger consecutive hatches instead? 

I just got home from work and checked my humidity and it's 57%. If it's going to go up (or at least hold steady) I think I'll just leave it. This is day 16 now so they could technically hatch anytime, although I heard day 18 is more likely. The hovabator has been keeping my temperature very consistent at 100 degrees, so at least that is stable!


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## AndersonRanch

Well see that’s what I thought too but these people swear by it. I was going to try it before I got swamped with turkey eggs and those only come seasonally so I wasn’t going to experiment with those, then I got the cabinet so no desire to try it now. With the cabinet that I have you can do both with the one machine. You can’t hatch but 1/3 Of the capacity. Here is a picture and it might make more sense. The bottom black drawer is the hatching tray.







some people do get cabinets that are just for incubating and then will move to smaller incubators or a Hatcher for the hatching. The original plan was to just use the smaller incubators to hatch in but with the humidity being so touchy in the NR360s I want to try to only use the cabinet. 
Oh gosh it’s going to be the longest 2 days lol I want to see what new baby quail look like! They are going to be so tiny and cute!!!


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## Calistar

So when you're in the last few days you put the eggs into the bottom tray to hatch? Gosh I'd be afraid some would hatch early and fall 3 stories down!

I just checked on my quail eggs this morning and 3 have pipped! Just barely though! Hopefully these 3 finish making it out and their 11 brothers and sisters follow! Humidity is still at 57%.


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## Kass

AndersonRanch said:


> When did you put the duck eggs in and how much later did the chicken eggs go in? If it was about a week between the 2 then they should hatch at the same time. If it’s more like 10 days you might run into the issue of needing to take the ducks out while the chicken eggs have piped. If we are talking a few weeks apart you SHOULDN’T run into a issue. This cabinet incubator is supposed to have eggs added weekly and if done correctly lock down could be happening when I have eggs anywhere from just put in to 1,2,3 weeks old (if turkey eggs). Right now I’m playing with it to see if In the end my hatch rates go down having spikes of humidity threw out their time. There are also people who do a total dry hatch, never add water and keeps their humidity about 35%, and there are ones that add eggs in daily and keep their humidity at a constant 50%. I think it all works to a degree just for some you may not have a super high hatch rate but I don’t think you will end up with a total loss.
> Calistar I’m not sure which is better, humidity too high or too low during lock down. One can cause sticky chicks and drowning and the other can cause shrink wrap. I like it around 60%. If you can open it (no one has busted threw just yet) you can add a TINY bit of water to that third one and see what that brings you up to. If it totally spikes up you can crack the top, again if no one has piped, and let it out. It is SO hard to get it just right. Or just keep it at 56 and see what it does. I know with my 360 that sucker goes up and down so dang easy I’m sure some has hatched piped when it was only 50-55.


The duck eggs went in 4 days after the chicken eggs. 

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## Calistar

We have a chick!!! I checked just before my shower and one of the eggs was rocking. Twenty minutes later, I'm out of the shower and go to check the egg and it's a chick instead! Another one has started rocking, one is actively pipping, and a a couple more are either pipped or cracked but no further activity. 
Hopefully I will have fluffy quail chick pictures to show you all soon!


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## FizzyGoats

That’s awesome. Can’t wait for pics!


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## AndersonRanch

As long as you stay up on dates they won’t hatch and fall threw. The earliest they hatch is about 24 hours and with moving them down 3 days early they won’t fall threw.
Ok that’s not as bad as if your having to open the incubator to get babies out and the other batch is starting to hatch. Just raise your humidity when you should and let it back down after they have hatched. It should work just fine. The idea with the humidity lower to start with is so that the eggs loose enough moisture to make that air sack in there so the chicks can breath after internally piping. 
Awwwww I can’t wait to see them!!! That’s a healthy chick hatching so fast (are quail called chicks? Lol)


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## Calistar

Yeah but what if you forget? XD

I'm shocked to say I have 8 chicks now! A 9th has been trying to hatch since late last night. He's still working at it so I'm leaving him alone for now. I did open the incubator very briefly to add a piece of hot wet sponge so he doesn't dry out. Humidity dipped but went right back up since the sponge was hot. 

It's weird because all the eggs that have hatched were on the left side of the incubator. The only unhatched one from that side is the one who's working on it still. On the right side, only one egg out of 5 has hatched. I would suspect a temperature difference, but it's a forced air incubator. Really bizarre, probably just a coincidence. 

I'm preparing the brooder and hopefully #9 will find his way out soon so I can move out the first batch. Pictures will follow. Right now the cottage cheese ceiling reflects on the incubator window and I can't get any good pictures!


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## AndersonRanch

Oh trust me I won’t forget lol and just in case I have it written all over my calendar. But next year I’ll be prepared and ready for this so it will end up being put eggs on the hatch rack on Friday put new eggs in on Monday. 
So how many eggs do you have altogether again?
Fizzy goat I’m telling you right now you might want to rethink this whole breeding Turkeys and letting them hatch them out lol the pair of girls hatched their poults as I mentioned. Got them in a cage with them and all is great. My trio hatched theirs out so I put them in the cage, and it’s a HUGE pen. One of the two went nuts and tried killing the trio. Got her and 2 poults and put them in one of those smaller chicken coops (the super expensive junk ones tractor supply sells). I think all is good until I see the trio after the other hen. So I let everyone have 2 babies and take the rest and kick them out. The toms see the hens lay down for the poults and think it’s breeding time. Chase the toms into the cage. The trio is head hunting the one hen but they leave the poults to go after her. They end up loosing track of their poults and go off and about like they don’t have a care in the world. The one hen goes over and takes all their poults and is happy. I let the other hen out of her chicken coop and they are back together with 10 poults happy as can be lol so the new plan with the other 11 hens is take all but 2 poults and walk away. At least then if they loose the poults it’s not so sad but I just can’t take all their babies. These things are worse then goats forgetting about their friends when they haven’t seen each other for a day. They all get off their nests and eat in the morning together. Add a little hormones in the mix and they are nuts!


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## Calistar

Wow, raising turkeys sounds like a circus!

I purchased 18 eggs. 4 were damaged in transit so 14 went into the incubator. 9 chicks hatched, but #9 had some issues and didn't make it. So right now I have 8 healthy chicks and 5 eggs still in the incubator. I'm not too optimistic about those last 5, but it's day 19 so I'm going to leave them for a couple more days. Fingers crossed for my chicks that they make it to adulthood; I've heard they like to look for ways to die!


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## FizzyGoats

AndersonRanch said:


> Oh trust me I won’t forget lol and just in case I have it written all over my calendar. But next year I’ll be prepared and ready for this so it will end up being put eggs on the hatch rack on Friday put new eggs in on Monday.
> So how many eggs do you have altogether again?
> Fizzy goat I’m telling you right now you might want to rethink this whole breeding Turkeys and letting them hatch them out lol the pair of girls hatched their poults as I mentioned. Got them in a cage with them and all is great. My trio hatched theirs out so I put them in the cage, and it’s a HUGE pen. One of the two went nuts and tried killing the trio. Got her and 2 poults and put them in one of those smaller chicken coops (the super expensive junk ones tractor supply sells). I think all is good until I see the trio after the other hen. So I let everyone have 2 babies and take the rest and kick them out. The toms see the hens lay down for the poults and think it’s breeding time. Chase the toms into the cage. The trio is head hunting the one hen but they leave the poults to go after her. They end up loosing track of their poults and go off and about like they don’t have a care in the world. The one hen goes over and takes all their poults and is happy. I let the other hen out of her chicken coop and they are back together with 10 poults happy as can be lol so the new plan with the other 11 hens is take all but 2 poults and walk away. At least then if they loose the poults it’s not so sad but I just can’t take all their babies. These things are worse then goats forgetting about their friends when they haven’t seen each other for a day. They all get off their nests and eat in the morning together. Add a little hormones in the mix and they are nuts!


Yikes! That sounds completely insane. I may have to rethink things. I was thinking of giving them each their own dog kennel sized area with their babies until they were a few weeks old. Basically one long run with lots of dividers and a little “house” in each. That may not work. Even at a few weeks, they need their mama. Hmm. I’m going to have to re-plan...a lot!



Calistar said:


> Wow, raising turkeys sounds like a circus!
> 
> I purchased 18 eggs. 4 were damaged in transit so 14 went into the incubator. 9 chicks hatched, but #9 had some issues and didn't make it. So right now I have 8 healthy chicks and 5 eggs still in the incubator. I'm not too optimistic about those last 5, but it's day 19 so I'm going to leave them for a couple more days. Fingers crossed for my chicks that they make it to adulthood; I've heard they like to look for ways to die!


Congrats on the 8 healthy babies! Sorry about the one you lost. I hope some more hatch out nice and strong for you. It’s kind of a bummer if you only end up with 8 birds out of the 18 eggs you ordered. Though I don’t know normal hatch rates. 

And I think most my animals are constantly looking for ways to kill themselves. Your little ones are going to be even more fragile than what I’m used to dealing with.


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## AndersonRanch

No that is probably a great idea. At least at 2 weeks old the babies are not tiny little things with moms 500 times their size fighting over the top of them while they stand there confused lol they can at least run from it. 
So far the two moms have their babies still. The other 3 will try to start stuff but they have calmed down too and the poults stay with their two moms now. 
I found on little one wondering around. I’m not sure which hen it came from since I am not brave enough to look under them lol but have him in my tote in the house. 
Incubating is not going great with the new incubator. I had 4 hatch great and 3 that were wet and turned crusty hard. I guess the humidity was too high. Not sure how the same amount is so different from the little one to the big one, but seems to be. Gave them a bath in warm water and put back in the incubator and they are fluffing up very nicely. I’m pretty sure the rest of the eggs are dead though but will candle them tomorrow.
Soooooo where is our quail pictures?! I’ve been waiting to see those cute little suckers!


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## Calistar

Haha well I still don't have any great pictures! I'm using a water trough as a brooder but I have this enormous 50-chick heat plate that takes up almost the ENTIRE thing. They're always scuttling around and they are so fast! I need to add shavings tonight so I'll try to snap better pictures then! The chicks have different patterns and while most are brown, there's one that's kind of reddish-gold and I'm really excited to see what colors they end up turning! I'll have to grab one of my silkie chicks for size comparison next time!


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## FizzyGoats

AndersonRanch said:


> No that is probably a great idea. At least at 2 weeks old the babies are not tiny little things with moms 500 times their size fighting over the top of them while they stand there confused lol they can at least run from it.
> So far the two moms have their babies still. The other 3 will try to start stuff but they have calmed down too and the poults stay with their two moms now.
> I found on little one wondering around. I’m not sure which hen it came from since I am not brave enough to look under them lol but have him in my tote in the house.
> Incubating is not going great with the new incubator. I had 4 hatch great and 3 that were wet and turned crusty hard. I guess the humidity was too high. Not sure how the same amount is so different from the little one to the big one, but seems to be. Gave them a bath in warm water and put back in the incubator and they are fluffing up very nicely. I’m pretty sure the rest of the eggs are dead though but will candle them tomorrow.
> Soooooo where is our quail pictures?! I’ve been waiting to see those cute little suckers!


Well I guess my idea might work then, though I might wait until they are 3 or 4 weeks old to be safe.  Glad you picked up the little straggler. There’s always one, right? Thank you for all your helpful information! It makes me feel like maybe I can do this. Maybe. Lol. 

Sorry about the incubator. You’d think percentage of humidity is what it is and wouldn’t be affected by the size of the incubator. That’s frustrating. You’ll have to let us know after you candle if you have any good surprises. 



Calistar said:


> Haha well I still don't have any great pictures! I'm using a water trough as a brooder but I have this enormous 50-chick heat plate that takes up almost the ENTIRE thing. They're always scuttling around and they are so fast! I need to add shavings tonight so I'll try to snap better pictures then! The chicks have different patterns and while most are brown, there's one that's kind of reddish-gold and I'm really excited to see what colors they end up turning! I'll have to grab one of my silkie chicks for size comparison next time!
> 
> View attachment 209101


It’s so tiny! Oh my gosh, that’s the cutest thing. I definitely want more pictures!


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## FizzyGoats

We did some bird moving today. The chicks are now in an addition we built on to the original coop. They have a little of the pen fenced off for them to scratch around in the dirt as well. They won’t get free range privileges for a long while. 

Between the two sides of the coop (old side/new side) we made a retractable hardware cloth/lumber divider so the bigs and littles can see each other but not get to each other. Later, we can slide it out a bit if we want the littles to be able to go back and forth (while blocking the bigs) but that’s down the road. Even later, we can take it out and have one big coop. The bigs didn’t care much about the littles, except one. When she saw a chick, she squawked and ran away hollering like it was a coyote. And she’s the boss hen. It was funny. 

Here’s the chicks new place. 









The turkey poults got an upgrade as well. We took out the pen wall and let them have the entire pen. We made some more roosts for them, which they love. They hadn’t discovered it yet when I took the pic. And the heat lamps weren’t set yet, but they have two heat lamps in there now (that they rarely use).


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## FizzyGoats

Is it normal for the adult chickens to be either offended by or afraid of the new baby chicks? Two of my three hens sleep in the nesting boxes, hiding from the littles, and one sleeps on a roost as far away as she can get from the divider. The littles sleep on a roost right by the divider and don’t seem at all bothered. Is this normal?


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## Kass

I have 3 quail. 2 i think are female and 1 I think is male. They are around 6 or 7 weeks old. The 2 females have split the top of their heads open im assuming on the roof of the cage. The skin is slid back from the forehead to the back of the neck. I'm not sure what to do. I'm not going to get anymore quail if they are going to hurt themselves like this. The cage is probably a foot tall. Maybe a foot and a half. I don't think there's anything I can do for them other then wait it out. It seems to have started to scab over. 

On a happier note, the chicks are due to hatch today and one is on its way out! So excited to see how many we get. 

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## NigerianNewbie

FizzyGoats said:


> Is it normal for the adult chickens to be either offended by or afraid of the new baby chicks? Two of my three hens sleep in the nesting boxes, hiding from the littles, and one sleeps on a roost as far away as she can get from the divider. The littles sleep on a roost right by the divider and don’t seem at all bothered. Is this normal?


I understand some hens are more broody than others. These hens want to hatch eggs and will claim a nest box of various hen eggs as their own for the sole purpose of hatching them. Some of them don't appreciate having the eggs gathered either and might hiss or fluff up at you. Now, most hens, especially the broody ones, with chicks are a force to be reckoned with if they think something is a threat to those chicks. Maybe hens are hardwired to leave chicks belonging to another hen alone for risk being flogged. This is such an interesting question.


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## FizzyGoats

Kass said:


> I have 3 quail. 2 i think are female and 1 I think is male. They are around 6 or 7 weeks old. The 2 females have split the top of their heads open im assuming on the roof of the cage. The skin is slid back from the forehead to the back of the neck. I'm not sure what to do. I'm not going to get anymore quail if they are going to hurt themselves like this. The cage is probably a foot tall. Maybe a foot and a half. I don't think there's anything I can do for them other then wait it out. It seems to have started to scab over.
> 
> On a happier note, the chicks are due to hatch today and one is on its way out! So excited to see how many we get.
> 
> Sent from my SM-A115U using Goat Forum mobile app


Oh no. Is it split as in needing to be reconnected? If so, I’d use tiny bandaids or something. If not, I’d spray it with something like Vetericyn a few times a day to keep it clean while it heals. Then I’d figure out what cut their heads and cover it. Maybe a bigger cage? I have never raised quail, so I’m not sure. 

I hope the hatching goes well!



NigerianNewbie said:


> I understand some hens are more broody than others. These hens want to hatch eggs and will claim a nest box of various hen eggs as their own for the sole purpose of hatching them. Some of them don't appreciate having the eggs gathered either and might hiss or fluff up at you. Now, most hens, especially the broody ones, with chicks are a force to be reckoned with if they think something is a threat to those chicks. Maybe hens are hardwired to leave chicks belonging to another hen alone for risk being flogged. This is such an interesting question.


I never even considered that. None of my adults are broody. They lay an egg in one of the nest boxes then walk away from it almost immediately. Makes it easy to collect. So I wonder if there is hard-wiring in their little brains that make them think these belong to a mama hen who would fight to protect them. What an interesting perspective on what I thought was really weird behavior.


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## Kass

At what point should I help a hatching chick? It looks the same as it did this morning. I can see the head and stomach its still alive. Out of the 10 eggs this is the only one hatching. I'm assuming I should give the others a couple days 

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## AndersonRanch

You can see the head out of the shell? If so it can breath so I would give it 24 hours from when it pipped before helping. I think this is the hardest call to make but so far that time line hasn’t been wrong. If you end up helping it pick the shell and the outer membrane off, watch the inner membrane. If you see any veins stop! Put it back in the incubator with a damp paper towel over it. I personally never mess with that inner membrane. I’ll pick the outside off to where they can hatch and let them get out of that inner on their own. 
Yes give the other eggs a few days or if you want to take them out and candle them. If the egg is solid in there, no air sack it’s sometimes hard to tell if they are still alive or not but if you listen you can hear them scratching or chirping.
Fizzy goat I wonder if they think maybe they have a angry mama around some place. My chickens are jerks and if the chicks come near them they peck them. If they are away from them doing their own thing they just ignore them for the most part. Either way that is so weird! 
I had a Turkey that had a bloody spot on her head years back. The other turkey would peck at it so I put her in a rabbit cage. That stupid thing was so upset and would pace back and forth dragging it’s head along and she did the same thing. I put a little flour on it and left it be. I’m not sure if quail are like chicks and turkeys and will peck at wounds but watch for that. If they do they say if you use a red lamp they can’t see the red from wounds. I’m sorry I don’t know much about quail


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## Calistar

Kass said:


> I have 3 quail. 2 i think are female and 1 I think is male. They are around 6 or 7 weeks old. The 2 females have split the top of their heads open im assuming on the roof of the cage. The skin is slid back from the forehead to the back of the neck. I'm not sure what to do. I'm not going to get anymore quail if they are going to hurt themselves like this. The cage is probably a foot tall. Maybe a foot and a half. I don't think there's anything I can do for them other then wait it out. It seems to have started to scab over.
> 
> On a happier note, the chicks are due to hatch today and one is on its way out! So excited to see how many we get.
> 
> Sent from my SM-A115U using Goat Forum mobile app


Are you sure it's from the cage? Mine get bald heads like that from picking at each other. They're snarky little things. Everything will be fine and then two will start fighting and I'll end up with a bald one and have to separate. Over breeding can have the same thing. I have one pen that has 1 roo and 4 hens and they still get bare spots sometimes. I want to make quail tractors so I can separate more of them out and give them more room and hopefully let them hunt earwigs instead of picking at each other!

In other news, all 8 of my celadon quail are still alive, which is miraculous considering they keep emptying their water into their shavings so I'm not sure how they're staying hydrated. Ugh.


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## Kass

Calistar said:


> Are you sure it's from the cage? Mine get bald heads like that from picking at each other. They're snarky little things. Everything will be fine and then two will start fighting and I'll end up with a bald one and have to separate. Over breeding can have the same thing. I have one pen that has 1 roo and 4 hens and they still get bare spots sometimes. I want to make quail tractors so I can separate more of them out and give them more room and hopefully let them hunt earwigs instead of picking at each other!
> 
> In other news, all 8 of my celadon quail are still alive, which is miraculous considering they keep emptying their water into their shavings so I'm not sure how they're staying hydrated. Ugh.


Nope it's not bald. The skin is split from the forehead and slid down to the bottom of the neck. Exposing what I'm assuming to be the skull. Nasty looking, but they are acting normal and scabing over, so maybe they'll recover. 

I'm glad that your quail are doing good! My chicks do that with their water too... frustrating. But they somehow are staying hydrated! I wonder what their secret is? 

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## FizzyGoats

Our chicks continue to surprise us. A few flew on top of the coop and walked to the bigs side last night. We found one happily perched on top. One was on the ground in the bigs part of the pen and not moving much. Though all the bigs had put themselves inside for the night, we thought one had gotten to the chick and hurt it. But after careful examination, we found no injuries and figured she tried to fly off and either hit something or dropped more than flew and stunned herself. She is fine this morning. So we worked by headlamp to make it so they can’t fly on top of the coop. 

My big chickens don’t seem as afraid of the littles. Actually, we had one little scratching right by their divider fence and a big went over and scratched too. Like they do with each other when they’re out free ranging during the day. It was kind of cute. 

How long do I keep them completely separate? I know a timeline isn’t exact, but what should I watch for to let me know they are ready for some supervised time where they can actually be together? The chicks are still young. They’ll be 5 weeks on Wednesday.


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## AndersonRanch

I would wait until they are at least half the size and you could put them together. That way if they do decide they don’t like the little ones there isn’t such a huge size difference. Your hens really don’t seem to hate them so you could probably even start supervised visits. One peck isn’t going to kill them it’s when they have a hair up their behind and really go at them that is a issue. 
Kass how is the hatching going?


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## Kass

AndersonRanch said:


> I would wait until they are at least half the size and you could put them together. That way if they do decide they don’t like the little ones there isn’t such a huge size difference. Your hens really don’t seem to hate them so you could probably even start supervised visits. One peck isn’t going to kill them it’s when they have a hair up their behind and really go at them that is a issue.
> Kass how is the hatching going?


The chick pipped a hole in the shell Sunday before I woke up. I let it be until probably 11 this morning. I helped it out of the shell... don't worry I didn't hurt it. It's been in the incubator but still isn't dry and still isn't walking right. 
One other egg has a little crack, but none of the others are showing signs. 

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## FizzyGoats

@Kass I hope you’re hatchling gets stronger and your others hatch out. Keep us updated. 



AndersonRanch said:


> I would wait until they are at least half the size and you could put them together. That way if they do decide they don’t like the little ones there isn’t such a huge size difference. Your hens really don’t seem to hate them so you could probably even start supervised visits. One peck isn’t going to kill them it’s when they have a hair up their behind and really go at them that is a issue.
> Kass how is the hatching going?


Ok. Thanks! It’s funny to watch them interact through their little fence. The littles copy the bigs and sometimes the bigs copy the littles. I do worry about one chicken. She’s shown no aggression and no interest. But I just have a feeling she’d attack a little if it got in her way. I have one who I thought would be aggressive (my head hen), who now seems intrigued and likes to copy the littles. And one who looks like she wants to mama them. She’s the lowest in the pecking order but by far the most docile. 

The littles figured out dust baths today. It was so cute to watch them scratch out their tiny holes in the dirt then wallow in them like a pig in mud. They were so happy.


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## Kass

The chick that hatched has a splayed leg. Its not doing very good. The others haven't hatched yet and we're on day 23 

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## FizzyGoats

Oh no. I’m sorry to hear that.


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## AndersonRanch

Ugh splay leg is a pain but a fairly easy fix. Get a bandaid and cut in half length wise, then wrap each end around each leg. Usually if you leave that little gauze part between the legs that is the perfect width between the legs and then toss him back in the incubator. He will look pathetic and be sprawled out and be unhappy but leave him be until either he gets the bandaid off or give it 24 hours and check to see if it helped. If your incubator is slick put some paper towels down so he can grip better. If you happen to have shelf liner that is even better. 
Fuzzy goat it sounds like your chicks are quite happy with each other! That sounds so cute. 
I finally got this dang cabinet figured out! Got 11 out of 12 eggs to hatch. No humidity issues no shrink wrap. The last one was taking a little too long to hatch for my liking but I just broke a little bit of the outer membrane and be flopped right out. He probably would have done it on his own but I would have rather not been mad at myself because he took to long and gave up. 
On the hens one hen hatched out her poults and then just walked away. I gathered them up and took them and she had 4 eggs that were still alive. The trio are still nuts so I think I’m going to pen them up with the toms. When I was working on the hot fence for one of my fields I saw another group of 2 hens hatched their poults. A bunch of little heads sticking out. The first two still have all their babies. I can see why hens do not have good luck with their babies though. Those things do not stick to mom like chicks do their chicken moms. I have a few extra car ports that the goats really are not using any more so I think I will be turning those into turkey coops and avoid all this crazy next year. Or maybe not let them go broody at all.


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## Kass

AndersonRanch said:


> Ugh splay leg is a pain but a fairly easy fix. Get a bandaid and cut in half length wise, then wrap each end around each leg. Usually if you leave that little gauze part between the legs that is the perfect width between the legs and then toss him back in the incubator. He will look pathetic and be sprawled out and be unhappy but leave him be until either he gets the bandaid off or give it 24 hours and check to see if it helped. If your incubator is slick put some paper towels down so he can grip better. If you happen to have shelf liner that is even better.
> Fuzzy goat it sounds like your chicks are quite happy with each other! That sounds so cute.
> I finally got this dang cabinet figured out! Got 11 out of 12 eggs to hatch. No humidity issues no shrink wrap. The last one was taking a little too long to hatch for my liking but I just broke a little bit of the outer membrane and be flopped right out. He probably would have done it on his own but I would have rather not been mad at myself because he took to long and gave up.
> On the hens one hen hatched out her poults and then just walked away. I gathered them up and took them and she had 4 eggs that were still alive. The trio are still nuts so I think I’m going to pen them up with the toms. When I was working on the hot fence for one of my fields I saw another group of 2 hens hatched their poults. A bunch of little heads sticking out. The first two still have all their babies. I can see why hens do not have good luck with their babies though. Those things do not stick to mom like chicks do their chicken moms. I have a few extra car ports that the goats really are not using any more so I think I will be turning those into turkey coops and avoid all this crazy next year. Or maybe not let them go broody at all.


Thank you! I will try that 

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## FizzyGoats

AndersonRanch said:


> I finally got this dang cabinet figured out! Got 11 out of 12 eggs to hatch. No humidity issues no shrink wrap. The last one was taking a little too long to hatch for my liking but I just broke a little bit of the outer membrane and be flopped right out. He probably would have done it on his own but I would have rather not been mad at myself because he took to long and gave up.
> On the hens one hen hatched out her poults and then just walked away. I gathered them up and took them and she had 4 eggs that were still alive. The trio are still nuts so I think I’m going to pen them up with the toms. When I was working on the hot fence for one of my fields I saw another group of 2 hens hatched their poults. A bunch of little heads sticking out. The first two still have all their babies. I can see why hens do not have good luck with their babies though. Those things do not stick to mom like chicks do their chicken moms. I have a few extra car ports that the goats really are not using any more so I think I will be turning those into turkey coops and avoid all this crazy next year. Or maybe not let them go broody at all.


Way to go on the incubator hatching! That is amazing. 
Every time I read about your crazy turkeys, I rethink my future pen design a bit. Lol. So I’m not happy for your struggles, but I certainly am learning from them…not that I won’t have plenty of my own. Then you can chuckle at the newbie who tried to figure it all out and still had a fiasco on her hands. 



Kass said:


> Thank you! I will try that


Let us know how it goes!


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## AndersonRanch

Lol don’t let me make you cringe when you think about next year. Honestly if I would have just let them all do their own thing it would probably be less of a headache but I don’t want to loose any of the little ones. I do think though that if they all sat in the same general area and could see each other every day it would be much easier. But I have nests all over this place and they forget their sisters are their sisters. The co-parents are great with each other. They share their babies so well and do not fight. It’s having them all meet again that seems to be the issue.


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## FizzyGoats

See, another good tip and another note taken by me.  I keep saying I want to just let them raise the babies and let nature take its course but I know me. If I think I have the slimmest chance of saving one, I’ll go through a lot of work to do it. So I’ll need to have a brooder ready to go as well. And I’m wondering if I need to rethink my design of one long shed type shelter (with individual houses and fenced runs) to two shorter shelters that face each other so everyone sees everyone else.


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## Kass

First, the chick with the splayed leg didn't make it. 
Second. No other eggs are hatching. Its day 24. I got rid of 3 that weren't fertilized, and 1 that had a chick that looked like it needed another week. I don't know if it had been dead or for how long. The rest of the eggs I think have something in them, but the shells are too dark to candle. How long should I give them? 

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## FizzyGoats

I’m sorry, Kass. I don’t know anything about hatching so I’ll let someone else answer that part. 

I think a snake killed one of my turkeys. They are 5 weeks old, so not tiny. I found one dead right by the door. I thought it drowned at first because its head and neck were soaked. But it wasn’t by the water, which is super shallow. I examined it and didn’t see a bite, doesn’t mean there wasn’t one. Then I noticed it was more gooey than wet with water. The head and neck were covered in the wet goo. I think the snake realized it was too big to eat at that point. I’m just so frustrated and upset. I feel like I just can’t protect these guys. We can’t even figure out how and where a snake could have gotten in and our camera didn’t catch it. And if can get to my turkeys, it can get to my goats. I just don’t know what to do. I’m almost in tears. I know that’s stupid but I am feeling guilty, sad, and extremely worried about the rest of the birds and the goats.


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## FizzyGoats

I just tore the barn apart. Moved everything. Cleaned everything and found nothing. I still have no idea how a snake got in there or if it’s hiding somewhere that I somehow missed. The hay room, the milk room, the goats side of the barn and turkey side got a thorough searching. I was on my my hands and knees digging under hay pallets and looking behind storage bins. I’m now in need of the second shower I’ll take tonight, but no closer to figuring out what happened and how to keep it from happening again. I know this is part of owning animals. But it is the sucky part. Any one have any tips to keep snakes away?


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## Kass

I cracked the rest of the eggs today. 2 were empty. The other 4 had half formed chicks. It was so sad 

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## Calistar

Oh wow, just popping back into this thread. Sorry you guys are all having bad luck 

My broody hen has gotten negligent and there are eggs spilling out of her nest and getting chilled, so I'm sure hatch rate will be terrible. Also she hatched a chick a couple days ago but I have marked that they shouldn't start hatching until the middle of next week, argh! 

As for the quail, they have some feathers now and can sort of fly out of their brooder and go explore and I don't have anything else to contain the little monsters! They continue to spill their water and throw their food everywhere.


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## FizzyGoats

You need to show your broody hen the calendar. How rude she’s not sticking with the schedule.  I don’t know how you keep track of it all. Hopefully more eggs than you think will hatch. 

Sounds like the quail are doing well. Even if they are monsters. 

@Kass, I’m sorry about the eggs. That’s depressing. 

I still haven’t seen any sign of a snake and still can’t explain the death of the turkey poult any other way. And these guys aren’t little anymore. That scares me more because I feel like it had to be venomous to incapacitate it. And if it can get to the turkey part, it can get to my baby Nigerian dwarf goats too. I’m so nervous now. 

I did not realize what good fliers young turkeys would be. I’m going to be adding some higher roosts for them tomorrow. When I was standing there debating where to put it, one flew on to my shoulder. I promptly got it on my hand and put it on the roost. But that’s only about three feet high. And even though it’s cute when they fly onto my shoulder or head now at 5 weeks old, it won’t be when they’re 20 lbs and beating me with their wings and clawing me with their talons. Im trying to break them of the habit. 

For those with turkeys, how high do you put their roosts? I’ll have varying heights, but would love to know what works for others.


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## AndersonRanch

Fizzy goat I’m not sure what else would make it slobbery but not eat it, unless possibly when it died it leaked fluid and got sticky wet that way. I can’t say I have ever seen a bird do that before, but I really don’t know for sure. 
Supposedly moth balls will keep snakes away. I have heard people say that but I don’t know for a fact. You would think that sucker would be some place close though unless he realized it’s not worth it there and moved on.
Kass I’m sorry about the eggs. It’s very hard to get them all to hatch. I always though that people who claim they get 100% hatch are talking about all the eggs they place in the incubator but that is not the case at all, they are talking about at lock down so although it’s very sad it’s super normal.
I have my roosts about 3’ high when they get locked up. Right now they are all free and the ones that don’t have babies sleep on their dog kennel which is 6’ high. I looked on cackle what they recommend since I never really thought about how high it SHOULD be and they recommend 2’+ so I would say 3’ is perfect. 
You know the flying on me thing I thought the same thing with mine but once they got bigger they just stopped trying to fly on me. Although even small their claws still hurt! 
And Cali star you jinked me! Today is hatch day for me but last night I peeked threw the glass to see if anyone started and there was a poult. No broken egg in there! I looked on the shelf’s and I’m not sure if I wrote the wrong day down or if it hatched super early (it had to be the wrong day!) but there was a egg shell on the shelf. But I can say the little one came down just fine to the bottom lol honestly what probably happened was he went from layer to layer instead of a total drop.


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## FizzyGoats

AndersonRanch said:


> I have my roosts about 3’ high when they get locked up. Right now they are all free and the ones that don’t have babies sleep on their dog kennel which is 6’ high. I looked on cackle what they recommend since I never really thought about how high it SHOULD be and they recommend 2’+ so I would say 3’ is perfect.
> You know the flying on me thing I thought the same thing with mine but once they got bigger they just stopped trying to fly on me. Although even small their claws still hurt!


Yes, I am covered in scratches all over from their claws. I hope they naturally stop flying on top of me. 
I think I’ll give them one more higher roost option, between 5-6 feet high. I may take it down when they get bigger.

.


AndersonRanch said:


> And Cali star you jinked me! Today is hatch day for me but last night I peeked threw the glass to see if anyone started and there was a poult. No broken egg in there! I looked on the shelf’s and I’m not sure if I wrote the wrong day down or if it hatched super early (it had to be the wrong day!) but there was a egg shell on the shelf. But I can say the little one came down just fine to the bottom lol honestly what probably happened was he went from layer to layer instead of a total drop.


Oops. That little one already went on its first adventure. Glad he’s ok.


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## Calistar

AndersonRanch said:


> Fizzy goat I’m not sure what else would make it slobbery but not eat it, unless possibly when it died it leaked fluid and got sticky wet that way. I can’t say I have ever seen a bird do that before, but I really don’t know for sure.
> Supposedly moth balls will keep snakes away. I have heard people say that but I don’t know for a fact. You would think that sucker would be some place close though unless he realized it’s not worth it there and moved on.
> Kass I’m sorry about the eggs. It’s very hard to get them all to hatch. I always though that people who claim they get 100% hatch are talking about all the eggs they place in the incubator but that is not the case at all, they are talking about at lock down so although it’s very sad it’s super normal.
> I have my roosts about 3’ high when they get locked up. Right now they are all free and the ones that don’t have babies sleep on their dog kennel which is 6’ high. I looked on cackle what they recommend since I never really thought about how high it SHOULD be and they recommend 2’+ so I would say 3’ is perfect.
> You know the flying on me thing I thought the same thing with mine but once they got bigger they just stopped trying to fly on me. Although even small their claws still hurt!
> And Cali star you jinked me! Today is hatch day for me but last night I peeked threw the glass to see if anyone started and there was a poult. No broken egg in there! I looked on the shelf’s and I’m not sure if I wrote the wrong day down or if it hatched super early (it had to be the wrong day!) but there was a egg shell on the shelf. But I can say the little one came down just fine to the bottom lol honestly what probably happened was he went from layer to layer instead of a total drop.


Haha, I knew there had to be some situation in which it was possible! Glad to hear that she's no worse for the wear though!


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## AndersonRanch

Lol when I was replying I was like NO! There is NO possible way! Lol I should have kept my mouth shut  but I think what I did was when I was moving the eggs from the little incubator to the big one I wrote 5/17 instead of 5/14. But now let me tell ya when I get things on track for next year I’ll only set them once and week and for sure that won’t happen lmbo! 
Today was a busy day, we are in the middle of moving cows and this evening I came up to get my extra trough for the cows and my all time favorite turkey hen Snoodless had a baby with her. I was too late on the rest of her eggs. I’m not sure if any of them would have been alive if I did get out there when she got off though. But of course I had to take 5 and sit with her and tell her what a good girl she was and how much I have missed her. She is honestly the COOLEST turkey ever and loves to sit with me and be cuddled. 
And my sister came over today and informed me my ducks are a boy and girl. All I wanted was the same sex and they couldn’t even do that lol and of course the black one that lays black eggs is the boy.....BOOOO!! 
Also she is the poultry leader for 4H and they are planning on having a educational fun raiser next year by hatching eggs and then selling the chicks and I told her they are more then welcome to use my incubator. But I thought that was such a good idea.


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## FizzyGoats

Well I’m glad Snoodels has one baby at least and you get to hang out with her again. Maybe her little one will inherit her sweet disposition. 

So I have to ask, when you say you were too late on the rest of the eggs after Snoodles got off the nest, do they get off after one hatches? And if so, what do you do to help them hatch the rest? 

And you’ll be getting no black eggs from that boy duck, lol. That is a bummer though. I love your sister’s 4H fundraiser idea and it’s nice for you to offer your incubator. That’ll make it a lot easier for them, I’m sure.


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## AndersonRanch

I sure hope it’s a sweet poult! So far none of the ones I have hatched or the hens have hatched are overly sweet. Kinda wired since the parents are all super easy going. Not snoodless sweet but fairly easy to get my hands on and follow me every place. We will see how they do when they start going out and about when they are older. It’s the Narragansett and Royal palm that I got in the surprise box that are total sweet hearts.
No the hens will stay on their eggs for a few days after hatching a few. The trio I actually had to kick them off. But the issue is since they all co-laid I still had some hens laying in each nest when the other hen started being broody. So there’s eggs at different stages. So I just gather the eggs, check to make sure they are still alive and put them in the little incubator to give them a chance. A lot of them don’t end up hatching anyways but I have saved a few. 
Nope for sure no black eggs lol my son was trying to tell me that if we get ducklings though out of them maybe they would lay black eggs and I told him we were NOT letting any duck eggs hatch. These guys haven’t even come out of the kennel yet and I’m still not convinced they won’t be just as terrible as the last ducks we had lol


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## Calistar

If it's any consolation, my flock of ducks used to be all Cayugas (black egg layers) but they didn't actually lay black eggs, theirs just kind of had a gray tinge and always looked dirty and mud stained. So you may not actually be missing out 😆

I got some window screen for over the quail brooder and it has stopped the escapes for now. It's actually really satisfying to see them all fly up when I approach, just to bonk their stupid little heads on the window screen. (I know it's mean, but I've been chasing escapees all over the spare room for the last few days so I think I'm allowed my bit of schadenfreude 😋)


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## AndersonRanch

That does make me feel better lol although I don’t know why I care to be honest. I just thought it would be cool to say I had black eggs I guess. I don’t really care about the green, blue or super dark eggs but the black seemed cool. Cant explain it.
No I get it! I’ve been in the process of making a drift fence between two pastures so the bucks can’t get excited when the other one has a lady in heat and they don’t. I had to take the hot fence down but of course that means the bad girls know and found a few weak spots that they have been getting out and being bad and driving me nuts! I finally got it all done and plugged the hot fence back in and the one doeling got nailed. Mean or not I laughed at her. I think we deserve it after chasing them around and getting our blood pressure high


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## FizzyGoats

I agree. When animals have caused you to chase them, corral them, and caused you hours of frustration, it’s absolutely fine to laugh when your fix stops them…even if some would think you’re mean. 


AndersonRanch said:


> I sure hope it’s a sweet poult! So far none of the ones I have hatched or the hens have hatched are overly sweet. Kinda wired since the parents are all super easy going. Not snoodless sweet but fairly easy to get my hands on and follow me every place. We will see how they do when they start going out and about when they are older. It’s the Narragansett and Royal palm that I got in the surprise box that are total sweet hearts.
> No the hens will stay on their eggs for a few days after hatching a few. The trio I actually had to kick them off. But the issue is since they all co-laid I still had some hens laying in each nest when the other hen started being broody. So there’s eggs at different stages. So I just gather the eggs, check to make sure they are still alive and put them in the little incubator to give them a chance. A lot of them don’t end up hatching anyways but I have saved a few.
> Nope for sure no black eggs lol my son was trying to tell me that if we get ducklings though out of them maybe they would lay black eggs and I told him we were NOT letting any duck eggs hatch. These guys haven’t even come out of the kennel yet and I’m still not convinced they won’t be just as terrible as the last ducks we had lol


Well one thing is for sure, I don’t want ducks. I love ducks. I think they’re super cute but I decided on chickens and turkeys a while ago and just can’t fathom how I’d incorporate in ducks as well. And thanks for explaining the hatch process. I’m going to be lost when the time comes. 

It was hot today so we gave the turkeys their first day (half day actually) in their outside pen. It’s covered in aerial netting, so they are fairly safe. Of course my goat Petunia is always trying to make new friends. 









We’re thinking of seeing how they’ll do without the heat lamp in the barn tonight. The low is supposed to be about 73 degrees F.


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## AndersonRanch

They should be ok without a light. We just had a high of 77 and the chicks and poults a little older then yours have gone without a lamp for a few weeks now. And these little guys choose not to have their lamp lol I thought you would appreciate this with me LMBO! I’m thinking though maybe don’t put the roosts 6’ high just yet. Although my adults do NOT sleep like this!


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## FizzyGoats

🤣 Turkeys are such characters. I love that pic. 

And I only went to about 4.5- 5 feet high on the roost (didn’t really measure but I’m short and I put it up). This has done what I hoped, which is keep them off the heat lamp holder and off the cord we have zip tied along the wall for the heat lamp. And I got lucky, I just picked a random branch from trees we had to clean up the other day, and it worked out perfectly as the roost. They all fit on it easily and now all of them sleep there together. 

They did just fine without the heat lamp, just as you predicted. They will get more time in the attached pen today while I’m outside to supervise. Even though they are fenced in and covered with aerial netting over the top and down the sides past the fence, I’m still worried about them being left out there without someone watching them or at least very nearby.

They were so fun to watch yesterday and so different than when the chicks first experienced freedom. The chicks first time outside (well in an enclosed run anyway…that’s as free as those littles need to be right now) they dashed around, jumped on everything and just took over the space. The turkeys were so different. It took forever for one to even come out the open door. Then it took each step slowly and cautiously. After a while, another would do the same, and one by one they came outside this way. The first 15 minutes or so was just a very methodical, very gradual inspection of their strange new world. Once they were comfortable, then they went nuts. Flying, bouncing, dust bathing (sort of, they’re not great at it yet) and just being silly.


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## AndersonRanch

Oh gosh I remember the first time I opened the gate to let the turkeys out and that is exactly what happened. Just it opened up to the whole world and they started flying over fences and me and the kids just stood there like oh crap! We are never getting them back in. But they knew where their beds were lol 
This morning was funny, kinda, well now looking back it’s funny. I was giving all the goats their pneumonia vaccine and copper. I heard the turkeys make their “danger/ I’m not happy” sound. First thing that went threw my mind was a snake. So I book it and go WAY this way and WAY that way to get to them. Yeah it was a adult and a baby smack talking each other threw the fence! I told the one to grow up your a adult now and told the baby your a kid she will kill you stupid, and went back to my long chore of vaccines and copper.


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## FizzyGoats

Lol. Dang birds


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## FizzyGoats

Today one turkey tried to fly over the fence and bounced right back thanks to the aerial netting. I’m hoping that being in this pen first, which is fenced with the same as the perimeter fencing will give them a mental barrier and they won’t fly over the other one. I doubt it. But I can hope, right?

And my turkeys were trash talking one of my hens today. They better not be mean to my girls when they’re out. They still have a few more weeks at least before they are able to free range. 

One turkey kept poking its head through the fence and pecking my dog. Nearly stuck its head in my big dog’s mouth trying to continually peck him. My dog was so frustrated and kept looking at me to correct the turkey. Yeah right. I eventually had to convince my dog he could still watch the turkeys even if he backed six inches away from the fence.


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## Kass

FizzyGoats 
Your birds sound hilarious! I'm glad everything is going good and I hope you find that snake! 

Update on my incubating journey... 
As you know none of my chicks survived. The one that hatched died from the splayed leg, and all the others died at some point in incubation. So I lost hope and kind of forgot about the duck eggs I had in there. After all they had a long journey. In the beginning I biked home ( 7 miles ) with them in my backpack. Then they got put on lockdown in the middle of their incubation cause they got put in a week after the chicken eggs, and only got turned a few times that week. And if none of the chicken eggs survived a normal incubation, how could the duck eggs make it? 
Well I've been hearing some peeping yesterday and today but I thought it was birds outside since we always have the windows open and there's tons of birds around our house. I hadn't even thought about the ducks in a couple days cause I've been sick and I assumed, with my luck, the ducklings wouldn't hatch. But I opened the incubator a couple hours ago to fill the water tray and a duck was piping!!! So I took all the eggs off the turner, took a long walk in the woods with my goats, and came back to a duckling in the incubator! A long story to say... finally some good luck! I hope the rest of them hatch! 

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## Kass

.









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## FizzyGoats

Oh it’s so tiny! I’m glad you finally had some good luck and hope it continues with the rest of the duck eggs.


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## Kass

FizzyGoats said:


> Oh it’s so tiny! I’m glad you finally had some good luck and hope it continues with the rest of the duck eggs.


Thank you! A second one pipped this morning and hasn't made any progress. But I learned my lesson on helping chicks, so we'll see if he can get out on his own. 

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## AndersonRanch

Awwww it is so tiny! I’m happy you got one so far 
So when you say you basically forgot about them does that mean you forgot to add water too? I’m curious because I kinda forgot about the eggs I saved and have added no water and they are hatching better then anything I ever have. I have 1 egg left to go and then even though I said I wouldn’t incubate more eggs I’m gathering some eggs up for a full experiment. I think they are hatching faster and better without bumping the humidity up the last 3 days, but I want to be sure before I max this cabinet out next year and it fails. 
Fizzy goat before the hens had their babies they were kind of push overs. They acted tough but if a hen puffed up and came at them it was over. And it just so happened my RIR never put up with their crap. 
So I did something and haven’t told anyone (especially my husband lol) I bought some tolbunt polish eggs awhile back. I really wasn’t holding my breath on the whole deal, they were fairly cheap on eBay so I said why not! Well my 3 out of 6 go on lock down tomorrow! So fingers crossed they hatch. I also bought some Sarama and showgirl eggs. I’ll candle the sarama tomorrow and the showgirl will go in the incubator. Then all I have are a few more turkey eggs to hatch out and my chick/ poult adventure is over for the year.


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## AndersonRanch

Went to refill water and since I had my phone and the poults feathers are coming in so nice I got some pictures of my unique babies. I am really loving the different colors. I still have some boring (lol) blue, black, Royal, and bourbons too but I like the different colors.







barred black 








Rusty black. I have SO many of these!








I’m not sure what this one is considered. She is like a Royal palm but instead of black she has red. I only have 1 that looks like her








Red bronze. I’m probably going to keep most of these :hide:








And I believe this is a rusty slate. The picture doesn’t do her/ him justice it is so pretty. 
Anyways thought I would share what I have going on here lol


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## Kass

AndersonRanch said:


> Awwww it is so tiny! I’m happy you got one so far
> So when you say you basically forgot about them does that mean you forgot to add water too? I’m curious because I kinda forgot about the eggs I saved and have added no water and they are hatching better then anything I ever have. I have 1 egg left to go and then even though I said I wouldn’t incubate more eggs I’m gathering some eggs up for a full experiment. I think they are hatching faster and better without bumping the humidity up the last 3 days, but I want to be sure before I max this cabinet out next year and it fails.
> Fizzy goat before the hens had their babies they were kind of push overs. They acted tough but if a hen puffed up and came at them it was over. And it just so happened my RIR never put up with their crap.
> So I did something and haven’t told anyone (especially my husband lol) I bought some tolbunt polish eggs awhile back. I really wasn’t holding my breath on the whole deal, they were fairly cheap on eBay so I said why not! Well my 3 out of 6 go on lock down tomorrow! So fingers crossed they hatch. I also bought some Sarama and showgirl eggs. I’ll candle the sarama tomorrow and the showgirl will go in the incubator. Then all I have are a few more turkey eggs to hatch out and my chick/ poult adventure is over for the year.


Yeah I totally forgot lol. I forgot when they were supposed to hatch and wasn't even thinking about it so imagine my surprise to see a chick piping! I didn't even take them off the turner. Of course as soon as I saw it I took all the eggs off the turner and filled up the water trays. In my defense hatch day was still 2 days away. 

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## FizzyGoats

@AndersonRanch Those poults are so pretty, especially compared to mine. Mine look like something out of the Dark Crystal right now. They are so ugly. And I think it’s adorable. But mine are just boring ol’ Bourbons. And you are a woman of secrets. Lol. I definitely want pictures of what hatches out of your secret squad. 

That’s interesting about the incubator and humidity. Seemed to work for both you and Kass. Let us know how your experiment goes.


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## AndersonRanch

If they were 2 days early your temp might be a little high. But not the end of the world they just hatch a little sooner. I think it’s better then later, but what do I know  
Ok so it was a almost total dry hatch too. I know a lot of people do it but I always thought they were in muggy places where humidity is naturally super high. But it makes sense really, if they are swearing they have better hatches. Under a hen it’s not like they have X humidity and it spikes super high all of a sudden. I’m thinking the spike is shocking the babies and causing them to hatch slower. But I’m going to play and find out, even if I have 100 more chicks that I wasn’t planning on having lol gosh I’m going to end up getting divorced! 
No! I think the bourbons are so pretty, especially the toms when they strut. My red Tom was by far the pretties, he was just acting like a jerk and my brother needed a Tom so off he went. He didn’t seem to like his new home though so he is a wild Tom now. I like odd ball things though so I am totally tickled over these babies. I wasn’t sure what colors they would end up being but now that they are feathering out and I can ID them I can sell some of them. People here don’t seem to like “crossed” even though they all are the same thing, but now I can put a name to them and maybe people will want them more. And if not I’m gonna have to learn to like turkey better lol


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## FizzyGoats

AndersonRanch said:


> If they were 2 days early your temp might be a little high. But not the end of the world they just hatch a little sooner. I think it’s better then later, but what do I know
> Ok so it was a almost total dry hatch too. I know a lot of people do it but I always thought they were in muggy places where humidity is naturally super high. But it makes sense really, if they are swearing they have better hatches. Under a hen it’s not like they have X humidity and it spikes super high all of a sudden. I’m thinking the spike is shocking the babies and causing them to hatch slower. But I’m going to play and find out, even if I have 100 more chicks that I wasn’t planning on having lol gosh I’m going to end up getting divorced!
> No! I think the bourbons are so pretty, especially the toms when they strut. My red Tom was by far the pretties, he was just acting like a jerk and my brother needed a Tom so off he went. He didn’t seem to like his new home though so he is a wild Tom now. I like odd ball things though so I am totally tickled over these babies. I wasn’t sure what colors they would end up being but now that they are feathering out and I can ID them I can sell some of them. People here don’t seem to like “crossed” even though they all are the same thing, but now I can put a name to them and maybe people will want them more. And if not I’m gonna have to learn to like turkey better lol


That’s true. A hen doesn’t really increase her humidity at hatching time. Very interesting. And if you get divorced, we know who is getting the birds in the settlement, lol. 

Mine are just in an ugly stage right now. And it’s pretty funny. I have one I’m certain is a tom and he’s a jerk. Most of the birds are sweet and docile and this one just singles out a bird and picks on it mercilessly. He may be getting some time outs if he doesn’t stop. I think out of the 8 I have, it’s 4 hens and 4 toms but this is a very uneducated guess. And the one being mean seems to be the first volunteering to go in the freezer. 

It’s funny that people don’t like crosses of the heritage birds. They are the same bird with different coloring. It’s like crossing a black Great Dane with a white Great Dane, still a Dane but puppies might have some cool patterns.


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## FizzyGoats

Sorry to post twice in a row but I have a RIR hen who is acting a bit odd. Ever since the littles have moved into the bigs coop (still divided…no idea when I’ll feel safe letting them mingle), my hen is trying to act like a rooster. She stands tall and struts. She tries very hard to crow. But she’s not good at it and makes this awful sound that makes me drop what I’m doing and go running over to the pen because I think something’s wrong. Nope. She’s just on her favorite perch, trying and failing to crow. 

I love her. She’s top of the pecking order and fairly nice about the way she rules the roost. And she is my best layer. But what the heck is she doing? Have any of you had hens that do this?


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## AndersonRanch

lol so my friend claimed she had a rooster that crowed. I called her a liar it doesn’t work that way. Anyways awhile back there was a post on here, I couldn’t even tell you what the name of it was but I brought that up and someone posted a link about how dominate hens that have no rooster around will crow. Some have a “sex change” and will look like a rooster, but will not actually be a dude with dude parts lol but IF that happens (which is rare from what I gather) she will stop laying eggs. 
It’s so funny and annoying on the turkeys. There are so many chickens that are one breed but many varieties, but they just can’t link that with turkeys. But that’s ok I’ll just list them as rare lol 
I candled my sarama eggs last night. Out of 12, no 11 since I dropped one. I have 4 alive, 6 that never started and one that started but died. My 3 polish are doing great! They went on lock down today. My last batch of turkeys didn’t hatch real great so I took the water trough out and going to attempt it dry. Which I’m super nervous about! 
I went to the feed store yesterday after work. They had a bunch of chicks, ducks and geese. I absolutely fell in love with this one little goose. I seriously stood there for 10 minutes debating on if it was worth my husbands annoyance and decided it was. So I tried to buy just the one but had to get the pair. So all day I’m like ok so I’ll make sure I get XYZ in the divorce lol I tried to hide them out with the chicks but they were scared to death or them, so that plan was a no. He got home and I sent the kids outside and laid the two geese in his lap on the couch. They started snuggling him and talking to him and he asked where I got the cute ducks from. I asked him if he thought they were sweet and he said yeah a lot more then the other ducks. I told him that’s because they are geese. He took it SO well, all I got was “are they really?!” And he just petted and talked to them. So after 20 years I think I get to have a goose again, well 2 but hey why not  they are American buff and I guess they are known for being very friendly geese. So let’s hope when he is gone most of the summer they remember him and don’t attack him like my last goose did lol


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## FizzyGoats

My girl better not turn rooster on me. She’s my main source of eggs! She can try to crow all she wants but no thinking she’s a dude. That’s it. I’m going to have to buy her a frilly chicken tutu. Get her back in touch with her feminine side. 

Your husband is such a good sport. Sounds like mine. Thank goodness, right? 

I hope your 4 viable serama eggs hatch. Glad the polish are going strong. And let us know how the dry hatching goes. 

So I went into the turkey pen and found one hanging upside down, leg stuck and bleeding in the tension wire of the fence between the corner posts. What are the chances? It wasn’t moving. I ran over and got the poor thing out and was so glad it moved slightly when I did that. At least it had a chance to live. The leg was swollen and bleeding but not broken. I sprayed it (and myself) with Blu-Kote and put it in a quiet corner while I cleaned their big coop. It wasn’t doing great. I gave it a few drops of nutri-drench to pep it up. That helped a little. It is favoring the leg and moving slowly so we’ll see what happens. It’s one of the sweetest ones, of course. And one I think is a hen.


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## Calistar

Haha, my geese are American Buff! They're supposed to be the most quiet and mild mannered of the geese. If that's the case, I'd hate to own any other breed! My hen is sweet but she and the gander are noisy! Especially if they get excited at feeding time or if a car pulls up. The gander has never chased me or anything but he does get cranky every once in a while. We have an agreement where as long as he leaves me alone, I don't bother him, but if he bites me I pet him. He haaaaaates that. If he looks like he's thinking about getting nippy (and you can always tell!) I wave my finger at him and say "Don't make me pet you!" and he gets all huffy and waddles off lol. 

Well, today/tomorrow were the hatch dates for the green and blue eggs that my orpington was sitting on. I went to check on them this afternoon and the hen was off the nest and no eggs had hatched. I think it's going to be a wash. She had such a big clutch I think a lot of them got chilled. I'll give them another couple of days but I'm not hoping for much.

Meanwhile, the 8 quail are still in the house.
They're starting to get big and look like real quail! This morning when I went to check on them, the mesh screen had fallen in and I had 3 of them running around the room again 🙄 I'm hoping to process most of my old adult quail soon. The boys are fighting, one hen has an injured leg that's not healing, and I need the cage space for the celadons when they're big enough to move out!


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## AndersonRanch

You can give sugar water and scrambled eggs if he is acting like he is in shock. Baby proofing is probably the hardest part with them. I have had a lot of “how the heck!” Moments with them. But to ease your mind when they are out and about they seem to get in a lot less trouble. And trust me they are still better then broad breasted turkeys. My gosh I loved them but dumb was not even the right word for what they are.
You really had me laughing about your hen. Now you could just get a rooster but I think the tutu is more cute of a idea lol
Calistar please don’t say that lol I don’t mind the loud but my #1 rule that I will not give on is you are mean to my kids and you are out of here! Maybe I should get rid of one and keep the other that way it bond’s to us more. Or I guess we enjoy them and hope for the best and if they snap my kids geese go for good money here. They are so stinking cute right now though. I took them out with me to water the goats and they were nibbling everything. A hen walked by so I yelled “hey goose gooses where are you going!” They stopped and started squawking and came running back. 
I’m sorry the eggs didn’t hatch  you would think you would have gotten a few of them. But that what happened to the one batch with 3 poults, they had so many eggs and when I candled them a lot were dead.


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## Calistar

I think you'll be okay with the two! Just make sure the kids and the geese respect each other. I also told mine every day as goslings that we were friends and they weren't going to chase me when they got big. Obviously it must have worked lol. Do you know what sexes yours are? 

Yeah, I'm surprised there was nothing! Not the end of the world since they were my own eggs rather than expensive shipped ones, but I had a nice collection going! Oh well. I'd try hatching a new batch in the incubator, but I don't want it tied up because I kind of want to hatch more quail once the current ones move outside 😆


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## FizzyGoats

I see two book deals in the future. One will be, _Gabbing with Geese - How to get them to not chase you_ by @Calistar. The other, _Turkey Talk - with a special bonus on how to sneak baby birds onto the farm_ by @AndersonRanch. 

I want baby geese pictures. Please. 

So my sweet fence idiot is doing pretty good. She (yes I’m hoping it’s a she) is walking with a limp but her little leg is likely sore. She can move all about the coop and outdoor pen. I really hope I don’t find her or any other turkey in a terrible predicament today. And I hope they outgrow this trying to maim and kill themselves stage soon. And if bb ones are worse, you can guarantee I won’t be getting those. 

And I know I could get a rooster but I really don’t want fertilized eggs. I also had horrible experiences with one when I was a little kid and don’t like them much now. Plus, I heard toms can be mean to roosters. Does anyone know if that’s true?

This morning I noticed one of my RIR hens had a big, mushy crop. I massaged it a little and turned her upside down and brown, stinky liquid gushed out of her. This is a first for me. I felt like I was in a scene from the Exorcist. Do I just watch her and continue to do this until she’s better? Should I give her anything to help her out?

Sorry, it seems I always have a new poultry related problem. And I don’t even have that many birds. Geesh. I guess it’s good that I don’t.


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## Calistar

I checked the nest yesterday and there was no sign that the hen had returned, so I gathered the eggs all up and threw them away. Such a shame, they would have been so close to hatching! The one chick that hatched early last week died too, I found it squished in the nest several days ago. I've got another hen that's gone broody, but at this point I think I'm just going to use the incubator. The question is just whether I want to start collecting now or do another batch of quail first!










Speaking of, the quail all look like miniature adults now! It's crazy. Little buggers can fly like miniature adults too. I don't have a current picture because when I take the screen off the brooder they all try to jump out, but here's one of my escapees from a week or so ago. At this point they're even more feathered and quaily.


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## Tanya

🤦‍♀️


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## FizzyGoats

My gosh, that’s a lot of eggs. The little quail sure are cute. 

So my RIR hen, Ethel, definitely has sour crop. This is my first time dealing with it. I did have a hen with an impacted crop once, and this actually seems a little easier to deal with. After I tipped her over and poured her out like a rancid teapot a few times yesterday, she did eat and drink again. I gave her a drop of oregano essential oil in 3 cc’s of olive oil last night. This morning, I’m going to give her some ACV. From my research, the oregano works like an antibiotic and the vinegar like an anti-fungal, so I’m hoping if I alternate morning and evening treatments and empty her crop a few times, I’ll be able to get her over this without a vet visit. I am open to hearing what has worked for others if you all have advice. 

And my turkey who was hanging upside down by her leg stuck in the fence the other day is doing great. She only limps when she runs now and other than having a blue leg (from the spray) you wouldn’t be able to tell her apart from the rest.


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## Calistar

FizzyGoats said:


> My gosh, that’s a lot of eggs. The little quail sure are cute.
> 
> So my RIR hen, Ethel, definitely has sour crop. This is my first time dealing with it. I did have a hen with an impacted crop once, and this actually seems a little easier to deal with. After I tipped her over and poured her out like a rancid teapot a few times yesterday, she did eat and drink again. I gave her a drop of oregano essential oil in 3 cc’s of olive oil last night. This morning, I’m going to give her some ACV. From my research, the oregano works like an antibiotic and the vinegar like an anti-fungal, so I’m hoping if I alternate morning and evening treatments and empty her crop a few times, I’ll be able to get her over this without a vet visit. I am open to hearing what has worked for others if you all have advice.
> 
> And my turkey who was hanging upside down by her leg stuck in the fence the other day is doing great. She only limps when she runs now and other than having a blue leg (from the spray) you wouldn’t be able to tell her apart from the rest.


That is so weird! I've had chickens all my life and never been aware of sour crop. I hope she gets better on her own! Glad to hear your Turkey at least is doing better!


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## FizzyGoats

Do your chickens free range? Apparently, it’s less common in ones that do. Though mine free range from about 9-5 everyday. She seemed better this morning but I still gave her the ACV. I gave some to Lucy too because she’s got black poo. I think having the littles in there is stressing those two out. My other hen, the one who is trying to turn rooster, is fine though. And so are all the littles (knock on wood). 

Was that photo of the eggs ones you had to throw out or are thinking of incubating?


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## AndersonRanch

I would let the hen hatch them, although if you have my temps right now it’s stupidly hot and I always feel bad for the hens that are broody when it’s got like this. But it would keep your incubator open for your quail. 
So calistar are the quail basically wild little animals? I always think about getting some but I really like animals that are friendly. Even my pigeons that are “wild” still fly on me when I go out to feed.
Fuzzy goat I have never had to deal with sour crop. I also didn’t know it was a thing until a few months ago so I am no help to you I’m sorry  I hope she does start to feel better though. 
Kass how is the rest of your duck eggs? 
So funny story. I went to the feed store yesterday to get hay. I back into the hay and tell them I need 9 bales and then go in the way while they load. I come out and the two boys are holding something and talking. I really don’t think much of it and walk over and they hand me 2 turkey eggs lol I guess I have a hen that has made a nest in the back of my pickup. They were trying to figure out what kind of eggs they were.
And I think my chicks have mites. I have never had mites before so I need to figure out what I need for about 200 chicks and get them treated. I have a few that have been picking at their butts/ tails and have bloody sores. That sounds like mites right? Of course with it being bloody the others are picking at it too so my daughter is not thrilled but I have put them in the tower cage she has for her guinea pigs…….in her room lol but I don’t know where else to put them other then free and I can’t do that. 
And I got my little flash light this morning and shined into the incubator and I have one polish starting to hatch. I’m super nervous about them being dry in that big incubator but I’ll watch them like a hawk and help if I need to. 
And my geese are still sweet at the moment lol


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## Tanya

🤣 oh the farm life.... i wish I could have that kinda relaxed day...


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## FizzyGoats

Speaking of a relaxing day…Ethel, the old gal who decided to educate me about sour crop, is doing well so far, acting perfectly normal, but I’ll check her crop again this evening for a mushy feel or foul odor. Lucy, my sweet bottom of the pecking order RIR hen, has had a black butt for a few days but running around acting like normal, so after doing some goat chores, I decide to give Lucy a bath and notice she’s still in the coop. Not entirely unusual for her but a little odd. So I take her out to bathe her, start washing goop away, and below the goop and feathers I see maggots and open flesh galore on her back end below the vent. I don’t know what the heck happened to her, how she got a wound, or how it became infested with maggots. Or why she acted fine until this morning?!? This year is the worst I’ve seen for flies, and some of her tissue is flat out dead. There’s not enough good flesh to cut the dead away and sew the healthy together. After three hours of washing, flushing, and tweezing maggots, I have her separated and on my porch. At some points of the triage care, I think I had more maggots on me then she did. The vet doesn’t think she’ll make it and said they’d have done the same things I did when I described it all. She’ll be getting another bath this evening so I can wash off the salve I put on her and make sure there’s no more maggots. Poor girl. I really feel like I failed her. 

I sort of regret getting all these chicks and poults, considering I can only keep one of my hens healthy. And the two sickly hens are older and I got them from my brother about 6 months ago, but they were fine when he gave them to me to keep my one hen company after predators got my other two. 

I feel like some people are born bird keepers, then there’s me. I try hard. That’s about the most that can be said for me. I really have a feeling we’re going to have to humanely dispatch her. I feel so bad for her. And I’m really worried about all my other birds as it’s become painfully obvious that I don’t know what I’m doing.


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## Tanya

FizzyGoats said:


> Speaking of a relaxing day…Ethel, the old gal who decided to educate me about sour crop, is doing well so far, acting perfectly normal, but I’ll check her crop again this evening for a mushy feel or foul odor. Lucy, my sweet bottom of the pecking order RIR hen, has had a black butt for a few days but running around acting like normal, so after doing some goat chores, I decide to give Lucy a bath and notice she’s still in the coop. Not entirely unusual for her but a little odd. So I take her out to bathe her, start washing goop away, and below the goop and feathers I see maggots and open flesh galore on her back end below the vent. I don’t know what the heck happened to her, how she got a wound, or how it became infested with maggots. Or why she acted fine until this morning?!? This year is the worst I’ve seen for flies, and some of her tissue is flat out dead. There’s not enough good flesh to cut the dead away and sew the healthy together. After three hours of washing, flushing, and tweezing maggots, I have her separated and on my porch. At some points of the triage care, I think I had more maggots on me then she did. The vet doesn’t think she’ll make it and said they’d have done the same things I did when I described it all. She’ll be getting another bath this evening so I can wash off the salve I put on her and make sure there’s no more maggots. Poor girl. I really feel like I failed her.
> 
> I sort of regret getting all these chicks and poults, considering I can only keep one of my hens healthy. And the two sickly hens are older and I got them from my brother about 6 months ago, but they were fine when he gave them to me to keep my one hen company after predators got my other two.
> 
> I feel like some people are born bird keepers, then there’s me. I try hard. That’s about the most that can be said for me. I really have a feeling we’re going to have to humanely dispatch her. I feel so bad for her. And I’m really worried about all my other birds as it’s become painfully obvious that I don’t know what I’m doing.


You are being a true poultry person. Its hard but you will see allot of this. Dont give up. I promise you will still have allot of joy.


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## Kass

AndersonRanch said:


> I would let the hen hatch them, although if you have my temps right now it’s stupidly hot and I always feel bad for the hens that are broody when it’s got like this. But it would keep your incubator open for your quail.
> So calistar are the quail basically wild little animals? I always think about getting some but I really like animals that are friendly. Even my pigeons that are “wild” still fly on me when I go out to feed.
> Fuzzy goat I have never had to deal with sour crop. I also didn’t know it was a thing until a few months ago so I am no help to you I’m sorry  I hope she does start to feel better though.
> Kass how is the rest of your duck eggs?
> So funny story. I went to the feed store yesterday to get hay. I back into the hay and tell them I need 9 bales and then go in the way while they load. I come out and the two boys are holding something and talking. I really don’t think much of it and walk over and they hand me 2 turkey eggs lol I guess I have a hen that has made a nest in the back of my pickup. They were trying to figure out what kind of eggs they were.
> And I think my chicks have mites. I have never had mites before so I need to figure out what I need for about 200 chicks and get them treated. I have a few that have been picking at their butts/ tails and have bloody sores. That sounds like mites right? Of course with it being bloody the others are picking at it too so my daughter is not thrilled but I have put them in the tower cage she has for her guinea pigs…….in her room lol but I don’t know where else to put them other then free and I can’t do that.
> And I got my little flash light this morning and shined into the incubator and I have one polish starting to hatch. I’m super nervous about them being dry in that big incubator but I’ll watch them like a hawk and help if I need to.
> And my geese are still sweet at the moment lol


The last 2 duck eggs haven't hatched and they're 2 days late, so I'll probably crack them open tonight. But the 2 ducklings are doing good! One has a bad leg, but it seems to be doing ok. 
Super cool story to share. 
I have a broody hen that has been sitting on eggs for the past month, but she won't get any chicks since we don't have a rooster. A friend has a hen that hatched a dozen chicks so I bought 5 from her. Then a couple days later I had an idea. I took the week and something days old chicks and put them under the broody hen, and what do you know! I now a have a wonderful mother hen with 5 chicks following her around! It's so cute! 

Sent from my SM-A115U using Goat Forum mobile app


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## Tanya

Hens are such beautiful caring moms. If you catch them at the right time.


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## Kass

Ok so I cracked open a duck egg. The chick looked fully formed, but hadn't absorbed the yolk yet. It didn't show any signs of being alive or anything. Was it dead before or did I kill it by opening the shell? Should I leave the other one in for a couple days, or is there a good chance it's dead too? It's already 2 days late. 

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## Calistar

Fizzy, my chickens are in coops and runs. Last year I tried the free range thing, but they destroyed my garden, terrorized the cats and ate their food, and got picked off by predators at an alarming rate. Not worth it!
The eggs pictured are the ones I had to throw away. There were 52 of them I think.

Jessica, quail are really weird! I wouldn't call them wild, but they're not really friendly either. The little ones in the brooder, if I walk past it or mess with it (to change their water, etc) they spook ans fly straight up. But the adults I have are much calmer. They do fly up if startled, and some scatter if I reach into their cages, but there's a couple cages (one in particular) where the quail will come right up and bump me with their chests and step on my hand to get to their food when I'm topping it off 😆 I have on several occasions had a quail get loose (ok, one of my cages is homemade and the door isn't super secure lol!) and they usually just boop around until I walk up and grab them. There's not usually any chasing involved. I imagine if you're the type to spend time coddling the babies, they'd be friendly just like a hen would. I'm more hands-off with my poultry because I just don't have time, but they're still used to me since I'm the food wench who delivers twice a day lol.


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## FizzyGoats

Tanya said:


> You are being a true poultry person. Its hard but you will see allot of this. Dont give up. I promise you will still have allot of joy.


Thanks. I needed to hear that. And I do find so much joy in the birds. They are so fun and sweet. I am just pretty mad at myself for learning at their cost. And it seems they want me to learn a ton of the hard and odd lessons all at once. 

Apparently it’s called Flystrike and it’s a real thing that happens, not just to me. Unfortunately, I’ve picked literally hundreds of maggots from her flesh and I’m sure there are more. She won’t eat or drink. I have her in a dog crate in my bathroom and gave her some oregano and olive oil but I’m sure she’s not going to make it. They breached the wall of her abdomen and that is what spells their death in these cases, from what I’ve read. 



Kass said:


> Super cool story to share.
> I have a broody hen that has been sitting on eggs for the past month, but she won't get any chicks since we don't have a rooster. A friend has a hen that hatched a dozen chicks so I bought 5 from her. Then a couple days later I had an idea. I took the week and something days old chicks and put them under the broody hen, and what do you know! I now a have a wonderful mother hen with 5 chicks following her around! It's so cute!
> 
> Sent from my SM-A115U using Goat Forum mobile app


Oh, that is so sweet!


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## Calistar

Ew, I missed the part of the post about the fly strike. I had that in a rooster earlier this year. It just looked like a messy butt. I didn't realize what it was until he died a few days later and we saw the maggots. He was a total jerk and I was not sorry to lose him (he was on my list for the axe anyway) but I was sorry he suffered and that I didn't notice there was a bigger problem.
Raising animals is always going to be somewhat of a trial by fire. You can read and research all day long, but the best teacher is experience, and that often comes at a cost. I'm sorry you're having a bad run with your birds, but once you get through this rough patch you'll be even better equipped to care for them than you would have been if it was sunshine and daisies from the beginning. Try not to be too hard on yourself!


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## FizzyGoats

That is so true. I know it in my head but it’s still good to hear because it helps ease the tightness in my chest. Next time I’ll know and unfortunately my sweetest bird is suffering because I am learning still (wanted to say ‘because I am an idiot’ but I am taking your advice not to be as hard on myself). But you’re right, trial by fire is the way we become better. I’m giving her water by droplets because she won’t eat or drink on her own. I’ll give her another bath and tweezing in the morning if she’s still with us. She’s comfy and safe in the crate inside. Tomorrow morning we will decide if we should let her fight or end her suffering. 

And that’s so many eggs you had to toss. What a bummer. That was a lot. And question on the quail, do you raise them for meat?


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## Calistar

FizzyGoats said:


> That is so true. I know it in my head but it’s still good to hear because it helps ease the tightness in my chest. Next time I’ll know and unfortunately my sweetest bird is suffering because I am learning still (wanted to say ‘because I am an idiot’ but I am taking your advice not to be as hard on myself). But you’re right, trial by fire is the way we become better. I’m giving her water by droplets because she won’t eat or drink on her own. I’ll give her another bath and tweezing in the morning if she’s still with us. She’s comfy and safe in the crate inside. Tomorrow morning we will decide if we should let her fight or end her suffering.
> 
> And that’s so many eggs you had to toss. What a bummer. That was a lot. And question on the quail, do you raise them for meat?


That sounds like a good plan. You're certainly giving her your best shot, and if she doesn't make it, you did everything you could. I had to dispatch my first hen recently. Usually my dad would be the one to do it, but he passed away several months ago so now the dirty jobs are up to me. But she couldn't move one leg, and she wasn't getting better, so it was the kindest thing for her. Keeping that in mind was the only way I was able to do it.

Usually I feed questionable eggs to my pigs, but since these guys would have been so far along, I thought it would be for the best to just toss them.

So the quail are supposed to be dual purpose. I actually got them to raise the eggs and meat as food for my cats. So far I haven't butchered any and have just been using the eggs. I've had two die so far (one during a heat wave and one pecked too badly by the others) so those two were fed whole to my LGDs. But I have too many boys and they've been fighting lately, and my hens have slowed way down on laying, so actually I just bought some poultry shears so I can finally butcher some of the little morsels. I'm not sure if I'll eat this batch or use them as cat food as originally intended- they're pretty old as far as quail go so I'm worried they might be tough- but since I have the new batch of celadon quail and I now have an incubator, the plan is to get more serious about raising them for meat for myself and my pets.


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## FizzyGoats

Maybe you’ll have to try one for yourself and then feed the rest to the cats. And my cats want to know if they come live with you, lol. I was actually worried they’d harass my chicken while she’s inside but they have left her alone. 

Speaking of my chicken, Lucy is still hanging in there and I just don’t know what’s best for her. I pulled another 50 or so maggots from her this morning. But the wounds go deep and even though I flush them out repeatedly and tweeze until I don’t see any more, the maggots still can burrow and hide. It’s beyond the skin and outer abdomen wall. I can see chunks of what looks like dried meat. Sorry to be gross. It’s just what I’m seeing. It’s amazing how you can get over things that normally make you queasy to help an animal. It’s not the wound that would normally bother me but I’m real grossed out by maggots. Getting over that pretty quickly, considering this needs to be done at least three times a day. 

My worry is I’ll get her through this somehow but her wound will never heal (way too much necrotic tissue) and she’ll die of a secondary infection or something. But since she’s still hanging in there and fighting to live, I don’t want to take away a chance she might have. I wish there was an easy answer. My gut says we should put her down. My heart isn’t convinced. 

I’m sorry about the passing of your father. I’m sure he’s proud you are stepping up and taking on the tough jobs like having to dispatch the hen. I’ve yet to slaughter an animal. I’ve had to make the choice to have a vet put down pets, but never had the task of physically ending the life myself. I’ll have to, even if not with this hen, we plan to butcher most our toms when they are full grown. 

My sour crop hen, Ethel, had a sort of mushy crop this morning but no bad smell. So I massaged her crop and gave her some ACV. She seems to be improving and I’ll be keeping a close eye on her. 

My turkey poults and littles (that’s what we call our young chickens) are 6 weeks old and doing great (knock on wood). They are active and crazy and a lot of fun. I swear the turkeys, a few in particular, are always looking for trouble though. I hope they get smarter and calmer as they age or this place is going to be pure chaos when they’re big.


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## AndersonRanch

Oh fizzy goat I am so sorry  I agree though, don’t beat yourself up. I don’t know why it does it but everything sure likes to hit at once. You have always been on top of everything that is odd and I would have assumed the same thing with Ethel. I never would have imagines she had maggots going on or anything more then just the runs which is not uncommon when it get warmer and they drink more water.
Can you get your hands on some raw honey? I am not a huge all natural person but I am a total believer in raw honey. I can’t explain it all scientifically but bacteria can not live in honey, which means it kills infection. It also does amazing with healing. I had a fire come threw last year and some of the survivors had badly burned hooves and legs. One had a ember that fell in the corner of her eye that was so deep I could have put my pinky in it. I was pretty sure the cows would loose their hooves since they were very loose and I would have to shoot them and the one with the burned eye. I used raw honey on them and they all kept their hooves and the eye girl who was badly infected just had a small spot after a few weeks. I was a semi believer in honey to start with but after that I swear by it for things that are super major. I’m also wondering if the honey might smother the maggots. But even getting getting the infection away should kill the maggots since they only eat gross and dead flesh. Anyways I say it’s worth a shot. 
On the polish story I have 1 that hatched and 1 is currently unzipping. As soon as I get them out of their dark hole I’ll get pictures of them. Hopefully the third eggs hatches too or these two are going to be the most expensive birds I have ever had lol


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## FizzyGoats

I can get raw honey. I will try that. Thank you!

And let the polish party begin! And tell them to hurry because we want pics, lol.


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## Tanya

Raw honey has anti inflammatory properties as well as a very low level pain killer. It acts like a buffer as well to prevent further infection goobers. An natural antibiotic is raw garlic. You may want to try getting one or two crumbs of crushed garlic in her. Cayan pepper also ups her a little if you can get that into her too. I really hope she recovers but do not beat yourself up


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## AndersonRanch

Well I’m thinking I have a golden laced polish, I won’t be thrilled if that is the case but all 3 hatched. I need to see if the gold and black is normal for tulbunt or not but it sure looks different then the other 2. At least they have 3 colors. But here they are now to wait and see if they are frizzle or not


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## Calistar

Did you not want gold laced? What color were you hoping for?
I'll be interested to hear what you think of the Polish! I've had many, many breeds of chickens over the years and the Polish are the only one I'd never raise again! 😝


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## AndersonRanch

Well I mean I wouldn’t mind golden laced but I can order chicks for a few dollars. I did the math and with only getting 3 to hatch I paid $23.33 a chick lol but this is the color I was after







but I looked at her FB page and no golden laced polish so the one might end up being more candy corn colored.
In my orders I ended up getting 2 white puff heads and a golden laced, I really wanted a silver laced, but one of the white puff heads is super sweet. Her and the Dominique fight over perching rights on my leg when I sit and feed and water them. But my son has claimed all the polish, I think that will exclude my $23 polish though lol


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## Calistar

AndersonRanch said:


> Well I mean I wouldn’t mind golden laced but I can order chicks for a few dollars. I did the math and with only getting 3 to hatch I paid $23.33 a chick lol but this is the color I was after
> View attachment 209672
> but I looked at her FB page and no golden laced polish so the one might end up being more candy corn colored.
> In my orders I ended up getting 2 white puff heads and a golden laced, I really wanted a silver laced, but one of the white puff heads is super sweet. Her and the Dominique fight over perching rights on my leg when I sit and feed and water them. But my son has claimed all the polish, I think that will exclude my $23 polish though lol


Oh wow, that is gorgeous! I've never seen that color. Is it something new? Looks like the Mille fleur coloring on a Polish! And I've always loved the Mille fleurs! I can see making an exception to my "no more Polish" rule for one that looked like that 😆


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## FizzyGoats

Well those little chicks are adorable! I do understand you’re going for a specific look though. That is one cool looking chicken in the picture. 

Lucy, my flystrike chicken is still hanging in there. Today was the first day of no maggots. I never thought I’d get them all. I’m still flushing her wound 4 times a day and doing a whole list of things to help her heal and fight off any infections. I don’t know if she’ll make it. The wound is deep and it is surrounded by dead flesh but I’m giving it my best and so is she. She drank on her own for the first time today. Here is Lucy in our chicken ICU center (dog crate in the bathroom).


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## Calistar

No more maggots is a good sign! I really hope she recovers for you!

Here's my poultry adventures for today:

-The quail. Keep. Escaping. We've been having nice hot days and I'm sure I'd be fine keeping them outside during the day, but the temperature swings pretty cold at night still so I'm nervous about putting them outside yet. So for now I don't really have a place for them except the brooder that they keep escaping from.

-A new chick appeared in the silkie pen. I am actually really lazy about collecting eggs from the silkie pen and my work schedule makes it difficult (it's dark in the morning when I feed so I can't collect eggs because they're roosting, and it's usually dark in the evening when I check them and they're roosting, so I can't get them then either) so chicks tend to appear sometimes. This particular chick is suspiciously chipmunk striped and I think her mother must be the only non-silkie in that pen, my Speckled Sussex. Her dad would still be a silkie though so she's at least half!

-I am almost positive that one of my copper marans pullets from the feed store is actually a rooster. I'm actually pretty psyched because I wanted a rooster for breeding dark chocolate and olive eggs. I already have a cream Legbar rooster for blue and green eggs. I was hoping for a sexing error and it looks like I may have gotten it! I think I'm the only one to ever be excited to get a rooster in their batch of pullet chicks 😆


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## FizzyGoats

The quail sound as smart as the turkeys, lol. That silkie/Sussex cross chick will probably be a neat looking little bird. And yes, you are likely the only one happy you mistakenly got a rooster in a batch of chicks.


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## FizzyGoats

So I noticed Ethel (the hen with sour crop) had runny poo and a bit of a sticky butt, so I gave her a bath right away. I didn’t see any signs of flystrike, so that’s good but my poor chickens now can’t have a dirty bum. I’m becoming very efficient chicken bather.  I gave her ACV this morning and again when I bathed her this afternoon so I’m really hoping she’ll get over whatever issues are causing the sour crop and runny poo. 

And Lucy, my flystrike hen, is sooooo good about having her wounds flushed four times a day and taking her oregano oil. She loves when I blow dry her after the wound cleaning. I don’t want to get my hopes up, but she’s surprising me everyday. Finger crossed she somehow recovers.


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## Tanya

You are doing everything you can. Keep going at it. Animals can surprise us every day.


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## Calistar

I have the quail outside today in a little cage just to acclimate them and because one way or another, I need to clean their brooder! They haaaate it lol. It looks like I have 3 different colors. They are 3 weeks old now. I have a few silkie chicks that hatched a few days before the quail and three still look like fluffy chicks, whereas the quail look like scraggly small adults. The difference is crazy! 








And here is my little Sussex-silkie chick that hatched yesterday:









Fizzy, you are doing SO great with your hen! Did you try the honey with her?


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## FizzyGoats

The little quail do not look happy with being outside, lol. And that little Sussex/silkie chick is so beautiful! That is just the sweetest little thing ever. 

The honey is on my list of day-time regimens. I don’t put it on her after her last washing of the night because I don’t want to attract ants or more flies. I know she’s inside, but I still worry. And thank you. I know it’s still iffy with her so I’m trying not to get too hopeful.


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## AndersonRanch

I don’t know if the tolbunt is new or just super rare, not many people have them so, you should know me by now lol, anything that is different I just have to have! 
Fizzy goat you are doing so good with her! And her comb is nice and red and her eyes in the picture look fairly bright eyed. She is not a chicken I would be putting down right now. 
Gosh I thought the ducks grew up fast! If I ever become totally self sustained I am going to be making some quail pens! That is just absolutely amazing


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## FizzyGoats

@Calistar do you see what you’ve done…made @AndersonRanch start thinking about more bird pens. I bet her husband just got a chill down his spine and doesn’t know why. Lol! 

And thanks. I think my hen might actually get through this. I don’t know for sure. Her comb was so pale, looked white, at first. I didn’t even know that was a sign of anything until I saw it and thought that didn’t seem good. I have so much to learn to catch up to you poultry people. Thank goodness I can bug you all until then.


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## Tanya

Her comb does look good. I think that girl is going to surprise you yet


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## FizzyGoats

Tanya said:


> Her comb does look good. I think that girl is going to surprise you yet


I sure hope so!


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## AndersonRanch

He fizzy how is our girl doing this morning? I was just thinking about you guys and thought I would check in.
Nothing too exciting on this end. Got another dog kennel so I can separate the turkeys and chicks. Candled the showgirl eggs and have 4 for sure chicks and 2 questionable and 3 that started then died. I only paid for 6 eggs so 4 out of 6 isn’t too bad. And everyone so far has been surviving this unholy heat! Every time I get a minute I dump water and refresh with cold water and seems to be keeping them semi cool. If i ever get a day I think I’m going to buy some misters for the birds and kids wethers since this isn’t even supposed to be the hot time of year.


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## FizzyGoats

That’s pretty good on the eggs. And I’m sure your animals will love the misters. Mine have fans and a lot of shade, but I may have to add misters to the mix at some point. 

So Lucy is still the same, still living in our bathroom, and still at an iffy but hopeful stage. I took her outside yesterday to get some sun. She didn’t like it, lol. 










If you all have any adjustments you think I should make to her care regimen, I’m open to suggestions. Right now, she gets 3 treatments a day. 

1. In the a.m. I wash her really well under running lukewarm water in the sink and then do a betadine flush (diluted to the weak tea look) to wash out all the deeper wounds and nooks and crannies. Then pat her dry, then use a blow dryer to finish drying her (she likes this part a lot). Then I put raw honey on the wounds and dead flesh. 

2. In the afternoon, she gets a warm epsom salt bath, then the betadine flush and gets dried the same way, then I put vetrycin spray on her. 

3. At night, we do another betadine flush and drying and then put the vetrycin spray hydro gel on for the night. 

She also gets essential oils, more diluted than I’d usually make it for other animals, mainly tea tree and oregano, with the carrier of either olive oil or coconut oil through a dropper and doesn’t like it. But we get about 2-3 ml in her a day. 

I think my chickens have roundworm because after giving them pumpkin seeds, I saw the worms in their droppings (which I picked up right away). My one healthy hen is having no issues, but my sour crop girl still isn’t right. She’s weak and listless. I took her off food and water (water for 12 hrs - overnight so it wasn’t hot, and off food for about 24 hrs) then gave her some eggs to eat. I didn’t have any good yogurt or would have added that. She didn’t eat much. I’m also giving her some essential oils but she again won’t take much because she doesn’t like it. I do get her to drink a few droplets a few times a day. I feed her separate now because she’s too skinny and has no appetite. She eats a few of her favorites out of the dish and that’s about it (some dried mealworms and some seeds). I massage her crop a lot because it doesn’t empty like it should but it no longer has the sour smell. 

I’ve used pumpkin seeds (ground up for the littles) and essential oils to deworm all the birds, just in case. Next week I’ll do the same and add some herbal dewormer. No other birds other than Lucy (flystrike) and Ethel (crop issues) are showing any signs of struggling. 

If anyone has anything to suggest I do that I’m not doing, I’m open to hearing it. Thanks!


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## Calistar

I don't have any suggestions for you Fizzy- I think the fact that she's still alive is a testament to the care you've been giving her! 

I've had a couple more surprise silkies hatch. Both have been on their backs when I found them and had trouble staying upright. One I found in the morning next to the hen and it was chilled and almost dead. (I thought it WAS dead at first.) The second one I found shortly after it hatched, so it wasn't in as bad of shape. I put both in the incubator. They dried off and warmed up but still could not stay upright or walk well. When I left doe work yesterday I put them in strawberry baskets stuffed with paper towels, so they wouldn't flip over. When I got home from work and let them out of their baskets, they were much improved! Not perfect but huge progress. I put them in the quail's empty brooder (I evicted them and they're outside full time now) and they survived the night and, while still wobbly, managed to navigate the brooder and figure out the heat plate. Hoping they make a recovery. I have found chicks dead on their backs before and figured they got chilled. Now I'm realizing they must have had something wrong at hatch. I did some very brief googling and it looks like possibly some incarnation of wry neck maybe? It's seen most commonly in silkies and can be nutritional or genetic. The silkies get the same Nutrena stuff all the time, but it has been years since I introduced any new blood, so maybe that is the issue....

I also decided to start farming bugs to up the protein in my chickens' diet inexpensively and to give them a little variety. I can't free range them anymore so this seemed like the next best thing. My mealworms should have arrived today (I'm at work) and I have black soldier fly larvae on their way soon also! Excited to give it a try!


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## FizzyGoats

I wish you had a pic of two silkie chicks stuffed in a strawberry basket with paper towels. What a creative (and cute) solution. I hope they get stronger and stronger.

I bought mealworms from a pet store, made sure I told them I wanted mealworms not super worms and made sure they weren’t treated so they’d stay in the larva stage. I took them home, put them in my little bug farm set up and they grew like crazy (much bigger than mealworms) and very few turned to beetles and none reproduced. I’ll probably try again someday. Where did you order yours from? My chickens free range but still like the easy treats. My one chicken (Amelia) who I’ve had for a while (the only adult hen who is healthy) will come when you call her because she knows she’s either getting a pumpkin seed or a mealworm. She’s hilarious. Listens better than the goats. She’ll come running and flapping across the acreage, all excited and eager for a treat.


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## Calistar

Ok well technically they were in a strawberry basket with paper towels and ANOTHER strawberry basket on top to complete their prison because the delinquent little nuggets kept getting out! (They can't walk but they can escape the baskets...?) I just got home from work and checked on them and they're running all around the brooder! It's crazy how much of an improvement they've made! 48 hours ago I was mulling over how I'd euthanize a baby chick, and this afternoon you wouldn't know there was anything wrong with them!
Now, which of you ladies needs a couple of silkies? 😆 I was so ready to get that brooder out of the house!

That's a shame about your previous batch of mealworms! I just got mine on Amazon, but I read reviews and ordered from a place that had reviews from people who had used the mealworms to establish breeding colonies. The black soldier fly larvae are coming directly from a company (Symton) and they sell feed grade and compost grade. I ordered the compost grade because that gives you more worms, they're just smaller. The neat thing about BSF larvae is that they are supposedly excellent at eating pig and quail manure, both of which I have in abundance! So the BSF larvae are a two-part thing, both for chicken food and for composting some of my manure pile! And they have more calcium than mealworms. But the mealworms are cleaner and could be kept inside, so I opted to try both.


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## FizzyGoats

Those little silkies sound all better. Brooder is there to stay for bit. Lol. I think silkies are the cutest things. They’re on my someday list. 

I had no idea about the BSF larvae. Twofold deal there. I kept my mealworms in the house. They were on my fridge at first (in containers of course). It’s dark and warm there, so I thought it was perfect. My husband is so tolerant. He came from a family that not only doesn’t have or allow animals but doesn’t like them, then married me, who treats animals better than I treat people most the time. Anyway, that hit his tolerance level and I moved them to my closet. They did well in both spaces. If I’d had the right worms, I think I’d have had a nice little mealworm factory on my hands. Now I want to look into the BSF. I don’t think he’ll let me “farm” anymore bugs inside anyway. We did have one escape incident. Oops. He doesn’t say a thing about the chicken in the bathroom though, so I’m definitely not complaining.


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## AndersonRanch

Oh gosh my kids would be over the moon if we raised some worms. My husband I’m pretty sure he would think I lost it……or take them all to go fishing lol It’s hard to tell with him 
Fizzy I think you are doing great with her. I really can’t think of anything else to do to help her heal. Has she been up on her feet and moving around at all? If no she might be loosing some muscle tone and will need help building her muscles back up to wall again. I’m not sure how exactly you could get her up on her feet. With goats and cows you sling them but I’m not sure you could rig anything up for her with her wounds. Maybe once the wounds look better try moving her feed away a little bit. 
So calistar I was going to ask for forgot, what Will the partridge silkie end up looking like? My free range hens have a silkie rooster (white) and a Americana rooster that run with them. The one little hen that hatched her eggs out is 1/2 silkie no clue which hen is mom lol her chicks I’m pretty sure are a result of the silkie and one of the chicks look like yours. The little guy fell in the water tub for the birds so he has been living with my chicks and I’m waiting to see what he looks like……if I don’t toss him out soon since he’s not a very nice chick!


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## FizzyGoats

Why do the cute chicks seem to have the most attitude? 

When I’m changing her bedding or giving her a treatment, I take Lucy out and let her walk around the bathroom, but she just tries to go back in the crate and lie down. I use my hands under her belly to keep her on her feet and have her walk but soon she’ll just let me hold all her weight. I wish I could get her to eat more. She is more lively than before but not as lively as I’d like. 

My sour crop girl, Ethel, is getting worse. I know she’s old, don’t know how old as she was already getting on in years before I got her. Her crop isn’t huge but it never empties. It’s no longer sour smelling but she just won’t eat or drink. She’s all bones and has no energy. Not sure what to do for her.


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## FizzyGoats

Oh, I almost forgot to mention, we heard one of our 7 week old turkeys gobble today! We don’t know which one did it but it was pretty cute.


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## FizzyGoats

Well Lucy passed today (the one with flystrike). She was fine and peppy for her morning treatment, then a few hours later looked off so I held her for a bit, went to dilute nutri-drench to see if she needed an energy boost and she died before I could even get the water. She died comfortably and fairly peacefully, just one little squawk and wing flutter. It’s bizarre because she was doing so well. 

Ethel, sour crop girl, may not be far behind. Though she did stand and eat and drink and walk around to peck at bugs today, so we’ll see. 

The little chicks and turkeys are growing so fast and they get the zoomies often. It’s quite entertaining to see them darting around and flying.


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## MellonFriend

Aww. I'm sorry Fizzy. You worked so hard. Sometimes it's really tough to get chickens to recover. 😔


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## FizzyGoats

Thanks @MellonFriend. I’m handling it pretty well considering I’m the biggest baby when it comes to my animals. I know I did what I could and she didn’t suffer much. And I’m learning that they are difficult to get to recover the hard way with these chickens. I’ve had sick chickens but go them through it. Mine have been killed by predators, usually aerial.


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## ksalvagno

I'm sorry you lost her.


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## Calistar

Aw, so sorry about Lucy! I was rooting for her! I think you did everything that could have been done for her. It doesn't sound like she was suffering needlessly, and I'm glad her death was more or less peaceful.

Jessica, I'm not sure what a Sussex Silkie cross would look like! If it's happened before now, (at my farm) I'm not aware of it. I don't have any speckled colored silkies, at least! Some of my silkies are smooth feathered anyway, so the feathers wouldn't be a giveaway. I have some really cool colored chickens hatch in that silkie pen though. My rooster is a neat (but not officially recognized) color and he throws all kinds of colored babies! Sadly though it sounds like I will need to switch him out, or at least stop them from hatching eggs (yeah right!) I had ANOTHER chick hatch who was upside down and couldn't get up. She's upstairs in the incubator in a strawberry basket now too. In my recent hatches, that makes 4 healthy and 3 that needed intervention. I don't like those odds, and I think it's likely because I need to bring in new blood.

In other news, I got my mealworms yesterday and my black soldier fly larvae today! I don't have a husband to answer to, it's just me and my mom here. And I still have my 12 week old bottle babies in the house, so really a couple boxes of bugs are the least of her worries 🤣🤣🤣


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## FizzyGoats

Sorry about the upside down chicks. Maybe it’s just a fluke this year? 

That looks like a great start to some bug farming! Where do you plan to keep the BSF?


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## Calistar

I'd like to think so, but I've had it in the past too. Just one or two here or there, not nearly the numbers I've had this year. So until now I did think it was a fluke. Usually they're dead when I find them, so I assumed they got out of the nest and got chilled and weak and that's why they were upside down. Now I'm seeing that it's the other way around, and that because they couldn't stand properly, they got chilled and died.

I'll keep the BSF outside, within our fenced back yard area for now, to minimize the chance of skunks or other critters getting into it. Planning on keeping the mealworms inside or on the back porch. In the winter I'll probably put both in the garage in an attempt to overwinter them. I think I'll be fine with the mealworms, but the BSF like hot temperatures and even in California, I don't know if they'll keep doing their thing through winter.


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## FizzyGoats

I’m interested to see how it goes for you. Maybe if you have success, I’ll learn from you and try again.


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## Calistar

I will definitely let you know!

hows your sour crop girl today?


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## FizzyGoats

Not great. We have one last trick to try (and we’ve tried many) and then dispatching her will be kindest. She has some energy because she’s so skinny that I give her nutrition through a dropper. But I think I might be keeping her alive when she shouldn’t be. She’s having almost neurological symptoms as of this morning. Curling her feet, twisting her head funny ways. I’d almost think Marek’s disease if I hadn’t watched her steady decline and she had other symptoms (and all the other chickens seem healthy). I really hope that’s not it anyway. She’s been in with the young chicks (7.5 weeks old now) a few times and they have shared living spaces. So it’s a scary thought. I’m hoping it’s just from refusing to eat for over a week now.


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## Tanya

Those are called death curls. Her age depicts that recovery may not occure especially if there is little to non food consumption or flueds. Her kidneys are slowly shutting down and so is her heart.


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## AndersonRanch

Oh fizzy goat I am so sorry! I really just have no words to tell you just how sorry I am. You have really gone over and beyond trying to save these girls. I agree that it’s probably not mareks and her body is just done for. I have never had a chicken do that, same as you mine just have croaked usually from something nabbing them or just waking up to them dead but have seen that in the cows. Their body has just given up. I really wish I could take the pain of loss away for you.


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## FizzyGoats

Thanks for being so nice about this. I know most think I’m nuts. I know they’re just chickens, but they’re my chickens. 

Ethel is still alive and weirdly doing a little better. I don’t think it’s a long term thing and wouldn’t be shocked to find her dead in the morning. But I’ll do what I can for her until it’s painfully obvious there’s no coming back, then if needed, I’ll do what’s kindest for her. 

@AndersonRanch, I meant to ask if you have pic of your half silkie chick?


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## AndersonRanch

No one thinks your nuts. Well maybe city people, but we all know any animal has it’s own personality and are totally special to their owners. I’ll be honest I have some that I would only be sad their died because they died and I have some that I would bawl my eyes out when the time comes. When they get sick like this it’s also so hard not to get even more attached when your spending so much time with them trying to help them. So don’t think it’s silly at all and know we don’t think so. How is Ethel this morning? I will try and get pictures of the half silkies and their 3/4 silkie babies today. 
Yesterday I sucked it up about the heat, it was 108 and got the new dog kennel all ready to move birds into since I really don’t like having to go out and water 4X a day. I got all the bigger baby turkeys moved into it and counted as I did because I honestly have no clue how many I have. Yeah I wish I still didn’t lol I have 44 larger babies and still have about 20 smaller ones. That’s just what I hatched. I really couldn’t even tell you how many poults I have running around with their moms. I have 3 more that went broody. I also moved all the larger chicks into the chicken kennel and it’s getting a little crowded. So today’s plan is to post birds up for sale. I don’t want to keep any of these white chickens since I free range part of the year and those are too easy for predators to spot so I’ll start with them. I guess if they don’t sell by Saturday I’m going to take them to the sale. I have a few other ones that are absolutely nuts that I have no desire to keep. I like sweet chickens so those can go too. And lucky me most of my cochins are roosters! That one I’m really upset about. So next year I’ll make sure to order Cochin female instead of the bargain box. I only wanted 1 Cochin rooster lol
Also my sarama eggs are starting to hatch. I have my polish in the bathroom in a plastic tub (they move out today) and kept hearing a chick cheeping. I thought the cats might have gotten in with the polish so checked them out and they looked at me like I was crazy. So got my flashlight and checked the incubator and have 1 tiny one so far. I am doing totally dry hatch again so fingers crossed on that. 
I also saw a post on FB that someone posted and a lot of people said they have had better hatches by putting the eggs in a carton, little end down and letting them hatch that way. I guess it keeps the chicks from turning and trying to hatch on the wrong end. Hopefully I remember that for next year lol


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## Tanya

No one thinks looking after your girls is madness. When my brown hen had her skalp ripped open she was in my house all that time. Till her head healed over.
So you go chicken queen


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## FizzyGoats

Ethel couldn’t move this morning. She couldn’t eat and drink on her own and seemed a little crazy. After trying to give her nutrients and figuring out she could no longer swallow, I made the tough call this afternoon and helped her pass instead of helping her live. And though I’m sad, I know it was the kindest thing for her and I only regret not listening to my gut and doing it yesterday. My husband and son were a bit reluctant and wanted to give her more time to recover, though I could clearly see which way she was going. At least she’s no longer suffering. 

Now I just have Amelia, my one adult hen. She is quite happy to be the only free ranging chicken and I think she’ll be very displeased when in a month or so, we let the littles join her. They are 7.5 weeks old, so not ready yet. Amelia hangs out with the dog and goats all day and seems absolutely content. 



AndersonRanch said:


> No one thinks your nuts. Well maybe city people, but we all know any animal has it’s own personality and are totally special to their owners. I’ll be honest I have some that I would only be sad their died because they died and I have some that I would bawl my eyes out when the time comes. When they get sick like this it’s also so hard not to get even more attached when your spending so much time with them trying to help them. So don’t think it’s silly at all and know we don’t think so. How is Ethel this morning? I will try and get pictures of the half silkies and their 3/4 silkie babies today.
> Yesterday I sucked it up about the heat, it was 108 and got the new dog kennel all ready to move birds into since I really don’t like having to go out and water 4X a day. I got all the bigger baby turkeys moved into it and counted as I did because I honestly have no clue how many I have. Yeah I wish I still didn’t lol I have 44 larger babies and still have about 20 smaller ones. That’s just what I hatched. I really couldn’t even tell you how many poults I have running around with their moms. I have 3 more that went broody. I also moved all the larger chicks into the chicken kennel and it’s getting a little crowded. So today’s plan is to post birds up for sale. I don’t want to keep any of these white chickens since I free range part of the year and those are too easy for predators to spot so I’ll start with them. I guess if they don’t sell by Saturday I’m going to take them to the sale. I have a few other ones that are absolutely nuts that I have no desire to keep. I like sweet chickens so those can go too. And lucky me most of my cochins are roosters! That one I’m really upset about. So next year I’ll make sure to order Cochin female instead of the bargain box. I only wanted 1 Cochin rooster lol
> Also my sarama eggs are starting to hatch. I have my polish in the bathroom in a plastic tub (they move out today) and kept hearing a chick cheeping. I thought the cats might have gotten in with the polish so checked them out and they looked at me like I was crazy. So got my flashlight and checked the incubator and have 1 tiny one so far. I am doing totally dry hatch again so fingers crossed on that.
> I also saw a post on FB that someone posted and a lot of people said they have had better hatches by putting the eggs in a carton, little end down and letting them hatch that way. I guess it keeps the chicks from turning and trying to hatch on the wrong end. Hopefully I remember that for next year lol


Oh my gosh that’s a lot of young birds! And that’s just what you counted. And ugh, 108 is scorching hot. The heat just sucks it out of me. I’ll have plans to do x,y, and z, then half way through x, I’m done. Good for you getting all that done. And every light colored chicken I’ve had has been picked off by an aerial predator, right in order of lightest to darkest. So I understand wanting to sell the white ones. And wanting to sell the ones with attitude. My gosh, you could be super picky and still end up keeping a huge flock with the numbers you’ve got going. Sorry about all the Cochin boys. And good luck with those eggs. Go dry hatching!



Tanya said:


> No one thinks looking after your girls is madness. When my brown hen had her skalp ripped open she was in my house all that time. Till her head healed over.
> So you go chicken queen


I love that. Our flystrike girl lived in the house until she passed and my husband never said a thing about it. I’m sure if I wanted pet chickens inside just because, he’d have a few things to say. But when they’re sick or injured, he gets it. 

When we were sitting inside the other night, watching tv with our sick chicken and listening to the goats bleat for us because they wanted their bedtime brushing, I looked over at him and asked if he ever would have guessed this would be his life. Remember he was raised in a family that did not like or have any animals (though he himself worked at dairies as a kid and loved animals). He looked thoughtful for a moment then laughed and said, “Nope, not even if given a thousand guesses.”


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## AndersonRanch

I’m so sorry you had to put her down. That is the hardest and yet kindest decision with owning animals there is. I never wish that on anyone so I am so very sorry.
Yes that is a lot and I just went to the feed store and spent $250 for about 10 days worth of food so I’m gonna have to get rid of more then I originally planned. Boy if my not so sweet birds have a sweet bone in their body they better start showing it before Saturday. The ducks are going to have to start free ranging too. That was the plan and they look pretty much full grown but it has been hard knowing they are still “babies”. But they eat a lot and are starting to be jerks to the chickens. 
So I took my little saramas out. I tried to show just how small they are with a quarter but that still doesn’t show just how tiny they are lol my mottled turkey eggs started yesterday, well 1, and didn’t make any progress today so I chipped away some shell but it still has large veins so back in the incubator it went.


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## FizzyGoats

Is Saturday going to the sale day? I hope the rude birds make it easy for you. That’s a lot of money for food. I was just grumbling about how much I have to spend on the high protein feed for the turkey poults. I guess I shouldn’t complain. 

How old are the baby ducks now? 

The saramas are soooo tiny. Oh my gosh. Are they even real?! Lol. I think they are too cute. 

Did you dry hatch those little ones?

I hope the turkeys get to hatching themselves soon and all goes well.


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## Calistar

Oh my goodness! Serama babies! I used to want those, but I couldn't find anyone with them! Now I still think they're super cute, but they're so upright that it looks uncomfortable and it makes me uncomfortable 😆 I have the same issue with runner ducks lol. I wonder how they compare size-wise to my quail chicks?

Speaking of quail chicks- they aren't chicks anymore! It's insane! They're 4 weeks old and I have them in a pen outside adjacent to the adult quail pens, and the only difference is that a few of the chicks still have a tiny bit of yellow feathering around their faces. Well, that and they haven't pecked each other all to hell like the adults. Size-wise they're exactly the same. At 4 weeks old. They'll be laying in another couple of weeks, provided that a few of them are hens. And the pecked-to-hell adults (seriously I don't know what their issue is lately!) will be moving into the freezer to make room for the new ones, which will make my elderly diabetic cat very happy (I hope!)


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## FizzyGoats

I don’t know if it’s just the angle, but the quail on the left looks very Phantom of the Opera. Lol. They are cool looking little birds. Maybe the crazy adults are just trying to put themselves in the freezer but don’t understand the process.


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## Calistar

FizzyGoats said:


> I don’t know if it’s just the angle, but the quail on the left looks very Phantom of the Opera. Lol. They are cool looking little birds. Maybe the crazy adults are just trying to put themselves in the freezer but don’t understand the process.


It's not the angle- that one IS a little phantom of the opera quail! That was the 8th one hatched and it has a funky eye, the corner is sealed shut like it either didn't form correctly or was infected/scarred right at hatch. It's always been like that. It was really runty and grew slower than the others too, but it's now caught up!


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## FizzyGoats

Wow, you have your own little Phantom. I’m glad it healed up and caught up.


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## AndersonRanch

Yes Saturday is sale day. I posted them up for sale on our local chicken group but no bites on them or the turkeys yet. I’ll hang onto the turkeys though until they are larger before taking to the sale. I do really well with them when they are fully grown.
I think I got the surprise box on may 16 or around there so they are a month and a half old. I am absolutely shocked on how fast they grow though. 
I dry hatched these and the turkey eggs. I got 2 poults out of that batch. None of the others started. I candled them this morning and it looks like most died awhile back and a few internally piped but never made it threw the shell. Kinda bummed about that. I did the showgirl eggs too this morning and have 5 alive there. 
I have never seen baby quail before but if domestic quail have the same sized eggs as the Californian quail I would say they are slightly larger. 
Your quail are so cute! I love the sounds they make. I really would like to have quail one day I just need to get the other bird pens all figured out and debate on if I want to deal with my husband thinking I’m even more nuts lol


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## Calistar

Oh yes, the sounds are my favorite part! The rooster crows are SO ridiculous! And they crow at all hours of the night. They're not loud so it's not bothersome, just a totally ridiculous noise!
Jessica, if you're ever down in my neck of the woods, I'll trade you some quail for a couple of turkeys! 🤣 It doesn't count as more animals if it was a trade, you see, so your husband can't protest 😋


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## FizzyGoats

Calistar said:


> …Jessica, if you're ever down in my neck of the woods, I'll trade you some quail for a couple of turkeys! 🤣 It doesn't count as more animals if it was a trade, you see, so your husband can't protest


🤣 oh my gosh. And Jessica if you trade turkeys for quails, you can still claim that you are downsizing. Lol. 

I feel like there would be some type of force disturbance in the poultry world if you two met up, not a bad one, not good, just the colliding of two bird worlds. Lol. 

Aren’t you both in CA? I don’t know which parts, but it would be awesome if you two were close enough to check out each other’s operations.


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## AndersonRanch

Lol that is a wonderful plan! I think if I explained it like that to my husband he would laugh instead of being mad, well maybe depending on the day lol he’s a lot more forgiving when he’s been gone for a month or months and comes home to little surprises 
I think we are about 5-6 hours away from each other. Maybe 4 with good traffic lol this is a huge state. It took me awhile to really grasp the concept of just how big ir really is. 
So here are my mottled turkeys. I’m thinking they are not really mottled but time will tell. Either way they should be something different.








I remember the first time I saw quail. I was dropping goats off at the sale and heard them. I went searching for that sound and found the quail. I really thought they were so cute. I am for sure getting them one day! I have a friend that raises them and once a week they have quail dinner. I need to start hinting at a invite so I can see if I like them. I’ll be in bad shape if the world comes to a end and I have to be self sufficient. I don’t like goat meat, I really don’t like turkey. I can put up with chicken. No duck or goose. I’m good on beef but love pork but can’t keep them alive or contained lol but I do like eggs and I get a lot of those but I’m sure beef and eggs would get old lol


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## FizzyGoats

I’m sure you could survive on beef and eggs. Or trade some for some pork. 

I’ve never even seen quail except in the wild. You should finagle an invite for some quail dinner and see if you like it. I’m sure they’d be happy to make it for you and pleased you want to try it. 

Your little turkeys sure look a lot sweeter than mine right now. Lol. I’ve decided mine are mafia. They just give me looks when I’ve made a displeasing offering of food and such, that they are now the mafia. I love these dumb birds. I know they say you can’t tell until they’re 12 weeks if it is a tom or a hen, but this one looks tom to me. We call this one the Gobfather (because he tries to gobble).


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## Calistar

Yes, I think Jessica is a good 6 or so hours away, fortunately for her husband 😋
So I've only actually had quail once. It was at a fancy restaurant and I felt bad because it took two whole birds plus sides to make a meal. To be completely honest, I don't really remember what it tasted like lol. It wasn't bad, but not really memorable. BUT I like the idea that it can be grown quickly and harvested easily as far as protein goes. 
But hey, if you don't like quail, I've still got those kunekunes  Easy to keep alive and very easy to contain! I'm pretty sure with all the weeds, my electronet fence doesn't have much of a charge, but it's keeping my sows in just fine! My meat pig went into the freezer several weeks ago but we've only had one meal from him so far. I thought he was pretty good!

Fizzy, omg I love the name Gobfather! 🤣 So are turkeys expensive to raise? They're so big they must eat a lot of feed? I think they're so neat, but the drum noise the toms make kind of freaks me out 😆

Speaking of expensive to raise, I'm trying to cut chicken feed costs now by trying fermenting. I go through a 50 lb bag of feed within just a few days with my flock. I had heard of fermenting chicken feed before but had always kind of been afraid of it. I was looking into it again after purchasing yet ANOTHER bag of feed. If the cost savings and health benefits are as good as the internet is touting, it would be worth it to go to the extra trouble to ferment. Plus with the hot California summer, I figure extra moisture in their diet can't hurt. I started my first batch a couple days ago and gave some to my flock before I left for work today. They were pretty excited about it this morning, but that could just be because they usually get fed in the evening instead. Hopefully they haven't all died by the time I get home lol.


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## FizzyGoats

I’ll let Jessica answer the cost question as I’m just starting out. Mine will free range during the day, so I’m hoping that negates some of it, but who knows. I’m also hoping since they are bigger, they’ll be less of a target for aerial predators. I’ll find out eventually. 

@MadHouse ferments feed for chickens. She might be able to help you out there. That’s a lot of feed, for sure. Of course, you’re feeding a lot of birds. And I love things that both up nutrition and save money. Win, win.


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## FizzyGoats

Oh, and I meant to say thanks. We joke that Gobfather picked his own name, lol.


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## AndersonRanch

No you can absolutely tell when a Tom is a tom at a young age. Gobfather already has a much bigger snood then the one in the back. He is for sure a Tom. Just don’t count on your hens being hens just yet. Some Toms take a little longer to look like toms. 
Calistar I haven’t done the totally fermented before but I got some layer crumble that ended up being more layer dust so I added water to it so the little Millie fluers could eat it better. I’m not sure if they hated it or if it did cut down on how much they were eating. I would ASSUME it would cut down some since it would kinda be the same as us filling up on water as we drink and eat at the same time. If my logic is correct though I think as long as they are nice and plump, or at least not on the thin side, it would be fine. If they are leaner then maybe it won’t be a good idea to experiment with them. But I say try it and see how it goes. If it looks like they are falling off then stop doing it. You never know unless you try.
Well turkeys can be expensive. If they were to just stay in a cage I would say yes they are, if you can let them out then no not too bad. They will eat grass and stinging nettles (have j told you how much I love my turkeys lol) they really forage a lot more then the chickens do. But during the winter when there isn’t much to eat I was going threw about 1/2 pound a bird in feed. That was with a fairly mild winter too. 
Well I need to make a goose cage. Those little punks are eating the feathers off the Cochin chicks and making them bloody, which gets the chickens picking at it. They will also chew on my shorts and miss and get my tubby thighs. They get a small smack for that. Not biting us is the key to not having to leave so they need to knock that off. But they are almost obsessed with the feathers.
I took all my roosters and white chickens down, ended up being 17 and somehow I missed one rooster lol maybe because I was half asleep lol I had 2 for sure toms poults so took them down to make sure I am fair on my pricing. So we will see how I do on them. I’m looking at it as that much less I have to feed. Hopefully I do fairly well because I’m not sure what other chickens I’m really willing to sell lol


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## Calistar

Well, I gave them the fermented feed yesterday morning and they seemed pretty psyched about it! I gave them the rest yesterday afternoon and they didn't go as crazy over it, but maybe they were full from that morning? I did leave regular dry crumbles out in their feeder in case they didn't like the fermented stuff, and there was still plenty of that left by the evening, so I'm going to guess they were just full. They also drank much less water yesterday. I started another batch last night so it will be interesting to observe and see how things continue.

Wait wait, turkeys will eat sting nettle? That could be a selling point 😆 Although I bought the geese because they were supposed to eat weeds but leave the crops alone, which is not the case. We still have weeds and they pick the leaves and immature fruits right off the trees...what they can reach, at least! I don't know if I would be able to free range turkeys. I like the Narragansett's, and they can fly (I think). And our property doesn't have perimeter fencing. So I'd worry about them wandering off. Also we neighbor a strawberry field and I don't imagine they'd appreciate my poultry flying over their fence and helping themselves 🤣

I hope you get a good price for your birds! But even if you don't, as you said, not having to feed them is a pretty big win too!


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## FizzyGoats

So I’m not crazy. Well, completely. I knew I could tell a few were toms. Like you said, it’s the hens that I can’t tell at all because I don’t know if it’s a hen or a Tom that isn’t maturing as fast as the others. 

Sorry your geese are being naughty. One more cage to build. It never ends. 

Calistar, let me know how it goes with fermented feeding. I’ve been really considering it since @MadHouse and I discussed it. She said it’s pretty easy to do and has both cost and health benefits, but I still feel like I’ll mess it up somehow. Lol.


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## AndersonRanch

You won’t mess it up lol it seems simple to me. Add water wait a few days and then feed to them. 
Well the chicken sale was down right sad. I only got $2 for the roosters and $3 for the hens. I paid $2 each. The turkeys did decent, $30 each. Good thing I had some buck kids to take down too or I wouldn’t have even paid for my gas. Goats are still super high! I think the chicks that I’m not thrilled with from now on though I’ll let free range. It’s now actually fairly safe to free range with the way I have my goat pens. Any Bob cat or coyote needs to go threw 2-3 fences with hot fence to get to them. Of course there are hawks but the squirrels have been keeping them fat and happy away from the house. 
But yes calistar they eat stinging nettles! They leave the stem but they pick all the leaves and their little seed pod things off. I was over the moon when I saw them going after them. The goats will eat them but not until they have already dried out and shed their seeds. They also love yellow jackets. I have seen 1 since I have had them. But yes they do fly. I would like to say they don’t go too far, and really they don’t, but if they see your neighbors strawberry’s they would probably for sure be all over that. Even clipping their wing they can still go about 4’ high. I gave up on doing that once I realized they could still go over my fencing.


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## Calistar

If I can do it, anyone can do it 😆 Mine fermented quickly because California summer lol. Add chicken feed, add water, stir twice daily, and wait a couple days. When it's done there's bubbles around the edges and it smells like yogurt. Yesterday they finished the current batch of fermented feed and again, still had leftover dry feed and still drank much less water. Usually I refill their water daily. I could have gone 3 days this last time, except I dumped it just to keep it fresh. It's a fun little experiment! 

Meanwhile, my mealworms are still doing their thing, although house flies have gotten into their bin so I hope they don't start laying eggs in there. The BSF larvae are getting noticeably bigger. I used crimped oats and rolled barley for their substrate because that's what I had on hand for the goats. A couple of days ago I poured a little bit of water in because the veggie scraps I was giving them just didn't seem to be giving them much moisture. The larvae DEFINITELY prefer the side of the bin that I poured the water in, and when I lifted the lid yesterday it smelled like grain rather than rotting veggies. I looked closer and some of the oats had started sprouting 😆 Whatever's going on, it's making the larvae happy! I think it'll still be quite a while before I can harvest anything though. I read that I shouldn't expect to see new mealworms before the 2 month mark, and not sure on the larvae.

Jessica, I'm sorry you got such poor prices for your chickens, that's a shame! Last time I had extra roosters I found a guy on Craigslist who bought them all from me for $5 each. Made me $60, and I'm sure made lots of nice meals for him and his wife 😎 But I did have to deal with Craigslist lol. I've got a few silkies to sell right now (a few rooosters, a few chicks, a couple 2-3 year old hens and one young hen that just started laying) and I think I'm going to just grit my teeth and make a Craigslist ad lol.

Yellow jackets would be another selling point! We have those here, my mom sets traps for them every year. But she also has beehives, and if they eat yellow jackets they probably eat bees. Would an electronet fence keep them in, do you think? Or would they just sail over without touching it? Ugh, I'd love to have a pair of Narragansett's running around!


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## FizzyGoats

Lol. You two are bad for each other. One might add quail. One might add turkey. I love it. At least you both actually know what you’re doing with birds in general. It’ll take me a few years before I get confident enough to say, hmm, I think I need quail. Lol. 

And I guess I do need to try the fermented feed. I just keep thinking there’s some trick to it that’s so obvious that all you smart people know it and I’d overlook it completely. I might just try a really small batch and see how it goes. 

Glad the goat market was still good. Sorry the birds didn’t bring much at sale. Maybe Craigslist is the way to go. Then they can meet you somewhere close to get the birds and don’t have to waste gas. Calistar, have you felt pretty comfortable selling that way? Do you meet them somewhere other than your home? Or is it case by case basis?

I have a feeling when I first free range my turkeys, it’ll be a constant game of get the turkey back in the fence. I’ve heard they’re not as bad when they get older, but when they are young and dumb, they constantly get out yet can’t seem to figure out the getting back in.


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## Calistar

Years? Huh, I don't have nearly that level of self control! I'll decide an animal looks neat, start researching the hell out of it, decide I need it, and, well, then I've still got to convince my landlord, and she's a hard sell 😝

You should definitely give fermented feed a try, Fizzy! Tractor Supply sells food grade buckets for like $2.50, plus another $2.50 for a lid. That's all the equipment you need! Use your regular feed, put in half the amount of dry feed that you'd usually use. (Or for a test, just use a small scoop and do it in a mason jar instead!) Add about the same amount of water as you did feed, so the water covers the feed by about an inch, and stir. Cover with a loose lid. Come back in an hour or two and make sure the feed is still covered with water, otherwise add more and stir again. Then just stir twice daily until you see bubbles and it smells like yogurt. Super easy! 

Craigslist is kind of a case by case basis. I used to just let people come to my house, but after my dad died and it was just my mom and me, I started getting more cautious. We are outside of town and our neighbors aren't super close. Also, that neighboring strawberry field brings in migrant workers by the bus load, and it's no secret that some of the big local Ag companies are run by cartels, so I'm not super anxious to invite just anyone onto the property. My younger brother has since moved back to the property, and he is in law enforcement, so we have a little more sense of security again, but still, he has his full time job. So with poultry sales, usually I meet my buyers in town now. It's a 15 minute drive and it is an extra hassle, but I don't vet my chicken buyers super closely so I feel safer doing it that way. I don't want someone showing up to buy a $5 chicken only to scope the place out and come back in the night to steal thousands of dollars worth of goats. I'm sure a lot of it is just paranoia but the world is crazy these days! With my goat buyers, I talk with them and ask questions before I even agree to sell, and I won't sell to anyone I get a weird vibe from, so goat buyers are allowed at the house. Milk sales, I usually meet the person in town the first time (as a "convenience") and if they check out, I let them do farm pickups after that. So far all of my egg sales are to my milk customers, but if I start selling beyond that, I'll handle it the same way.
Sorry Fizzy, that was probably way more of an answer than you were looking for! 😆


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## FizzyGoats

Nope, that was the perfect amount of answer.  I’ll be in similar situations, so I like to hear what works for others. You can’t see a neighbor from my house. We are pretty isolated and have more horses than cars pass by on our road. And my husband is retired military (sniper to boot) but he works on the road and is gone most of the time. So I think I’ll be similar in how I approach sales. 

And for the feed, I have a lot of those buckets lying around. Do you need to add water every time the water isn’t above the food? Or just if it’s not still to the top after a few hours?


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## Calistar

Yes, you want the food to stay submerged or supposedly it will mold. That said, you will probably only need to add water once after the first mixing. When you first add the feed and water and mix it, the feed will absorb a lot of the water, that's why I check it again an hour or two later that first time. Both times I've done it, it's needed a little water added after the feed initially absorbed the first batch of water, but hasn't needed it again after that.


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## FizzyGoats

I’ll definitely try it then.


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## MellonFriend

FizzyGoats said:


> Nope, that was the perfect amount of answer.  I’ll be in similar situations, so I like to hear what works for others. You can’t see a neighbor from my house. We are pretty isolated and have more horses than cars pass by on our road. And my husband is retired military (sniper to boot) but he works on the road and is gone most of the time. So I think I’ll be similar in how I approach sales.
> 
> And for the feed, I have a lot of those buckets lying around. Do you need to add water every time the water isn’t above the food? Or just if it’s not still to the top after a few hours?


Thank your husband for his service from us!


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## AndersonRanch

The problem with trying to sell private is where I live. All the city people who decide they want to live in the mountains (it’s the foothills!) move here. There really is no chicken butchering lol the less……..upity people are a hour drive away. So it’s really not worth them to drive up here. But that’s fine they can just free range until they are adults and then they can go. I mean not like I am trying to get Rich off of them or anything but helping pay for their food would be nice. But that’s ok it is what it is. My goats will support them lol! 
Yeah there will be no quail for me for awhile. I seemed to push the husband too far. Well at first but he gave in. I came across a kids horse so made the mistake of asking him first lol after the whole “your daughter does not need a horse!” And my “we live on a cattle ranch she needs a horse to go with me!” He did give in but he wasn’t thrilled about it. Dang horse better be the best kids horse ever lol but I think that should be the end of my animal collecting for the year……..until I find a horse for my son lol


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## Calistar

You're looking at it all wrong! After a horse, he probably won't even notice the quail! 🤣


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## FizzyGoats

MellonFriend said:


> Thank your husband for his service from us!


Aw, thanks. I will. 



AndersonRanch said:


> The problem with trying to sell private is where I live. All the city people who decide they want to live in the mountains (it’s the foothills!) move here. There really is no chicken butchering lol the less……..upity people are a hour drive away. So it’s really not worth them to drive up here. But that’s fine they can just free range until they are adults and then they can go. I mean not like I am trying to get Rich off of them or anything but helping pay for their food would be nice. But that’s ok it is what it is. My goats will support them lol!
> Yeah there will be no quail for me for awhile. I seemed to push the husband too far. Well at first but he gave in. I came across a kids horse so made the mistake of asking him first lol after the whole “your daughter does not need a horse!” And my “we live on a cattle ranch she needs a horse to go with me!” He did give in but he wasn’t thrilled about it. Dang horse better be the best kids horse ever lol but I think that should be the end of my animal collecting for the year……..until I find a horse for my son lol


Yeah, I’m so far removed from city people, they may not make the drive either. I’ll have to wait and see on that. 

And a girl does need a horse.  



Calistar said:


> You're looking at it all wrong! After a horse, he probably won't even notice the quail! 🤣


🤣


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## AndersonRanch

Yeah I don’t know. Horses here are more tools then toys so I’m still a little shocked he was so upset over it. I am going to attempt to give him the benefit of the doubt though and say maybe he doesn’t get how hard it is to find a kids horse that isn’t on deaths back door, half crippled or costs $5-10,000. The ranch stuff is not his thing. He will jump on a quad and help gather, and help doing anything he can but it’s not his thing. Horses are actually the cheapest thing I have so I’m thinking more birds is not the thing to do to him right now lol 
My possible show girls are due to hatch tomorrow, I guess it’s not uncommon to hatch a day early but so far nothing going on. I’ve had fairly good luck with shipped eggs so I hope my luck didn’t run out lol


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## FizzyGoats

Any show girls hatching?

Horses can be amazing ranch help. I don’t think you can get anything better for work when you have cattle. But it could just be he’s reached a limit, horse, bird, or otherwise. I’d give him some time. Maybe do something special for him since he’s upset about it and I’m sure he’ll come around. 

We had horses growing up but mainly because my mom loved horses and, as a kid, could never have one. We did a lot of trail riding in the mountains and rodeo. My brothers also used them to pack out meat when elk or deer hunting. 

I think my lone hen is starting to want company. She hangs with the goats but I see her going by the chicks and poults a lot too. I’m not ready to free range them yet. 

When do you let turkeys out for the day? They are already bigger than my adult chicken, but they still seem so vulnerable. 

My biggest worry is aerial predators.


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## Tanya

All birds are aerial preditor meals. If the turks are bigger than the hen you could try let them range. Your hen will be l9nely. Have you thought of getting her a friend her size?


----------



## FizzyGoats

My hen is very savvy to the aerial predators around here, she survived a hawk attack somehow. And it’s made her much smarter than most when it comes to threats from above. My turkeys are far from savvy. 

I would get her a friend but the 5 young chickens we have will soon be ready to mingle. They are 9 weeks old (well, as of tomorrow). And they are not too much smaller than she is.


----------



## AndersonRanch

I think they could probably start going out now. Probably just supervised for now but they should stick close to home. Start calling them when you feed or if you have treats for them (I use worms for mine) that way it’s easier to get them back in. But be warned they probably won’t go home at night on their own. Every day we have to go out with food to get them in for bed……..well before i gave up on penning at night that is lol 
The hen I would put her with the chicks and see what happens. She might be mean to them but she might also take them under her wing. I say see what happens. You can always pull her out if you need to.
I think it just wasn’t a good day for him with the horse. Either way I won’t push him on any more critters. It’s hot and I don’t want any more chores anyways lol 
The showgirls I think are a bust  it’s day 21 and so far the eggs have been hatching a day early in the incubator and silkies are known for hatching on day 19. I’ll candle them tomorrow to be sure but I’m pretty sure I know it’s a no go.


----------



## FizzyGoats

That’s such a bummer about the eggs. Let us know if there’s any surprising good news after you candle. 

So before I let Amelia (my lone hen) out to free range for the day, I opened what we have dubbed the chicken portals and let the littles in the big part of the pen with her. It’s just propping up the netting diving them so the littles can get through (the hen could too if she was really determined but so far she hasn’t). The first few minutes was chaos and pecking but they stayed away from her after that (mostly). If they’d step out from their little section, she’d shoo them back through their little holes to stay on their side. So there wasn’t any real mingling. No more than when we put her in for the night and they can see each other through the deer netting outside the coop and the hardware cloth divider inside the coop. I don’t know. Maybe it was a baby step to someday having a cohesive flock?


----------



## Tanya

As in any animal dynamic there will always be a sorting of pecking orders. In chickens it is quit litteral. The littles are still small and dont have a mom to help them so right now she will beat them up. But wait till they are older. She will have a nemises.


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## FizzyGoats

She’s definitely been the boss, even with the other chickens. She’s pretty chill for a head hen though and never asserts her dominance unless she feels disrespected. She was fine with the littles until one pecked out of her food bowl (which took all of five seconds). Then they all had to go back to their side, and they got a good peck or two for dawdling or daring to come back out. It took a while for them to get her message and she patrolled when they started to forget, ready to remind them who is boss if they came out. 

I don’t doubt that someday in the future, one of the littles might be the head hen. I sort of hope it takes a while though because she’s never been one to rule with an iron beak and has never pecked at or picked on the weak or injured. She’s a good little queen if you don’t touch her food, lol.


----------



## Tanya

Food is always a good motivator to dominance.


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## AndersonRanch

Even if the littles had a mom she would be starting to wean them by going away from them and fly up away from them at night at this age. Unless the hen is down right nasty mean she isn’t going to kill them. I think your plan of baby steps is good but if you want to do baby steps do it every day. That way they don’t forget each other. Tomorrow though I would switch it around and try to put her in their pen. See if that makes it go any better. The little if they have not been on her side were in unknown territory and this monster came at them. 
Nothing on the showgirls  not sure what went wrong they were all alive when they went on lockdown. But it is what it is. One of my cross hens hatched out 6 chicks though. I need to look in her nest and see if there was a turkey egg in there too because I also found a new born poult just wondering around. So he went in with the mottled turkeys and serama chicks.


----------



## FizzyGoats

I can’t really put her in their side because then I can’t get to her if something does happen because this is our set up. I know it looks janky, but the deer netting is just temporary. 










So the bucket with the bamboo stick is the “corner post” to our temporary littles pen, which goes under the coop and out just enough for their temporary ramp (which comes out that side’s clean out door). It’s a small space. The ramp coming straight down is Amelia’s side of the coop. Inside the coop is a hardware cloth divider. So they can see and hear each other all the time. When we let Amelia free range for the day, we put in the wooden things at the bottom of the net to prop it up so the littles have access to the entire pen. So even their side has been her pen before they moved in a few weeks ago. 

Should I just leave it propped up all the time? Should I just take down the net? Amelia still will free range during the day but I don’t think those littles are ready for that yet, not with our heavy aerial predator load.


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## Calistar

Jessica, that's a shame about the showgirls! How weird that they'd all die between lockdown and hatch out! I forgot, how many eggs did you incubate?

Fizzy, that whole coop looks like a complex feat of engineering! There's just so much going on, it reminds me of the game Mouse Trap! In a good way of course!

I've been saving my favorite chicken eggs for several days now and I think I'm going to give them a shot in the incubator. It's mostly green ones, a couple pale blues, and a few that have to be my Welsummer; brown with speckles. The only rooster in with those hens is a Cream Legbar, so I'm hoping I'll get hens that lay blue and green/olive eggs from the mix, but I don't know if that's how things work lol.


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## FizzyGoats

I feel like I’m in a game of Mouse Trap every time I go in there. Lol. I’m always getting caught on the deer netting fence inside. 

That should be an interesting mixed hatch out in the incubator. I can’t wait to see what those eggs/chicks turn out to be. 

And Jessica, I’m sorry about the showgirl eggs.


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## FizzyGoats

We took out the inside coop divider and all the deer netting. We left the temporary ramp on the clean out door so there’s still two ways to enter/exit the coop. We’re keeping Amelia in with them for a while today but we’ll let her free range a bit later on. It’s going well so far.


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## AndersonRanch

Thank you on the showgirls. It is what it is and ive actually had decent luck on hatching eggs so although bummed out I know there are risks.
Yes calistar hatch your eggs out! I don’t really let the laying hens go broody but I have a red star (also called a sex link, cinnamon queen) and she went broody. I let her because she is our favorite too. She lays good and has nice big eggs so she is more then welcome to hatch chicks. I just don’t want to hatch any more myself lol it will be fun to see what roosters got her with them being free. There’s the Americana, anaconda silkie and I got mad at the Millie fluer for being mean to his hen and chicks so he’s out and about too. 
I think there is too many littles for there ri really be a issue. Usually what the issue is is if you put smaller ones with a flock of older hens or even one small with one large. It’s easy for the pecking order to be too overwhelming on one. But she should also want friends so hopefully it keeps going well for you


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## Kass

I haven't been ready to share until now. Still coming to terms with it. 
Update on the ducklings. So 2 out of 6 eggs hatched. One duckling was very healthy ( Penguin ) and one had a weak leg that it couldn't really walk on ( Flash ).
Well a little while ago when they were a couple weeks old I came home from being at a funeral all day and found that Penguin had jumped up, stuck his head through a crack in the brooder, and hung himself. I buried him and called a friend that had ducklings to come pick up Flash so he could have buddies. I guess for the first couple days he was doing fine. Then he died too. I didn't really get the whole story, just that he had died. 
So it's probably going to be a while before I try to hatch eggs again since out of 17 eggs total that I incubated, there were no survivors. 

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## FizzyGoats

Kass, I’m so sorry. What a horrible situation to come home to.


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## ksalvagno

Jessica, what is the brand of the small incubator that you have used? I remember quite a while ago you were using a small incubator that you really liked.


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## FizzyGoats

AndersonRanch said:


> Thank you on the showgirls. It is what it is and ive actually had decent luck on hatching eggs so although bummed out I know there are risks.
> Yes calistar hatch your eggs out! I don’t really let the laying hens go broody but I have a red star (also called a sex link, cinnamon queen) and she went broody. I let her because she is our favorite too. She lays good and has nice big eggs so she is more then welcome to hatch chicks. I just don’t want to hatch any more myself lol it will be fun to see what roosters got her with them being free. There’s the Americana, anaconda silkie and I got mad at the Millie fluer for being mean to his hen and chicks so he’s out and about too.
> I think there is too many littles for there ri really be a issue. Usually what the issue is is if you put smaller ones with a flock of older hens or even one small with one large. It’s easy for the pecking order to be too overwhelming on one. But she should also want friends so hopefully it keeps going well for you


How fun to be surprised by what hatches out. 

You must be right. We left her in with them most the day, let her out for a few hours to run around. Put her back in and no issues. Shut them all in the coop tonight with no issues as well. She keeps to herself and if they don’t bug her, she doesn’t bother them. I hope all is well when we open the coop door in the morning. 

Funny thing, I sing a stupid little song when I put the chicks in the coop for the night (because they want to roost outside the coop in the pen). The song seems to calm them down while I put them on my hand and transfer them one by one to the inside roost. Today I was in their pen working on a few random things and found myself singing that song and two of the littles went in the coop.


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## Calistar

Oh no Kass, I am so sorry about your little ducklings! How awful! Sometimes we do our best but fate just has other plans ☹

Fizzy, I love it! Soon you'll have them all marching off to bed just by singing your song! 😆 I have a song I sing to my cat, but she just looks at me like I'm an idiot 😋


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## FizzyGoats

Lol. My cat swats me when I sing. All paw, no claw, but her point is made.


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## Tanya

I avoid singing.


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## AndersonRanch

Oh kass I am so sorry! It is almost impossible to baby proof for everything a little bird could do to hurt themselves. Something can work flawlessly for years and one gets a idea and it ends badly. I know you were so excited for those ducks so my heart hurts for you.
Ksalvagno this is the one I really like and had good luck with. 









Amazon.com: KEBONNIXS 12 Egg Incubator with Humidity Display, Egg Candler, Automatic Egg Turner, for Hatching Chickens : Patio, Lawn & Garden


Buy KEBONNIXS 12 Egg Incubator with Humidity Display, Egg Candler, Automatic Egg Turner, for Hatching Chickens: Poultry Care - Amazon.com ✓ FREE DELIVERY possible on eligible purchases



www.amazon.com




This is the other one I have. A lot of people swear by it but when I was trying to keep humidity high at lockdown I really had to be on it to keep it up. It might have something to do with where I live and why I battled with it so much. If you find yourself in the same boat and get this one keep the air vent at half or my sister blocked the little hole on the back. I did like that it held so many eggs though









Amazon.com: Manna Pro Harris Farms Nurture Right Incubator | Egg Incubator for Hatching Chicks | 360 Degree View : Industrial & Scientific


Amazon.com: Manna Pro Harris Farms Nurture Right Incubator | Egg Incubator for Hatching Chicks | 360 Degree View : Industrial & Scientific



www.amazon.com





Being able to call, or sing lol, your animals in is a total life saver. I can call all my animals in, and they have different calls even for the cows. The geese know their call already since I take them out to go swimming while I do the chores. So far other then them chewing on my clothes I am really enjoying those babies.


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## ksalvagno

Thanks Jessica!


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## FizzyGoats

The littles went to their roosts on their own tonight for the first time. No singing necessary. I think now that they’re not separated from Amelia, they’re starting to follow her example and she’s always been an early-to-bed kind of gal.


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## Calistar

That's awesome! It's such a relief when they start putting themselves away!

I had a disappointing day in the (indirect) chicken department. My BSF bin has been doing awesome! The larvae were getting really big and they were composting my scraps and everything looked great! I didn't have a ramp rigged up yet so they couldn't do their self-harvesting thing, but they'd climb the sides of their box and in the morning and evening I'd collect them and put them in a bin to pupate. I hadn't fed any to my chickens yet because I wanted them to get established and start reproducing first. Well, I came home from work today and opened the bin to find a thick layer of large larvae covering the surface of the media. Which is unusual because usually they're feeding and wriggling just under the surface. Upon closer inspection, I noticed that none of them appeared to be moving. I shook the bin and there were some live larvae way down at the bottom, but it looks like 90% of my larvae are dead. It was a hot day today and I think they must have either dried out or overheated. They're supposed to thrive in temperatures in the 90's, and I had them in a shady part of the yard under a tree. The lid was on their bin but it was set on loosely, not sealed. So I'm not really sure why they died but maybe it just got too hot inside the bin. Super disappointing, and I have work tomorrow so I probably won't be able to sift out the dead larvae to salvage them by freezing them to feed later, and I'm sure they'll have started to decompose by the time I get home. But at least it had been off to a good start. Maybe between the larvae in my pupation bin and what's left in the main tub, the population will be able to make a comeback. Either way, I think I'll order another batch from the same seller just to get back on track. I really was loving watching them do their composting thing!


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## FizzyGoats

What a bummer. I wonder what happened. I had the understanding they like it very warm. Hopefully you have enough to repopulate. Sounds like they were going strong. How are the mealworms doing?


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## Calistar

The mealworms survived the heat wave because I keep them inside 😊 I had a little bit of die off about a week ago when I forgot to add new veggies for them, oops. I gave them a halved potato and we've been good since then and I just noticed my first adult beetle this morning! Overall the mealworms seem to do everything at a slower pace than the BSF, but the main reason I got them (besides being a backup in case the BSF failed or just creeped me out lol) was because they could be kept indoors more easily. I had been thinking of it in terms of overwintering, but it turned out to be a good thing anyway with the summer heat! 

For the remaining BSF, I left their bin half uncovered and put a soaked piece of cardboard in their bin to hopefully hold in moisture. It's all I could think of to do.


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## FizzyGoats

The mealworms are easy to keep inside. I can’t believe you have a beetle already. That’s fast. Hopefully you’ll be swimming in mealworms soon. Not literally. That’d be gross. Lol. 

That sounds like a good idea for the BSF. I’m just going to sit back and let you do all the learning before I give it a try.


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## Calistar

I mean, I wouldn't be upset if I HAD enough to swim in. But I'd never get them out of my hair...

There does seem to be a larger population of BSF larvae still alive than I thought. I still lost the majority, but it wasn't as hot today and there was a mass of them under the cardboard this evening. I have some rotting apricots to feed them tomorrow so hopefully the moisture in those will help them get by.

Back on the chicken topic, I put these in the incubator last night...let the countdown begin!


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## FizzyGoats

Grow little chickie embryos! 

Funny mealworm story. I had mine in Tupperware on top of the fridge for a time. I used a little step ladder to reach them so I could give them food scraps. One time I had a misstep on the ladder, my hand hit the open box of mealworms and I ended up on my backside on the kitchen floor with a big box of mealworms on my head.


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## AndersonRanch

You know I take creepy things well and don’t get grossed out easily but I’m not sure I could swim in worms. That might just but my gross meter over the top lol 
So my “tolbunt” polish is for sure a golden laced polish. I have given her time but it’s for sure. But she is the sweetest little thing. The other puff heads are fine but not hers so she tells me all about the others not being nice to her as she sits on my leg while I fill feeders and water. I guess since she is sweet I am only moderately upset about it but won’t be buying from that seller ever again. 
Are those green eggs? That is a very nice rainbow of colors you have there! 
I think I ended up with one frizzle sarama. It’s feathers are way longer then the others and looks like it’s feathers might be curling. I’ve been waiting for them to be good sized so I can get them out in the coop but they may be tote chicks in my bathroom forever lol but other then that not much going on just trying to keep everything as cool as I can. Today is going to be 115, 111 yesterday gave me slight anxiety so today I may go insane. I spent All day refreshing everything’s water and the horses stuck around all day to get multiple baths. I’m over the summer lol


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## FizzyGoats

Wow, that’s some extreme heat! I’m surprised you’re not passed out somewhere between coops with a bucket in your hand. 

I’m glad your girl is at least sweet. It’s a bummer though and yeah, I’d avoid that seller again too. And I definitely want a pic of the frizzle serama. 

I’m dragging my feet on letting my birds out for a few hours a day to introduce them to daytime free ranging. My lone hen, who lives with the chicks without any barriers now, is let out each day and put back in with them each evening. That’s going well. 

I keep promising myself that I’ll let the chicks out to go with her for an hour or two before it’s time to go in. I put all my animals back in their secure pens around 5 pm. They put themselves in their coops/bed for the night. Then I go behind them and shut doors just for extra protection at night. 

The chicks and turkeys will be 10 weeks come Wednesday. I said I’d let them start going out at 8. Backpedaled because they were just too small and hyper. Now I promised myself I’d let them start having supervised field trips at 10 weeks and I can already feel myself getting ready to backpedal again. The pen the little chickens have isn’t large and they need time to really run. But we have the worst aerial predator load I’ve ever seen.

I’m worried I’ll let them out. Juvenile chickens and turkeys will scatter everywhere. Hawks, eagles, flacons, and owls will swoop for some snacks and I’ll be running around like crazy trying to get everyone in again. That’s how it plays out in my mind. 

Thoughts? Suggestions?


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## Calistar

So Fizzy, the big question is did you clean the mealworms up yourself, or just let the chickens in the house to do your work for you? 😆

Jessica, such a shame your Polish didn't turn out to be the color she was supposed to! At least she's sweet, but still a bummer! Will you try again with eggs from another seller?

Yes, those are green eggs! A few blues, and the browns have speckles, so probably from my Welsummer. I'm hoping to hatch chicks that will lay turquoise and olive eggs, but I'm not sure if combining egg colors works like combining paint....😆

And speaking of egg colors....look what I got today!!!








Okay so it's dirty and the lighting in that photo is not great, but that is a blue quail egg, I promise! Hopefully just the first of many!


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## ksalvagno

Can you let them out for just a short period when you can be right there? Do you have grown Tom turkeys or geese?


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## FizzyGoats

Calistar said:


> So Fizzy, the big question is did you clean the mealworms up yourself, or just let the chickens in the house to do your work for you?
> 
> Jessica, such a shame your Polish didn't turn out to be the color she was supposed to! At least she's sweet, but still a bummer! Will you try again with eggs from another seller?
> 
> Yes, those are green eggs! A few blues, and the browns have speckles, so probably from my Welsummer. I'm hoping to hatch chicks that will lay turquoise and olive eggs, but I'm not sure if combining egg colors works like combining paint....
> 
> And speaking of egg colors....look what I got today!!!
> View attachment 210565
> 
> Okay so it's dirty and the lighting in that photo is not great, but that is a blue quail egg, I promise! Hopefully just the first of many!


That is a cool quail egg! 

You’ll have to let us know how it all turns out on the mixing eggs colors.  And I should have let the chickens clean my mess, lol. But I spent forever picking mealworms out of my hair and off my floor. That’s what I get for being a klutz. 



ksalvagno said:


> Can you let them out for just a short period when you can be right there? Do you have grown Tom turkeys or geese?


 I can let them out and supervise. I’m worried they’ll take off but I can worry about that forever because it’s out of my control and hopefully not what will happen. I don’t have any grown turkeys or geese. Should I let them out about an hour before I’d normally put them up? Supervise and keep them as near to home as possible and then just slowly extend the time each day?


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## Kass

Calistar said:


> So Fizzy, the big question is did you clean the mealworms up yourself, or just let the chickens in the house to do your work for you?
> 
> Jessica, such a shame your Polish didn't turn out to be the color she was supposed to! At least she's sweet, but still a bummer! Will you try again with eggs from another seller?
> 
> Yes, those are green eggs! A few blues, and the browns have speckles, so probably from my Welsummer. I'm hoping to hatch chicks that will lay turquoise and olive eggs, but I'm not sure if combining egg colors works like combining paint....
> 
> And speaking of egg colors....look what I got today!!!
> View attachment 210565
> 
> Okay so it's dirty and the lighting in that photo is not great, but that is a blue quail egg, I promise! Hopefully just the first of many!


I love the color of your quail egg! I just got my first one a couple days ago. It was so exciting! I got one a day for 2 days and they stopped laying 

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## Kass

.









Sent from my SM-A115U using Goat Forum mobile app


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## FizzyGoats

That is so neat. Do all quail eggs look like that?


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## ksalvagno

FizzyGoats said:


> I can let them out and supervise. I’m worried they’ll take off but I can worry about that forever because it’s out of my control and hopefully not what will happen. I don’t have any grown turkeys or geese. Should I let them out about an hour before I’d normally put them up? Supervise and keep them as near to home as possible and then just slowly extend the time each day?


I'd definitely start doing it that way.


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## Calistar

Congrats Kass! What a pretty egg! Maybe they're inconsistent because they're just starting to lay?

I went out this evening at chore time to find one of my Celadon quail near death. I'm not sure what's wrong with it. It was a hot day but not like the last few have been! And the quail are well shaded and showed no signs of distress. This quail is laying on its side looking dead. When I picked it up it struggled out of my hands and flew/flopped several feet away and then resumed the dead bird pose. When I went to check on it later at chore time, it looked dead for sure. I was going to feed it to my LGDs but when I approached the crate it opened its eyes like "don't you dare" 😆 I'm going to do one more check before bed but I suspect it's gone.


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## FizzyGoats

How strange. Though it is kind of funny that it opened its eyes, like hey lady, not yet. I wonder if it hit its head or something. Did it end up passing?

This evening, if it’s not raining, I’m going to try to let my little chickens out at 4. I put them in their pen at 5, so they will get about an hour. I don’t want to attempt letting the turkeys out at the same time. That could be a circus. They may have to wait a few days still. So have your birds send my birds telepathic messages to stay close, watch the sky for threats, and come back in when mom says.


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## Calistar

How did it go Fizzy? I hope your birds cooperated for you!

I have not checked on the quail yet this morning but she was still alive yesterday. She can flap and wiggle with impressive strength, and heartily resists my attempts to syringe feed her water. Wings work great. I think it must be neurological, or maybe she injured her spine. The cage is way too small for her to have hurt herself jumping up, but livestock always find a way 🙄 If she does not pass on her own and does not make dramatic improvements quickly, I will help her along. I have been working like mad getting my goats ready for linear appraisal the last couple of days, so I admit all the other animals have been put on the back burner.


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## FizzyGoats

Oh, a linear appraisal is exciting! Yeah, I can understand how prepping for that is taking the chunk of your time right now. 

I hope your flailing quail recovers soon. Poor thing. If not, I hope your dogs enjoy their treat. Or would she be for the cats? It’s hard to help them along but sometimes it’s the kindest thing you can do. 

And the littles outing barely happened. I let them out. Ten minutes later a storm rolled in and I shooed them all back. They only made it about 5 feet from the pen. A lot of build up to a lot of nothing. Lol. During that ten minutes, my hen was quite rude to them. So today, I’m leaving my hen in with them until a few hours before it’s time to go back in. Maybe she’ll be nicer if I let everyone in and out at the same time. Amelia, my hen, needs to learn that, like it or not, they are her new flock.


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## FizzyGoats

So I let the littles out for a little over an hour and a half. All my stress over them taking off was completely unfounded. They stayed very near the pen the whole time. There were a couple unexpected issues though. 

One, my rescue pup has never been around juvenile birds. Didn’t think about the fun, flapping squeaky toys until I let them out. Thank goodness he continues to surprise us is the best of ways. He sniffed and watched and then kept his distance and watched over them as if they’d been in his care forever. 









Two, I thought about the birds going out, not the goats going in. Luckily, they are fed in bowls which are picked up before I open the pen to let them out. Still, the goats were a bit of a pain. 









All in all, it was a success. And it was fairly easy to get them all inside the enclosure when it was time.


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## ksalvagno

Glad it all worked out.


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## FizzyGoats

Thank you. Me too. Tomorrow we will do it again for a tad longer. Step by step, I’m hoping we get to free ranging in a month or so. 

Soon, I’ll be adding the juvenile turkeys to the free-range-for-a-few-hours crew. I have no idea what my little turkey mafia will do when they are out.


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## AndersonRanch

Sorry I have seemed to upset the fire gods and they decided I needed the fun and stress of getting cows out of the way of a fire again. 
Yay fizzy! They look so happy being out! Usually chickens (and turkeys) will get excited and flap their wings and run around a little but they are very good about staying close to home. They might get a little more brave and go out a little farther but should stick close. 
Calistar I am sorry about your quail. I wonder if some birds are more prone to heat strokes and heat issues more then others. I know quite a few people around here are loosing birds to the heat but (knock on wood) I haven’t lost one or have one that has taken it too terrible. I mean they are panting and have their wings spread but not doing too bad. 
I think the color shades is how it goes. I don’t know for a fact but from what I have gathered that is kinda how it goes. I guess the bloom plays a part in the shade too, and some birds have more bloom then others. Now if you can figure out how some people have purple eggs you let me know! I have never been very huge on egg colors. A egg is a egg but I saw one lady that had purple eggs and I was like WHAT!!!! That’s almost as great as the black duck eggs lol 
And kass congrats on your first egg! It’s a very pretty egg too.


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## FizzyGoats

AndersonRanch said:


> Sorry I have seemed to upset the fire gods and they decided I needed the fun and stress of getting cows out of the way of a fire again.
> Yay fizzy! They look so happy being out! Usually chickens (and turkeys) will get excited and flap their wings and run around a little but they are very good about staying close to home. They might get a little more brave and go out a little farther but should stick close.
> Calistar I am sorry about your quail. I wonder if some birds are more prone to heat strokes and heat issues more then others. I know quite a few people around here are loosing birds to the heat but (knock on wood) I haven’t lost one or have one that has taken it too terrible. I mean they are panting and have their wings spread but not doing too bad.
> I think the color shades is how it goes. I don’t know for a fact but from what I have gathered that is kinda how it goes. I guess the bloom plays a part in the shade too, and some birds have more bloom then others. Now if you can figure out how some people have purple eggs you let me know! I have never been very huge on egg colors. A egg is a egg but I saw one lady that had purple eggs and I was like WHAT!!!! That’s almost as great as the black duck eggs lol
> And kass congrats on your first egg! It’s a very pretty egg too.


I’ve actually been worried that you were having issues with the fires. I know you’ve been moving animals like crazy and been going nonstop. Is everyone and everything ok so far? Have you even had time to think, eat, and sleep? Is the smoke bad?

And the chicks did exactly that, flapping and acting a little crazy at first. That’s when it dawned on me I’d done zero bird work with my dog. He came loping over to see what all the fuss was about. I thought about correcting him but something told me to trust him and he was a perfect angel. Phew.


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## AndersonRanch

Blah I’m over fires. I am 36 and have never had to deal with the fires directly effecting me before. This is now twice in 2 years and it’s not fun! My cousin lost his house, it was his moms, my great aunts house and she ended up with all the super old family pictures. That is very depressing they are gone but he made it out and once his renters find a new place to move he has another house to live in. So ir could be a lot worse.
We snuck in and got the majority of the cows out that night. Didn’t get home until 2 am. The next morning the neighbor called and found 8 down by where it was burning. So we went in again and got those. Guess we were due for some good luck because we found a old, “how is it still standing” corral and we got them out using that and not having to take them to the top of the mountain to haul them out. I honestly don’t know if we would have gotten them out in time if we had to do that. We still have 2 out there but we think they got mixed up with the neighbors cows and it’s all open range so they have a chance of making it. We moved the horses out from the other side of the fire and have been on stand by in case my sister needed to leave. Poor keith is pooped and instead of taking his time to rest is out there showing them where to put lines in because he knows where all the little trails and dirt roads my dad put in to use a fire breaks. I’m hoping today he has time to go over and see if my great great grandmas house is still standing. No one has lived there for years but it would be sad to loose it. But here are some cool pictures I got that first night while standing guard over the cows. Someone had to stay with them in case the wind picked up to let the cows out while the others were being hauled to a safe spot.






















What a good puppy! Chickens can be so tempting for dogs so that is great she didn’t even bat a eye at them. Even though she hasn’t yet earned total trust with them yet, not worrying she will eat them as fast as she can sure is nice. My puppies are going threw some major training with the birds. I didn’t realize just how good it having dogs that could care less about the chickens until these two puppies came along. I swear I scream NO more now then I ever have with my children in all their years together lol


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## Calistar

Fires again? Wow. It's going to be another scary year! We had a small fire down here last week but it was near the space force base so you better believe they knocked that sucker out quick lol. I think you paid your tribute to the fire gods last year- hopefully they leave you and your stock in peace this year!

Fizzy, I'm so glad things worked out with your flock! It's such a relief when things are a non-event lol. And I love that goat in the chicken coop! 

My little quail is still hanging in there but she is not getting better, so I will send her on her way today. Depending on how much time I have, I'll either try butchering her for a kitty snack, or just dispatch her and feed her whole to the dogs. I should be at work today but I caught my coworker's cold. Between that, exhaustion from the nonstop work I've been doing getting ready for appraisal, and yesterday's crazy schedule because of appraisal (including a doe who kidded DURING appraisal WITHOUT ANYONE NOTICING) I just needed to take a day lol.


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## FizzyGoats

Kidding during appraisal?!? And so easily. That’s got to be a first. And congratulations! How did the appraisals go? And yeah, you need a day or twenty to recuperate.  I hope you get feeling better. Sorry about the quail. I hate having to dispatch. 

Jessica, I hope you and your animals stay safe! That looks scary. It’s just a sea of flames. You also need a day or twenty to recuperate. Your husband too. Do you have places for all the animals you’re having to juggle right now?

We had a circus today. The littles (young chickens) are fine free ranging. They stay close. They are sweet and responsive. When I took the wheelbarrow in to clean out the turkey coop, my turkey mafia made a break for it. There were a few who were not nice to the littles. I had to get my husband who was working inside to come help me referee. They wandered more than the littles but not too bad. Just got to get them to leave the littles alone. And I swear I got so lucky with my pup. He’s only one and a half and didn’t chase the boisterous turkeys. He even looked at us for help when he was lying down and they were pecking him, no retaliation. We got them back in their pen after an hour and a half. This is going to be a big learning curve for us and the animals.


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## ksalvagno

Will be praying for you and your family, Jessica.


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## Calistar

Omg Fizzy! A circus is right! Your dog looks like such a good boy! And what a pretty collection of goats you've assembled!

It was a first for me for sure! Not 100% stress free because the doe had a slight rectal prolapse and I ended up having to go in (and then calling my more experienced neighbor to come check too) to make sure there were no more kids. She was overdue by 6 days and only had a small single. She was a very lightweight doe before, not a lot of body capacity, and she'd gotten quite large so I figured probably triplets. Nope, just fat! Appraisal went great though! Aside from one bit of bad news (a genetic issue that I had suspected anyway, the appraiser confirmed) but other than that my does did very well and I learned a lot! My highest scoring doe was a 90 but my second highest was a home bred doe who scored 89, so that was a nice surprise! Aside from the one with the defect, everyone was mid to high 80's, which I'm thrilled with!


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## FizzyGoats

Oh gosh, a rectal prolapse is scary. I’d be so clueless. Glad you were able to call in help and take care of everything. Surprising she just had one in there and it was small. Sorry about the genetic defect. But for the rest, man those are terrific scores!!!


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## AndersonRanch

Isnt it funny how we can pretty much not even come close to guessing on how many some of the does have? I’ve had ones I swore were trips or more and have a single or two very small twins and ones I figured were going to have a single and had big twins or small triplet. Every year the kids and I go out and guess how many every doe is going to have and make a competition over it. I told the kids I was going to cheat and wait until they went to school and ultrasound them all so I would win lol
I’m sorry about the prolapse though. That’s not fun at all, but a huge congrats on the baby! I have no idea about the scoring thing but a huge congrats for that! 
Fizzy the turkeys will eventually come around with the littles but it will take awhile. I didn’t realize just how territorial they were until I turned my laying hens out. They are older and can run fast but it was absolutely shocking! They are also great about letting you know if a hawk or anything else comes in. My pair I had a few years ago that a stray dog killed, one day I went out side and they were just having a fit and cutting me off. I was like what in the world is your issue. Well I looked and there was a hawk in the tree and I think they were trying to either hide behind me or keep me from getting ate. These are not like that on being possibly protective but they sure keep a eye out better then the chickens. 
The fire is pretty much out. Husband said that we really didn’t burn much. Go figure, did grazing help not burn???? Lol this isn’t where I live though. This is our family ranch on my dads moms side so is shared with his cousins. So all the goats and birds and everything have been safe. We just had to move the cows that were there and then we played it safe moving the horses on someone’s place that let’s us put our horses on them to keep the grass down. 
Ok I have t forgotten my promise of pictures. I’m bad about not taking my phone outside because I set it down and forget where I put it or it falls out of my pocket. So I have not gotten the silkie cross pictures but I promise I will. But here is the “normal” sarama chick







and here is the for sure frizzle, poor goofy looking dude lol







and this is supposed to be the mottled turkey poult


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## Calistar

Last year I was really good at guessing numbers, but this year everyone threw me for a loop! And I had three does kid single doelings (and one with a single buckling) which was an unusually high number of singles for nigerians. But the two sets of quads and set of quints made up for it 🙄

Jessica, that frizzle looks ridiculous! Should be a fun batch to grow out though! And so glad to hear that the fire is almost out!

My poor quail was still hanging in there this evening, so I watched a couple more "how to butcher" videos and then went for it. My goodness, that's the only thing I've done in my life that was actually easier and faster in person than the tutorials made it sound! She's no longer suffering and I learned a new skill, so it was the best outcome for a bad situation. And now that I know how quick it is, I don't feel like I need to set aside a big chunk of time to do those extra roosters who are still fighting, so they will be out of my hair soon. Which is good because I need the extra cages because now one of my celadons is getting picked on ALREADY. I don't know how people keep quail in those packed little pens and keep them from fighting!


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## goathiker

Oregon is already burning also. We seem to still have arsonists as well, the ones that they are looking for now are like 14 and 10. 

I ended up with 3 Guinea keets. Wilco had a damaged box come in. The ones I took...
One has a sprained leg, one has a missing talon and the toe is swelled up. The other seems to be okay? Shook up and slow. 
They are all eating and drinking. Basking and living. They are in the brooder with 3 French marans.


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## FizzyGoats

@AndersonRanch I’m so glad the fire threat seems to be quelled. And I’m sure grazing does reduce or at least slow the spread of fire. And that frizzle cross is about the silliest, cutest chick I’ve ever seen. 

And one funny thing about the young turkeys being out was they’re suspicion of everything. They’d stick out their necks and point to what they perceived as a threat (a bucket, a shovel, 3 different sticks, and a cord on the ground). They’d make this weird little sound and all gather around it, like arrows pointing to “the problem” and take slow cautious steps toward it until we would come and either move the item or handle it enough for them to be feel like we had the ominous “threat” neutralized. It was funny. And that was definitely behavior unique to the turkeys. None of the littles did that. 

@Calistar I’m surprised it was actually easier than you thought. That’s a relief. And now you have the skill and confidence to dispatch the trouble makers. I know we’ll need to butcher turkeys when they reach maturity and I know it won’t necessarily be easy. There are various methods and opinions on how to do it. I wish I knew what was truly the fastest, most humane way to butcher them. 

@goathiker I can’t believe children are burning down the state. That’s incredibly disturbing. 
It’s nice that you took in the guinea keets that needed extra help. With them sharing the brooder with the marans, it’s like an international hostel brooder.  I’m glad they are doing well. Do you keep your birds penned or will you free range the guineas later?


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## FizzyGoats

And just because I thought it was cute, here’s one of our 10 week old toms strutting his stuff, feeling quite big and bad after his little jail break.


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## Calistar

Oh my goodness a miniature turkey!!! 🤣🤣🤣 He definitely looks like a tough guy!


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## AndersonRanch

I’m happy to hear that dispatching the quail wasn’t that bad. I remember the first time I went dove hunting and my dads friend telling me to wring ones neck that didn’t die when I shot it. I looked at him in horror so he did it and I was like oh! That wasn’t so bad at all! 
Fizzy goat I’m going to take the easy way out if I butcher my turkeys. There is a place about a hour drive away that charges $5 a bird to butcher and clean. When I think about plucking a turkey that sure sounds like a good deal to me lol so does it look like you have just the one Tom so far?
Goathiker how sad is that on the kids. I wish that they would charge arson a lot harder then they do. We had two adults a few years ago that went around starting fires, they even stood in front of a camera talking about how terrible it is that someone would do that and they were the ones setting the fires! They are now out on probation. Our whole community is sick over it but they were at least smart enough to move out of the area. Although we did have two young boys that got dads lighter and came out on us and was just screwing around and burned us. They did not go out there to set the whole place on fire and they told on themselves right away. We could have pressed charges but instead dad told them your going to work to fix your mistake. They learned to build fence and dad made them go out with a rake and a few sacks of seed and plant new grass. 
This fire I’m not sure yet what started it. I’m not sure if it’s related but I guess there was a large drug bust down there the day before. Who knows though.


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## FizzyGoats

AndersonRanch said:


> …
> Fizzy goat I’m going to take the easy way out if I butcher my turkeys. There is a place about a hour drive away that charges $5 a bird to butcher and clean. When I think about plucking a turkey that sure sounds like a good deal to me lol so does it look like you have just the one Tom so far?


No, I have a lot of them. I’m worried I’ll end up with all toms and have to start over completely. There’s only two I think might be hens. I really hope they are hens. The others I thought might be were, I believe just slower developing toms. It was more the big, thick legs that gave them away first. And I’d take that deal, $5 a bird. Man, I need to call around and see if there’s anything like that around here. 



AndersonRanch said:


> Goathiker how sad is that on the kids. I wish that they would charge arson a lot harder then they do. We had two adults a few years ago that went around starting fires, they even stood in front of a camera talking about how terrible it is that someone would do that and they were the ones setting the fires! They are now out on probation. Our whole community is sick over it but they were at least smart enough to move out of the area. Although we did have two young boys that got dads lighter and came out on us and was just screwing around and burned us. They did not go out there to set the whole place on fire and they told on themselves right away. We could have pressed charges but instead dad told them your going to work to fix your mistake. They learned to build fence and dad made them go out with a rake and a few sacks of seed and plant new grass.
> This fire I’m not sure yet what started it. I’m not sure if it’s related but I guess there was a large drug bust down there the day before. Who knows though.


 I think that’s the right thing to do when it’s just kids being idiots. Teaches a real lesson. When it’s kids (and especially adults) being arsonists, they need to be prosecuted. And I agree that there’s often too much leniency for arsonists. 

My young chickens tend to stay near their pen. The turkeys venture farther but usually only when myself or the goats do as well. I’m trying to stay out of the turkeys and chicks interactions today. Obviously I’ll intervene if needed, but I can’t stop the chasing all the time. And the turkeys immediately stop if the chicken (half their size), stands it’s ground. It’s so hard for me to sit back and let them figure it out, but I figure they’ll do it and get it done faster if I stop trying to play mother hen.


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## FizzyGoats

My little turkey mafia is living up to its name. They stick together, roaming around like a little gang. They peck the dog. They peck the goats and chase the littles. I even have a slight black eye from one pecking me. I know the instigator. It’s one we call Hot Rod. Such a brat. 

They are the barnyard bullies.

But they are also pretty funny when not being pests.


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## AndersonRanch

Oh no! I’m sorry about your eye. It hurts so bad when they do that. They do get a bit better about it when they get older. Not perfect, I still get the “eye” when they see my teeth or I pain my toenails but it’s not such a obsession when they get a little older. They will also start to except the littles it will just take some time. 
I tried to put the geese in with mine and they were so mean to them. I thought for sure the geese would try to stand up for themselves but they didn’t. They now have their own cage and the young turkeys they have been with since I got them are so sad they lost their mommies (the geese). It’s just hot and they need a deeper water pan to play in but I can’t do that with the other birds because they will drown. The geese are thrilled though lol


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## goathiker

Well, try as I might I can't get the stupid tendon on the lame keet to pop back and stay. I'm going to try pushing it over and taping it's leg straight but, I think that it's a lost cause. 

The chicken house and pen are getting started tomorrow. 

One of the baby roosters is already trying to attack me at the brooder door. He should bring a good auction price.


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## FizzyGoats

AndersonRanch said:


> Oh no! I’m sorry about your eye. It hurts so bad when they do that. They do get a bit better about it when they get older. Not perfect, I still get the “eye” when they see my teeth or I pain my toenails but it’s not such a obsession when they get a little older. They will also start to except the littles it will just take some time.
> I tried to put the geese in with mine and they were so mean to them. I thought for sure the geese would try to stand up for themselves but they didn’t. They now have their own cage and the young turkeys they have been with since I got them are so sad they lost their mommies (the geese). It’s just hot and they need a deeper water pan to play in but I can’t do that with the other birds because they will drown. The geese are thrilled though lol


It does hurt. It felt like I got punched in the eye. And I sort of did, by a tiny pointed fist. And ended up with an equally small bruise on my eyelid. And they peck my teeth too. Even my chickens do that. Weirdos. I’m glad to hear it gets better. They are stinkers. I had to coax my goats outside using treats today because they are so afraid of the turkeys. The young chicks are faster than the turkey so they will usually just run. 

How funny that they were mean to the geese and then missed them. You just want to tell them to stop being jerks then. But you know if they could answer they’d insist they have no idea what you’re talking about. 

I’m glad the geese are happy now and can enjoy their new, deeper water in peace. Lol. 

I do have to admit, my turkeys figured out the communal water dish outside before my chickens. So even though I call them dumb (and they can be), I have a sneaking suspicion that they’re brighter than I think.
(It’s a good thing I read over this because I misspelled “communal” and autocorrect changed it to communist water dish. Lol.)



goathiker said:


> Well, try as I might I can't get the stupid tendon on the lame keet to pop back and stay. I'm going to try pushing it over and taping it's leg straight but, I think that it's a lost cause.
> 
> The chicken house and pen are getting started tomorrow.
> 
> One of the baby roosters is already trying to attack me at the brooder door. He should bring a good auction price.


Sorry about the keet. I hope taping it works, but it sounds like a really tough fix at this point. Poor thing. 

What type/style of new house and pen are you building for your chickens? I always like to collect ideas for the future. 

I can’t believe a baby rooster is already being aggressive. Yikes. The only rooster I’ve ever had was when I was a little kid and it took two people to gather eggs. One to collect the eggs and one to beat the rooster off with a snow shovel. He was horrible. Hated him so much that even as an adult, I’ve never had a rooster.


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## Calistar

Omg you guys are making turkeys sound terrifying 😆 

I served my cats a beautiful meal of fresh raw quail last night and (drumroll please) ...they all refused to eat it. Ugh! I'm not terribly surprised because I already knew my cats were horrible people. I will try boiling the next one and see if that helps, although I wanted them to have the benefit of all the nice crunchy bones and such. One of them, the elderly diabetic, likes to catch baby bunnies and eat their skulls first, so I thought he'd appreciate the quaily crunchies. Little snot. My dogs were more than happy to accept the quaily bits that the cats refused, but I really had been hoping to improve the cats' diets. The dogs already eat anything 😆


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## FizzyGoats

Calistar said:


> Omg you guys are making turkeys sound terrifying


I don’t call them my mafia for nothing. Lol. They are more bothersome than terrifying but they are a strange little crew. I hope they learn to give me some space. They want to be with me, I mean right with me all the time. I’m always sneaking away to get some peace or to be able to cuddle with my goats who won’t come near the turkeys. I can never hide from them for long though. 



Calistar said:


> I served my cats a beautiful meal of fresh raw quail last night and (drumroll please) ...they all refused to eat it. Ugh! I'm not terribly surprised because I already knew my cats were horrible people. I will try boiling the next one and see if that helps, although I wanted them to have the benefit of all the nice crunchy bones and such. One of them, the elderly diabetic, likes to catch baby bunnies and eat their skulls first, so I thought he'd appreciate the quaily crunchies. Little snot. My dogs were more than happy to accept the quaily bits that the cats refused, but I really had been hoping to improve the cats' diets. The dogs already eat anything


Lol. One of my two cats is also a horrible person. I can’t believe they snubbed fresh quail. Don’t they know it’s a delicacy? At least the dogs liked it.


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## AndersonRanch

I don’t think turkeys are as dumb as they let on. One minute I am at my wits end with the stupid they can do or get into and another minute later I am surprised with how smart they are. They fly over the fence but can’t figure out how to fly back over but yet they know how to go around and threw all the fences and gates to get to me when I am watering and they want to be with me. The momma hens are fine with all the other dogs but will attack the puppies because they chased them once but can’t remember their friend they haven’t seen in a week. They honestly kinda remind me of the goats lol very smart when they see fit to be very smart lol 
It looks like we are hitting our second wave of spring. Not the weather of course lol I have 4 broody turkey hens, two hatched out 3 babies the other day and my red sex link hatched out a chick. My old English went broody, I’m not sure if the eggs are any good since I kicked the Millie fluer out for being means I’ll have to candle them sneak some eggs under her if they are not good. I’m gonna have to put on my own poultry sale by the end of the year lol 
Man I can tell you my cats would be thrilled with the quail. But they are outside cats and would love a break from the ground squirrels (barf) I honestly don’t know what my daughters inside house cat would do with it though. He hasn’t had anything but cat food so I’m thinking he would put his nose up to it as well lol


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## FizzyGoats

AndersonRanch said:


> I don’t think turkeys are as dumb as they let on. One minute I am at my wits end with the stupid they can do or get into and another minute later I am surprised with how smart they are. They fly over the fence but can’t figure out how to fly back over but yet they know how to go around and threw all the fences and gates to get to me when I am watering and they want to be with me. The momma hens are fine with all the other dogs but will attack the puppies because they chased them once but can’t remember their friend they haven’t seen in a week. They honestly kinda remind me of the goats lol very smart when they see fit to be very smart lol
> It looks like we are hitting our second wave of spring. Not the weather of course lol I have 4 broody turkey hens, two hatched out 3 babies the other day and my red sex link hatched out a chick. My old English went broody, I’m not sure if the eggs are any good since I kicked the Millie fluer out for being means I’ll have to candle them sneak some eggs under her if they are not good. I’m gonna have to put on my own poultry sale by the end of the year lol
> Man I can tell you my cats would be thrilled with the quail. But they are outside cats and would love a break from the ground squirrels (barf) I honestly don’t know what my daughters inside house cat would do with it though. He hasn’t had anything but cat food so I’m thinking he would put his nose up to it as well lol


Oh my, more birdie babies! You are going to need an end of season sale. Lol. I didn’t even realize they’d go broody this time of year. 

My turkey mafia are being good little wise guys today. They had their moments of swarming me and not leaving me or the other animals alone. But the goats and I have been sitting in peace for a while now. 

The turkeys still do their pecking on occasion. Is this goat tail something yummy to eat? How about the dog’s toe? Or human eyeball? But they are being curious. Not mean. We have one who is still a jerk to the littles, the dog, and the goats. That is Hot Rod. It just seems to be Hot Rod’s nature to be a bully. Sweet to humans though. 

All the rest are getting used to being out and about with the other animals and seem to coexist fairly peacefully. They have calmed down a lot too. The first few days, they were just hyper. The excitement has apparently passed. And they are easier than the little chickens to get back to their pen when it’s time even though they wander farther. 

And so far I’d have to agree that they are smart when they want to be and very dumb when it will most frustrate and/or inconvenience me. 

I think my cats would eat quail. Not sure though, they don’t even eat the mice they kill. Just bring them to me, sometimes being so kind as to put their “present” on my pillow for me.


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## AndersonRanch

Well I am absolutely disgusted with pretty much the whole batch of chicks I have gotten this year. I have the one kennel for the older chicks and another for the older poults. I have a smaller kennel with a short wall to keep tiny ones from mid sized ones. I have tried to put the mid sized ones with the bigger ones and they all just jump on the new ones. So I can’t move them. The mid sized ones for the most part stay on their side but they can fly over if they want. 
Yesterday my mottled turkeys started to fly up on their bin. If they jump down they could be puppy food. So I took them out and put on the little side. The polish kinda puffed up at them but for the most part got along. Nothing was going on so went in the house. Came back out a hour later to check water and the one poult her head was a pecked mess on the back and the other is just gone! I don’t know if they ate her or if she somehow found a way out and ran away. I looked every place for her but can’t find her so I think I know the answer. I have the little saramas that need to be moved soon, and these last eggs eventually will have to go out so can’t really have murderous birds! So since they all like to pick on each other tomorrow I am kicking everyone out. Let them do their fighting where they have a chance to get away. I was so mad last night I was just going to open the gates but I had to work today and as mad as I am at them I don’t want them dead or really hurt so they all get booted tomorrow when I can break fights up if they get too bad. They are worse than goats on being mean to the new guy! At least they never ate the new guy before. Disgusting animals! But this is why I hate penning them up, they and I are always much happier when they are free to do their thing.


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## ksalvagno

I didn't know birds could be that bad.


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## FizzyGoats

That’s horrible. I’m sorry. I do hate the cannibalistic mean streak the birds seem to have. It’s my biggest fear with them. I mean, I know I will likely lose some to aerial predators because I have them out most the day but that somehow seems better than being pecked to death by pen mates, which could still happen because I have them penned all evening, night, and early morning. I’ve heard if you raise birds long enough, it’s going to happen. What a terrible thing to have to deal with.

So are you letting them all out?

I can’t imagine trying to juggle all the birds you have.


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## AndersonRanch

Birds are terrible! What makes me mad is I hear about how all these peoples chickens kill and eat mice but mine don’t do that. But yet they will eat one of their own. 
Well the other little poult died last night and one of my geese died. I have no idea what went wrong with the goose. No marks on it, was fine last night when I was showing them to my sister. She just curled up and died.
I went out with a 50 pound bag of feed and scattered it around and opened gates. It actually went really well! There wasn’t any chasing I’m going to kill you going on, just pecking get away from me. The medium sized birds just ran out and ate the leaves by the gate and ran back in lol which those are the ones I’m most mad about but I don’t want them cornered in there so I shut the gate and will work on them going out each day.
I was going to keep the favorites penned but got to thinking and they know where water is in the cages so I left it open for them to come and go. I’ll keep a eye on them today.
Well I sure won’t have to juggle them any more lol dang birds.


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## FizzyGoats

I’m sorry about your poult. Poor thing. Sorry about the goose too. That is so odd. I wonder what on earth could have happened to her. 

Sounds like the transition to free ranging started pretty smoothly. I hope it goes well and is safer for the birds and less hassle for you. 

My lone hen, Amelia, has decided to join the mafia. She’s forced to be with my young chickens all night, but when everyone is out during the day, she hangs with the turkeys. Not sure what drove her to such life decisions, but what can you do but love them?


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## goathiker

Metzer sent me a cross bill runner duck. Darn them, it's no good for maintaining the fire breaks if it can't graze.
They are sending a new one with a mixed breed for company. I might have gotten someone in trouble. This is so rare in ducks that they should have caught it though.


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## goathiker

Back in the day lol
We would put a net onion bag in a metal bucket and pour all the pork and beef grease from cooking into it. The bag would be hung out in the chicken house to keep them from pecking on each other.

If you want your chickens to eat mice you need to trap a few and give them the dead mice. Once they know that they are food they will chase them down.


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## AndersonRanch

I’ll try that! Although maybe when the wild cats I have collected have moved on. I have one really good cat that is a crazy rodent killer so I don’t want them taking her food away lol 
I’m sorry about the duck. But that’s good that they are sending one to replace it. I have a cross beak chick that I didn’t realize had it until recently. I highly doubt they will replace it at this point, but I have learned check everyone over REALLY well when I first get them. I was just more focused on butts more then anything.
Well “chicken run” went very well today! They all stayed close to their homes and the bigger birds did their normal thing away from them. They all went back in their cages on their own and I just shut the gate once it got dark. Now I’m wondering why I waited so long!
Sooo this fermented thing, can we revisit that? So you do this with scratch? Is it suggested to do it in the summer time since I was under the impression scratch makes them hot? Someone brought it up on a group on FB but it’s a judgmental rude group so wasn’t going to ask on there lol


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## ksalvagno

You usually ferment seed, I believe. Is it all seed in scratch? I used to sprout grain long time ago but it got too time consuming for me.


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## FizzyGoats

@goathiker I’m going to try that dead mice thing with my chickens. I had no idea they’d eat them. 

I wonder if it would work for turkeys? Do they eat things like that or are they more grazers? 

Trying the fermenting is still on my list. If you’re wanting to sprout the food, I’d imagine seed would be best. I actually did this for a while but not correctly and ended up with mold. For fermenting, I think you use feed (maybe scratch would work too). I’m pretty clueless. From my understanding, you can ferment their feed by soaking it in water and keeping the water level just above the food. 

@AndersonRanch, I’m glad the chicken run is going well, lol. And I feel the same way. I don’t know why I waited so long to let my birds out during the day. It’s going a lot better than I thought (knock on wood) and has been fairly easy to get everyone back to their houses for the night. 

And please forgive my ignorance, but what does cross bill/beak mean? Is it that their beak doesn’t close properly, like the top and bottom aren’t aligned?


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## Calistar

The dead mouse thing did not work for me. Been there, done that! My chickens were offended 😋 

With fermenting, a lot of people use whole grains. I use crumble or pellets but I have found the pellets go much further. (A 50 lb bag is a 50 lb bag, but somehow the pellets makes more?) For a while I was mixing some scratch in too but most of it would float and get poured out with the excess water, so I stopped incorporating it.


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## goathiker

My turkeys are the ones who taught the chickens to kill mice in my first mixed flock. 

A cross beak, yes it doesn't meet properly and can be so bad that one lip is sideways to the other. 
In chickens it gets worse with growth and is a genetic defect. In ducks it appears to be a hatching injury but, I can't find much information on it. 

The duckling seems to have figured out eating and drinking. If she can survive with the flock without a lot of special needs then she can stay. If not I'll give her to someone who wants to care for her.


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## Calistar

goathiker said:


> My turkeys are the ones who taught the chickens to kill mice in my first mixed flock.


So we arrive again at the conclusion that Calistar needs turkeys.... 🤔


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## FizzyGoats

So maybe I’ll give dead mice to my turkeys instead. They can then teach the chickens. Birds are so interesting. 

I hope the little cross bill can eat and thrive so you can keep that one and have the two they’re sending to make up for their mistake. 

@Calistar, it sounds like you need to try out turkeys…at least once. And I usually let Jessica be the bad influence on you, lol.


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## AndersonRanch

I agree get 1 or 2 and worse case you have thanksgiving and Christmas diner lol I don’t think mine eat mice though. I’m not sure but I can say I have never seen a mouse in their coop and they just stood there and watched it run like the chickens have lol they have killed a snake though. They didn’t eat it but pecked it to death. 
So far 2 of my 4 tolbunt eggs have hatched this morning. This is the end of incubating and so far the two are tolbunts lol one other egg has piped and the 4th we will see if it hatched, the air cell looked kinda wonky when I candled them. After this then I need to figure out how to clean the incubator and that will be all until next year. And I got some of the polish cross pictures. I have a few more that look more silkie but haven’t been able to get pictures of them yet















And because I actually had my phone on me here are my tolbunts







and my golden laced buddy








Got it on the fermented. They made it seem like the only way to really do the fermented thing was with scratch. I like the idea of the layer pellets and if I can find enough tubs hopefully I can do that for them and just leave it out for them free choice. I think they are all out of things to eat out there except for the few odd balls that like eating leaves.


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## ksalvagno

Those Tolbunts are so cool!


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## FizzyGoats

Those are some neat looking birds! And your golden laced one just looks like a sweetie.


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## AndersonRanch

Oh it posted the same silkie, here is the other one








I really like the little polish, they are super friendly too, not as much as the golden laced but pretty close. Hopefully I have both sexes in the mix (fingers crossed)


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## goathiker

Polish are kind of easy to get a feel for. The girls have neat 60s bouffant hair and the boys look like punk rockers. 
I see a pair of Tolbunts and a golden laced cockerel.


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## goathiker

Do watch your mannerisms. The Polish roos are little butts lol.


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## FizzyGoats

Bouffants and punks. Lol. Polish are quite interesting. 

Are all these chickens going to free range? Do they cross breed? Or do you keep the ones you are wanting to have certain offspring from separate?


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## AndersonRanch

I’m going to make sure my Cochins and puff heads have their own cage for sure. I have my anconas and then I got speckled Sussex and mottled Java’s this year so might put them all together too. The rest will just be for eggs so they can do their own thing. I usually lock them up around kidding time because they love to roost on my stalls and crap on them and new born kids. And it’s always fun trying to get into a doe in labor and have them flapping in my face. So that’s usually when the fun of free ranging stops 
I will probably still get rid of some of the chickens I have now, I’m just not letting them go for $2 and $3


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## FizzyGoats

I wonder if you sell them as a bundle deal if you’d get better money. I’m not sure what all you’re selling and if they can be sold together, but someone wanting to start their own fun flock might be apt to buy a half dozen or dozen at once. 

One of my toms got an unwelcome backside washing today because he was a little dirty. I’m just so paranoid about flystrike now that I have a clean bum policy. Turns out his backside was pretty clean and he’s likely been on a lower roost and got pooped on and that’s why his tail feather were dirty. Either way, he’s cleaner now. 

My turkeys and dog have a weird relationship. They love him. He loves them. It’s just a strange bond forming.


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## AndersonRanch

I think what the issue is is I’m not the only one that went chicken crazy lol I’m sure people are all stocked up on chickens at the moment. But that’s ok I’ll hang onto them for now and before winter really hits I’ll try and get rid of some more. If not I have 4 extra shelter logic car ports since I cut down on my goat so I can turn those into coops if I need to. Well 3 since I bring my “special” few cows up and put them in the one goat pasture in the winter. 
I love the picture of the dog and birds! That is a very special thing you have going on there. It reminds my of my Queensland border collie. He is a working dog, as in he really does work and herd, but he loves his goats. He gets little antsy when I load or unload the goats in a trailer but other then that he thinks those are his friends. 
What kind of dog is she/he?


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## FizzyGoats

He is a mutt from a rescue and when we had his DNA tested, it came back about 1/2 mastiff, 1/4 dane and about an 1/8 each of Weimaraner and boxer. He should be horrible with all the livestock but he’s soooo good. Only dog I’ve never had to bird train. Gentle with them every moment. And he’s big and playful and loves to play chase, he just somehow knows not to do it with the goats and birds. He’s even started alerting to aerial threats. I don’t know how we got so lucky, but I’m very grateful. 

I had a border collie when I was a kid. Man that dog was smart. Loved her. But Benji (that’s my guy’s name) is just a pet, not a real working dog. We just lucked out that he happens to be a great farm dog.


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## Moers kiko boars

Hey guys...I GOT CHICKENS! I know NOTHING! LOL lol I bought 11 Easter Eggers, 3 Buff Orphingtons & 3 Rhode Island Reds. Ive been reading this string & I love it. I will be getting Turkeys &.Im going to try Peacocks too. So....I hope you dont mind answering questions. Thanks in advance!


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## AndersonRanch

Surprisingly my Weimaraner was EXCELLENT with birds. He never harmed them. Now kittens when they hissed at him he was paw to death trying to play back . The boxer I recently lost was good with birds as well. She was the puppies mom so I don’t get why they are so terrible about the birds. Mom was good with them, dad just pretends he doesn’t even see them and then I have these little devil bird chasers. But they got their shock callers on so the down right dirty training will start. They need to be even slightly trust worthy with the birds.
Yay! Welcome to the club! See I have turned you to the dark side of turkeys too lol let me know next year if you want to hatch them out, if you don’t want specific varieties, I’ll send you some eggs. I’m probably going to keep most of my hens from this year. I was drowning in eggs just with the 19 hens, I can’t imagine what it’s going to be like with I don’t even know how many hens……I have that many, I don’t even know the number now lol


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## FizzyGoats

Moers kiko boars said:


> Hey guys...I GOT CHICKENS! I know NOTHING! LOL lol I bought 11 Easter Eggers, 3 Buff Orphingtons & 3 Rhode Island Reds. Ive been reading this string & I love it. I will be getting Turkeys &.Im going to try Peacocks too. So....I hope you dont mind answering questions. Thanks in advance!


Oh good, someone I can know nothing with. Lol. I’m only slightly ahead of you. The chickens were so much easier than the turkey poults when really young. But the turkeys quirky personalities and desire to interact us is winning me over. Even though sometimes they are so wanting to interact that I have to hide from them to get some peace. 



AndersonRanch said:


> Surprisingly my Weimaraner was EXCELLENT with birds. He never harmed them. Now kittens when they hissed at him he was paw to death trying to play back . The boxer I recently lost was good with birds as well. She was the puppies mom so I don’t get why they are so terrible about the birds. Mom was good with them, dad just pretends he doesn’t even see them and then I have these little devil bird chasers. But they got their shock callers on so the down right dirty training will start. They need to be even slightly trust worthy with the birds.


 First, it is crazy those dogs were good around birds from everything I’ve read. But isn’t it nice when they are the good side of unusual? And second, I can’t believe the pups are so naughty when the parents weren’t. 



AndersonRanch said:


> Yay! Welcome to the club! See I have turned you to the dark side of turkeys too lol let me know next year if you want to hatch them out, if you don’t want specific varieties, I’ll send you some eggs. I’m probably going to keep most of my hens from this year. I was drowning in eggs just with the 19 hens, I can’t imagine what it’s going to be like with I don’t even know how many hens……I have that many, I don’t even know the number now lol


Jessica, the bad influence. Lol. I just can’t wait to know how many hens I have. Not many. Too many toms to keep, which is sort of sad because they are the friendliest ones. I’m sure once they reach maturity and start fighting, it’ll be less sad. 

Our only real trouble maker turkey is Hot Rod (named after the movie about an untalented stuntman who thinks he’s awesome and is constantly getting hurt). Hot Rod does dumb stuff and gets hurt, hence the name. Hot Rod also picks on the other animals. Very irritating. But, that dumb bird (who were worried is a hen because we need to keep any hens we have), has the closest bond with Benji. Benji loves them all, but there’s just this weird connection between him and Hot Rod. They even nap together and like to buddy up through the day. 

Here’s Benji and Hot Rod today.


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## Moers kiko boars

Ill take any eggs you want to send. I do have an incubator. Ill pay you for the eggs. Just let me know.


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## Moers kiko boars

Awww thats adorable. @FizzyGoats ..thats Great! Ill share that dunce Chicken hat with ya! Im always willing to learn, if you got patience, I got questions! Lol lol


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## FizzyGoats

I’ve learned nearly as much about poultry as I have about goats thanks to the people on this thread. And I’m glad they were here to talk me off the ledge when I had a bad streak of poultry problems. 

So what’s your plan with your new, diverse flock? Are they chicks? You already have more birds than I do. I have 5 young chickens, 1 adult hen (all Rhode Island Reds) and 8 turkeys (Bourbon Reds). All my young ones (turkeys and chickens) will be 12 weeks old on Wednesday.


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## Moers kiko boars

My first goal is to keep them alive!!🥴 I want fresh eggs and if I get too many roosters,well, chicken -n-noodles! I want Turkeys and I love the guard dog Peacocks! I really enjoy the pest control that poultry does. They are enjoyable and fun to watch. So mainley enjoyment and then food. If I get good at raising them ,then maybe I could sell a few.


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## FizzyGoats

Same here. I enjoy animals, so don’t mind adding them. I want eggs (chickens, I don’t have any males) and meat (turkeys). Veggies (garden). Cheese and soap (goats). Ta-da. So easy. Yeah right. Lol. I’m starting to think buying babies of everything was taking the long road that only people with my terrible sense of direction would take. At least the garden gives its bounty quickly. 

I’d love to see a pic of your new feathered friends.


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## goathiker

Since everyone's counting... I have (deep breath)

For my breed project 
6 Toppy
6 Ameraucana (real ones)
7 brown Leghorn 
1 Toppy and 1 Leghorn are known roosters. 

For sale 
3 Speckled Sussex (pullets)
3 Buff Rocks (pullets)
4 Buff Brahma (breeding quad)

For maintaining the fire breaks
5 dark Brahma 
3 light Brahma 
1 buff Brahma 
3 runner ducks 
1 unknown duck (in the mail, long story)
1 Chinese white goose (will have company next year)

Old flock 
1 Australorp roo 
1 Austra-white 
1 sapphire rock
1 blue Leghorn 
These range from 2 to 8. 

Oh, and 2 khaki Campbell ducks for eggs. 

There will be more culling as my breeding process gets going. 
I buy the boxes, raise almost to point of lay. Then break them into town sized groups, and sell through the Eugene Livestock Exchange. 
It usually pays me back feed and shipping on what I keep.


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## ksalvagno

What do you mean by maintain fire breaks and how do they do that? I'm assuming you mean an area that fire shouldn't cross but wasn't positive.


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## goathiker

Okay so, my pasture runs beside the highway in the front. I keep an 8 foot wide strip mowed to reduce pressure on that fence and people would then have to throw a cigarette 16 feet to hit the longer pasture plants. 
We are no longer allowed to mow du5ring the summer months from July until it rains again. 
These will be pastured there to destroy the grass by eating, trampling, and pooping. The Brahma are big enough that the hawks leave them alone and are voracious free ranging. The Asian ducks and geese live almost completely off of grass. 
If it works, I can throw away my grass whip.


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## FizzyGoats

Wow. That’s a lot and a huge variety. I’m amazed at how you all can keep them straight and keep them alive. 

I had no idea birds could be used for a firebreak. That’s pretty ingenious.


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## ksalvagno

That is great they eat so much grass.


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## Tanya

Hens thrive off grass and the bugs under it. The scratch it up causing a fire break. They kill growth very quickly. You all have such lovely variety of birds


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## Moers kiko boars

Ok @FizzyGoats ..heres me conglomerate of pullets
11 Easter Eggers
3 Buff Orphingtons 
3 Rhode Island Reds
Or so I was told.


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## FizzyGoats

Oh, they’re still so cute and little. I love it. And bonus points for the Diet Dr Pepper waterer. I think that’s my most favorite chick waterer I’ve ever seen.


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## Moers kiko boars

Welll I dont want my girls to worry about the calories they are drinking! 🤪 😜


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## AndersonRanch

Fizzygoat knows more then she lets on, if you remember right we all were baffled over the sour crop. I actually don’t know much about poultry I have just had good luck with them. 
Moers that looks like a good variety of babies you have there. You should have an ice colorful batch of eggs when they start laying. I’m still jealous over your green grass by the way lol
And I thought I was the only one that used the birds for a fire break. We feed the 40 around the houses off with the cows, the goats keep their pens fed down but cows and goats in the yard end up with cows and goats causing issues so I have the birds to keep things down. I just move where I feed them around until it’s all knocked down. The chances of a fire actually making it to the yard is slim but I like the extra security and all I have to do is feed them.


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## Moers kiko boars

Well my friend @AndersonRanch ..you wont need to be jealous long. Its burning up with our high.90s feeling like 106°. So..my girls are enjoying it while it lasts. 
I do have a newbie question?¿ How much feed should I be giving my chicks? Im filling a cottage cheese container 2xs a day. There are 17 pullets. And the food is always gone. Is that ok? Do they need more?


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## goathiker

I like your buff rocks but, I don't see a feathered foot anywhere near that group.


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## goathiker

Wait, I was thinking of Cochin. Sorry, had to put DH on a plane at 3 AM. 

I'll try to get pictures of my new chicken house for you fizzy.


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## FizzyGoats

So Jessica is giving me too much credit, any at all is really too much. Lol. But when I had my chicks I kept food in front of them 24/7, letting them eat as much as they wanted. I don’t know if this was the right thing to do but I read they’ll only eat the chick feed until full. Keeping the food constantly in front of them makes it so the less dominant less food crazy ones get their fill too.


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## ksalvagno

I've always just kept constant food out for my chickens.


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## Moers kiko boars

Thankyou..I will do that. I will get more feeders and put them in their run.


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## Calistar

Has anyone heard of or used azolla as chicken feed? I work at a nursery and we got in some water hyacinth that had "duckweed" on it. I could tell it wasn't actual duckweed but didn't know what it was, so I looked it up and it is azolla, aka fairy fern or duckweed fern. It is an aquatic plant that behaves like duckweed and has a ferny look. Naturally, I saw it and thought "I wonder if I can feed that to anything" 😆 Doing a little quick research, I discovered that it's used as a feed for livestock and poultry in the Philippines, Vietnam, etc. It spreads rapidly and can be invasive, but it sounds like it has potential in a contained system. I picked all of it out of the water hyacinth and brought it home to give it a try! Anything I can add to my chickens's diet to help cut my feed bill is welcome!

In other news, the eggs I have in the incubator (mostly greens, some blue, and a couple Welsummer from my own flock) were supposed to hatch in a couple of days...but I came home from work to find 3 chicks hatched already!


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## FizzyGoats

You’ve got some early birds.  I hope the rest hatch out just as easily. 

I’ve never heard of that plant but I’m as bad at plants as I am at poultry. I do look at everything differently. Every scrap, every piece of a plant I’m harvesting out of the garden, I’m googling if I can feed it to my birds or goats.


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## AndersonRanch

I know nothing about plants lol I can’t keep them alive, well except for some succulents but got fruit gnat things so sadly I tossed those suckers.
Yay on the baby chicks! Just so you know early means the temp is a little high. Mine is too but doesn’t seem to cause a issue so I leave it be. And where are our pictures?
Well sadly geese just were not meant to be for me. The other goose did the same thing as the first one. Just laid down and died in the night and was totally fine the evening before. My son is so very crushed over it. We probably won’t try it again


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## Calistar

I guess I'll be the guinea pig on the azolla then! I'll let you know how it works out! I think my little punk ingrate chickens are getting tired of the fermented feed (my chicks still love it though!) and my bug colonies aren't strong enough to start harvesting yet, and i still need some parts for my fodder system before I can get that back up and running. It would be nice to have something to add to their diet for a little variety in the meantime!

I suppose that makes sense on the temperature! It's a HovaBator Genesis forced air incubator with temperature control and humidity display, and it's saying my temps are 99-100 degrees. The room it's in stays fairly warm but it is my only option. I'll try to get pictures later 😋

I'm so sorry about your geese! That is the strangest thing. Mine were hardy and healthy from day one, I don't think they're supposed to be finicky birds. Maybe there was something else going on with them, some congenital issue maybe? I hope you'll try them again one day, they are really neat birds!


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## ksalvagno

Sorry about the geese.


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## goathiker

One of mine just played down and died last month. My research showed that feeding them like ducks doesn't work. They require game bird starter for 3 weeks, then flock raiser with added niacin until full grown. Adult geese need grass, lots of grass, some whole grains, and all flock.

Maybe not your issue but thought I'd share. I'm not terribly happy with metzer this year anyway. They sent 2 more chocolate ducklings and one of them is like the tiniest thing I've ever seen. It's spunky though and not deformed. 

The deformed duckling is much worse now. She is definitely not going to be able to graze or pick up food off the ground. 
Both her and the Guinea either need a pet home or put down I think. They would needlessly suffer in my system.


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## FizzyGoats

@AndersonRanch I’m sorry about your geese. I feel so bad for your son.

And I can’t keep house plants alive either. I’m fine with the garden, just nothing in a pot inside. Outside plants I seem to have fewer issueswith (probably because even if I ignore them, nature is not nearly as neglectful). 

@goathiker, that’s a shame about the duckling and the guinea. It’s lucky you know your system and what will thrive. No reason for them to suffer, like you said. At least the tiny duck as part of the replacement pair is feisty. Hopefully it’ll grow bigger and work out for you. 



80% of the time, my turkey mafia is no real trouble. They stroll around, always in a tight group, doing as they please. Then 20% of the time they are relentless bullies. One will just get fixated on another animal and be so mean. I have gotten great at throwing small pebbles and nailing the one who just won’t quit. I understand squabbles happen, but this is weird. It’s like a turkey gets obsessed with picking on either another turkey, a chick, or a goat. It takes a lot to snap them out of it, but once I manage, they are fine again. 

I had one of the young toms flap at me and stick his chest out, trying to jump and bump me like he’s the boss. I had my back to him when he did this and I turned around and stomped on the ground right in front of him. He turned from big and bad to flighty and submissive quickly. Ran away a little then came back to me with his head lower. So I have no idea what this actually means, but I gather that he was accepting (for now) that I’m above him in the pecking order.


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## AndersonRanch

I wonder if not having grass is where it all went wrong. Makes sense too because anything that looked hairy like grass they were always trying to eat. I had to move them away from the other birds because they would pluck the Cochins and silkies half to death. I don’t think I’ll do geese again. 
Yes try a let home for the duck. Most people keep their birds caged and can give her a deep pan of feed so I don’t think you will have any issue finding a home for her. 
This cross beak one of mine is dumb as heck. I put the Cochins and puff heads and the favorite in a cage and she is the one that is right there at the gate every morning and zooms out when I open the gate. She is getting quite annoying. I don’t mind dealing with a chicken that needs a cage but having to chase her down every morning is getting so very old.


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## Moers kiko boars

@AndersonRanch ..sorry about the geese. I feel for your son. A heifer, now his goose dies? Poor guy!


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## AndersonRanch

Lol we are over being upset about the heifer since she is so dang cute and growing like a weed! We are happy to add her to the herd.


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## Calistar

I don't think it was the lack of grass. Being in California, our grass comes up in the winter (if we get rain) but it's gone by April or so. I never even see my geese eat the grass that does come up. They do like to pull leaves and immature fruit off the fruit trees though. I used to feed lay crumble to my duck/goose/bachelor rooster flock, then switched to all flock, now I'm back to 16% layer pellets because I had to cut costs. Mine came from Metzer but it was probably 4 years ago or so. I'm not sure why you are having trouble with them ☹


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## AndersonRanch

I have no idea what went wrong either and I have no idea where the geese came from. I got them from the feed store so who knows what hatchery or person that breeds geese they came from. My son wants more, I’m saying no but we will see about next year. I’m thinking it will be a no or maybe make a deal to get rid of the ducks to try geese again. I do have to say the ducks are not a problem (yet) but they are not even remotely friendly either. I just look at them and see little vacuums sucking up feed for no reason lol and the girl is SO loud! I really don’t care about loud all that much except she never shuts up even at night and I’m worried she will bring in predators. They should be safe from just about everything buck bobcats. With them now being on the protected list and not able to shoot them they are getting more brave and IMO already slightly over populated. I have seen 4 dead on the road in the last month. 
I’ll get pictures in a bit but it looks like 2 of my new tolbunt chicks are frizzled! I am so very excited about that!


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## FizzyGoats

I had no idea ducks were so loud. And more frizzled chicks, yay!

My chickens are quiet. Actually, my young ones don’t even know how to sound like chickens yet. They try every once in a while, but the noise is muffled and weird. When are they supposed to learn to balk-balk? 

My turkeys constantly make their little noises. When I’m talking to my daughter on the phone, she says they sound like aliens communicating. I think their little noises are sweet. We do have a few toms who will gobble now. But that’s just on occasion and for some reason, I crack up laughing when they do it.


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## ksalvagno

I had a terrible day. Started out great. Went to a local plant sale and got some really nice plants cheap. Also got some "zoo brew" which is compost from Columbus Zoo that is incredible fertilizer. Then I got home. Saw a fox in our backyard and thought it was strange. Went outside and found 5 dead chickens in the goat pasture. The goats apparently didn't scare the fox and must have been in the barn. So now I'm down to 5 hens and the rooster. Of course the fox killed all my "pretty" hens. I'm sure hoping for some hens from this hatch coming up.


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## AndersonRanch

Oh no I am SO SORRY that happened. It is always the pretty and favorite ones too. What a total jerk to just kill them. We don’t have many foxes here and have never had a issue with one but to just kill them is total crap. I will cross my fingers for all hens from your eggs. How much longer do you have on the eggs?


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## ksalvagno

Aug 3 is the hatch date. I'm going to candle for the last time tonight then lockdown.


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## FizzyGoats

Oh no! That’s terrible. Why do predators always take the favorite ones? I’ve lost hens to aerial predators. I showed up moments too late, which scared off the predatory bird. That made me feel worse. I’d rather have the carcass eaten than go to waste. But I’ve lost two hens to dogs as well and they were not hungry. And I was right there and it happened in seconds. It sucked. They weren’t my dogs and now no one is allowed to bring their animals here. I of course hated losing my hens to aerial predators but at least they were hunting for food. It’s such a tougher pill to swallow when it was for fun. 

I hope you hatch lots of hens. How did it go when you candled the eggs?


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## ksalvagno

Thanks. The candling went well I think. I ended up seeing veins in all the eggs so I just left all 12 in there. I ended up adding 2 little sponge pieces in the water area to work on increasing humidity. The last time I checked on the eggs, I saw an egg move when it heard me talking. Kind of neat!


----------



## Calistar

Oh no! I am so sorry about your hens! It's like predators know which ones are the favorites and single those out! Hoping for an excellent hatch for your eggs and lots of hens!

Today was day 21 and no further activity from my incubator. Just those original 3 that hatched a couple of days ago. I still have about 10 eggs in there so we shall see.


----------



## ksalvagno

I sure hope the rest of your eggs hatch


----------



## Tanya

Sorry your hens got chomped. Remember. Tame birds are the easiest prey. They dont just scare.


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## Moers kiko boars

Pictures of Frizled please! And explain what that.means for a chicken. To me its whrn my hair i ssd blown dry, full of static electricity , and Im trying to get it to calm down. 😱


----------



## Calistar

Moers kiko boars said:


> Pictures of Frizled please! And explain what that.means for a chicken. To me its whrn my hair i ssd blown dry, full of static electricity , and Im trying to get it to calm down. 😱


I mean, that's pretty much what it looks like on a chicken too 😆

It's a trait where the feathers curl forward. It's neat, but I've always stayed away from frizzles just because to me, the poofy feathering make them look sick, like how an unwell bird will fluff up.


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## AndersonRanch

Lol I do have to agree with you on looking sickly. I do like frizzle polish and silkies though. The sarama I think he just looks stupid goofy. But I would have been ok if he was “normal” 
Here are the frizzle tolbunts. They are not super frizzled just yet














and here is the little sarama hes more puffed


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## ksalvagno

So cute!


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## FizzyGoats

Bad hair day birds. So flippin cute!


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## Moers kiko boars

Yep...thats what my hair looks like...just not that cute! Its adorable on those little guys!💗


----------



## Cedarwinds Farm

So... I've been following this thread from afar, and decided to jump on.  It's no longer spring, but I got the call around 6 this morning that my chickies were in at the post office!
The chicks that I had started this spring all got killed a few days ago when something got into their pen at night. Whatever it was killed all of them, but only ate a few. I was so mad, as it just seems like such a waste to kill what you're not going to eat! I am putting one of the dogs down there at night, now, and have not had any more trouble so far. Whatever it was that got my chickens, did not get my guinea keets. They are all still looking good. I'm thankful for that, as I think guineas are much harder to raise, and the keets are more pricey if you have to buy them.
Fortunately, McMurray, which I had already been considering ordering from next year, had several hatchings of chicks available this week, so Mom and I got online and picked out our new flock! We got a few different varieties. Black stars and red stars, which should be big egg production birds, barred rocks, black australorps, sort of in memory of my great-grandfather, as those were his favorites, one speckled sussex, just for pretty  and McMurray threw in a funky little Polish chick for free. Probably a rooster. 
I don't think I've ever started chicks in the summer before, and I think it's actually going to be very nice, because the temperatures are so warm, I won't have to worry too much about them getting chilled. I will say, they all arrived in very excellent shape, and are acting vigorous, eating and drinking well, so I'm impressed with McMurray so far!


----------



## ksalvagno

Sorry about your chicks that got killed but what a bunch of cute fluff butts you have.


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## Cedarwinds Farm

ksalvagno said:


> Sorry about your chicks that got killed but what a bunch of cute fluff butts you have.


Thank you! I just read about your chicken losses, too. I'm sorry!


----------



## Moers kiko boars

Awwww @Caileigh Jane Smith those are some cute fluffies for sure. Im sorry the loss of your others.


----------



## FizzyGoats

Caileigh, I’m sorry you lost all your chicks. It’s hard enough to lose them to a predator but one that kills for sport and not food is an even harder hit. 
Your new crew sure is cute! I love that little floofy stage. I bet summer raising is going to be nice. I was a worried mess always trying to keep mine from getting chilled.


----------



## AndersonRanch

Caileigh Jane Smith I am so sorry about your chicks. That is so devastating  poultry seems to be the hardest to protect because it seems everything is a threat to them. I’m with you though it’s a waste and just crap they only just killed them. Not like it would suck any less for you.
You picked out some good breeds there! We love our red star. She is a good layer and is so easy to handle. The kids and I are always fighting over who’s chicken she is. She is mine lol I don’t know how they forgot they picked the Dominique and black sex link and I was the one that picked the red star lol but that’s ok we all enjoy her. 
My sister loves summer chicks. She says she has better luck with them then any other time of the year and there is less wait time for eggs. I think no matter when I get chicks they seem to be free loaders the first year  but a huge congrats on the chicks!


----------



## FizzyGoats

One of my turkeys just did the oddest thing. I’m sitting outside with the animals and they stole my shoe (rude, but not the odd part). As most of the turkeys were pecking at my shoe that they took far enough away that I can’t reach it (it’s too hot and I’m too lazy to get up right now) a tom was just hanging out by me then tilted his head like he was staring at my lap and getting an up close view. Then he made this strange sound between a whistle and a hiss. I realize he is looking down with one eye but the other is directly facing the sky. Sure enough, I follow his gaze and high above is a large bird circling. It was high enough I couldn’t tell what it was. But once he made that sound, all the other turkeys froze until he decided it wasn’t a threat. 

I’d never heard that noise from any of the turkeys before and I’ve heard a lot of strange ones, including panting and hisses along with all their curious little songs and gobbles. The soft whistle/hiss was new for me and I’m so glad he’s watching the skies. I also didn’t know they would watch for aerial predators since they haven’t yet encountered one. My chickens didn’t until about the third attack. Is it just instinctual for turkeys to watch for threats from above?


----------



## ksalvagno

That is cool. A guard turkey!


----------



## Tanya

You are so fortunate. My little rooster is the warning signal here. He normally crows fairly softly. But as soon as something larger than a pigeon is in the air he actually screetches. It sounds just like something killing a cat.

Turkeys are actually really good at it. Especially the Toms. You are so blessed to see it in action.


----------



## AndersonRanch

Yes!!! The turkeys are awesome! The pair I had years back I went to go feed the goats and Tom was all over me making odd noises and cutting me off. I thought he was looking at me as a girlfriend so I would push him aside and keep going. I looked in the tree and there was a “bird”. Ran in the house and got the gun and shot it. It got stuck half way down so figured I would take care of it when I got done feeding. Fed got my son and a long pole and it was gone. The Tom was all over me again. I finally looked under the tree and that dang thing flew at me. He went off, I screamed and ducked and the stupid thing never showed back up again lol I always know when something is around that isnt supposed to be, they let me know. A large bird flies by and I hear them, that’s actually how I saved my little silkie hen from a hawk. The cows come close to the house and they go off, even if my sister and her kids come to visit they know they don’t belong. Right now though I’m hoping they chill out about my twin bottle calf lol 
So I have a funny story. I have my seramas in a rabbit cage right now. One of my Ancona hens had a nest about 30 feet from them. Something got her eggs and now she stands at the saramas and doesn’t let anyone near them. She thinks those are her babies! I have one of those crap tractor supply chicken coops, you know the one, super cute, cost a arm and a leg but cheaply made, and I got wire for it today and hopefully get her and them in the cage together. She won’t leave that little cage to go eat and the rabbit cage is too small for her. But it will be funny to see how the babies do with her because I don’t think they look at her as mom at all! Poor mama chicken


----------



## Tanya

Chicken mommas are so funny. My chickens have decided the egg coup is not good enough. So now my goats have been evicted out of the dog kennel and its doubling as a roost. They ALL lay in there. NO ONE is laying any where else. 🤦‍♀️. Yet. I cannot tell who is broody.


----------



## Cedarwinds Farm

I'm chuckling at all these great chicken and turkey stories! 
We currently have a barred rock rooster that someone gave us. He has been great so far with everything except the dogs. I had the chickens and the dogs all out with me a couple days ago, and the rooster walked up to the dogs, resting peacefully in the shade, and started pecking them. Poor dogs hadn't done a thing to deserve that! So now I can't let the chickens and the dogs out at the same time, as apparently, the rooster is not happy to share what he considers to be 'his' territory. 😅


----------



## Cedarwinds Farm

AndersonRanch said:


> Caileigh Jane Smith I am so sorry about your chicks. That is so devastating  poultry seems to be the hardest to protect because it seems everything is a threat to them. I’m with you though it’s a waste and just crap they only just killed them. Not like it would suck any less for you.
> You picked out some good breeds there! We love our red star. She is a good layer and is so easy to handle. The kids and I are always fighting over who’s chicken she is. She is mine lol I don’t know how they forgot they picked the Dominique and black sex link and I was the one that picked the red star lol but that’s ok we all enjoy her.
> My sister loves summer chicks. She says she has better luck with them then any other time of the year and there is less wait time for eggs. I think no matter when I get chicks they seem to be free loaders the first year  but a huge congrats on the chicks!


Thanks! I'm glad that you like your red star! We've had other egg production varieties, but this is the first time with the red stars, so I'm glad to hear that yours is good!
@Moers kiko boars 
@FizzyGoats 
Thanks for the sympathy. I'm sure we all know the saying, if you have livestock, at some point, you'll also have dead stock...but sometimes it hits a little harder.


----------



## FizzyGoats

Turkeys and chickens are odd little creatures. I love all the stories shared here. And I’m glad to hear turkeys are naturally alert and watching (my chickens took forever to learn this and I don’t know if the little ones are learning it from my one remaining adult hen or not but I hope so). 

So I have a question for you all. I think I have 3 toms and 5 hens. I want to them to breed so I have a new crop of turkeys next year. If I’m right about the 5 hens, should I only keep 1 tom? Or should I keep 2 to have one as an alternate, so to speak? Or will two just fight too much and over breed with 5 hens?


----------



## Tanya

More than 1 male will be a territory thing. But seeing our neighbors turkey they pretty much have 2 toms with 7 hens... no real ruckus


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## AndersonRanch

My boys hardly ever fight. Actually they only fought when I gave my brother the more dominant Tom and they had to establish who was the new king. They all hand out together and strut and now know blue is king. If you want to hang onto all the boys then I say give it a try. The worst I see happening is they might over breed the girls and they might go bald and eventually get sores on their backs. That didn’t really happen with mine and I had 4 toms to start with. If you do start seeing some named backs you could either pull the toms or get the hens (or make) breeding saddles to protect them.
My vote is keep at least 2 just in case one is no good. I was looking at all my poults yesterday and in order from most dominate to least I have a bourbon red, blue slate, Royal palm and a black slate. I don’t have a single Royal palm poult out there, even have a few black slate so I don’t think my Royal palm Tom is any good. 
But turkey hens are not like chicken hens where they have to be chased down to breed. The turkey hens lay down and wait for the Tom to breed them, so it’s not so…….rude on the breeding lol


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## FizzyGoats

Lol, good to know the breeding isn’t as rude. These are things I just don’t know as a complete noob. I think one tom will be thanksgiving dinner, but I do think I’ll keep two toms as long as they don’t fight too much or over breed the hens. They are all sweet, so it’s not an easy decision. Only one hen is sort of a pain and I don’t want to cull any hens this first year (but I’m not saying it won’t happen later). I just wish I knew which toms are going to get the job done.


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## AndersonRanch

I think that’s a good plan and I don’t think 2 will over breed her. But watch for any sores or balding. Some Toms are rougher then others as well. Having 4 for most of the season I didn’t have one bald spot and no fighting 
I was so happy to see how the turkeys breed lol that sounds so bad! But the roosters tick me off. I know it’s how it’s supposed to be but it’s like dude she doesn’t want you! Play hard to impress and maybe they would like you more


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## FizzyGoats

AndersonRanch said:


> I was so happy to see how the turkeys breed


Lol. The things we say here. But I get exactly what you mean. Well it’s good to know I can keep 2 toms (maybe even all 3) with the 5 hens.


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## AndersonRanch

Yeah I’m really not allowed In public lol my poor husband is really not a ranch/ farm boy and all his friends are even farther from it so I usually end up embarrassing him. Lol now that I think about it maybe he is making sure he stays on this fire and not come to the fundraiser dinner tomorrow lol but I’m taking a good friend that is more open and red neck then I am so we will be the talk of the uppity little group, it’s going to be awesome lol


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## Tanya

Oh fiddle dee dee.you be as "red neck" as you want.


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## FizzyGoats

When you’re not there, your husband is probably bragging about his farm tough wife.  And I am the same way. We both grew up in the country, but he was the only boy in his family and chores were divided by sex, so he did everything physically demanding and dirty himself, so he’s still shocked at the things I don’t even blink at doing. In my family, everyone helped with everything. Girls mucked stalls, boys folded laundry, gender had nothing to do with what needed to be done. 

I bet you and your friend will be the highlight of the fundraiser! Maybe take a chick with you in your pocket, really give them something to talk about, lol. (Just kidding, that’d be one messy pocket and mad chick by the end of dinner.)


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## AndersonRanch

Well I can say he is for sure bragging about me right now lol he is gone, my dad fell off a load of hay, I mean a semi truck load, and broke his foot, so that has left me to figure out how to run the new skid steer and load big bales. Let me tell you I can run that sucker like a pro now and only dropped one bale so far lol
I was raised the same way. It was very important to my parents for use to be independent and know how to work hard. He wasn’t a farm boy but it was the same deal. He had to do the mowing and yard work and his sister was the dishes and house work. I have no doubt he does like the fact I am not 100% dependent on him although he gets annoyed with me when he is home and I just go do what needs to be done and I don’t ask for help lol 
But no matter I am happy with my life and what I do do, even the red neck oaky stuff  I’ll just try and keep my stories to a minimum tonight and pretend I know what the other ladies are talking about with their wife duty talk


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## FizzyGoats

How did the fundraiser go?

Yesterday, one of the turkeys flew up on to the roof of my house. And so it begins.


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## AndersonRanch

It went really well! I had a lot more fun then I thought I would. Just was not fun the next day. I guess you reach a age where going out half the night almost kills you lol 
Well chicken drama here. First the good news. Gave that hen her serama and polish chicks, she is so happy to finally have “her” babies out of the cage and with her lol the chicks have no clue what she is or what she wants but it seems to be working just fine.
Bad news. This morning I woke up to go to work and heard the turkeys going off. Looked out the window and the goat were all lined up intently looking at something I couldn’t see from the window. Ran to the back door and saw a coyotes IN THE GOAT PASTURE with a chicken in its mouth. Ran and got the gun and raced out there. Was trying to get a shot where I would t shoot the goats and finally was able to take a shot. I can not shoot with a scope to save my life and my gun one of the sights broke so of course I missed him. Went to go look and that jerk went under the fence and just took the hot fence and ended up braking a insulator at the corner. He did drop the dead chicken, it was my free range silkie cross mama so I took the damn chicken so he couldn’t eat it. I got the hot fence fixed and filled the hole with rocks and called my husband to see where his call is because tomorrow he’s gonna have to go. I found 4 piles of feathers out there so he had a fun filled morning. I’m super ticked about it BUT I am happy to also see I have a problem coyote now and not in 5 months when I have a bunch of kids running around. I don’t hunt coyotes, if they are way out in the field I leave them alone because we are over run with squirrels but when they are brave like that they need to go.
On another note we have another fire heading to our permanent pasture and hay fields in Northern California (I live in central) so might have to also book it up there to move equipment and the few cows we have up there out. But if that happens then maybe I can actually see my husband……..silver linings, they are the only things to keep a person sane I swear


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## MellonFriend

Wow that's scary Jessica, good thing the turkeys alerted you! Jeepers. 😳


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## FizzyGoats

Dang coyotes. That’s my fear. And my turkeys are pretty quiet when they alert. Hopefully they’ll get louder as they get older. Thank goodness you know your animals and knew your turkeys were trying to tell you something. I’m sorry about your chickens. 

This is a reminder that I need to get some target practice in. I’m not a great shot. I’m not terrible, but not great. Though I compare myself to my husband and he was a sniper, so I’ll never be that good. 

I’m glad the dinner was fun. And I really hope the fires don’t threaten your pastures and hay fields.

My turkeys still pester my young chickens from time to time, they occasionally pester the goats too, but we’re also starting to have times where everyone is hanging out in the same part of the field together, intermingling and peacefully doing their own things. I love those moments.


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## ksalvagno

Sorry you lost some chickens. I hope you get that coyote quick.


----------



## AndersonRanch

Thank you guys. So far have not gotten him but also he hasn’t been back. 
That’s good to hear about the turkeys. When they are in a mood they are in a mood. I painted my toenails pink, and because they were not the normal baby blue color and was different they all had to try and eat my toes lol mine also get on the roof but they don’t really stay up there, thank goodness because living on the roof is a hard no for me. The ducks I had were always up on the roof.


----------



## FizzyGoats

I painted my toenails for a wedding and thought my turkeys would never stop trying to peck at them through my crocs. And thankfully, only one got on the roof and didn’t stay long. A few flew onto the roof of a shed yesterday. Every evening, they all run to follow me back to their enclosure, so I’m hoping they keep that up and don’t someday decide to try to live in the trees or on roofs. I think it helps that I put their food buckets up all day while they are out free ranging and bring the food back down when I put them in for the evening. I try to make sure to put them up well before sunset so they’re not tempted to roost somewhere they shouldn’t for the night. 

I’m glad the coyote hasn’t been back. Hopefully it’ll stay gone.


----------



## Cedarwinds Farm

AndersonRanch said:


> Thank you guys. So far have not gotten him but also he hasn’t been back.
> That’s good to hear about the turkeys. When they are in a mood they are in a mood. I painted my toenails pink, and because they were not the normal baby blue color and was different they all had to try and eat my toes lol mine also get on the roof but they don’t really stay up there, thank goodness because living on the roof is a hard no for me. The ducks I had were always up on the roof.


I have a pair of hot pink flip flops that I slip on when I have to run outside and do something quickly. I have to watch my feet when I'm wearing them around the chickens, because they _will_ peck on those shoes.  I recently bought a pair of work sandals, and got them in black, so they wouldn't be a temptation to the birds.


----------



## AndersonRanch

Lol my flip flops have sparkles on them. Really didn’t think that one threw. It took a good 2 weeks before they realized the sparkles are not something to eat.
Fizzy goat yes!!!! That’s how I do it too. Well everything is free range right now but when I pen them that what I do. But if you are ever late getting them in they will go in threes and on the cage and any place they can roost. Right now it looks like I have a bunch of buzzards moved in at night lol 
So I have a really gross question for YOU! Your dog and your turkeys are some what together, have your turkeys ever eaten the dogs poop? Not my older ones but the young ones are terrible about it! Like they follow the dogs around waiting for them to poop and jump on it. I though maybe not enough food so got a bunch of feed pans and make sure they are all full. Still do it. Thought maybe lack of protein so had fed them eggs and more worms and they still do it! It’s enough that I’m almost throwing up over it! My next chore is converting the car port into a turkey cage so they can go in because I can’t stand to see that any more


----------



## FizzyGoats

Oh wow, that would be gross. My turkeys don’t eat the dog poop that I know of and they hang out all day together. Though my big dog goes to a far away spot to do the deed. My small, old dog does his business right near the house where the turkeys hang out a lot and I’ve never seen them interested in it. They do, however, peck at the goat droppings on occasion. I haven’t seen them eat it but they sometimes break them open to investigate. I wonder how on earth your young ones got fixated on dog poop. I have noticed once they get fixated on something, they’re difficult to redirect.


----------



## goathiker

I only ordered 5 of these guys lol


----------



## K.B.

goathiker said:


> I only ordered 5 of these guys lol
> 
> View attachment 211784


Lol looks like you got some extra! Lucky!


----------



## FizzyGoats

3 bonus babies. Wow. Aren’t they cute little fluff balls? I miss that stage.


----------



## goathiker

Can you tell what they are?


----------



## FizzyGoats

I can’t. I’m the worst. I’m tempted to guess turkey poults. 

I love how half of them are death napping. That gave me so many heart attacks. 

So what are the wee ones?


----------



## K.B.

goathiker said:


> Can you tell what they are?
> 
> View attachment 211786


No clue lol


----------



## goathiker

Not turkeys lol


----------



## NigerianNewbie

FizzyGoats said:


> I love how half of them are death napping. That gave me so many heart attacks.


 I understand completely what the phrase "death napping" means now. Thought a couple of those chicks actually were dead and goathiker would have written about losing some and the count was now 5 below the picture. Gracious, that's a scary site to see.


----------



## goathiker

If they're comfortable they do that for a few minutes everyday.


----------



## goathiker

They're lavender Guinea keets


----------



## ksalvagno

Cute! How did you end up with so many extra?


----------



## goathiker

Guinea keets are pretty fragile. They must have figured there would be losses. 
Oregon post offices are pretty good though. If they make it though the flight there are rarely any problems.


----------



## Cedarwinds Farm

goathiker said:


> Guinea keets are pretty fragile. They must have figured there would be losses.
> Oregon post offices are pretty good though. If they make it though the flight there are rarely any problems.


I've never seen the lavender guineas as keets before. They are cute!


----------



## FizzyGoats

Oh my gosh. They’re so tiny. So cute.


----------



## Cedarwinds Farm

My little chooks are getting bigger, and continuing to thrive. They are starting to excitedly flap from one end of the brooder to the other. It won't be too much longer before they'll be out of there.


----------



## FizzyGoats

So cute! I love when they start chest bumping. At least I think that’s normal. It was hilarious and something I wasn’t expecting. My girls are getting big now (almost as big as my hen), so this was my first chick experience.


----------



## Cedarwinds Farm

FizzyGoats said:


> So cute! I love when they start chest bumping. At least I think that’s normal. It was hilarious and something I wasn’t expecting. My girls are getting big now (almost as big as my hen), so this was my first chick experience.


Yea, they have to figure that pecking order out!


----------



## Cedarwinds Farm

This polish chick has better hair than I do


----------



## Tanya

Oh I love it. Looks like mine when I come in from outside.

Ok. So one of my hens sat on the nest this morning. All eggs laid by my other chickens. I took out 2 eggs and left one which I hilighted. I want to see if there are more eggs tomorrow for her...


----------



## Moers kiko boars

Ok...all you intelligent chicken peoples...I have a question. How old are chickens when they start laying?😁


----------



## ksalvagno

Somewhere around 21 to 28 weeks.


----------



## FizzyGoats

Caileigh Jane Smith said:


> This polish chick has better hair than I do
> View attachment 211900


Oh my gosh. That is so adorable! 

And about the laying, everything I read (because I too was wondering) goes right along with what was already said, so at least I know I read good information. My expectations are that at about 6 months of age my new girls should start giving me some eggs. 

I’m hoping they are not the amazing layers that my one adult hen has ended up being or we’ll be drowning in eggs. 

For those of you have have a lot of laying hens, what do you do with all the eggs? I mean we eat eggs, but not enough to keep up with what the chickens provide. Once a week, we also scramble up a few eggs (shell and all) and feed them to the chickens. Is it safe to give that to the growing turkeys too? What else can be done with the surplus?


----------



## Tanya

Its safe to give the turkeys. They will love you for it


----------



## Cedarwinds Farm

We sell extra, or give them to family


----------



## Moers kiko boars

Thankyou! I love the chick pictures. Thanks for all the information. 
Im ready for my girls to start...they arent! Lol


----------



## Moers kiko boars

Summer watermellon Bar is Open!


----------



## FizzyGoats

Nice! They are certainly enjoying their treat. 

I can’t believe how fast mine devour watermelon, too. Yet only one of my goats likes it, and I have to dig out bite sized pieces for her. My chickens and turkeys aren’t nearly as picky.


----------



## Tanya

Oh what lovely fun. My animals Emu's included, start salivating when they see watermelon.... any fruit actually... come to think of it.


----------



## goathiker

The last shipment of the year came this morning. Final count for the year is:

7 brown leghorn 
6 Cackle crazy toppies 
5 ameraucana 
5 dark brahma 
5 buff brahma 
2 light brahma 
3 French marans 
4 buff plymouth rocks 
3 speckled sussex 

2 khaki Campbells
6 runner ducks 
1 Chinese white goose 

8 lavender Guinea keets 
1 pearl gray Guinea keet

Total of 40 chickens, 8 ducks, 1 guard goose, 9 Guinea fowl From these I can only keep what I can comfortably house, clean, and feed of course. 
9 chickens are cockerels, 5 or 6 will go. 
NO male ducks will be kept. 
Guinea fowl will be kept on a 2 hen to 1 buck ratio. Possibly with 1 extra buck.

Speckled Sussex and buff Brahmas already are spoken for


----------



## FizzyGoats

Wow. That’s quite a list. I had to google the crazy cackle toppies. Too cute.


----------



## ksalvagno

Wow! Lots of fluff butts!


----------



## Cedarwinds Farm

And the crazy hair gets crazier!
S/he looks like a mad professor. If it turns out to be a roo, I might call him Einstein.


----------



## Cedarwinds Farm

goathiker said:


> The last shipment of the year came this morning. Final count for the year is:
> 
> 7 brown leghorn
> 6 Cackle crazy toppies
> 5 ameraucana
> 5 dark brahma
> 5 buff brahma
> 2 light brahma
> 3 French marans
> 4 buff plymouth rocks
> 3 speckled sussex
> 
> 2 khaki Campbells
> 6 runner ducks
> 1 Chinese white goose
> 
> 8 lavender Guinea keets
> 1 pearl gray Guinea keet
> 
> Total of 40 chickens, 8 ducks, 1 guard goose, 9 Guinea fowl From these I can only keep what I can comfortably house, clean, and feed of course.
> 9 chickens are cockerels, 5 or 6 will go.
> NO male ducks will be kept.
> Guinea fowl will be kept on a 2 hen to 1 buck ratio. Possibly with 1 extra buck.
> 
> Speckled Sussex and buff Brahmas already are spoken for


Wow! That is a lot of birds! 
That's smart thinking on the hen to buck guinea ratios. We had too many hens this year, and the poor things wandered around, looking for mates. I'm hoping that this next batch I'm raising will even things out.


----------



## ksalvagno

Love the doo on that chick!


----------



## FizzyGoats

Yes that do is pretty spectacular. I think you should call it Einstein either way.


----------



## Moers kiko boars

Awww I Like Einstein! Hes adorable!


----------



## Tanya

Chevani Chicken with Blommie chicken and Chevani human. I have a seabrite on 6 eggs. Cant wait till those babies hatch


----------



## Tanya

Chris, Petunia and Jasmine. Seabrites


----------



## Tanya

Bloom (speckled) and Blommie (white)


----------



## Tanya

Daisy (kookook)


----------



## Tanya

Chevani Chicken. Cross between an African and a silkie... I wonder whose Genes one on this one... 😁


----------



## FizzyGoats

What a good looking group of chickens! I have never seen some of the breeds before. Very cool.


----------



## Tanya

FizzyGoats said:


> What a good looking group of chickens! I have never seen some of the breeds before. Very cool.


The large chickens are very common here. Its the three smalls that we dont find commonly. I love them all. The kookook, speckled and seabrites are wild. Its just Chevani chicken and Blommie chicken that are tame. They were both rescues. 
The seabrites have 6 eggs. I am really hoping that thwy hatch in 21 days.


----------



## ksalvagno

Pretty chickens!


----------



## Cedarwinds Farm

Your flock is so pretty! @Tanya
I should be able to tell now if Einstein is a boy or a girl. I noticed yesterday, when I was moving the chicks to a bigger cage, that one of the barred rocks is definitely a rooster. I've never vent sexed chickens before, but it was quite obvious!


----------



## goathiker

Barred rocks are easy because the males are double barred, twice the amount of white that the pullets have. 
You can't vent sex chickens except as day olds and even then it's really hard on them. 
Chickens don't have a penis you know, that's why it's dangerous to keep other kinds of male birds with your hens.


----------



## FizzyGoats

I did not know that. I don’t have any roosters, but that is interesting. My turkeys free range with my chickens all day. I’m going to have to really watch as they get older. They’re about a week shy of 4 months right now (the chickens and turkeys are the same age).


----------



## FizzyGoats

Maybe one of you can tell me why my turkeys are acting like jerks to each other today. They are all fighting with each other. Doesn’t seem to matter if it’s a tom or a hen. One will peck or grab the back of the neck of one. The poor picked on one will squawk for help. Then as soon as it’s free, it walks up to a different turkey and does the same thing. Some are opportunists, pouncing when one is unaware, some peck at anyone near them, some laser focus on one and chase it around. There are a few who try to stay out of it but they always end up in one of the squabbles by default. 

I’ve let most of it go but actually had to intervene quite a few times today. I only do that when the aggressor just won’t stop no matter what. Usually I can distract them,today, I’m chucking turkeys like footballs just to keep them off each other. 

It’s our first cool morning in a long time. Does that have anything to do with it? They’re almost 4 months old now.


----------



## FizzyGoats

This is going to sound bizarre (because it is) but I got them to stop fighting by playing lullaby type music on my phone. Their reaction was actually kind of adorable. Tilting their heads, occasional soft chirps, then tucking their heads and falling asleep. 

Am I crazy? Probably.


----------



## NigerianNewbie

FizzyGoats said:


> Maybe one of you can tell me why my turkeys are acting like jerks to each other today.


Wonder if there is such a thing as Turkey Rut?



FizzyGoats said:


> Am I crazy? Probably.


Yep, but in such a good zany way. Music calms and soothes most animals, even when they are being sang to by someone that is terribly off key. 🎶🎵


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## FizzyGoats

🤣


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## Moers kiko boars

Hey whatever works! 😁🤣🤪


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## Tanya

You just gave me an idea


----------



## goathiker

Lol, music calms the inner beast. Unless it's rap, pretty sure that just makes everything want to grab and kill, American rap anyway. 




Caileigh Jane Smith said:


> Wow! That is a lot of birds!


It is a lot of birds but, I have an egg customer that requires 5 dozen a week. Replacing older layers becomes work really quickly sometimes.


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## AndersonRanch

Turkeys have a one track mind when they are set on something they keep going until something more interesting comes along. In your turkeys case it was music lol that is one of the things that drives me nuts about them. When they decide to fight or be mean it is so hard to make them snap out of it. For the most part my toms get along but for whatever reason the Royal and the blue will go at each other. I have to pick blue up and pen him up until the next day and then it’s all forgotten. 
So I haven’t been on lately. But fun wild life stuff going on! The coyote has not been back. Not sure if I scared him enough that he left or if some how in my half sleep shooting I did hit him. Don’t know but don’t care. Now though because the people around here are absolutely brain dead they have been putting food and water out for the bears that got pushed down from the fire last year. So instead of moving back up where there is food and water they are staying down here. They obviously don’t get how much food bears actually eat so I have one in my area and he has a taste for chickens. So far the last week he has nailed a coop every night. Not last night but the night before he was across the highway, very close to my house! The guy doesn’t have chickens but has cows and the bear ripped up his cow lick tub and ate all the supplement. Soooooo I have been on bear watch. Whenever the dog barks or I hear a noise I’m out the door with the gun. I have all the chickens locked up but that won’t stop him. The turkeys I finally got them to go down to the corral and dig around in it to keep the flies down and have been feeding them extra to keep them close to the house. 
And fizzy goat you will like this, my daughter will be showing my snoodless at the fair on Saturday. We shall see how she does and if snoodless forgives us after lol.


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## Moers kiko boars

Wow @AndersonRanch ..thats awful about the bears! We both know what people would feed bears...right?🤪
Hey I have a question...Can you put peafowl in with my young chickens? Do they eat chicken starter? Can I add a few young turkeys too? Are they fed the same? I have a.large coop and a long covered run. My chickens also.get to be free range. Would.the Chickens protect or hurt the young pea fowl & turkeys?


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## ksalvagno

That is unbelievable about the bears. But then again people are stupid.


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## FizzyGoats

@AndersonRanch Why are people feeding bears?!?! I’m sorry you’re dealing with that. I get that people do misguided things with their hearts in the right place, but at this point in time, everyone should know feeding bears does not end well for the bear, other animals, or people. 

I hope Snoodles does well and your daughter has fun. Maybe he’ll love being shown off. Lol. Definitely let us know how that goes. 

@Moers kiko boars, I’ve never had pea fowl but my baby turkeys and chickens were raised together for the first 8 weeks or so and I fed them game bird starter crumbles (turkeys need that protein). The chicks did fine on it. They didn’t switch to chick feed until I separated them and put them in the chicken coop. I didn’t let my adult chickens around the youngsters for a while and it was a slow gradual introduction, where they could see them but not physically get to them. It depends on your chickens. I think I could have actually thrown the chicks in with my one hen when they were 6-8 weeks and it would have been fine, but I’m a better safe than sorry type. I divided up my coop and made what we called “chick portals” so the littles could get back to their side and away from any mean bigs. If your chickens are young still, it might not be as bad.


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## AndersonRanch

They are morons! The poor bears house burned down last year so they don’t have a place to live other then down here. Funny thing is if the dorks drove up to the mountains they would see that the elder berries, goose berries and other things not only the bears eat but the animals they eat, have a better buffet going then we have had in a long time, just minus a lot of trees. So since the poor bears home burned down they were forced to come down here where we really don’t have any water in ponds and lakes so we need to feed and water the homeless bears. People are so far out of touch with reality. They have no idea that them butting in means death to the bears. I have tried to explain this to this one stupid lady in the mountains. She loves bears like LOVES them. She allows them to come into her camp, eat the scraps, even gently shooed them out the door when they open the door and come in the cabin. They have no fear of humans what so ever. Then here comes hunting season and her little friends are killed because they look at the hunters like hey buddy what are you going to give to me today, which she ends up heart broken over and cursed about it for months. So far thankfully they have been killed off before they get super comfortable with humans and someone gets hurt. The one close to me the state trapper has already been called and he is setting up traps. He will be disposed of from either the trapper or someone defending their livestock. I really don’t like bears to start with but even I think it is absolutely sad. Instead of just letting the bears come down for safety, see why they don’t normally come this low (no water) and go back home they have stuck around.


----------



## FizzyGoats

People used to be like this when I lived in Colorado. Drove us nuts. Bears learning to associate humans with food ends in death, one way or another, for the bear, and doesn’t always end real great for the humans. Not a happy story for pets and livestock usually either. And you know what’s funny, they never tried to feed the mountain lions. One look from them and you know they’re dangerous. People think bears are big, well, teddy bears. And like you said, they are completely out of touch with reality. Luckily the biggest land predator I have to deal with where I live now is coyotes. The hawks, eagles, and flacons actually cause me more issues than anything else here.


----------



## Moers kiko boars

Thankyou @FizzyGoats !


----------



## AndersonRanch

My girls got 3rd place breeding turkey. Poor snoodless we will see if she talks to me after it all. She got a bath, wasn’t thrilled with that. I thought I could just keep her in the shower for the night but found her perched on the sliding glass doors so put her in a kennel in the dining room. She was sure I was going to allow the cats and puppies to eat her so had to put a blanket over her. My husband tried to put her in the back of the truck and I said absolutely NOT she goes in the back seat lol so we went for a car ride which she took well. They wanted her to just go in one of the goat sheep stalls and I was like ummmmm yeah she flies so that’s a no. So she had to stay in her kennel. But it was worth it I think.


----------



## Moers kiko boars

CONGRATS TO Miss S & turkey! Woohoo you Go Girl!


----------



## ksalvagno

Congratulations!


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## FizzyGoats

Well hopefully Snoodles has recovered from her show day. She looks so good! Thank goodness you kept her in the kennel or everyone would have been on an impromptu Snoodles hunt. Your daughter is beautiful and looks like she had a great time. Thank you for sharing this. I love it!


----------



## FizzyGoats

Here’s a few pics of my not at all show-worthy turkeys playing in a mud puddle after it rained. 









And one of the turkeys loving these big trees.


----------



## AndersonRanch

Lol they might be show worthy! Everyone says hatchery birds are junk (show wise) but snoodless was a cackle baby soooooo…..
What a beautiful place you live in! Nice and green and healthy trees with a clean ground, no way anyone could mistake that for California lol 
Snoodless has forgiven us. She harassed us all day while clipping goats. Pecked one of my daughters little jewels right off her shorts lol 
So absolutely HILARIOUS story. We clipped my sons wether who had so much hair and it was a full body, short, no hair left clipping. We had to move the stand to another shade area so we just tiled the stand to get the hair off and moved it leaving a big pile of hair on the ground. So we went on with out thing and the turkeys made their “stranger danger” noise. I was like what In the world do they have! It must be a snake! So went over to them and they were all around the pile of hair lol oh my gosh I laughed so hard! Windy (puppy) came running to us and went by the pile of hair and just about jumped out of her skin when she realized it was there. Cheap entertainment let me tell you! 
OH! And I am excited to announce 2 of my pullets are laying a egg every other day. Dinky little eggs but I’m still excited lol


----------



## Calistar

AndersonRanch said:


> What a beautiful place you live in! Nice and green and healthy trees with a clean ground, no way anyone could mistake that for California lol


Those were my exact thoughts too! 🤣


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## FizzyGoats

California has its own amazing beauty (as you both know ). Thank you, though. We do love it here. We used to live in Colorado, also beautiful, but vastly different than here. 

I’m so glad, after getting out some of her frustration, Snoodles has forgiven you. And look at her, proving hatchery birds are prize winners too. 

That story about the turkeys alerting to the hair pile made me laugh so hard. I can just picture it, the pup too. 🤣

None of my littles have laid any eggs yet. They are almost 18 weeks old. Slackers.


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## Moers kiko boars

Ok...I couldnt help.myself...I bought her









Shes an Indian Blue peahen. She is so scared today. But the chickens seem to like her.


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## FizzyGoats

She’s pretty! I’m sure she will get used to the surroundings soon and settle in.


----------



## Cedarwinds Farm

I just love everybody's funny fowl stories! Always makes me chuckle when I scroll through here. 
My guinea keets are about half grown, and I decided yesterday afternoon to switch out their little feeder for a black tub that they couldn't knock over so easily. They panicked when I put the tub in their cage, and all cowered at one end, terrified. When I went out last night, they were _still_ clustered in one end of the cage, and hadn't even touched the feed in the tub. Goofy birds! 
I'm thinking I might just let them loose today. They're certainly big enough.


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## Tanya

Silly Keets....🤣🤣🤣


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## FizzyGoats

Caileigh Jane Smith said:


> I just love everybody's funny fowl stories! Always makes me chuckle when I scroll through here.
> My guinea keets are about half grown, and I decided yesterday afternoon to switch out their little feeder for a black tub that they couldn't knock over so easily. They panicked when I put the tub in their cage, and all cowered at one end, terrified. When I went out last night, they were _still_ clustered in one end of the cage, and hadn't even touched the feed in the tub. Goofy birds!
> I'm thinking I might just let them loose today. They're certainly big enough.


Lol. The food dish of death! It’s so funny how one little change rocks their whole world. Benji is practically run ragged by the turkeys. He was checking out something by the pond and the turkeys alerted to something way up the hill by the fire pit. He comes running to see what the issues is and about four turkeys are pointing their heads to the ground, chirping away, and walking very cautiously in a circle around a stick that wasn’t there yesterday. 

They do this all the time. A new stick. A rock. A shadow. A blowing branch with rustling leaves. But Benji and I feel obligated to check because every once in a while, it’s a snake or a hawk.


----------



## Tanya

Ok. So my little girl is on her eggs. She is thrown off by Chevani chicken who also wants babies... what now?


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## FizzyGoats

Oh dear. Could you get fake eggs and let the other one nest on those instead of pushing the girl off her eggs? I’m not sure if it would work but it might be worth a try. 

For my addition to birds behaving badly, I give you this:

Lately, a few times a week around noon, my toms decided it’s time to throw down, so I spend most of my time breaking up fights. Today my sweet turkey hens were the trouble makers. Four of them hopped the fence and were grazing happily when my dog ran up and down the fence line without barking, just running the fence and looking back at me, to let me know the turkeys had escaped. Luckily they are all back in without incident and luckily the Amish weren’t riding by with their dogs at the time. I hope this doesn’t become a repeat occurrence.


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## Tanya

We put 6 frrsh laid eggs under Chevani chicken. She wants the other six. Not the new ones. And Petunia seems to be happy to share duries? I dont know. I am very confused. And African chicken wanting seabrite babies / eggs... oi


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## FizzyGoats

Well I have no clue then. Strange little birds. Maybe she just wants to be the nanny.


----------



## Tanya

Well. If it must be so. Who am I to interfere right?


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## Moers kiko boars

She wants All of them ! Lol lol They are ALL hers...its her flock! 🤣🤪


----------



## AndersonRanch

If the original hen has been on those eggs for a good amount of time now and the chicks are close to hatching then you are going to want to watch the new mom when they hatch. If new mom does deem it long enough to be broody then she will not see the chicks as her babies but as intruders and will try and kill them. 
Even if she does except them you will have to watch both moms and make sure they don’t fight over the chicks and hurt them. 
I have had success with co parenting but more often then not it usually ends in a good amount of loss


----------



## Tanya

When we remove the unfertilized eggs she always wants to check how many we are removing. 

I will check on both chickens.


----------



## Tanya

Oh sad evening here. 1 little hatched but looks like it was flattened... i am so sad.


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## FizzyGoats

I’m sorry. That’s is sad.


----------



## ksalvagno

I'm so sorry.


----------



## NigerianNewbie

Sorry about the chick.


----------



## Moers kiko boars

Thats painful. So sorry


----------



## Tanya

Two Seabrite littles hatched in the last few hours. Took off the nest because the two hens didnt know what to do with the littles.


----------



## Tanya

Ok. So I have 3 more unhatched under Chevani chicken. We dont do hatching boxes here. Everything all natural. But as soon as babies are visable Chevani chicken has no clue what to do. I am going to hand rear all the littles. Petunia has now abandoned the nest out of pure frustration. This sounds like a Telenova soap opera. The only certainty is that Chris the rooster is the dad.
Imagine The court case.
"So madam. In your testimony is that Chris mounted you and you know for certain the chicks are yours"
"No your honour. I arrived and the eggs were already there but I did add two eggs. "


----------



## Tanya

Teaching littles to eat


----------



## Tanya

Little number 3


----------



## ksalvagno

Too cute!


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## Tanya

All three littles together.


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## FizzyGoats

They are so fluffy and cute!


----------



## Tanya

They are so tiny. My hands are small. They sit in such a way all three fit in my hand. So sooooffftttt


----------



## Tanya

Look ma. We are drinking water all alone


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## FizzyGoats

Good little chicks. They are too stinkin’ cute!


----------



## Tanya

Yeah the little stnkers are fast learners...


----------



## Tanya

Spoilt rotten. Wanting to sleep on my lap. All three of them


----------



## ksalvagno

Too cute!


----------



## FizzyGoats

That’s so sweet!


----------



## Tanya

Ok. so who does this with their babies? Am I the only person that just cant help myself?


----------



## Cedarwinds Farm

@Tanya your chicks are so cute!


----------



## Cedarwinds Farm

I'm pretty sure Einstein is a girl. So maybe...Einsteina?


----------



## Tanya

I love her hair do


----------



## Tanya

Enjoying outside time today


----------



## FizzyGoats

I think you should stick with Einstein. It’s just too fitting, even if she’s a girl. 

Tanya, the little chicks look like they are not sure about this “outside” business and want to go snuggle with mom on the couch again.


----------



## Tanya

@FizzyGoats 

If I just walk away they call till I come back. Bed time is VERY noisy.


----------



## FizzyGoats

Lol. I bet. They love you. They will probably always want to be with mom. 

My birds, on the other hand, have been escaping. Not my chickens. They are good girls. But my turkey hens have been getting out regularly. They always fly over the fence by the road. Once today three hens stopped a couple enjoying a bicycle ride. That was the first time I noticed them on the road. The couple was very sweet and helped me toss them back over the fence. Twenty minutes later, two hens are out again. I go toss them back in. A few minutes after that, two dogs came trotting by, thank goodness the turkeys were in. Another few minutes pass as I’m watching videos on how to clip wings and all five hens fly over the fence. My toms don’t or can’t. I caught them all (husband is working from home and I asked him to come help even though he’s busy). We coaxed them back to their pen using watermelon and clipped the right wing on all the hens. First time ever. It was really easy though. We also put bright leg bands on each turkey, just so if they do get out, people know their domestic and don’t try to hunt them. I mean the red color should give it away, but who knows. 

So my turkey hens now have their wings clipped. It’s a little sad, but not as sad as if they got hit by a car or attacked by a dog.


----------



## Tanya

Turkeys are very busy birds.... they are fun to keep


----------



## AndersonRanch

Fizzy goat they will still be able to fly to a degree just not as high with the wings clipped. They will be ok. This should get them to stop their habit of flying over and hopefully after they molt and get their new feathers they won’t be so fascinated with the road. 
My turkeys I have decided to see what all the fuss is about heritage turkeys on the table. I only ended up with 4 toms. I’m keeping one, someone called me wanting a tom and hen for her son so that leaves me with thanksgiving and maybe Christmas dinner. So after I make it to the feed store to get some broiler feed I’ll be feeding those two out. I guess if I dislike it then I can just sell the second. So we will see how that all goes. 
I have all my hens locked up and am proud to say I get between 3-5 eggs a day……….out of 61 hens lol


----------



## Tanya

Your egg production is excellent @AndersonRanch


----------



## FizzyGoats

That’s my hope, that they just break the very bad habit of flying over that fence. If they fly over the other stretches, it’s not a big deal as they’re still on our land and all they do is try to figure out how to get back in. They just have a new fascination with the road. Thank goodness it’s not a busy one. 

I was looking forward to a few turkey dinners but we may be keeping all three toms if they stay getting along for the most part (they do have their days where they fight at times and it is very annoying and persistent). Until we can sort of figure out who is good breeding stock, we’re hesitant to make the choice. But I already know I like turkey, so I am looking forward to the meat one of these days. Right now, we just butchered a steer and don’t have room in the freezer for any of the birds anyway. 

That’s a lot of hens and a little amount of eggs. Lol. It’s better than nothing though, right?


----------



## K.B.

I have a question for all you chicken folks... is a 10 by 5 dog kennel big enough for 15 chickens? Or is that too crowded?
Edit: there are 2 ladders in it for them to roost and they would have 4 laying buckets...


----------



## BarnOwl

On a chicken forum that I am on, it is generally recommended to have at least 4 sq ft per chicken in the coop and 10 sq ft per chicken in the run. Others may have different opinions and people can get by with less I suppose, esp if they have bantams or if their birds spend a lot of time free ranging. I know when i start to max out my coop, I have to muck it out much more frequently, which is usually a good reminder to thin the flock.


----------



## K.B.

BarnOwl said:


> On a chicken forum that I am on, it is generally recommended to have at least 4 sq ft per chicken in the coop and 10 sq ft per chicken in the run. Others may have different opinions and people can get by with less I suppose, esp if they have bantams or if their birds spend a lot of time free ranging. I know when i start to max out my coop, I have to muck it out much more frequently, which is usually a good reminder to thin the flock.


I usually let them free roam but they are such a mess... I'm tired off my hands landing in chicken poo lol  and we lock them up in the winter... I wanted the other dog kennel for a birthing area for the goats. But if that's not possible I guess I'll use it for the chickens!


----------



## BarnOwl

K.B. said:


> I usually let them free roam but they are such a mess... I'm tired off my hands landing in chicken poo lol  and we lock them up in the winter... I wanted the other dog kennel for a birthing area for the goats. But if that's not possible I guess I'll use it for the chickens!


I don't free range either, although I would like to. I don't trust my dogs and we have a ton of hawks. The chickens have a chain link run about 20x 60 ft with bird netting over the top for the hawks. Dog kennels come in handy for so many things. I would like to get one or two to make "stalls" for the goats in our big old barn.


----------



## K.B.

Yeah we have 2 and they work great for the chickens. I think any more ant it would be too crowded for them, but I'm going to try and make it work so I have that extra "stall" for the goats. Then we'd have 3 areas for the goats... one for a single goat and kids if needed.


----------



## K.B.

And some of the chickens are the smaller sized chickens bantam I believe (idk for sure) more than half are!


----------



## Dandy Hill Farm

K.B. said:


> I have a question for all you chicken folks... is a 10 by 5 dog kennel big enough for 15 chickens? Or is that too crowded?
> Edit: there are 2 ladders in it for them to roost and they would have 4 laying buckets...


IMHO, that would be way to crowded. I can't even imagine 15 birds in our 10x10 dog kennel! Overcrowding chickens (or any animal) can cause many problems, take pecking each other to death for an example. Sorry, but I just couldn't/wouldn't do that. I also would imagine that the pen would be really muddy in just a few weeks. My rule of thumb for housing animals is, if they grass can't grow then too many animals in that amount of space. Just remember though, they are YOUR birds so you get to decide where and how you want to house them. But MY opinion is that's too crowded.


----------



## Dandy Hill Farm

Online, it looks like the MINIMUM square feet per bird is 15. So if you have 15 chickens then you should at LEAST have 225 square feet total. So a 15 foot by 15 foot pen. Since some of yours are bantams, then I suppose you could get away with a little less room. But just know, a 10 by 5 dog kennel is only 50 square feet, so that's not even a fourth of the minimum requirement. 😉


----------



## K.B.

Thanks... it's actually a 5.5 ft by 10 I think  I'll measure it... I know that's looking like it's not enough


----------



## FizzyGoats

I have an enclosure that’s 8x14 for 6 chickens and they free range most the day. I feel like that space is too small for my 6 chickens and would make it much bigger if they weren’t out running around all day. Is there a way to use an existing structure/fence as a side so you could make the kennel panels go farther?


----------



## Tanya

Ok. So here is the secret of chickens. 
1. They hate being alone and are flpck animals
2. Free range good during day light hours
3. At night their mentality is safety in numbers and as close as possible.
4. As long as they are your birds its your decision how how kennel at night.


----------



## K.B.

They go into the rafters of the garage usually but I don't want them up there lol ... I'll see if I can somehow expand


----------



## K.B.

I should clarify our garage has turned into the "barn"  so there's not cars in it anymore... it has 2 goat "stalls" that are pretty big and 2 big dog kennels... plus room for straw and hay... it's a big garage.


----------



## K.B.

This is the back end, you can kinda see what I'm talking about... the camera is on the larger dog kennel so that's not visible, sorry it's a mess right now!


----------



## Tanya

Wow. That is spacious @K.B.


----------



## FizzyGoats

So are you wanting to put the chickens in the kennel full time or just for the night? Because just for the night would be fine. If you are wanting to keep them up all the time, I’d use a wall or something as one side and make the panels work to cover more distance. And maybe consider a chicken tractor or some space where they can run around outside during the day without going where you don’t want them.


----------



## K.B.

Kinda wanted them in it over the winter


----------



## Moers kiko boars

Mine free range all day. I live on 20 acres. But at night, they are in a 12x12 ft coop. I put plastic shelves in there, with nesting boxes. I think for night, its fine. They can have close quarters in really bad weather, or get out in the weather. Theres plenty of goat barns, houses to get in. Lol


----------



## K.B.

Yeah that's usually what we do but in winter we lock them up.. it gets really cold here at times


----------



## ksalvagno

If you are talking about locking them up for a day or so during bad weather, you'd probably be ok. But for the entire winter, no.


----------



## K.B.

Ok thanks


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## FizzyGoats

Are my chickens weird because they don’t seem to mind cold days as long as it’s not raining and cold? We don’t get as cold here as some places, but there were plenty of days my chickens would be running around in below freezing weather over the winter, just having fun and getting some exercise I guess. They huddle up in the coop to keep warm at night and on really bad weather days but most winter days (again, milder here than most places) they wander wherever, even in the snow. Their coop and run are always accessible to them and until I lock them up for the night, it’s up to them if they’re in or out. I was shocked how much they chose “out” over the winter. I wonder if my turkeys will be similar. I wonder what my goats will choose. This could be an interesting winter for me.


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## K.B.

FizzyGoats said:


> Are my chickens weird because they don’t seem to mind cold days as long as it’s not raining and cold? We don’t get as cold here as some places, but there were plenty of days my chickens would be running around in below freezing weather over the winter, just having fun and getting some exercise I guess. They huddle up in the coop to keep warm at night and on really bad weather days but most winter days (again, milder here than most places) they wander wherever, even in the snow. Their coop and run are always accessible to them and until I lock them up for the night, it’s up to them if they’re in or out. I was shocked how much they chose “out” over the winter. I wonder if my turkeys will be similar. I wonder what my goats will choose. This could be an interesting winter for me.


Their probably not weird, I am though lol just don't want them out in the cold


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## Tanya

Chickens are actually quit hardy. Of course freezing and snow would make them stay in doors. But they can handle cold weather quit well.


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## Tanya

In the front is bubbles 24 days old.
In the top left corner is beast 25 days old
And my yellow and grey Bekkie is 26 days old


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## FizzyGoats

Aw, they’re growing up. So cute.


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## AndersonRanch

Well I am taking most of my chickens and a lot of my turkeys to the sale. I can’t let them loose because of the coyotes and it’s not fare to them to keep them fairly crowded locked up all day every day. My husband has been trying to rectify the issue but so far has only gotten 1. I thought she was the issue since she was fat and sassy but yesterday I looked out in the goat pasture and found feathers so I’m thinking not the issue. I just don’t have the money right now to buy or build more cages so I’ll save on feed and try it again next year. I’m going to keep all my original turkeys since they stay close to home and really don’t leave the “safe” area and I’ll keep all the cochins and a few of the favorite chicks. It’s sad but it is what it is


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## FizzyGoats

How frustrating. I’m sorry you’re pushed into this situation by both circumstance and misguided/idiotic neighbors feeding predators. I hope you at least get good money for all the ones you’re selling.


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## ksalvagno

So sorry it isn't working out for you.


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## FizzyGoats

My toms get in a mood and sometimes chase my goats. Usually, they chase Petunia (I think because she tends to run and my runt, Jasmine, ignores them and my other one, Thistles, will often turn and headbutt them). Here’s sort of a funny thing, I guess I make a particular sound when I’m correcting an animal (made the same sound with my children, so they say) and now my toms know it and will back off, at least momentarily when they hear it. I guess even turkeys can learn. At least the toms. The hens totally ignore me.


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## Tanya

Well. The baby pig is housed in a portion of my hen cage. 😁. The hens win every time.


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## Tanya

This is how we get the littles used to free ranging. They will do this for another 2 weeks then they get to join the big guys in the hen run. They still sleep inside at night.


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## ksalvagno

Nice protection.


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## FizzyGoats

That’s a great set up Tanya. 


Look. We have beards! Well, it’s at least a five o’clock shadow. 🤣


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## Jessica84

Awwww look at their beards! When they stop staying in a total puffed up state you will see the beard more. Mine finally stopped and I was shocked at how long theirs are (from last year!) 
So long story short I took 4 toms down to the sale, planned on more but did you know they start moving around before the sun comes up! I didn’t want any chicken hens smashed on the way down, and not for $2 each so only the toms. I got $125 a Tom! They were not even that big! So that was pretty awesome and made my day. 
And Of course the one batch of turkeys are still not staying home. I was hoping with some of their friends gone they would. Anyways so I see them out in the field and then were all making the danger noise. So sent My son in to get a gun thinking it’s a coyote. They all start racing home and here comes 7 wild turkeys. It’s a crap picture but here they are facing off. (Don’t mind the hay strings on the fence that was a 4am I hate coyotes scab job I haven’t fixed just yet) but here they are discussing whatever they were discussing. They then started to part ways but a few hens tried to go with the wild toms. At $125 that was not going to happen lol so I called the hens and they came back and the wild turkeys got sent on their way. I explained to them they can stay here and no one will hunt them until they try to Jack my hens  it was kinda cool though because I think it’s turkey season and they still came right in.


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## FizzyGoats

That’s so crazy! It’s a private flock party and the wilds weren’t invited. I’m worried about that with mine too. We have a lot of wild turkey around here. I’m also worried some idiot will try to shoot one of my turkeys. 

What a great price for your toms! I don’t think I’d get near that around here. 

When my boys aren’t all poofed out, their beards are longer than they look in the picture. They sure have been puffing up a lot lately. I also notice the three toms will hang out separate from the five hens sometimes. They roost together and sometimes wander around and explore and eat together, but if they split up, it’s usually toms in one group and hens in another. 

I still have a few hens jump the fence every once in a while. I had two loose dogs hanging out at my front fence line today, so I’m glad the turkeys decided to stay inside the fence for the day. Small miracles.


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## Jessica84

Did you clip just one wing or both? I have always been told to just clip one wing BUT just saw a video of someone who does both because she says when she did one they kept flying out.
My boys do the same. I honestly was worried if they were really doing their job or not. If I didn’t hatch the eggs I would still be wondering. The boys are ALWAYS at the back yard. They never go very far (my original boys not these run away dorks) and the hens are always a little ways out. I guess the girls have to come to the boys lol I really have no idea! 
There’s a hen posted about all the time here where I live about the “albino” wild turkey. It’s a royal palm lol but someone lost their hen to them that’s for sure! I’m sure it will happen here, I’m joking about hunting the wild turkeys I enjoy them. But I’m definitely not going to let it happen willingly lol


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## FizzyGoats

I clipped one because like you, I heard that was best. I guess I may have to do both. My boys stay close too. My oblivious little turkey hens try to sit on the top of the fence. Then they end up on the other side and somehow can’t figure out how to get back. I’m always thinking, You’ve gone over enough times to know how this works! Just do it in the opposite direction. Gah, birds. But I do enjoy them. They are a great alarm system. I didn’t expect them to be as good as they are.

And my hens are a bit oblivious sometimes. The toms always follow me into the pen in the evening and a few hens too, the rest of the hens meander and are uninterested in me and my bribery food. I don’t want one of them to be the rare red wild turkey, a fate similar to that poor little albino one. 🤣 

I somehow get everyone closed in for the night, but accomplishing that with chickens, turkeys, and goats all going in every direction and trying to sneak into pens that aren’t theirs, is fairly comical (not for me, but for an observer, just ask my husband).


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## Moers kiko boars

@FizzyGoats ..beautiful pictures of your Turkeys. Love those bright colors. Zexy boys. Lol🤣🤣
@Jessica84. You got that for your Toms! Awesome price! Love the picture of the Turkey face off!!😁🤣


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## Tanya

And Perunia has decided to sit on 7 eggs. 4 are her own and 5 are my kook kok's eggs. I believe that my yellow fluff is a kook kook and my two darker fluffs are seabrite chicks....


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## goathiker

We have 3 young wild turkey hens trying to move in with our Thanksgiving dinner. They've been hanging around for a few weeks. 
That boy couldn't achieve anything anyway, he weights right around 35 lbs lol.


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## Jessica84

Awww I never get hens around here. It’s always the bachelors that comes around here. But I do enjoy them too. I had the 7 amigos here yesterday, they didn’t try to take any of my turkeys but they were very happy to eat the wheat seeds from the hay I’ve been feeding the cows.


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## goathiker

I think that these came for the apples and pears I never got harvested this year. They sure find Thanksgiving fascinating though.


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## Jessica84

Lol they are probably jealous of all his food lol they are probably like “what! That human just gives you food?!”


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## FizzyGoats

They think he’s zexy. 

I have one turkey hen who I’ve mentioned a bit because she’s a little insane, we call her HotRod. She was in a mood and picking on another we call Annie and something strange happened. Annie ran to the three toms who were all standing close together (they do this often) and ducked under Gobfather (the biggest tom) and Gobfather stretched out his neck and gave HotRod a look that said, ‘Don’t you dare,’ while she tried to peck Annie. Then HotRod (not quite dumb enough to take on Gobfather) stopped and trotted off, miffed and chirping. I had no idea the toms would sort of resolve a dispute between two hens and protect a sweet one from a crazy one. 

These birds continue to surprise me.


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## FizzyGoats

You guys are going to ban me from the thread soon because I can’t stop talking about my turkeys. 

But like I said, I can’t stop, so…I had no clue toms let the hens eat first. I bribe my turkeys into their enclosure each night with some goodies. My biggest tom fluffs up and walks back and forth through it, keeping the other toms away while the hens eat. I have to say, I am impressed with Gobfather. I had no idea the head tom would do that. Is this a normal turkey thing? I have so much to learn.


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## Moers kiko boars

You just keep on talking Turkey. Im learning & laughing each time you do. I am planning on hopefully getting some Turkey eggs and incubating them. If things work out ! So just keep it up! I need the education😁


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## Jessica84

Are you kidding me! I want your phone number so we can sit and talk about turkeys all day long lol I am honestly more impressed and in love with my turkeys more then the chickens. Like I think I’m going to sell every chicken I have and keep the turkeys. The only down fall to them is they don’t lay all year long but neither does these stupid chickens, they just do so more then the turkeys lol 
The toms honestly are the best. They are more laid back, more loyal and always stick close to home. They do battle every now and then but really not very often.


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## FizzyGoats

Right?! I chased three turkey hens up and down my fence line (they got out again) and I still love them. 🤣 The toms are my favorite. I’ve never clipped their wings, they stay close, and are quite protective. Plus, they laugh at all my jokes, lol. They do fight from time to time and sometimes pick on the goats, but they are way easier to stop than the hens. All my turkeys (hens and toms) are the best chicken guardians I’ve ever had. They watch the sky and send an alert and the chickens listen. It’s incredible! I told my husband I will never try to raise chickens without turkeys again because they help keep the little fluffy butts alive.


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## ksalvagno

I'm loving all these turkey stories. I'm considering doing turkeys too. Has anyone tried Midget White turkeys? I like the idea of a smaller turkey.


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## FizzyGoats

I had to google them. They sound pretty neat. Now I want you to get them so I can see a bunch of pictures of little turkeys.


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## Calistar

Fizzy, your turkeys sound like a crackup! I'd really like to raise some one day. I need to get Jessica to hook me up, and then tell my landlord I thought I was hatching chicken eggs 😆

I haven't been on here much because my chickens haven't really been doing anything interesting lately, but I do have a really strange quail story! It is gory though so be forewarned! So my quail are in rabbit cages and bird cages in a back yard that is fenced with 6' tall chain link. The cages all have small wire, being primarily rabbit cages. And most of them are about 1' off the ground because the rabbit cages were made to stack. I have about 5 cages because quail are mean little buggers and I have to keep breaking up the group. So one day I come home from work and one cage has both occupants dead, their heads pulled through the wire at opposite sides of the cage at the bottom, heads mostly chewed off. I figure something must have come in the night and I just didn't notice before work- I start chores before the sun comes up and I only check the quail in the evening. Raccoon seemed like the most likely culprit but I haven't seen any in a couple years. I know skunks frequent the back yard but they're usually not violent, or so I thought? Or maybe a possum? They're rare but I did find a dead one in the back field a couple weeks prior. So I rearrange cages, put some inside of a chain link dog run that has a roof. The rest stay in the back yard but I get them all off the ground and make sure they've all got something on top so nothing can reach in. One small cage housed 2 females, and that one I set on top of a small makeshift chicken coop that's only about 3' high. I put an empty feed sack over the top and wrapped the sides so nothing could get in, leaving just the front exposed (which has a feeder attached, so nothing can get right up to the wire in the front.) The next morning, all looks good before I go to work, but I don't stop to look close. When I get home from work, I have another casualty- one of the females that's in the "pen on top of a pen" that's 3' off the ground- way out of a skunk's reach. So that leaves possum or raccoon? This quail had also had its head pulled through the wire- at the back of the cage, in a tiny gap that the feed sack didn't quite cover, go figure! At this point I'm fed up of feeding predators. The perpetrator has killed 2 of my 3 brown-egg coturnix hens and my favorite rooster. (Celadons were all okay!) So I set a live trap, put it on top of the cage and baited it with the dead quail. The next morning, I did a check before work and was disappointed to find nothing in the trap. Maybe the thief was full from its meals the previous two nights? I go to work, and halfway through the day I get a text from my mom saying that I'd caught something.....not at ALL what I expected!









I'd been looking forward to shooting the quail-killer, go figure I caught a protected species! Ugh! And I certainly was not expecting an aerial predator! What kind of idiot bird walks into a skunk trap??? This little snot HAS to be the same one that was killing chickens when I had them free-ranging in the back yard last year. The little terrorist was set free and hasn't been back yet, but I'm sure it's a matter of time. From what you ladies are saying, sounds like a need a guardian turkey 🤣


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## FizzyGoats

That is crazy! I can’t believe it was catching and eating caged birds. Now that is truly bizarre. I agree, you need Jessica to hook you up with some of those giant, funny looking ‘chicken’ eggs. 🤣


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## ksalvagno

FizzyGoats said:


> I had to google them. They sound pretty neat. Now I want you to get them so I can see a bunch of pictures of little turkeys.


I'll probably order poults next spring. Looks like I can order from Meyer Hatchery. I wouldn't mind getting some from a small farm but so far no luck finding a local small farm that has them.


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## Jessica84

Freaking hawks! I had one come in today while ultrasounding the goats. The turkeys went nuts. My husband was so confused why they were going off. I said somethings after them! Ran out and sure enough there he was in the tree. I’m over everything eating my dang chickens. I didn’t get them to live in a cage their whole life  
I have not had a midget white before. They are a broad breasted and a royal palm cross. If they have even half of the sweetness broad breasted has then you will really enjoy them. 
And I will be so over whelmed with eggs next year I will give you eggs if you want to go down that dark road lol they will just be multi colored. Nothing “pure” color wise.


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## ksalvagno

Jessica84 said:


> They are a broad breasted and a royal palm cross. If they have even half of the sweetness broad breasted has then you will really enjoy them.
> And I will be so over whelmed with eggs next year I will give you eggs if you want to go down that dark road lol they will just be multi colored. Nothing “pure” color wise.


That sounds interesting! Colorful birds are more fun. I wonder if they would be as small.


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## Jessica84

There’s really only a few pounds difference. Which I know when it comes to chickens a few pounds makes a huge difference but not so much with turkeys. The slates and bourbon reds are 14-23 pounds (hens-toms) the midget white is is 12-20 and royal palms are actually the smallest at 10-16 pounds. The Royal palms defiantly look more slender then the others I have. I guess the best way to describe it is if you put a Nubian and a boer next to each other. I’ll just try and get you pictures lol now if you want really unique and awesome turkeys check out porterturkeys.com. They have getting unique varieties down to a science. There is no science with mine. I let them all run wild and free and I end up with things like a black one with black and brown tail feathers except for 1 that came in royal palm color lol talk about a poor confused girl lol but the whole surprise thing was pretty cool when they hatched and grew.


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## Cedarwinds Farm

I come to this thread when I want to laugh at turkey stories! I love them! I'm hoping that next year will be my turkey year. I'm thinking I will put them on my Christmas list, along with some chickens that lay blue or green eggs. I want egg gathering time to be more exciting!
Sorry to hear about the quail, @Calistar ! That's truly bizarre! I wouldn't have thought a hawk would do that, either! Makes me wonder how it even got them. Did it sit there and wait til they came close to the edge of the cage, then grab them? That's scarily smart!
I have rooster woes. My Polish is a rooster, after all. I also ended up with a Barred Rock and two Buff Orpington roos! The hens have taken to picking on the Polish. They are pulling his head feathers out! His head was bloody yesterday. I think he's going to have to go.
Then my two little Buff Orpingtons got into a fight. Definitely will be thinning the rooster population soon. 😑


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## Jessica84

Oh no! It’s always the ones that you really want to be hens that turn out to be Roos :/ i lost all of my polish but every single one of them ended up being roosters. 
Yeah I don’t know about turkeys this morning lol I went out and all the toms were puffed and the hens were going off. I thought OH! I got that dang coyote in the trap! I was so excited. NO! They were upset because a tree fell. I wasn’t sure if I should laugh or be disgusted with them lol


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## FizzyGoats

They do alert to everything as if it’s a big deal. Mine won’t let a crow stay in any tree in our fence line. And we’ve had the fallen branch alert as well. It’s so fun to go sprinting out there and come face to face with a deadly stick that wasn’t there yesterday. And my toms gobble all the time for every little noise. I kind of like it though. 

I sing stupid songs while I’m doing chores and I know if I hit a high note, they’ll gobble. So I’ll do that and point to them whenever I want them to chime in. We’re the band, Three Snoods and a Lady. Our first album will be dropping soon, I’m sure. 🤣


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## ksalvagno

How do you integrate chickens? The chicks will be 14 weeks old this Wed and I need to get everyone together. I let them for a little while today. The older chickens weren't too bad. The rooster chased them off a bit but wasn't aggressive about it and really didn't try too hard. Do you slowly do it or just throw them in together?


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## Jessica84

Ehhh i just toss them in together as long as it’s not just 1 chicken. Usually when it’s a batch it puts the heat evenly on them all. But you can do it slowly! Nothing wrong with that at all! Just keep doing play dates and when it looks like things are getting heated take away. I have heard that it goes over better if you slip them in at night. The only issue I see with that is you might not be out there to step in when they wake up and get moving and possibly bullying


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## Tanya

ksalvagno said:


> How do you integrate chickens? The chicks will be 14 weeks old this Wed and I need to get everyone together. I let them for a little while today. The older chickens weren't too bad. The rooster chased them off a bit but wasn't aggressive about it and really didn't try too hard. Do you slowly do it or just throw them in together?


My three are now in the pen. I put them behind them and tgey move around as the three "B's". The asultz dont worry to much about them. Eventually you will find they wonder together


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## FizzyGoats

I used deer netting to divide my pen area for the littles and bigs. I let them free range in the day together while I supervised after a week or so and they slept in a coop where they could see but not get to each other. But my littles were only 6 weeks old at the time, so I was careful. At about 10 weeks, they were fully integrated. 

If they do fine on ‘play dates,’ I’d just extend the time on those and remove any chickens who are being overly aggressive. Then when you put the meanie back in, they’re more concerned with putting themselves back at the top of the order with their big, normal chicken friends than with the bottom of the totem pole newbies. 

You can always toss them together early in the day and see how it goes. If they’re getting along fairly well by nighttime, I don’t think roosting together should be too much of a problem.


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## Tanya

I agree with fizzy. Also night time is safery in numbers. So the littles will go where they feel safe. My 3 already learnt to roost in their ceate. So by next week they get to roost with their pappa and aunts...


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## ksalvagno

So are turkey poults as hard to raise as I'm reading about? How expensive is gamebird feed and flock raiser?


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## Jessica84

Honestly I don’t think they are that hard to raise. Ive had better luck with turkeys then I have chickens. I talked to a know it all chicken guy…….you know the type he knows all just ask him. Anyways he claims it’s probably because I kept the turkeys more air tight and blocked breezes which is good for poults but chicks need that air flow. No clue to be honest. 
Feed wise I pay $17.99 for chick starter and 19.99 for game bird starter. I only use the starter though and some times they get just chick starter and I bump the protein with worms or scrambled eggs. But once they get older they just get chicken food. BUT by then they pretty much free range too. I also heard you can use cat food to up the protein.


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## FizzyGoats

For me, the turkey poults were way harder. Jessica is the magic turkey lady though, lol. I ordered 11, they sent 12, 8 survived to maturity. At the same time, raised in the same brooder, I ordered 4 chicks, they sent 5, all 5 survived to maturity. 

My chickens and turkeys (now that they’re not young and vulnerable) free range during the day and that mitigates a lot of food cost. The food I buy the turkeys now is 22% protein and I pay $12 for a 40 lb bag. When I had them on the higher protein when they were younger, I paid $20ish per bag. They can drop to even lower protein now, it’s just the farm store is always out of it.


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## ksalvagno

FizzyGoats said:


> For me, the turkey poults were way harder. Jessica is the magic turkey lady though, lol. I ordered 11, they sent 12, 8 survived to maturity. At the same time, raised in the same brooder, I ordered 4 chicks, they sent 5, all 5 survived to maturity.


Where did you buy your turkey poults from? Did the typical stuff I have read about make it hard for you? Have to admit what I have been reading scares me from trying turkeys. They make it sound so extremely hard and expensive.


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## FizzyGoats

ksalvagno said:


> Where did you buy your turkey poults from? Did the typical stuff I have read about make it hard for you? Have to admit what I have been reading scares me from trying turkeys. They make it sound so extremely hard and expensive.


I ordered from Cackle and they were great to work with. To be fair, the 4th one I lost was to a snake and was old enough to be past the fragile point. I don’t even know what happened to the other 3. They just would get weak and die. Sometimes I would see them flipped over and run and turn them upright. But a lot of them did that at one point or another, so it didn’t determine who died or anything. Only one that got so weak it couldn’t walk was able to be nursed back to health, and I literally did turkey physical therapy to teach it to walk again. That hen (Weebles) is still alive and well. The other three that got really weak ended up dying. All within the first few weeks. 

It could definitely be my inexperience that made it so difficult. These were the first poults and chicks I ever raised (had only bought adult hens before). But the chicks were so easy. I kept them warm, watered, fed, and cleaned a few pasty butts and that was about it. Once the turkeys go to about 4-6 weeks old, their health wasn’t nearly as fragile (just very accident prone). 

As far as price of raising them now, they don’t seem to cost much and they are great at finding their own food and seem to prefer it.


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## Jessica84

Are you reading about turkeys in general or heritage turkeys? There is a HUGE difference between broad breasted and heritage. Broad breasted are super sensitive and are not bred to be hardy, just to grow fast. They also lack a lot of brains. Also since they do grow so fast they can be expensive to feed, but they are only supposed to live for so long. 
Heritage turkeys do also eat more then chickens, they are larger then most chickens but it’s not crazy when it’s just a few. And if you can free range them it helps out so much! 
But I think the one thing for little poults is they don’t do cold well. Chicks don’t either but I think poults are a lot more sensitive. But as long as they have heat, keep the bedding dry and no way to stand in their water that goes a long ways to keeping them alive. 
My original turkeys also came from cackle. Their birds have always been so very healthy. But they don’t have the midget whites  I believe Murray does though.


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## ksalvagno

This was just a general raising turkey poults. No mention of type. https://morningchores.com/raising-turkey-from-poults/


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## Jessica84

Well some of that makes sense and should be followed even with chickens. Lights on until feathers come in and reduce the temp, although I never did that. When they started sleeping away from the light I turned it off. Turkeys are only seasonal layers anyways and start in the spring so by the time feathers come in it’s usually fairly warm out.
I have never dug in their shavings! They scratch around. They are not as huge about doing it as chickens but they still scratch. I have also never gave Luke warm water. Just straight out of the tap. Once it’s gone I refill. I could see if it’s ice cold water coming out and it’s cold out but again it’s spring or summer during poult season so it’s warm. Them finding the water I honestly never had a issue with that BUT I usually always have a ton of babies so if one doesn’t have the idea to peck at the water out of curiosity another one will. And I never had a issue with them eating the wood shavings. Every now and then a shaving would have a little brown on it and they would grab it and run around with it but I don’t think they ever ate it and if they did not a lot. 
I have to admit I never did a whole lot of research on turkeys before getting them but I feed layer pellets and they are fine. But they also have other things to eat out and about


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## ksalvagno

Ok. So it shouldn't be as bad as she makes it out to be. Do you have chicks in with them? Would it help to have chicks as well as the poults? 

I was kind of stunned at how hard it is to find turkeys this year. Apparently many turkey breeders in my area got out after last Thanksgiving. Plus we smoked a turkey for the first time and couldn't believe how great it tastes. That was why I thought getting the White Midgets would be nice. I need a 15lb or smaller bird for the smoker and I'd rather know what they were fed and everything as opposed to grocery store meat that you have no idea.


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## Jessica84

No I don’t think that hard, just a little more delicate. The only thing I found to be semi challenging was baby proofing things. Like don’t put the feeder or waterer in a corner they might get stuck. And make sure there is enough room under the lamp for however many you get. The feed seems to be a part that is hard for others. I’ll be honest I just fed chick starter until I heard otherwise but that was well into my first ever batch. 
Putting a chick in really wouldn’t hurt anything! What I did the first year I got them was I had them in the bathroom to make sure not cats got them. Every time I went in there I just packed at the water and food. Most of the time they pecked but they didn’t act thirsty. But that honestly might have been because their little trough was on the smaller side so they really didn’t have the room to go WAY over there and forget how to get back to the water. 
I wouldn’t jump in nuts like I Did but I do think if this is something you would like to try then try it! I was planning on butchering some of mine but had to put the chickens in the kennel I was going to use to fatten them up and keep them away from all the animal poop. If they are like the home grown chickens my nephew sold me they will taste a LOT better then the store! I was shocked at how much flavorful home grow was.


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## FizzyGoats

I didn’t find them harder, just more fragile, like Jessica said. I had chicks in with mine to teach them to eat and drink, so I didn’t have that issue either. Everyone got along great. I used large pine shavings and never saw them trying to eat it. I had a brooder with rounded corners made of cardboard to avoid them getting stuck but I never actually saw them get stuck behind or between anything, they’d just get tipped over sometimes. Mine ate and drank well. Even the ones that died had good body condition (so I’m still confused). We had wild temperature swings when I got mine but they were good about going under the heat lamps or getting out from under them. When they got a few weeks old, mine became very mobile and great escape artists. They could jump way higher than I thought. 

I’d say try them and see if you like them. They are great birds to have around and supposedly amazing tasting meat (haven’t eaten one yet).


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## ksalvagno

Thanks. I think I am going to try them in the spring.


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## Jessica84

I’m still going to try these turkeys, It just won’t be for thanksgiving or Christmas like I had planned. 
I think you will enjoy the turkeys. I think my two favorite things about them is they go nuts for meat bees and they eat the stinging nettles lol they do frustrate me because they are so smart about so many things but also so dumb. I am still baffled how they can get over a fence but can’t figure out how to get back over!


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## FizzyGoats

Jessica84 said:


> they do frustrate me because they are so smart about so many things but also so dumb. I am still baffled how they can get over a fence but can’t figure out how to get back over!


Oh my gosh. Yes. I so feel the same.


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## FizzyGoats

ksalvagno said:


> Thanks. I think I am going to try them in the spring.


I think you’ll like them. I had a horrible experience with a turkey growing up and hated the birds, so I got them because I thought it’d be the one animal I’d have no problem butchering. Boy was I wrong. We will still butcher some but I’ve kind of fallen in love with these crazy characters.


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## Tanya

@FizzyGoats no matter what you feel aboit these poults it will always be hard to behead them.










My aloof beast. Refusing to stand still long enough of cours.










Bubbles my ever so alert youngen. 










Bekkie (the light one) living up to her / his name. In Afrikaans the name means "some one who doesnt stop talking. They are 6 weeks old now and fully integrated into the coup.


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## FizzyGoats

They are pretty cute!

And I’m the type that feels guilty killing a spider, so butchering will never come easy to me.


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## Moers kiko boars

I was attacked by a rooster when I was about 10. After that,I killed that rooster, no problem. My Grandmother just smiled and said..Rooster & dumplins tonight for dinner! It bothered me later. But she could make the best homemade noodles Ive ever eaten. The roo was good too!


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## Jessica84

Your hens will thank you when the time comes for the toms. Toms get very competitive about breeding and will end up ripping your hens backs up and a lot of times to the point they need to be put down. So hopefully that helps you when the time comes. But I totally understand what you mean. I have a hard time with it too. It always seems to be my job to feed the butcher animals and a lot of them it gets rough until it’s all over and done with. 
Mean animals though I have no issue with! One rooster attacked Savanna, she had bloody gashes on her legs. Got the shot gun and shot his head off. That old rooster was the WORST chicken I ever had. So now mean roosters go to the sale for someone that can stomach that to eat lol


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## Tanya

Ok. I know its a spring chick chat but has any one treated bumblefoot in their chickens?


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## FizzyGoats

Have you tried soaking the foot in a warm water epsom salt bath? Is there an open wound or a closed abscess? I know you want to draw out the infection and then use something like Vetericyn spray (not sure if you have that) on it to keep out more infections. Hopefully someone who knows more can answer. 

I haven’t had it yet but researched when my tom was limping. Turns out he had a broken toe. Poor guy.


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## Tanya

Thanks @FizzyGoats I have soaked it. I have avian antibiotics. She has an abcess on her foot. 

Poor tom. Hope he is feeling better


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## Moers kiko boars

@Tanya ..could you put a picture up of " bumble foot" .Ive never seen or heard of it. Im new to chickens. So I could learn please? If its not too much trouble. Thanks


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## Tanya

@Moers kiko boars I will as soon as Vani can bring her to me. Its very painful.


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## Tanya

We lost Bubbles to one of my tenants cats...


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## ksalvagno

Oh no. I'm so sorry.


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## Tanya

Yeah. I dont mind the cats but the tenants know they cannot let them out. Purely house cats. ☹. So I dont know how to deal with this...


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## FizzyGoats

Im so sorry. That’s terrible.


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## Tanya

Moers kiko boars said:


> @Tanya ..could you put a picture up of " bumble foot" .Ive never seen or heard of it. Im new to chickens. So I could learn please? If its not too much trouble. Thanks





Tanya said:


> @Moers kiko boars I will as soon as Vani can bring her to me. Its very painful.


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## Tanya

Those are really bad pictures. I will take proper ones of her feet tomorrow.


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## Tanya

__
Sensitive content, not recommended for those under 18
Show Content








bumblefoot in both legs


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## Moers kiko boars

Wow that looks painful. All of it looks swollen. Poor girl. 
Thankyou for the pictures.


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## Tanya

@Moers kiko boars 

They are painfully swollen. The purple is like your bluecote with antibiotics too. I have seperated her now but she is not moving much. She still has a good appetite and drinks water etc. Any way. I hope she heals up


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## FizzyGoats

I hope she heals up. She’s getting great care and it’s wonderful she still is eating and drinking. It always hurts to see your animal in pain.


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## Moers kiko boars

That looks so painful. Is it a bacterial infection? What caused it? Is that leg swollen too? Poor girl


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## Tanya

Moers kiko boars said:


> That looks so painful. Is it a bacterial infection? What caused it? Is that leg swollen too? Poor girl


It is. Its caused by inflamation in the joints. Sometimes from a little sore other times because she landed wrong. She is already 3 years old which is ok for a backyard chicken. We are trying to keep her comfortable at the moment.


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## Moers kiko boars

Im sorry she is in pain. Thankyou for the pictures & education. I do hope she gets better soon.


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## Jessica84

Tanya look into scaly leg mites. To me that kinda looks like what she has. On a real fast search this is what I found:

Scaly leg mites burrow under the scales on a chicken’s shanks and feet (left), causing the scales to stick outward. Swelling of the joints due to gout (right) may be mistaken for deformity due to scaly leg. Artwork by Bethany Caskey.
Once scaly leg mites settle in, they burrow deeply under the leg scales and spend their entire lives on the chicken, so you’ll have a hard time getting rid of them. Every poultry keeper, it seems, has a favorite method for these chicken foot problems. One such method is to use the drug ivermectin, which is not approved for chickens but is widely used to control both internal and external parasites. Chicken keepers who regularly use ivermectin to control leg mites and other external parasites find that internal parasites eventually become resistant to it.
Here is a funny boy I wanted to share. As I have said I just let all my turkeys run together so have had some cool colors. But look at this boy lol he’s a rusty black but has one royal palm feather lol my sisters Tom turned mean so she had to sell him so I’m going to give her this confused boy. 








I just thought that was so funny so wanted to share


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## Tanya

@Jessica84 I will definately be looking into it. Thank you for the article.


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## Tanya

Peek a boo


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## Moers kiko boars

Awwww its a peeper! So cute!🥰🥰


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## FizzyGoats

Jessica84 said:


> Here is a funny boy I wanted to share. As I have said I just let all my turkeys run together so have had some cool colors. But look at this boy lol he’s a rusty black but has one royal palm feather lol my sisters Tom turned mean so she had to sell him so I’m going to give her this confused boy.
> View attachment 215585
> 
> I just thought that was so funny so wanted to share


Oh gosh. I love him! He is certainly one of a kind. 



Tanya said:


> View attachment 215679
> 
> 
> Peek a boo


Aw, cute!


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## Tanya

There are 5 little peepers now...


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## ksalvagno

Nice you will have more chicks!


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## Tanya

How are every one elses chicks?


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## FizzyGoats

Wild and out of control. So the usual around here. Lol.


I am seriously considering culling two turkeys. One tom (because I think three is probably too many) and one hen who is super sweet to us but constantly picking on the others and starting fights. The hen is a maybe. The tom likely needs to happen sometime in the next few months. It makes me sad because I love my toms. They are all sweet. There are two I can’t decide between, but I do know who the for-sure keeper is.


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## Jessica84

Gosh my turkeys think it’s spring! The hens are scrapping and the Toms, ugh remember when I said I think I hatched mostly hens? Well I obviously lied lol two of my originals, Blue and Royal (Toms) they get into it every now and then, nothing too insane and usually a day with Blue in the pen and all is forgiven. I go out the other day and it’s a mass Tom fight! Those two were fighting and all the young ones were jumping in. I was going to kill them all! But got them broke up and the young ones on the way. The originals are now going out farther, I think to keep a eye on their hens. So today I had enough and went out and got 15 toms in a pen, and I still have a few more out there. I’m going take some to the sale as I have time (I don’t have much time lol) and what ever is left around Christmas time is going in the freezer or if someone wants to buy their freezer


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## ksalvagno

Wow. I didn't realize you had so many toms. That is a lot!


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## FizzyGoats

Jessica, I read your posts and sometimes see little glimpses in to my future. And I’ll admit, I’m a little scared. 
🤣


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## Jessica84

I didn’t realize it either! These are the younger ones that I call that wonders. They usually hang out at the corral all day and just kinda do their own thing. I think it’s the Toms that make them go out so far. 
Nahhh don’t be scared lol just keep the Toms down, those guys can be the coolest or the most trouble makers. I really like my 3 originals they are good boys. But having those Toms locked up my little flock looks so much smaller. 
I don’t even know how to feed ones that are penned up for butcher but I guess I’ll figure that out. I got them a few bags of meat chicken feed so we will see how that does with putting weight on them.


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## Jessica84

I forgot to share this last night. We branded a few calf’s yesterday so we could take them to another field and these were my helpers. And they were oh so helpful trying to push calf’s past them too. Every time a gate squeaked they googled, starting the generator or me raising my voice and they gobbled. They had me laughing so hard. So even though they can be a pain they are still the most enjoyable animals I have


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## FizzyGoats

That’s so funny. I love their gobbles! Every time I laugh (often at my own jokes), they “laugh” with me.


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## ksalvagno

That is funny! 😄


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## Jessica84

Lol yep laugh or yell or the middle of the night when I let the dogs out and call them back in. When I was ultrasounding a few weeks back my dad was yelling to me to see if I needed any help. The turkeys went off every time and I had to go out to see what he was saying. He of course did not find the humor in it all lol


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## FizzyGoats

Jessica84 said:


> Lol yep laugh or yell or the middle of the night when I let the dogs out and call them back in. When I was ultrasounding a few weeks back my dad was yelling to me to see if I needed any help. The turkeys went off every time and I had to go out to see what he was saying. He of course did not find the humor in it all lol


Lol. Yes! This happens to me and my husband all the time. One of us will yell to the other, the turkeys gobble every time and we absolutely cannot hear what the other is saying. We end up having to walk to each other and talk. Other gobble triggers are a car door shutting, the house door shutting, a phone ringing, a crow/hawk/owl calling, any power tool being used, and the tractor starting. The turkeys do not allow a loud noise to go unacknowledged by them.


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## Tanya

At two months Bekkie is a rooster (the white one) and Beast is the hen.


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## ksalvagno

Cute!


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## toth boer goats

How cute.


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## FizzyGoats

What great pictures! Love it.


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## Tanya

Kentucky Fried Chicken 5 piece bucket deal.... 😁 My 5 two week old cheep cheeps


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## toth boer goats

How cute.


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## Tanya

Man are they a noisy crew


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## Tanya

KFC and her chicken nuggets enjiying a free range dinner


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## toth boer goats

Aww


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## Moers kiko boars

Earlier we talked of Bumblefoot. One of my daughters sent this to me. I wanted to share with all of you.


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## Dandy Hill Farm

Moers kiko boars said:


> Earlier we talked of Bumblefoot. One of my daughters sent this to me. I wanted to share with all of you.
> View attachment 217033


I saw that the other day on Old Mountain Farm FB page! What a GREAT idea!! 😁


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## Tanya

Wonderful idea


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## Cedarwinds Farm

My pullets gave me an early Christmas gift!


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## Moers kiko boars

Isnt that exciting?


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## FizzyGoats

Nice! And I bet they’ll just keep on giving.


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## toth boer goats

😁


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## Cedarwinds Farm

It's nice to see the work start paying off!


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## Tanya

Those are some nice size eggs


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## Cedarwinds Farm

Tanya said:


> Those are some nice size eggs


They are big for pullet eggs.
We got 3 this morning!
I'm trying to teach the chickens not to roost in the nesting boxes. There are about 6 of them who insist, so I have to go in there every night and move them to their actual roost. But they don't _like_ their roost. They'd rather sit and poo in their nest boxes, then lay their eggs in it next morning.


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## Tanya

That sounds so very familiar.


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## Jessica84

I just wanted to show you guys my mottled Tom. I am very excited about this guy! He was actually in the “to eat” pen and I pulled him out once I realized what he was. He will get more mottled as time goes on


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## ksalvagno

Love it!


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## Tanya

"Look mom. Moon spots...😁"


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## Cedarwinds Farm

He is pretty!


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## Jessica84

Tanya said:


> "Look mom. Moon spots..."


You know how I love spots lol


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## Cedarwinds Farm

The vast difference between these two eggs is cracking me up. Mom is guessing that monster one will be a double yolker. She is more of the chicken person, so she's probably right. 








I put out a different feed dish for the chickens this morning, since the milk left in their normal one was frozen solid. They eyed that new dish with deep suspicion. One hen was finally approaching the bowl when I accidentally clattered the lid on the feed barrel and she sprang back in shock.


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## Cedarwinds Farm

Well, my 'spring chickens' gave me 13 eggs yesterday...I guess it may be about time to start a new spring chick chat thread!
I just placed my order for a new batch of chicks. They will be coming in July! Some of the varieties I was looking at were already completely sold out.








The girls are checking out the fermented feed I made for them. It was gone when I came back later, so I guess they liked it!


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## ksalvagno

Nice. It is too cold here. I'm lucky to get 4 eggs a day.


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## Amber89

Im getting around 11-13 a day but I have around 27 hens. And I have a banty hen sitting on 10 eggs


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## FizzyGoats

I only have one older gal and the rest of my hens were born in May. They each give me an egg a day usually. I will be okay with it when this first year is over and they slow down a bit. 

My turkeys are driving me nuts! I’m going crazy trying to build a separate enclosure and pen because it has become apparent I can’t have all the toms together. My favorite and most impressive tom, Gobfather, was beat down and basically ousted when the other two realized they could team up and take him. Today, he got the motivation to retake his place when one of the other toms went to mount a turkey hen. He knocked the tom off her and the boys spent a good 15 minutes locked in battle. I kept the other tom out of it so Gobfather could give Mr Snoodle a good whooping. I also had to keep my LGD out of it because he will separate any two fighting animals. The dog looked at me like I was crazy to let this happen, but he trusted my command and stood down. I really do love my toms, they are friendly and sweet and good protectors, but we’re pretty sure we’re going to butcher one of the three. I think two will do.


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## Jessica84

Yes the turkeys think it’s spring right now and things are interesting! I also have way too many toms and they are just going at the poor hens and fighting a lot. I was going to butcher a good handful but my cows had other ideas so my freezer is back being totally stocked. So hopefully Saturday I’m going to take as many toms down as my little goat tote will haul. At this point I don’t care if I get $5 each. 
I also am down to 2 amigos of my original toms and I lost snoodless and my Narragansett hen. I am real close to saying forget it and get rid of everything. I think the chickens are the main issue and I now have a Bob cat issue. I hate having everything penned all the time. That’s now why I got them. But I bought a bunch of motion lights and alarms, sprinkles and blinking red eyes at at the moment that seems to be doing the trick. 
Before I lost them though I did order 15 Narragansett turkeys and kinda regretting that at the moment but will see if I pay to cancel or go threw with it. 
And yes I think we need a new spring chick chat


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## FizzyGoats

Oh man, bobcats are tough to keep out. Light and agile and off with your poultry. I put up motion lights as well. No other alarms though. I hope it keeps your animals safe. The coyotes are out like crazy around me. Everything I have is locked up at night for now. 

I’m sorry about your Snoodles and your hen. I totally understand wanting to throw in the towel. That’s me every other day. Let us know if you go through with the order of the 15 turkeys or not. 

Since this is a learning year for me and the turkeys, I highly doubt I’ll get more than a few poults out of it if any because I’m not incubating and if the hens hatch any, they’ll also be raising them. Poults seem quite suicidal before the age of 8 weeks and the adult hens don’t seem like they’ll be doting moms.

I hope you can stuff a lot of toms in your goat tote and get a good price for them at the sale!


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## Calistar

Jessica84 said:


> Yes the turkeys think it’s spring right now and things are interesting! I also have way too many toms and they are just going at the poor hens and fighting a lot. I was going to butcher a good handful but my cows had other ideas so my freezer is back being totally stocked. So hopefully Saturday I’m going to take as many toms down as my little goat tote will haul. At this point I don’t care if I get $5 each.
> I also am down to 2 amigos of my original toms and I lost snoodless and my Narragansett hen. I am real close to saying forget it and get rid of everything. I think the chickens are the main issue and I now have a Bob cat issue. I hate having everything penned all the time. That’s now why I got them. But I bought a bunch of motion lights and alarms, sprinkles and blinking red eyes at at the moment that seems to be doing the trick.
> Before I lost them though I did order 15 Narragansett turkeys and kinda regretting that at the moment but will see if I pay to cancel or go threw with it.
> And yes I think we need a new spring chick chat


I was going to make another comment about how you can send a couple of those Narragansetts to me, but I saw you post on another thread about feeding your turkeys a 50# bag a day and I am so not on board with that 😂 My main chicken pen goes through a bag a week and I thought that was bad!


----------



## Jessica84

I’m just over wildlife at the moment. I am working on converting one of these shelter logics into a night time coop. But of course it has to show up in the middle of kidding and get the two favorites.
Lol normally I don’t have to feed that much right now. There’s a lot for them to find on their own but I’m trying to keep them close to home right now, which really sucks because I saw a HUGE difference in the amount of flies down at the corral with them digging around in it. Oh well either the cat will one day croak from some mysterious cause or it will move on and life should go back to normal.


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## Tanya

What did the white house name the chicken that got past the gaurds?


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## FizzyGoats

Calistar said:


> I was going to make another comment about how you can send a couple of those Narragansetts to me, but I saw you post on another thread about feeding your turkeys a 50# bag a day and I am so not on board with that  My main chicken pen goes through a bag a week and I thought that was bad!


 Feed is getting crazy! For all the animals. Though my turkeys eat less than my chickens and I have more turkeys. They must be pretty good foragers, even through the winter. But my turkeys are a bigger pain too but that’s because I have toms. I’m sure if I had roosters with the chickens, they’d be a pain too.





Jessica84 said:


> I’m just over wildlife at the moment. I am working on converting one of these shelter logics into a night time coop. But of course it has to show up in the middle of kidding and get the two favorites.
> Lol normally I don’t have to feed that much right now. There’s a lot for them to find on their own but I’m trying to keep them close to home right now, which really sucks because I saw a HUGE difference in the amount of flies down at the corral with them digging around in it. Oh well either the cat will one day croak from some mysterious cause or it will move on and life should go back to normal.


Yep, it all has to happen at the worst possible time. I hope this passes quickly for you. 




Tanya said:


> What did the white house name the chicken that got past the gaurds?


What?


----------



## Calistar

I am still soaking/fermenting my chicken feed and it really does help stretch it quite a bit. I wonder if turkeys will eat fermented feed...I don't see why they wouldn't? 

On the topic of chickens, I bought some of those horizontal chicken nipples and installed them in 5 gallon buckets in some of the chicken pens because I was tired of how fast they kept getting their water dirty. Wow, what a game changer! Now they have clean water for more than 5 minutes, and I only have to refill their buckets weekly. In the summer of course it'll probably be more often, or I'll just add more buckets. Why didn't I do this 5 years ago??


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## Tanya

What?
[/QUOTE]
Apparently a chicken walked past the secret service without being detected..... I thought it was clever of the chicken....


----------



## Calistar

Tanya said:


> What?


Apparently a chicken walked past the secret service without being detected..... I thought it was clever of the chicken....
[/QUOTE]
Wait there's no punchline? 😂


----------



## Tanya

No. No punch line. I am just curious if they called her boggey?


----------



## Jessica84

Oh gosh I’m sure sure the turkeys would eat the fermented feed. So a very long story as short as I can we had to butcher a bull. The turkeys were all over any piece of anything they could get ahold of. At one point I realized if I ever fell down and died around them they would eat me! 
But they are good garbage disposals. I have started giving them table scraps and there has yet to be anything they won’t eat lol


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## FizzyGoats

Tanya said:


> Apparently a chicken walked past the secret service without being detected..... I thought it was clever of the chicken....


Oh gosh. I’m sorry. I thought it was the beginning of a joke. 



Calistar said:


> Wait there's no punchline?


Lol. I’m so glad I’m not the only one who thought that!





Jessica84 said:


> Oh gosh I’m sure sure the turkeys would eat the fermented feed. So a very long story as short as I can we had to butcher a bull. The turkeys were all over any piece of anything they could get ahold of. At one point I realized if I ever fell down and died around them they would eat me!
> But they are good garbage disposals. I have started giving them table scraps and there has yet to be anything they won’t eat lol


Now I want the long version. Is this bull who attacked you not long ago?
And yeah, turkeys are not picky eaters at all. I bet they’d love fermented food. 
I had to throw two toms in the garden today just to get some peace. I’m almost done with the separate pen and shelter. Worked on it all day in the rain and will work on it in the freezing rain tomorrow. That’s how nuts these guys are driving me. Lol. 

My chickens on the other hand, are sweet little fluffy butts who are never naughty.


----------



## Calistar

Between the chickens, the kunes, and the dogs, we have pretty much zero food waste! Now if only I could find an animal that would eat all the hay that the goats and sheep waste 😩

Are any of you planning any new chicken projects this year, or have the turkeys gotten all of you overwhelmed? 😆 I am planning on hatching my own chicks this year. I've had several losses this winter (just failures to thrive, no predators or anything) so my hope is that by hatching eggs from my own flock, I'll be selecting for the stronger genetics. I have two main pens- one houses a complete assortment of hens and a Cream Legbar rooster. The other has marans hens and a marans rooster, plus a young hen I hatched from a green egg that would have been covered by the Legbar rooster. The young hen looks like a pure Legbar despite having hatched from a green egg, and she just laid her first egg today and it was blue. So I'm hoping to hatch some of her eggs sired by the marans rooster to hopefully get some olive eggs, and hatch some more colorful eggs from the pen with the Legbar rooster. If I don't get fed up with BOTH roosters and eat them before then! The Legbar has always been a little punk (as has my Legbar hen) and the young marans roo is starting to get full of himself too and I've had to carry him around like a little purse a couple times now already!


----------



## FizzyGoats

Sounds like you’re going to be busy with some colorful chicken eggs! Do you have the hens hatch them out? Or do you incubate? I don’t have a rooster, so no fertilized eggs here. I’m tempted to get one sometimes but I’m worried the toms would kill him. They are very sweet to my chickens. And roosters can be so mean (at least the one I had growing up). At least the toms are only mean to each other (and sometimes they pick on the goats too, but my LGD will usually stop them from getting too pushy). 

I don’t even own an incubator. I don’t expect to have a great poult crop this year because the turkey hens are young and don’t know what they’re doing and neither do I. So if I have any actually hatch, I’ll consider that a great success. If any somehow survive to 8 weeks, I’ll be over the moon. My husband somehow has it his head that we’re going to have tons of poults. I have to keep bringing him back to reality.


----------



## Calistar

I will probably incubate them just so I have more control. Historically, I've let my silkies hatch my eggs whenever there's something I want hatched 😆 But since I bought that incubator last year for the quail eggs, I figure I might as well use it! I still want to buy some fancy quail eggs to hatch this year too, but those little buggers are so violent! It's so hard to keep them together. My last hatch was a couple months ago and out of 2 dozen eggs, only 6 hatched. One got out of the brooder and died, and two flew away, so I only have 3 from that hatch. I'm currently collecting eggs to try again.

Fuzzy, I can hook you up with some nursemaid silkies in lieu of an incubator! And I've got a nice rooster you can have too 😂 He's the brother to the half Legbar/half green hen I have. I thought I'd keep him for breeding, then he and his frat buddies trashed my veggie garden so I thought maybe I'd eat him instead. But he is a good-looking roo! How many turkeys do you have? Don't you have about half a dozen? I hope you get some poults this year!


----------



## FizzyGoats

Aw, I’d love a nursemaid silkie taking care of turkeys eggs. That would be funny and adorable. 

So I might have forgot or missed it, but what do you end up doing with the quail you hatch? I’ve heard they’re pretty volatile little birds. I’m toying with raising some meat chickens next spring. 

I have 8 turkeys. Soon to be 7. I’m likely going to butcher a tom as soon as we get the scalding pot. We looked everywhere and now have to order one. Right now we have three toms and five hens. We’re making a separate breeding pen now. We’ll keep three hens with our favorite tom and two with the other tom we keep. Any hens that go broody will be moved (with their clutch) to their barn. We want to make sure neither tom is infertile. We wanted two for diversity and to keep the third as a backup but unless some attitudes change, we’ll only have two. We may not find out much except what not to do this first year. Lol.


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## Jessica84

Ok the semi long story of the bull. He wasn’t the mean one, he was actually a fairly spoiled tame bull. We had bought 2 more bulls and had them on quarantine and the stupid guy teased them threw the fence EVERY day! So when we turned them out they handed him his butt. So he takes it like a baby and goes threw 2 fences and ends up on the neighbors. The neighbors are not the best of cattle guys so kept messing with him trying to get him in. So he learned some cool tricks on how to get away. Finally they called all mad. Can’t say I don’t blame them but why not call from the start? I could have gotten him in with a flake of hay at first. So after a few hours chasing him in thick brush I finally sneak up on him and rope him. Have him tied off to a tree and he snaps the rope which resulted in it undallying and hitting my hand. I still can’t bend 3 fingers so I’m pretty sure I broke them. After many many broken ropes he still is not wanting to come in so we can’t just leave him there eating someone else’s feed so we butchered him. 
The mean one that guy he’s on is still convinced he can get him in the corral. I think he wants calf’s out of him lol so we are just waiting for the ok to try and get him in or buy another freezer and take care of him too. But needless to say my dad is now looking into AIing………….which I have been trying to talk to him about for YEARS!!!
But on the chicken side lol no new chickens for me this year. I need to get things under control and I don’t think I like my chickens much. They are terrible animals! They peck at the girls back sides because there’s blood there, they have figured out if they peck the nipples on the lamb bar they can poke holes in them and get milk. So I think I’m going to pick out 10 pen them up, and get rid of the rest. 10 also shouldn’t kill me on the feed. I think it is honestly cheaper at this point to just buy eggs. 
Fizzygoat I think you will be surprised at how well the Turkey hens do with the poults. I thought they would be down right terrible too but they really were not. 
But I’m defiantly going to hatch more turkeys this year and get more serious about selling them. I already have one gal that wants to buy from me and raise them up and sell for Turkey dinners. She was asking me how long it takes to get them to butcher size and I’m like ummmmmmm I have no idea because I’ve never pushed them on food before lol my husband said we should do that though but I would rather get less and deal with less people. I think I might be getting cranky in my age lol


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## BarnOwl

Moers kiko boars said:


> Earlier we talked of Bumblefoot. One of my daughters sent this to me. I wanted to share with all of you.
> View attachment 217033


Nice, that's a great idea! Thank you for sharing. I'm going to remember this!


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## BarnOwl

Calistar said:


> Between the chickens, the kunes, and the dogs, we have pretty much zero food waste! Now if only I could find an animal that would eat all the hay that the goats and sheep waste 😩
> 
> Are any of you planning any new chicken projects this year, or have the turkeys gotten all of you overwhelmed? 😆 I am planning on hatching my own chicks this year. I've had several losses this winter (just failures to thrive, no predators or anything) so my hope is that by hatching eggs from my own flock, I'll be selecting for the stronger genetics.


So...I've been thinking about ordering blue, black, splash Ameraucana hatching eggs for over a year....and yesterday on the spur of the moment I contacted a breeder and reserved 18 B/B/S hatching eggs to be sent in March or April hopefully. Oh and 6 Black Copper Marans eggs just for fun. I love hatching eggs...it is like Christmas when they start popping out of the eggs. Last year I hatched barn-yard mixes from my flock, but I think I would like to breed more purposely from now on, perhaps locally sell hatching eggs or chicks. It would be nice to earn enough to pay for some of the feed I buy. I need another pen or two, and I'm going to have to figure out how to build my own because I'm going to go broke if I keep having them built for me, lol.


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## FizzyGoats

@Jessica84 What a fiasco with the bull. Why do people want to mess with them and tease them? It’s like when people stick their hand in the tiger cage then blame the animal for attacking. And I hope your hand heals soon. That’s pretty scary. I’m so paranoid with ropes. I know a lot of old cowboys missing thumbs and fingers from a rope disaster. 

I hope my turkey hens figure it out. Mine may be a special kind of ditzy though. Lol. Plus, I’m not sure what I’m doing and may not set them up for success, even while trying to. 

@BarnOwl That sounds like a great plan! I hope you keep us in the loop as you go. 


So we finally finished the small, secondary turkey shelter and pen. For now, we’ve just thrown the two troublemaker toms in there. I think my LGD is as relieved as I am. He was about exhausting himself constantly breaking up tom fights. Once we butcher one, we’ll put the two hens in with that tom and keep three with our favorite tom. 

Here they are in part of their pen. 









This is their little shelter (it’s in the same pen but on the other end from the previous picture).


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## Jessica84

Well they didn’t tease him exactly just not smart on getting him in. It’s a bull set in his ways. You on foot are not going to make him do anything he doesn’t want to do. I told them when you see him let me know I’ll come over with some hay and he will follow me in to the corral. It sure what that translated to for them but that didn’t happen. Just people who woke up one day and decided to be cowboys.
I do NOT rope. People are so surprised when I say that but I’m not good at it and as you said, I’m kinda attached to my fingers. I am accident prone. If it’s going to happen it will happen to me. Lol just the other day I was ultrasounding some cows, how it happened I don’t know, but she was in a squeeze, her head is trapped and she is squeezed up and SOMEHOW she was able to nail me in the back of the leg. No idea how, just know I have a bruise on the back of my leg lol 
I didn’t have much hope for my turkeys either. That’s why I took most of the poults away when they hatched. I just didn’t have the heart to take them all, but it was quite shocking at how good of moms they were! They were smarter then the chickens! They never once took their babies out in the middle of the goats so they could get stepped on and died. When they would hear one was left behind they went back for them. I think the only real issue was they are so big and the babies are so small sometimes they stepped on them but I didn’t have very many losses all together.
So my lights and alarms seem to be working! I haven’t lost another bird since I put them up. I’m going to slowly keep buying more and hopefully have lights and alarms on every post on the goat pen. Now that the kids are older I also need to put the hot fence back up. I always worry a newborn is going to tumble down the hill and get stuck in it. And of course when it’s off they end up pulling the wire off. Dang goats! So HOPEFULLY I found a solution to this!


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## Calistar

@FizzyGoats The plan was to eat them and use them for pet food. But so far, I let my original breeders get too old to eat, and I haven't been able to hatch enough new ones at a time to make them worth butchering for human consumption. I lost a lot of them to that damn hawk, and several I fed to the LGDs because they either got picked on too much or they were jerks. The plan is to keep a small group for eggs, and periodically raise a larger clutch (20-40 or so) to butcher. It just hasn't worked out that way yet. They've turned out to be difficult to keep because they're so aggressive with each other and they waste a ton of food because they fling it out of their feeders.

Also- wow, your place looks gorgeous!

@BarnOwl I've seen pictures of the splash and blue Americaunas- they look so cute! I'd love to add some to the flock, but they seem to be pretty expensive where I've seen them. You absolutely have to share pictures of those chicks when spring comes!

@Jessica84 Wow it sounds like you've got your hands full, I don't blame you for putting the chickens on the back burner!


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## luvmyherd

I am so excited! We have not had laying hens for years and had meat birds 2 years ago.
Now that our son is here we can leave for long periods.
There's 6 Barred Rocks, 6 Ameraucanas and 12 CornishX. Just picked them up today.🐥


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## Calistar

luvmyherd said:


> View attachment 221935
> 
> View attachment 221936
> 
> I am so excited! We have not had laying hens for years and had meat birds 2 years ago.
> Now that our son is here we can leave for long periods.
> There's 6 Barred Rocks, 6 Ameraucanas and 12 CornishX. Just picked them up today.🐥


Eee baby popcorns! Congrats!!


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## luvmyherd

The post about putting turkey eggs under a Silky brought back a very old memory.
Our neighbors had peafowl and offered me 4 eggs. I put them under a chicken and 3 hatched. She was a great mom and I remember her trying to roost with them under her wings after they were bigger than her.


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## FizzyGoats

Look at those cute little floofs! I can just hear the sweet little cheep-cheeps in my head. You’ve got quite a crew there. I bet you are excited to have chickens again. 

@Jessica84 I don’t rope either. I grew up in a team roping family and my brothers and dad wanted me to rope so badly because I was decent at it but only did it when I had to. Dallying made me nervous. And I plain wouldn’t mess with roping the bulls. My famous saying was that was above my pay grade. My little barrel horse should have been a cutting horse and could work cattle like nobody’s business. I just had to stay on, so thanks to her talent, I rarely had to be on the roping task force. My dad used to say, “You can chase a bull wherever he wants go.” Basically saying, if it wasn’t the bull’s idea, it wasn’t going to happen and you had to make the bull want to go where you want it to go. Hay and grain were our usual tricks.

That’s great news about the alarms and lights working so well! What alarms do you use?

@Calistar Isn’t that the way it goes? You make a plan and have it so neatly worked out and then that’s not at all what happens and you have to adjust and rearrange your plan until you can make it work. Quail seem like a lot of work for a little bird but I bet you’ll find a routine and a rhythm that makes it work well. And they are tiny and cute. Plus, I bet the LGDs were pleased with the outcome. Hopefully you won’t catch another hawk. That was pretty incredible. But wow, how frustrating. Oh, and thanks for the compliment on my property. I really do love it here.


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## Calistar

@FizzyGoats Im still trying to find a rhythm lol. I'm going to have to either get set up better (auto waterers, no-spill feeders, and figure out how to keep the little heathens from mobbing each other) or I don't see myself keeping quail long term. I'm not ready to throw in the towel yet though! The LGDs do love their quail dinners, and with the cost of dog food going up just like everything else, if I can feed them to the dogs then it's not a waste. Well, my female loves her quail dinners at least. My male always looks a little horrified that some sick freak has put a headless bird in his dish 😂 Then he sees how much my female is enjoying her quail dinner and he reluctantly carries his around the pen, eats half of it, buries the other half, and then digs it up to finish later 😂 He definitely doesn't have the brains my female does!

We've talked about this, you're Tennessee right? I find myself dreaming more and more about moving out there- I wish!


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## luvmyherd

I love hearing the peeps. I always keep them in the house a day or two to make sure they are all eating and drinking.
Then they will go to the brooder in the milking parlor. (Which I am hoping to be using for milking again soon.)


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## Jessica84

This was the alarm I got. They have a 4 pack that is cheaper but I didn’t know how well it would work so didn’t want to pay for 4, even though it was cheaper per alarm it was still more money then I wanted to chance. But I can say they it does a really good job. The road is probably far enough away I can throw a rock hard and hit it and it picks the cows up when they walk down it. It’s loud but not loud enough to wake anyone in the house. So good for scaring not good for needing to know when something is out there. I also got those flashing red eyes but I’m not sure I’m impressed with them. Instead of tying them tight to the posts I hung them like you would a Christmas ornament hoping they kinda move around and freak things out. But they stay on all night long.
Luvmyherd I’m so happy you were able to get chickens again! It sounds like you really enjoyed them. And you have a nice variety of breeds! Are they sexed or straight run?


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## FizzyGoats

@Calistar It usually takes me about 3-5 years to find my groove and feel like I know what I’m doing with raising a certain animal, and that’s about when I decide to change things up. Lol. And dog food is crazy expensive to get anything of quality. Between my tall, slender high energy farm dog and my still growing LGD, we go through about 16 cups of food a day. Maybe I should raise quail, just for the dogs. I’ve thought about rabbit too but don’t know if I have the heart to butcher them. I had to laugh when you described your male dog’s reaction to being fed a quail. I think that would be my farm dog’s reaction. 

@Jessica84 I didn’t see a type of alarm but from your description, I have an idea of what you’re talking about. I have those red flashing lights that are supposed to mimic predator eyes. I have had them for a while and am pretty sure they are useless. They did freak out my farm dog right after I put them up. But my LGD never was fooled. I also have cheaper solar motion lights up just so when I go out there in the dark, I can see what I’m doing. I think those have scared more animals than my “predator eyes.” 

@luvmyherd I love the symphony of sounds from the baby birds. It drove some people in my family nuts, but I really enjoyed their peeps and cheeps. And I got a great chuckle out of the story of the chicken trying to roost with her huge baby peafowls under her wing. Gotta love good mamas.


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## Calistar

@FizzyGoats Oh gosh I would love to be able to raise meat rabbits! Have you heard of myxomatosis? I had two gorgeous, EXPENSIVE pedigreed English angora rabbits that I had flown here from Illinois. Six months later they were both dead from an illness that was supposedly very rare in the US and only present in a few regions. It's carried by fleas and mosquitoes, so I can't have outdoor rabbits anymore for fear of them catching it. It's a horrible disease. This was several years ago. Since then, myxo has been spreading fast and is now an even bigger problem and I believe now affects most of the IS. I've seen some news articles on it lately, they usually refer to it as rabbit hemorrhaging disease. It's the same disease they released intentionally in Australia to eradicate wild rabbit populations. So, my dreams of raising delicious little meat rabbits have been pretty thoroughly squashed!


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## FizzyGoats

I’ve never heard of that. It sounds awful! Angora rabbits are so beautiful. What a terrible loss. I’m afraid I’d fall in love with all the fluffy bunnies. I’m the worst. 

Just getting ready to butcher my turkey makes me sad. That’s why my brother raised my steer for me to butcher. He knew if he sent it here, it would be a giant pasture ornament until it died of old age. I picked turkeys for meat because we had some growing up and they hated me and the feeling was mutual. I really thought they were all jerks and it’d be easier to butcher them. They are pains sometimes but they are real sweet to us. They follow us around like dogs. I just need to toughen up a bit. I am considering trying meat chickens one year. I’m sure I’ll like them too but they mature faster than these heritage turkeys, so maybe I won’t get to know them so well. But I am a big baby when it comes to animals. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think butchering is cruel when done correctly, I just don’t know anything about butchering so I’m hoping I do it correctly.


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## Jessica84

Oh gosh I’m at that stage in life where I’m easily railroad on what I’m doing lol there alarms lol 







I think ideally they would be better then the lights just because they might get used to the lights but that alarm would scare me if I wasn’t expecting it lol the sprinklers I like the idea of too. It’s not just noise it’s something moving, plus it will keep the cows from pushing on my fences lol but buying the hoses and splitters are going to be a investment to go all around so I’m going with the lights and alarms for now. The main reason I wanted the lights is because I was going to sit up all night and get the sucker but then I started thinking how am I going to hold a light and a rifle at the same time. So that’s when I bought a lot of the lights at least then if I hear something I can see and have a general idea of where it might be coming in at.


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## luvmyherd

The layers are sexed. The Cornish are strait run. We will have to find a rooster in the next few months. I like fertile eggs and want eggs to hatch next year.


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## FizzyGoats

Hmm, I might have to look into those alarms. How many times have they scared the tar out of you when you’ve gone out at night and forgotten they were there? Be honest. Lol. 
(I’m sure I’d startle a hundred times)


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## Jessica84

Lol none because I have them on the perimeter fence so it’s facing away from me. But this evening while out feeding the cows the dog went by and it went off which made the turkeys go off. So there’s a nice little chain reaction lol


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## FizzyGoats

I’m thinking I might put these up on the part of the fence of the new turkey breeding pens I built because my LGD can’t access one side of it. So I might put the alarms there. I bet squirrels will be setting it off every five second though. Lol. And I’ll probably have a mini heart attack each time. And yes, I’m sure I’ll have the same chain reaction, just with the dogs and turkeys going off in unison right after the alarm.


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## Jessica84

I really thought the dogs would not take it well. I was not looking forward to howling dogs but I don’t think it has that right pitch to set them off even though a siren way out on the highway does. But they have different settings so I just have mine set to night time only. A bet less activity during the day. And I’m usually out there during the day and can stand guard lol


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## luvmyherd

The new little beggars are happy in the big box. I worried about them last night as it got pretty darn cold and we had not gotten it as warm as I would have liked. But they were fine this morning.
Tonight it is toasty warm.


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## FizzyGoats

@Jessica84, yeah, my only hesitation on getting them is the squirrels and deer setting them off. And we catch a ton of them on our cameras at night. I’m sure coyotes will set them off too, but those are the ones I want the alarm for. 

@luvmyherd What a great brooder box! Did you make that? The chicks are so cute. And they definitely look warm enough.


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## Jessica84

Ehhh then go with the sprinklers lol at least that shouldn’t make your neighbors mad lol


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## luvmyherd

Well, my husband built it under my supervision. We made it big enough to hold a broody hen so she could raise her babies safe from cats and the bigger chickens. There is a divider for making it smaller but this crew seems to want all of the space. I put a quilt over one side at night to hold in heat.


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## FizzyGoats

I don’t think I have a neighbor close enough to be bothered by my alarms. Though sound can echo weirdly though the hills and trees around here. 




Well, that’s a great brooder and multifunctional too! That’s pretty neat.


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## FizzyGoats

@luvmyherd How are your little puffy chicks doing?


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## luvmyherd

We lost one the third night. It was small and not growing. One out of 24 isn't bad. The rest are thriving. The CornishX are getting so much bigger than the layers I may have to separate them.
The brooder is fully warm day and night now.🐣


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## FizzyGoats

Wow, that’s an excellent survival rate! I had my turkeys poults and chicks together for quite a while. There was a good size difference but the chicks ran the show so I didn’t have to worry about separating them.


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## Jessica84

As we know turkeys are not super sharp, but I think the Cornish and meat turkeys said “hold my beer I’ll show you!” Lol 
you doing so good with them them. They look very happy! 
So today I found this!!








And Savanna and I went to feed my pet cows and she said she saw a Turkey hiding. I told her when she gets up go look! So she found 2 eggs as well. So the easter hunt has started. I need to 18 together as soon as I can and donate to our 4H. We are doing a fundraiser hatching donated eggs out and selling them. I have 6 small incubators that I’m going to let each family use to hatch their own eggs and then anything extra I’m going to toss in my cabinet incubator. I think it will be fun for the kids and I bet those 6 families will end up buying those chicks too lol total scam LMBO!


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## Moers kiko boars

What is the survival rate of orderd chicks? Just an average..thankyou


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## FizzyGoats

I only ordered 4 chicks, they sent five and all survived. I ordered 11 poults, they sent 12 and 8 survived. Well, technically 9, one later on decided to see what the inside of a snake’s mouth looks like but was past the fragile stage. 

@Jessica84 That’s a great thing to do. I bet they will really love that. I’m still waiting for mine to lay.


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## BarnOwl

I've ordered between 10-15 chicks each spring three years in a row and all have survived. I've had a few sexed pullets end up being males, and one order was missing a chick (the hatchery refunded me). Other than stressing out over tracking numbers and my usps not answering the phone, I haven't had any problems mail-ordering chicks. I live about 8 hours away from the hatchery...so they tend to be in transit just overnight. Last year it took 48 hours, and the usps never updated the tracking number. I was convinced that the chicks were lost. I got them after the second night, however. They were all alive and well.


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## Jessica84

I have had very good luck with the shipped chicks. Last year I did have issues a few weeks in but was told that I had things too closed up and chicks needed more fresh air, turkeys needed no breeze. But once I got that fixed all was well.
Hatcheries usually have a guarantee though. The shipping is the hardest part. I think most have a 24 or 48 hour guarantee after receiving them. But when you get them getting them warm, water and food in them is so important. Also I think a lot of people love on them a little too much at first. We don’t touch them the first few days other then showing them food and water. 
I would defiantly recommend hatcheries as long as your not looking for show quality or anything like that. But for back yard birds absolutely!


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## luvmyherd

Two years ago we ordered chicks for the first time. We have a feed store we use ordinarily but in 2020 they sold out quickly. The first batch of 24 arrived cold and starving with many dead. We were devastated. The hatchery was great and sent out a new order which we received in just a few days. Out of the first batch I managed to save 7. The 2nd batch showed up warm, fluffy and all survived.
Still, it is not unusual to lose one or two. Of course, with today's prices, it is best if they all survive.
My darlings are thriving. I had a scare as one looked like his butt had turned inside out. I was able to catch her and it was just some dried junk stuck to his fur. Not even from her. I would actually love it if one of the Ameraucanas ended up being a rooster. Otherwise I will have to buy one.


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## Moers kiko boars

Thankyou guys. Im getting ready to order, to add to my girls. And I didnt know if I needed to add a fee extra, or just get the # I need.


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## Calistar

Always add extra just in case  

I've had chicks shipped 3 times. First time everything went great and I don't think there were any casualties during shipment. The second and third time were at the same time from two different hatcheries. The smaller order had something like 10-15 chicks and I think I lost 1. The second order was a large order of 40 or 50 chicks and I had 6 or 8 chicks die. A few more were not in great shape but pulled through. And of the ones that died, only half died right away and the other half lingered a couple days until they were outside of the hatchery's guarantee period 🙄 I really think that shipment must have been mishandled by the post office somehow though, because those were unusually high losses and it was the same company that I'd bought from the first time with zero losses.


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## luvmyherd

I will ditto that. A couple extra is a good idea.

I was pretty sure it was the Post Office that was responsible for our chicks. I think they let them sit in the cold over night.


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## Moers kiko boars

Thankyou all so much. I ordered 25, hatch April 27th. I only need 12 to 20 more. So I figure this will work! 💖


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## Jessica84

You can’t say you just ordered chicks, we need details! What did you get?!


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## toth boer goats

What did you get?


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## Moers kiko boars

Rainbow assortment fron Crackle, Rhode Island Reds, easter eggers, Orphingtons and a few other breeds. They choose. So I really wont know till they get here!1🤷‍♀️


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## luvmyherd

Fun! We raised Buff Orpingtons for years. One of my favorite breeds. Great mothers.


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## Moers kiko boars

Ohhhh good. I cant wait to see what I get. Ill be taking pictures to share with you. Ill need help for.sure. Ive never bought this many this small. Before the moms raised them. Not me! Lol


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## Jessica84

Oh you did good! Cackle is my favorite to buy from and I think the unknown breed sales are fun to watch grow and figure out. I think you will have fun with it. That’s what I was going to go for last year until I saw that dang surprise box lol


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## Moers kiko boars

See ...I really cant tell you what Im getting. Since I dont know for sure what Im getting. Im just excited for baby fluffs comeing! Lol 😁💖😉


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## FizzyGoats

I ordered from Cackle too. They are great. 

My turkeys are trying to figure out this whole mating thing. 

This happens and I’m thinking, yea!









Then I look back a second later, and I’m thinking, I’m never getting baby poults.


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## Cedarwinds Farm

@Moers kiko boars When your chicks ship, make sure you call your post office, or go in there and talk to them, and make sure that they have all of your contact information so they can get those chicks to you as quickly as possible. Here, you have to go in to the post office to pick up your chick order. Don't know what it's like in your area.
Just as the others have said, we've had very good luck shipping chicks. I really can't remember losing any.


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## Moers kiko boars

@FizzyGoats ...but....they look soooo cool!😎

@Cedarwinds Farm ...thankyou. I will go in and talk with the Post Office.


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## Jessica84

Lol I really didn’t think my turkeys were “doing it” either but they seemed to be doing it correctly because I got poults lol I don’t think they breed like chickens do, it sure doesn’t seem like anything is really happening 🤦🏻‍♀️


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## luvmyherd

I remember when we had turkeys. She kept laying eggs all over the place. We finally butchered all but one Tom. She soon built a nest and we got babies🦃


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## toth boer goats




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## luvmyherd

They grow so fast. We had to raise the heaters as they are bumping into them. The CornishX will be moved to the old rabbit pen tomorrow.
It is still getting into the 30's at night so they will need a kennel and heat source still.
Without the _monsters_ in there; the others will have quite awhile before they outgrow the box.


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## FizzyGoats

They do grow fast. I’m glad they are all doing well, even the monsters. Lol.


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## toth boer goats

Yes they do.


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## FizzyGoats

I have turkey eggs! I saw my crazy hen, HotRod, lay one in there but they might be sharing. I’m not sure. I didn’t realize they cover their eggs a bit. I’m assuming this is normal. No one sits on them. I have a little chicken, Bessie, who like to go sit on them on occasion and the turkeys seem fine with that. However, when I go in there, they all tell on me and start squawking like crazy. I don’t even know if the eggs are fertile. Between my tom not looking like he’s doing anything but squishing the girls and the girls ignoring their eggs, I highly doubt I’ll get any poults, but I still have the slimmest of hopes.


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## Jessica84

I would put money on the toms knowing what they are doing lol trust me I went threw this too and watching chickens then watching THAT I had major doubts! I saw this on FB, only us Turkey people will get it lol 
For the eggs you can crack one open and see if it has a bullseye in that little white dot. If a bullseye it’s good, solid it’s not going to hatch. The hen is not going to show that much interest in the nest until she is ready to go broody. But your going to have to watch the nest. If she gets too many eggs she is not going to be able to sit on all of them. You can mark one and take the rest and store them out of direct sunlight with the pointy side down and give her back some eggs when she is ready. If one of your hens goes broody too you can also put some under them too. Or like me sell them.
On my side of the world of turkeys I find new nests every day. I already have a small batch in the incubator and at the moment have 34 and will set more on Friday. I’m going to try my very very hardest to get these extra toms out of here this Saturday. They are annoying me badly now. They are like a little gang of teenage boys and always fighting or getting in trouble. I’m also wanting to start a garden this year so if I can make it to town to get them gone I will swing by and get wire so I can cage all these birds up. I just need roofs on cages. 
So really nothing all that exciting lol


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## FizzyGoats

Jessica84 said:


> I would put money on the toms knowing what they are doing lol trust me I went threw this too and watching chickens then watching THAT I had major doubts! I saw this on FB, only us Turkey people will get it lol
> For the eggs you can crack one open and see if it has a bullseye in that little white dot. If a bullseye it’s good, solid it’s not going to hatch. The hen is not going to show that much interest in the nest until she is ready to go broody. But your going to have to watch the nest. If she gets too many eggs she is not going to be able to sit on all of them. You can mark one and take the rest and store them out of direct sunlight with the pointy side down and give her back some eggs when she is ready. If one of your hens goes broody too you can also put some under them too. Or like me sell them.
> On my side of the world of turkeys I find new nests every day. I already have a small batch in the incubator and at the moment have 34 and will set more on Friday. I’m going to try my very very hardest to get these extra toms out of here this Saturday. They are annoying me badly now. They are like a little gang of teenage boys and always fighting or getting in trouble. I’m also wanting to start a garden this year so if I can make it to town to get them gone I will swing by and get wire so I can cage all these birds up. I just need roofs on cages.
> So really nothing all that exciting lol
> View attachment 224194


Oh my gosh, that picture made me laugh so hard. That’s what it looks like. When I watch that, I’m thinking: I don’t know what it is supposed to be happening, but I’m pretty sure it’s not that. Maybe I’m wrong. 

So I just crack one open and look for a bull’s eye? Can I eat it after? Lol. I’m so curious to try one. 

There are 8 eggs in there now. I’m hoping someone gets broody before we get to 14. If not, I’ll take some and store them or maybe hope someone else is going broody and I can sneak them in another nest. If anyone else makes one. Should I start taking some out now or just wait to see if there gets to be too many in one nest? 

I really have no idea what I’m doing. I’m like my tom. Lol. 

How many extra toms do you have? My two extra are in a separate but nearby pen. They don’t fight with each other but they still try to fight with the one in with the hens through the fence. All the toms are idiots right now.


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## Jessica84

Yes!!! Eat the egg! We can’t tell the difference between the chicken and the Turkey eggs. It’s not rich like the duck eggs or anything, at least that my family can tell. 
Since you want yours to go broody What I would do is just mark them with the date and keep marking until you get how many you want under her. I think 10 is a pretty good number myself but I’m sure they could have a few extras if you wanted. Bourbons are decent sized. Anyways when when you reach that number then go ahead and start taking the older ones out, or newer, how ever you want to do it. If you take all the eggs she might change her nesting spot or she may not go broody. I’m fighting with 3 hens right now. I want them to lay closer to home so I keep taking their eggs every day but I’m loosing because they are going out farther to lay, another reason I’m going with cages! 
I have o think 10 extra toms. I had my 3 boys but the bobcat got the black guy  so down to just the blue and Royal original boys, I want to keep the black mottled Tom and, gosh I’m tired I can’t think of the color but the red blue boy lol so that will be one extra Tom for the extra hens. I don’t really know how to go about having them caged and the toms but I’m thinking maybe keep them in pairs and change them in and out every few days. I don’t know I’ll see what it looks like lol 
Lol I’m telling you turkeys are so much different then the chickens. So it took awhile before I really sat there and watched them breed and not get disgusted with the toms just stomping the hens. But they will do that stomp thing on the hen for awhile and then he will flap his tail down and that is when they are actually breeding. To this day I still don’t see how they are connecting but I’m not going to get any more up close and personal with the whole deed then watching from a distance. All I can tell you is in the end there is fertile eggs


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## goathiker

Lol, it helps a lot when you find out that most birds don't have penises. They just have to touch the spot.
If your turkeys aren't actually setting, they aren't interested in kids right now.
If your tom is a broad breast, he's not capable of breeding and never will be.


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## Tanya

Cinamon turned out to be a rooster. His name is BK. In Afrikaans its Berderwde Kleintjie. Translated into spoiled brat. He thinks he is a human. At 8 weeks he expects morning cuddles in bed with Chevani and wont sleep outside. He wants to brood on his teddy's heD with a blanket over and expects dinner on table with you. He watches tv. Roosting is not a problem as long as it is on your shoulder. I wonder if he will be accepted into the coup eventually because I really cannot have a house rooster.


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## NigerianNewbie

FizzyGoats said:


> Can I eat it after? Lol. I’m so curious to try one.


Please do. The yolk is a deep light orange and one turkey egg equals two chicken eggs in volume. Absolutely delicious.


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## FizzyGoats

Jessica84 said:


> Yes!!! Eat the egg! We can’t tell the difference between the chicken and the Turkey eggs. It’s not rich like the duck eggs or anything, at least that my family can tell.
> Since you want yours to go broody What I would do is just mark them with the date and keep marking until you get how many you want under her. I think 10 is a pretty good number myself but I’m sure they could have a few extras if you wanted. Bourbons are decent sized. Anyways when when you reach that number then go ahead and start taking the older ones out, or newer, how ever you want to do it. If you take all the eggs she might change her nesting spot or she may not go broody. I’m fighting with 3 hens right now. I want them to lay closer to home so I keep taking their eggs every day but I’m loosing because they are going out farther to lay, another reason I’m going with cages!
> I have o think 10 extra toms. I had my 3 boys but the bobcat got the black guy  so down to just the blue and Royal original boys, I want to keep the black mottled Tom and, gosh I’m tired I can’t think of the color but the red blue boy lol so that will be one extra Tom for the extra hens. I don’t really know how to go about having them caged and the toms but I’m thinking maybe keep them in pairs and change them in and out every few days. I don’t know I’ll see what it looks like lol
> Lol I’m telling you turkeys are so much different then the chickens. So it took awhile before I really sat there and watched them breed and not get disgusted with the toms just stomping the hens. But they will do that stomp thing on the hen for awhile and then he will flap his tail down and that is when they are actually breeding. To this day I still don’t see how they are connecting but I’m not going to get any more up close and personal with the whole deed then watching from a distance. All I can tell you is in the end there is fertile eggs


[mention]Jessica84 [/mention] That’s a lot of extra toms. I’ve actually been thinking about rotating mine in and out with the hens. Just in case my favorite guy isn’t getting it done. Right now they are just in two separate runs. All the hens and Gobfather on one side, and the two extra Tom’s on the other. I have the “nests” in their big coop/barn. I don’t think they are fans of my tote nests. I may need to rethink that. Lol. I tried to make their runs big enough so they don’t go crazy but small enough that their best option for laying is the nest I provide. No idea how or even if I’ll separate them if/when they go broody. He does flap his tail down but the hen’s tail is down too, so there’s no way anything important is touching. 
Here’s my big question for you: What do you use to mark eggs? I’ve heard you can’t use marker because of the fumes. 



goathiker said:


> Lol, it helps a lot when you find out that most birds don't have penises. They just have to touch the spot.
> If your turkeys aren't actually setting, they aren't interested in kids right now.
> If your tom is a broad breast, he's not capable of breeding and never will be.


When they first started breeding, I actually looked up how it works. Lol. Yep, I googled how turkeys breed. My search history would look so strange to an outsider. And I never see their back ends touching. I still think some “connection” must be made but I have no clue. All my toms and hens are bourbon reds, so they should be genetically capable of mating…just not sure they’re getting the job done.



Tanya said:


> View attachment 224234
> 
> 
> Cinamon turned out to be a rooster. His name is BK. In Afrikaans its Berderwde Kleintjie. Translated into spoiled brat. He thinks he is a human. At 8 weeks he expects morning cuddles in bed with Chevani and wont sleep outside. He wants to brood on his teddy's heD with a blanket over and expects dinner on table with you. He watches tv. Roosting is not a problem as long as it is on your shoulder. I wonder if he will be accepted into the coup eventually because I really cannot have a house rooster.


 haha, spoiled brat. What a name. I love it. He is a bit spoiled. Hopefully he can make the transition to the coop. 



NigerianNewbie said:


> Please do. The yolk is a deep light orange and one turkey egg equals two chicken eggs in volume. Absolutely delicious.


 I really want to try one. But now I have this fear of cracking one open and seeing a partially formed poult inside. I’ll have to mark the eggs and make sure I take a new one. 



You can kind of see their two runs here. But I don’t have any pics of the hen side coop set up. The little a frame structure in the background is the coop for the two toms I’m not using right now. Though I might rotate who is in with the hens.


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## FizzyGoats

Feel free to tell me I’m nuts. I’m having second thoughts on cracking a turkey egg open. Yesterday I was working in the barn and I heard the hens making a weird noise, sort of the noise one will make to tattle on me when I go near the nest. This was different because they were all doing it and with something more to it. I could tell they were upset so I go over there and see a chicken broke one of the turkey eggs. The turkey hens, all of them, were beside themselves. It made me feel bad for them. I know they are not having human emotions but there are definitely not happy with their eggs being messed with. I’m hoping they don’t abandon the nest. And I have this now gnawing guilt when I think of removing an egg. That is crazy, right?

My chickens don’t care at all when I take their eggs. I had no idea turkeys would react like that to an egg being broken, so now I’m leaning toward leaving the eggs alone until there are close to a dozen and maybe they won’t notice?


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## Jessica84

I’m sure not going to say your nuts! But to make you feel better I started feeding mine Table scraps and at first they made that noise too. They had no idea what it was. I’m sure they do to a degree get upset when we take eggs though. I mean I’m taking mine to make them choose better areas to lay in and they move so they are not thrilled. But to make you feel better turkeys can’t count. They will absolutely know if you clean the whole nest out but when there are some and you take 1 away they are not going to notice. If you want to take all the eggs away then you can get fake eggs. Last year I got plastic Easter eggs and put small rocks in them and hot glued them shut. They were very happy with those eggs. 
But watch that hen. Turkey eggs are thick and not easy to break. If she broke one she was pecking at them. If she keeps it up I really suggest taking the eggs and doing plastic eggs. That will keep the eggs safe and also maybe teach her not to peck at the eggs. When the Turkey hen goes broody you can always give them back to her


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## FizzyGoats

Jessica84 said:


> But to make you feel better turkeys can’t count.


Lol. So true. 

It wasn’t a turkey hen who broke it. It was a chicken. So now we’re trying to figure out how to keep the chickens out. She kicked it out of the nest while digging in the hay. Then she pecked and broke it and ate it. The chickens have a habit of digging in the nest. Even in their own laying boxes, if an egg rolls out, they eat it. If it’s in the nesting box, they don’t. They apparently follow some chicken code I’m unfamiliar with.

More than one turkey hen is using the nest. Three eggs were added today. I love the plastic Easter egg idea. I tried fake eggs in other nests to get them to spread the wealth, so far no luck. This year might not yield any poults because I’m not quite figuring it all out.


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## Jessica84

No they are very picky about where they lay their eggs. I made a bunch of nice barrels for them to lay in. I have yet to get a egg in there! In a old washer? Perfect! The trash can in my husbands shop? Even better! I just can not figure out what exactly they are looking for in the perfect nesting spot lol


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## FizzyGoats

Lol. It is a mystery. All my nests are made the same, they will only use one of the five.


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## Cedarwinds Farm

Lol! I love you girls' turkey talks! I still want to get some, but have decided to hold off for the time being as we aren't really set up as well as we should be for them. 
On another note, I think a couple of my hens are thinking about going broody. They have started making that threatening screech if I come into the hen house while they're on the nest boxes. If I end up with a couple good broodies, I am hoping to have them hatch my guinea eggs. I've never dealt with broody hens before, so this will be fun!


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## FizzyGoats

That should be interesting. I wonder if being raised by a chicken would tame a guinea down a bit. 

Turkeys aren’t as hard as I make them sound. Lol. They are loud, but not as bad as guineas (or so I’ve heard). There’s a group of Amish kids who walk by my place twice daily and the entire time, they gobble to my turkeys, my turkeys gobble back. It is very loud here during those ten minutes each day.


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## FizzyGoats

Ignore the bright glare on the top of the yolk and you’ll see a little bullseye on the side. I guess my guy is getting the job done, and I still don’t see how it’s possible.


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## BarnOwl

You all are about to convince me to get turkeys. They sound like fun!

I just picked up 30 hatching eggs today! Incubator is all set up. Eggs just have to rest 24 hours and I can get started!


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## FizzyGoats

Oh fun! What kind are they? I don’t have an incubator and haven’t ever hatched out any. I’m really hoping my turkeys do this for me. So far, no one is volunteering to go broody. 

Turkeys are fun. And a pain. My vet came today to draw blood for my goats bio security tests and he and the tech were very disappointed that the turkeys were put up in breeding pens. The turkeys are their favorite animals on my farm. 

By the way, we ate the egg. It was hard as heck to crack open. And it was almost all yolk and very little white. It tastes like a very rich chicken egg. It was yummy.


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## luvmyherd

We love turkey eggs.
I miss my turkeys a lot but we have quite a bit on our plates right now.


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## BarnOwl

FizzyGoats said:


> Oh fun! What kind are they? I don’t have an incubator and haven’t ever hatched out any. I’m really hoping my turkeys do this for me. So far, no one is volunteering to go broody.
> 
> Turkeys are fun. And a pain. My vet came today to draw blood for my goats bio security tests and he and the tech were very disappointed that the turkeys were put up in breeding pens. The turkeys are their favorite animals on my farm.
> 
> By the way, we ate the egg. It was hard as heck to crack open. And it was almost all yolk and very little white. It tastes like a very rich chicken egg. It was yummy.


They are blue/black/splash Ameraucanas and a few black copper Marans. I got the incubator when I was into quail (which don't usually go broody). I don't have the quail anymore, but my chickens never go broody when I want them to, so the incubator comes in handy. I love candling and hatching eggs. It's fascinating to watch the embryos develop...and if I involve my children I can say it's educational, hah!

Turkey eggs sound delicious! The yolks are the best part! 😋🤤


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## Jessica84

Yes I think everyone needs turkeys in their life lol they really are a lot of fun although at the moment I don’t think I can get this roof for their cage done fast enough lol they think it’s great to attack my milk cows grain while I’m milking her. The cow has ADD to start with so all super fun lol 
Well I started putting eggs in the incubator for this fundraiser and also for me. I’m not a fan of the black turkeys, too boring for me lol so I’m going to donate all those poults. My sons friend wants to do a little business thing for a school assignment and he wants to buy baby turkeys and raise and sell for thanksgiving dinners. My son wanted to know how much I wanted for the poults. I asked if it was a friend, he said yes, so I’m going to give him some to make sure he gets a profit. And of course I need my own lol so I’ve just been putting eggs in the incubator and while moving trays around counted and I have 80 in there! My sister gave me a few duck eggs to set for this fundraiser, not going to lie I hope they are not any good lol if they are good I know my daughter will be talking me into buying a duck although we didn’t have luck with the last two. 
On the chicken side they are all laying and I have run out of egg cooking ideas. I don’t as tagged on FB about how you can get lime and water and put the eggs in and they stay good for years. I’m thinking about how brave I am to try that.


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## FizzyGoats

luvmyherd said:


> We love turkey eggs.
> I miss my turkeys a lot but we have quite a bit on our plates right now.


I was hesitant to try the egg. Not sure why. It was really good though. How are all your new poultry doing? I bet they’ve grown a lot. 



BarnOwl said:


> They are blue/black/splash Ameraucanas and a few black copper Marans. I got the incubator when I was into quail (which don't usually go broody). I don't have the quail anymore, but my chickens never go broody when I want them to, so the incubator comes in handy. I love candling and hatching eggs. It's fascinating to watch the embryos develop...and if I involve my children I can say it's educational, hah!
> 
> Turkey eggs sound delicious! The yolks are the best part!


Wow, what a fun mix. I can’t wait to see how the incubation and hatching goes. I hope you’ll give lots of updates throughout. 


[mention]Jessica84 [/mention] I love that you’re giving your son’s friends some poults for his business. That’s really nice. I need to put my turkey eggs somewhere. They are all using one nest. It is getting too full. Now that I think the eggs are fertile (I believe it was a bullseyes), I’m feeling a little more urgency to figure this out. Their nests are in a shaded, cool place, so I might just take some eggs and put them in another nest and see if that sparks any interest in using the others. 

It’s so nice of the turkeys to “help” you milk your cow. Lol. Oh, they can be a pain for sure. And if you try that trick with keeping eggs in lime and water, let me know.


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## Jessica84

Yes you definitely have a bullseye there!! 
You can try moving some of the eggs. They seem to like to lay where the others lay. I have a nest that 4 are laying in. That would be nice if you could get them all to lay in their own nests. I don’t think the co-hatching part ended in as many poults as if they had their own nests last year


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## luvmyherd

They are huge. Especially the meat birds. I will get some pix today.


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## Tanya

__
Sensitive content, not recommended for those under 18
Show Content










My Emu egg yields equal to 6 chicken eggs.


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## ksalvagno

That is cool!


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## luvmyherd

Wow! A one egg omelet that feeds four.


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## luvmyherd

These monsters have graduated to the old rabbit enclosure that has outside access.

















The hens have really outgrown the brooder but the kennel in the big pen is not ready for them yet. Hopefully the husband can get it done tomorrow.
















This little lady is my favorite. Hope she turns out to be a good layer.


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## Cedarwinds Farm

BarnOwl said:


> You all are about to convince me to get turkeys. They sound like fun!
> 
> I just picked up 30 hatching eggs today! Incubator is all set up. Eggs just have to rest 24 hours and I can get started!
> 
> View attachment 224545


I love Marans eggs! Such a pretty chocolatey brown! I want to add a few to my flock someday.


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## FizzyGoats

Tanya said:


> View attachment 224567
> 
> 
> My Emu egg yields equal to 6 chicken eggs.


Wow. That is huge!



luvmyherd said:


> These monsters have graduated to the old rabbit enclosure that has outside access.
> View attachment 224582
> 
> View attachment 224581
> 
> 
> The hens have really outgrown the brooder but the kennel in the big pen is not ready for them yet. Hopefully the husband can get it done tomorrow.
> View attachment 224585
> 
> View attachment 224584
> 
> This little lady is my favorite. Hope she turns out to be a good layer.
> View attachment 224583


My goodness, they are big now. They all look great. So are you putting the hens in a kennel inside a big pen that already has adult chickens in it?


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## luvmyherd

No, we don't have any adults now. This is our new flock. The kennel is to protect them until they can fend for themselves. When they're full grown they will roost in the barn and be pastured.


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## Jessica84

Tanya said:


> View attachment 224567
> 
> 
> My Emu egg yields equal to 6 chicken eggs.


Nope you can’t be showing that lol I was going to buy a emu egg and see if I could hatch it. Then I read how they can jump 7’ and my fences are about 4’ high lol
So the eggs I have been seeing here are blue, yours is not, a different breed of emu? Like chickens they lay different t colored eggs ?????


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## FizzyGoats

It’s supposed to get below freezing (low 20’s) Fri and Sat night. Should I bring the turkey eggs inside and put them in a cupboard that always stays pretty cool for the next few nights since no one is broody yet?


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## ksalvagno

I wouldn't leave them outside.


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## FizzyGoats

Ok. Thanks. I’ll go ahead and bring them in for a few days until the freezing weather passes. Luckily, we have some cupboards that stay at about the right temp. Not sure if any of these will be viable anyway. Time will tell.


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## toth boer goats

I do agree.


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## Tanya

Jessica84 said:


> Nope you can’t be showing that lol I was going to buy a emu egg and see if I could hatch it. Then I read how they can jump 7’ and my fences are about 4’ high lol
> So the eggs I have been seeing here are blue, yours is not, a different breed of emu? Like chickens they lay different t colored eggs ?????


They can jump very high to defend their babies. And those eggs are delicious. An Ostrich egg is equal to 12 large chicken eggs.


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## Moers kiko boars

@Tanya ..is an ostrich egg good tasteing also?


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## Tanya

@Moers kiko boars its very rick and almost orange. It has allot protien. You certainly couldnt eat a whole one in one sitting.


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## FizzyGoats

So I brought the eggs in before it dropped to freezing. My girls weren’t fooled. They kicked every plastic egg off to the side and laid a few new ones. I have tried three different nest options. Now today makes four, but this is the last one. I built three big nests that can be closed off and used for a brood box to keep the other turkeys and chickens away if needed. I have no idea if it’ll work but it’s my last big effort. I have a lot of turkey eggs. If someone doesn’t volunteer to go broody soon, I’m taking one of the hens I’ve seen lay in the nest for a few hours at a time and shutting her in one of these boxes with a nice clutch of eggs and see if that does the trick. 

One hen (the one I’ve seen in the nest the most) already laid another egg in there and seems to like the upgrade. Of course, she’s my craziest hen and one I said I was going to cull if she wasn’t a good mom because she’s always starting, finding, or making trouble. So it figures that she’s the one who seems most interested in going broody.


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## NigerianNewbie

FizzyGoats said:


> I have a lot of turkey eggs.


Quiche sounds appetizing.


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## ksalvagno

Why not incubate them yourself?


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## FizzyGoats

NigerianNewbie said:


> Quiche sounds appetizing.


 That’s the next plan. 


ksalvagno said:


> Why not incubate them yourself?


I may have to get one and do that. If I can avoid it, I will. I don’t want to deal with a brooder, heat lamps, and raising the poults and integrating them to the flock. I selected bourbon reds because they are supposed to be great brooders and moms. This is their first breeding season, and it’s still early so I still have hope. The turkeys and I are learning this year. If I can get out of this with a few live poults and lessons learned for next time, I’ll consider it a success.


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## Jessica84

Your not going to be able to force a hen to go broody. It’s something they will do or not do on their own. 
But your right it is very early in the breeding season. The Turkey hens probably won’t go broody for a bit. I have one that just now started to go broody and I think I’m a few weeks ahead of you. Of course she is as far away as she possibly could be!
But if you have a bunch of eggs and don’t want them to go to waste why not sell them? I did pretty good at selling them last year and a few repeat customers this year.


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## FizzyGoats

That’s a good idea. I will have to look into selling them.


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## luvmyherd

I can't believe it has been 7 weeks! These guys will soon be crossing the Rainbow 'Fridge. When they get so fat they can't walk; it is time to go.


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## luvmyherd

These beauties got their first visit outside this morning. They set about scratching and pecking on greens.
I know we still have some waiting but I am so looking forward to fresh eggs.🍳


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## luvmyherd

And then there is this little girl. I had noticed that she was not growing as fast as her mates. When we moved them I caught her and saw her deformed beak. She just doesn't get as much food. 
I thought she might die but she is holding her own and is the most adventurous. She was the first one in the yard scratching when they got let out.
I would normally not make a pet of a chicken but I fear I will keep her even if she never lays an egg.
















Looks like a little hawk doesn't she?


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## ksalvagno

Cute!


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## toth boer goats

Aww.


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## Tanya

I would call her Kitty Hawk... yeah, an appropriate name.


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## luvmyherd

Tanya said:


> I would call her Kitty Hawk... yeah, an appropriate name.


I like that. I think she has been christened. 🦅


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## FizzyGoats

She does look like a hawk. And Tanya, that’s a great name. They are all getting big. It’s crazy how fast they grow.


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## toth boer goats

😁


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## luvmyherd

Kitty Hawk is amazing. I hope she makes it. She has become our farm mascot. She is always the first one out in the yard, first to dive in when given scratch the first time, first to chase me when the others run. So much fun.


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## FizzyGoats

She sounds like a neat little chick. I love watching all their little personalities come though as they grow.


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## Jessica84

She’s a very pretty bird and looks so sweet! She will probably make it. If the beak gets too long you can get a file and file it down, you could probably snip the end but I always worry that the beak will crack. Maybe I’m over thinking it lol. The biggest issue with goofy beaks is it’s harder for them to eat. They can’t really perk like they should. So just make sure she has a nice deep pan of food where she can really get her beak in there deep and get food.


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## luvmyherd

Yeah she loves to scratch around and peck but still goes back to the crumble pan. I had thought of filing or trimming the top. She seems fine now just small from a slow start. It is amazing which beings in the barnyard can steal your heart.💛🐤💛


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## Tanya

Well Kity Hawk will surprise you. She may even become your best layer. Mich house Chick goes outside during the day but insists on sleeping outside. And boy do I know when the sun is up. Its christened name is kleintjie but I am truly wondering if I shouldnt just name it Marty McFly....


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## FizzyGoats

My craziest turkey hen is my best brooder. She went broody a while ago and I never see her off the nest. I have another hen who is broody but not as dedicated. I’ll see her up to get a bite to eat a few times a day. I know my other one must be getting up to eat and drink but it’s so rare that I never see it.

And in chicken news, I saw my chicken running around with a mouse in her beak! Go chickens. I can’t believe they are hunting and eating mice. It’s hard to see in the pic, but that’s a mouse. Maybe I don’t need to find a barn cat after all.


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## luvmyherd

My hens have always played soccer when one of them gets a mouse.🙀


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## Tanya

Our hen run never has mice. The chickens see to that. In fact we have no small rodents at all.


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## FizzyGoats

We are a bit overrun with mice right now. I’ve never had a chicken (that I knew of) go after mice. You can bet all the chickens were chasing her, trying to steal her kill. But I watched her and she ended up getting to eat it. Hopefully my turkeys and all the other chickens are learning to hunt mice as well. We definitely need a huge reduction in rodent numbers around here.


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## Jessica84

My chickens ignore mice, they are absolutely worthless about them! 
That’s great you have broody hens! All my hens are broody here so I have some bored boys strutting around lol with as early as it is we might get them to hatch out 2 clutches.
I have hatched out 2 batches so far. It’s been a weird year already for hatching eggs. I’ve been having to toss 1/4 of the eggs because most didn’t even start. I got all those chicken eggs for our 4H fundraiser and I had to toss half those. Was thinking it was my incubator but my sister had to do the same thing. 
But here are my last batch of babies! So colorful! The first one was mostly black with 2 blues and a brown


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## FizzyGoats

That is weird that the eggs didn’t start. What a bummer. 

Those babies are beautiful! Are those from eggs you incubated?


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## Jessica84

Yes they are! I am finally getting a huge color variety which is what I wanted. I just want to look out and see all these colorful turkeys. It’s going to be fun to see what they turn into. I had fun watching them last year but only ended up with rusty slate, blues, one golden Narragansett, 1 mottled blue and 2 mottled black, oh and plain black ones (boring). These should be even more mixed up.


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## luvmyherd

Okay, I guess this is the last I will post about this spring's chicks as they are all grown up. Not ready to lay obviously but still grown up.
We only bought hens so needed a rooster. My son found one and he is pretty. Nobody seems sure of his breed but he came from a blue egg. Good enough for our purposes.
We put him in the hen house by himself because we were afraid he might be aggressive with the girls. But yesterday they had discovered the downed tree in their yard and were climbing it and were surely only moments away from hopping right over the fence!
So we took a few and put them in with our new fella for a supervised visit. He strutted around and crowed and they checked him out but there was no trouble. We put them all in together overnight and all was fine. They are in the old rabbit enclosure which is indoor/outdoor but fully enclosed as they are still small enough to worry about predators.
Can't wait for fresh eggs in a few months.


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## ksalvagno

Great they are getting along


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## FizzyGoats

I’m glad adding a rooster went so smoothly!

I’m getting anxious. I wish I knew what I was doing with my turkeys. I have four (out of my five) broody hens. They have big, wonderful nesting places that can convert to a small brooder when the time comes. A little too big, apparently. Three are sharing one big nest even though there’s enough for everyone to have their own. Each have their own clutch of eggs in there. One switched clutches to move in with them and now has this abandoned huge clutch. But she has plenty of eggs to sit on, so I guess the abandoned ones are just going to waste. Should I just remove those eggs?

When the poults from my earliest broody hen hatch, should I move the mama and poults to a different nesting/brooding area? Or should I leave them there and move the two broody hens and their clutches? Or do I just leave them alone and let them figure it out? Though I do need to switch out the hay for large pine shavings when they hatch, right? Gah, I’m so lost.


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## Jessica84

Great on the rooster! Gosh too bad we are not closer I have a bunch of roosters you could choose from lol
Are the hens in their coop broody or out and about? If in the coop they might be fine where they are. But I would be prepared to split them. See how bad the fighting is, if it looks like the poults might get harmed I would pull the single hen and some babies. If they get all mixed up it’s fine they don’t have to be hers. The poults are just so tiny And can easily get harmed when they are fighting. 
The hay is up to you on if you want to put shavings down or keep it. Shavings will be easier for them to run around on but they would be fine with the hay if that’s what you want to keep. 
Yours should be hatching soon right?


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## FizzyGoats

Oh gosh, [mention]Jessica84 [/mention] what would I do without you?!? Lol. Seriously, you’ve been my turkey guru. They are in the coop, in the large nesting area I built. I lucked out that only turkey hen laid one egg not in the nests. The rest used the nests, I just didn’t expect them to share. That all makes me feel so much better. I’ll watch and see what happens but it’s a relief to know I don’t have to split them now. I think they keep each other company. One hen is about a week ahead of the others. And she should hatch out some poults (I hope) around the 25th. But I think she might be the one who moved to a different clutch, so I’m not sure. 

Are your broody turkey hens hatching out poults now? I know they were ahead of mine.


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## ksalvagno

So I might have a broody hen. I went out tonight to collect eggs to find a hen still sitting on the nest. So I was able to collect 1 egg that a hen laid in another spot. We will see what happens. Would be fun if the hen follows through and hatches some eggs.


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## Cedarwinds Farm

I've got one hen installed in a plastic tote on 10 eggs. And another who really, really wants to go broody, but I don't want two broodies at the moment. This is a first for me, and I don't know what I'm doing, but hoping to hatch some chicks, and maybe guinea keets later in the year.


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## Jessica84

Oh yeah if she stays on the nest at night she’s broody. Most hens will follow threw and hatch them.


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## Jessica84

FizzyGoats said:


> Oh gosh, [mention]Jessica84 [/mention] what would I do without you?!? Lol. Seriously, you’ve been my turkey guru. They are in the coop, in the large nesting area I built. I lucked out that only turkey hen laid one egg not in the nests. The rest used the nests, I just didn’t expect them to share. That all makes me feel so much better. I’ll watch and see what happens but it’s a relief to know I don’t have to split them now. I think they keep each other company. One hen is about a week ahead of the others. And she should hatch out some poults (I hope) around the 25th. But I think she might be the one who moved to a different clutch, so I’m not sure.
> 
> Are your broody turkey hens hatching out poults now? I know they were ahead of mine.


You would be just fine! You are doing really well with them, just wanting reassurance now and then but I have no doubt you would do amazing totally on your own.
So we had the chick sale. We hatched 105 chicks and 19 turkeys. We also had 9 ducks which I thought would be the biggest hit. Nope. Those turkeys were gone the first 20 minutes. But the kids had fun, was frustrating for me trying to explain we don’t touch the chicks too much but I survived lol I think the parents had the most fun hatching the eggs though lol and I was really good. Savanna loves turkeys so of course we had to buy the one and only turken chick and a buddy for it. That’s it on my chicken purchasing this year though lol 
My hens have not hatched anything yet. They should be here soon. One hen half way threw something got her eggs :/ those would have hatched by now if not.


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## ksalvagno

So did you hatch and sell chicks? That was a lot of chicks to sell! I hope you got them all sold.

Here is my broody hen. Still there this morning.


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## Jessica84

Yes we got them all sold. We sold over half of them on Saturday, all the turkeys and the ducks and the rest on Sunday. We hit 2 different towns. I hatched the turkeys and 63 of the chicks. I had the smaller incubators and let the kids in the poultry group use those. We had people from almost 50 miles away come to support the kids. I was really baffled by just how supportive people were of the kids.
Awwww she looks so proud of herself! Do you know how many eggs she has under her?


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## ksalvagno

I know it can only be one day worth because I collected eggs the day before. At most 10 but more than likely 8.


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## FizzyGoats

She looks so sweet being a broody little hen. That’s exciting. I hope you get some chicks!

Jessica, sounds like you did great on the hatching and the sales. I’ve seen turkeys (yet to be hatched) advertised around here and they are gone in a heartbeat. Must be a good market for them all over. I don’t know how you stayed sane with trying to convince people not to over handle the chicks. I’d have lost my mind. 

I think my turkeys might be swapping nests. I don’t think they have this whole going broody thing down yet. I don’t know when they do it, I hardly ever see them up but I know different hens are on different nests when I check again. And I found a huge clutch of eggs by the fence line. I tried to carry them back up to the coop and broke three because I tried to do it all in one trip. That one hen, Weebles, my hen that couldn’t walk for a long time as a poult and I actually did physical therapy with her (no splayed leg, it was like she forgot how, a weirdo from the start) is the culprit fence nester. She just won’t use her lovely accommodations.


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## ksalvagno

So is it possible to move a broody chicken and the eggs? She is sitting in the most popular nest and she keeps adding to what is under her. Count yesterday was 9. Count so far today is 11 and probably more. The older hens higher in the pecking order kind of kick her out when they want to lay.


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## luvmyherd

We always move them and replace the eggs with fresh ones that are all the same age.


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## luvmyherd

Well! Look what we did. Totally unplanned and I will not admit what we paid for them. They are just for Thanksgiving and Christmas not breeding.


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## ksalvagno

Nice! Turkey poults aren't cheap at all.


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## FizzyGoats

Awh, they’re so cute! Even future dinners are fun to raise.


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## Jessica84

Awww very cute! No poults are not cheap but neither are full grown turkeys. I had enough with my toms and having to wait on a freezer so they were thrown in the trailer today and sold. They harassed a hen when she was on her nest and broke her eggs. I really didn’t care if they went for $1 each at that point but they brought over $1300 before commission.
Your broody hen yes try to move her. Try to keep her as close to the nest as you can. If you need to get her and the eggs in a little cage and shut the door, but the closer to the nest you can do the better.


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## FizzyGoats

Sounds like you got rid of trouble makers and made a nice chunk of change. Congratulations. I moved two toms who don’t fight with each other (but they try to fight with the head tom if together for a few seconds) to a different pen because I can see them doing exactly what happened with yours. That’s so sad and frustrating that they destroyed eggs. Right now, the one tom in with the hens doesn’t bother the nests at all. And he is sweet as pie with me but does get a little protective when I go in the coop near the nests to clean. I’m not sure if I’m reading in to it, or if he is trying to protect his hens on their nests and isn’t comfortable with me messing around near them. If I do see he’s getting too bored or seems to be bothering the hens or nests, he’ll get kicked out and free range for the remainder of the time while the girls are broody.


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## Jessica84

Definitely keep a eye on him. Gosh the thought of a 20 pound Tom attacking is frightening. My originals are great but I still keep a eye on them. Just catching the ones and getting hit by their wings left welts on my legs and split my lip open. I can’t imagine them being out for blood. It’s a good idea to just leave the one though. Last year just having the 3 it was great. I don’t know what these guys issue was with that poor hen. I still have 2 other toms down at my uncles house, they moved out lol but I’ll get them when I get a better Tom pen built and those will be thanksgiving and Christmas dinner


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## FizzyGoats

He doesn’t do anything aggressive. He just puffs up and paces, sometimes tries to walk back and forth in front of the nests, like a guard. Luckily, even my crazy toms that are separated are never human aggressive, just toward other turkeys. They aren’t even mean to the chickens. I have had to pick up and move the crazy toms and have received huge scratches from wildly kicking legs and bruises from flapping wings. I’m more careful how I pick them up when I need to now. I guess I got pretty lucky with my crew because none are aggressive to people. Not even people they don’t know. The toms just follow strangers around, stay between them and the hens, and puff up and pace. I’ve seen them fight each other and it’s brutal. If one ever came after me like that, he’d be dinner.


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## Cedarwinds Farm

Happy Easter, everyone! Quick question about my broody...she's been on the nest for about a week. I noticed this morning that her skin is more pale than usual. Is this normal? I am feeding her my fermented 18% protein layer feed, mixed with some 22% game bird feed. I plan to start her on chick starter. I will buy a bag of that on Tuesday. She is eating at least a little bit. And she has water, too, though I don't know how much she drinks. I gave her some fresh herbs and grass this morning, too. Wondering if I should try to treat for cocci, or if this is just normal for a broody.


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## Cedarwinds Farm

Update: spent some time watching her, and she just doesn't look right to me. So I put another hen who has been trying to go broody for the past week on the nest. She was more than happy to finally get some eggs to set on!
I think I may start Speck (the original broody) on Corid tomorrow, and check her over for lice and mites. She just has that hunched up, sickly look.


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## ksalvagno

I hope you figure it out


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## luvmyherd

Sorry. Good that you had a surrogate for the nest. Hope she's okay.


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## luvmyherd

I was a little worried about our new babies. I was just thinking we would just put them in the brooder forgetting that it was turned on its side and had feed stacked in front of it.
I was ready to take them into the house for a few days. We settled on putting them in the cage in the kennel. It was already set up with a heat lamp.
Luckily the weather is more stable and nights are no longer freezing. But I was still afraid they might get cold.
They did just fine and the heat is holding. It got too warm this afternoon and we had to turn off the heat for a couple of hours. They are eating and drinking and have imprinted on our son. They get so loud we can hear them in the house if they cannot see him


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## Jessica84

Cedarwinds Farm said:


> Happy Easter, everyone! Quick question about my broody...she's been on the nest for about a week. I noticed this morning that her skin is more pale than usual. Is this normal? I am feeding her my fermented 18% protein layer feed, mixed with some 22% game bird feed. I plan to start her on chick starter. I will buy a bag of that on Tuesday. She is eating at least a little bit. And she has water, too, though I don't know how much she drinks. I gave her some fresh herbs and grass this morning, too. Wondering if I should try to treat for cocci, or if this is just normal for a broody.


Sorry I didn’t get to this earlier. How long has she been broody? I notice mine get pale around the two weeks in. They are not eating or drinking like they normally do (which is all totally normal) and they get a bit light colored. BUT if you are super worried yes go with the corid and check her over! Always go with your gut I say


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## luvmyherd

My old babies!!

My son rigged up a makeshift roost for the girls until they are ready for the actual chicken coop.
The new rooster seems content with his solicitous harem. At the farm we got him from he was the junior rooster and not allowed near the ladies.


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## Cedarwinds Farm

Jessica84 said:


> Sorry I didn’t get to this earlier. How long has she been broody? I notice mine get pale around the two weeks in. They are not eating or drinking like they normally do (which is all totally normal) and they get a bit light colored. BUT if you are super worried yes go with the corid and check her over! Always go with your gut I say


Thanks for responding! I went ahead and let another broody hen take over the nest. Speck (original broody) didn't seem too upset about it. She actually looked a lot better this morning. She was off the nest, walking around, and the other hen was on the nest. So I just let Speck out with the other chickens. She'd been on the nest for about a week, trying to go broody for about a week prior to that, but still getting off the nest to eat and walk around quite a bit. At this point, I don't think I'm going to treat her with anything. She looks like she's going to bounce back. I had her in a large plastic tote, per the suggestion of someone who seemed to know what they were talking about. But I think it just wasn't good for her. Maybe not enough ventilation, or not enough space for her to move around, so she didn't get off the nest enough? I don't know. I moved the nest into our grow out cage, which is much more spacious. I'm not sure how little chicks will do in there, but I guess I'll figure that out if/when the time comes. Here's the 'surrogate mother', taking her duties very seriously this morning.


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## FizzyGoats

[mention]Cedarwinds Farm [/mention] Glad to hear she’s doing better. And what a good surrogate, taking right over. 

[mention]luvmyherd [/mention] That set up looks great! They seem pretty happy with it. 



I highly doubt my turkey hens are going to hatch any eggs. There are more clutches then hens and they rotate nests. They are broody all the time but I swear on the few occasions when they get up to eat or drink, they forget where they were and just sit on any open clutch. I’ll have to set it up differently for them next year.


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## Jessica84

It could have been lack of air flow. When I was loosing those chicks last year I was told chicks need good air flow, turkeys need more tighter draft free. Once I made 2 different pens, one with better air flow and the other still kinda sealed up everyone did great.
Fizzy goat, candle the eggs and see what is going on. I have candled chicken eggs with just my phone light but have not tried it with the Turkey eggs. Worth a shot so you don’t have to buy or make a candler. If the eggs are not developing or they are dead you can kick them off the nest. I have 2 hens that were kinda dumb in the beginning too but when I checked on their eggs they were doing great.


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## FizzyGoats

Thanks [mention]Jessica84 [/mention] I will look up some tips and tricks on how to candle an egg and do that today.


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## Jessica84

Funny story time! My maran hen hatched out 3 chicks. For the first week she was in isolation with them until they got a little bigger. I had turned her out and she is not the smartest mother so I have been keeping a eye on her. She seemed to be doing better. Well last night I got out there to feed and water the poults a little late. The chickens roost in there and I saw the mom but no chicks. So I pushed her down and told her to go find her dang chicks! She started baby talking and her chicks came out from under the broody Turkey lol I told her she is very lucky that hen is willing to let your chicks have sleep overs because I would be taking them away if not!


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## ksalvagno

Too funny!


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## FizzyGoats

That is hilarious. Thank goodness for turkeys who are willing to chick sit.


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## toth boer goats




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## ksalvagno

So I candled eggs this morning. There were originally 8 eggs. I should have marked them but didn't. Today there were 14 eggs under her. I candled them all and found the original 8 that are definitely progressing. I also found 2 more that look like a chick is developing. The rest were clearly just eggs. So I put today's date on all the eggs that looked like they are developing and removed the rest.

I tried moving the nest but that was a disaster and I just put her back. I don't have the time right now to figure out where and how I could give her a private area. So I'm just going to check daily and remove any new eggs. Will let her hatch out the 10 eggs I have dated. The chicks are just going to have to make it among the current flock. Definitely more to hens hatching chicks than meets the eye.


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## kmiller

BarnOwl said:


> I've ordered between 10-15 chicks each spring three years in a row and all have survived. I've had a few sexed pullets end up being males, and one order was missing a chick (the hatchery refunded me). Other than stressing out over tracking numbers and my USPS not answering the phone, I haven't had any problems mail-ordering chicks. I live about 8 hours away from the hatchery...so they tend to be in transit just overnight. Last year it took 48 hours, and the usps never updated the tracking number. I was convinced that the chicks were lost. I got them after the second night, however. They were all alive and well.


You were lucky to get a refund and be able to track the USPS shipments. I have used USPS more than 5 times and every time I was not able to track the package. And the delivery was very slow as usual can't even do anything as you said they don't answer the call. Really fed up with their service but I don't have any other option.


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## FizzyGoats

Oh my gosh, my birds just made me laugh, I mean honestly laugh out loud. My tom was breeding a turkey hen, and I guess this is the first time my oldest Rhode Island Red hen, Amelia, has seen this. She stood real tall and stared. Then darted through the cattle panel fence and slammed the tom. She did this twice and knocked him off the second time. I can’t believe she won. He looked a little dejected and my chicken walked around my turkey hen “talking” sweetly to her, making sure she was okay. Oh no. How do I have the birds and the bees talk with a chicken? 

Amelia has been the boss of all the birds, even the turkeys, from day one. The turkeys (though nice to the chickens) will boss around all the chickens except her. She’s usually a very fair and kind leader. Apparently, there some life lessons she missed out on though.


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## NigerianNewbie

Amelia dear, they are just playing turkey wrestling and not fighting. It's okay, this is how baby turkeys come into being.


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## luvmyherd

Our poults are thriving. They are in a cage in a kennel. The weather has been warm enough to let them out into the larger area except the little buggers can still fit through chain link. They will have to stay confined until they are a bit bigger.


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## Moers kiko boars

Ok...today I got these! All alive, 3 extra. And 🤞hoprfully they will survive to go with my big girls.


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## ksalvagno

The turkey poults look great!

Fantastic on all live chicks! I hope they all grow and thrive for you!


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## FizzyGoats

[mention]luvmyherd [/mention] The poults are looking good. They are growing fast. 

[mention]Moers kiko boars [/mention] Congrats on the newcomers all arriving in such great shape!

I need help from anyone with experience with turkeys hatching and raising poults. I have two hens that brooded together, now both clutches are hatching! Do I separate them? And if so, do I just guess which poults go with a hen? Also, do I need to close them off from the other turkey hens? Will the other turkey hens hurt the poults? I had to close the chickens out because a chicken killed two poults yesterday. I felt terrible. I thought that was it. I didn’t think anymore were hatching. Now they are and I want to help keep them safe and have no clue what I’m doing. [mention]Jessica84 [/mention] Do you have any advice?

View attachment 228243


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## FizzyGoats




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## toth boer goats

👍


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## FizzyGoats

Now, along with those two hens in that one nest (each hatching their own clutch) I have a hen who abandoned her nest to go sit on babies with them. That one is named Annie, so I’ve dubbed her Annie the nanny. 

I learned the hard way what the chickens will do to poults, but the other turkeys haven’t shown any aggression to them. Is it normal for turkeys to accept the babies? Or will they eventually peck at them? 

And three hens on one nest is too much, right? Should I kick the nanny out with the other non broody hens and tom during the day? The nests are in the turkey coop where they all come back at night. Should I keep all of them out of the coop for a while (except the two mamas)? Or just let them keep coming back in?


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## Cedarwinds Farm

Look what I saw when the broody got off her nest for breakfast!








I held the egg to my ear and heard some peeping. So cool!


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## Jessica84

Fizzy goat, you do not have to separate the two co-nesting. They will raise them together. The other hen if they are ok with her and she likes the babies she will be fine too. But if you can get her to go back on her nest that would be better for those eggs, of course.


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## luvmyherd

Cedarwinds Farm said:


> Look what I saw when the broody got off her nest for breakfast!
> View attachment 228319
> 
> I held the egg to my ear and heard some peeping. So cool!


Awe. I love listening to peeping eggs.


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## FizzyGoats

Cedarwinds Farm said:


> Look what I saw when the broody got off her nest for breakfast!
> View attachment 228319
> 
> I held the egg to my ear and heard some peeping. So cool!


Yay! I experienced that for the first time this year. It’s so exciting. 



Jessica84 said:


> Fizzy goat, you do not have to separate the two co-nesting. They will raise them together. The other hen if they are ok with her and she likes the babies she will be fine too. But if you can get her to go back on her nest that would be better for those eggs, of course.


THANK YOU!!!! So far I’ve been leaving them alone because it seems to be going well but I have all these second guesses and worries going through my mind. Annie the nanny doesn’t want to leave. So I guess her clutch is out of luck. I have a feeling if I moved her back, she’d just leave her nest and go right back to the babies. She was always a so-so brooder. She wants the babies without the work. The good news is I know for next year I’d probably be able to give her another hen’s poults to raise if needed. Annie the nanny is the hen facing away from the wall. The poor hen in back corner was the only truly dedicated brooder and is an excellent mama so far.


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## Cedarwinds Farm

We have a chickie! I believe this one is barred rock/speckled sussex, but it looks mostly like a barred rock to me. Haven't seen any of the other eggs pip yet, but it won't be 21 days til Tuesday, so I expect at least a few more will go over the next couple days.


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## ksalvagno

What cute poults and chick!


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## Cedarwinds Farm

FizzyGoats said:


> Yay! I experienced that for the first time this year. It’s so exciting.
> 
> 
> THANK YOU!!!! So far I’ve been leaving them alone because it seems to be going well but I have all these second guesses and worries going through my mind. Annie the nanny doesn’t want to leave. So I guess her clutch is out of luck. I have a feeling if I moved her back, she’d just leave her nest and go right back to the babies. She was always a so-so brooder. She wants the babies without the work. The good news is I know for next year I’d probably be able to give her another hen’s poults to raise if needed. Annie the nanny is the hen facing away from the wall. The poor hen in back corner was the only truly dedicated brooder and is an excellent mama so far.
> View attachment 228352


I love your turkeys! That photo is so funny, with all the birds crowded into one nest.


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## toth boer goats

Cute.


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## Jessica84

Awww so sweet! I think this little black hen of mine will be like yours. She is so sweet when any of the chicks get under her. A few times the door to the brooder has been left open and the chicks and poults have found their way under her. She is so excepting of them. She is in a stall so when she does hatch her eggs I’m going to try letting mine out as well, hang a few heat lamps and see if she will kinda mother them all. I think she will but if not I will just put up another stall. 
My hens have not hatched anything yet though! Not sure what is going on with that. I need to candle them and see if they are any good. A few have already given up on the nests, I have 4 hens left. One is in my husbands shop so he now has a shop Turkey lol he took that very well so far!


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## FizzyGoats

[mention]Cedarwinds Farm [/mention] Do you have any more fluffy chicks yet? 





Jessica84 said:


> Awww so sweet! I think this little black hen of mine will be like yours. She is so sweet when any of the chicks get under her. A few times the door to the brooder has been left open and the chicks and poults have found their way under her. She is so excepting of them. She is in a stall so when she does hatch her eggs I’m going to try letting mine out as well, hang a few heat lamps and see if she will kinda mother them all. I think she will but if not I will just put up another stall.
> My hens have not hatched anything yet though! Not sure what is going on with that. I need to candle them and see if they are any good. A few have already given up on the nests, I have 4 hens left. One is in my husbands shop so he now has a shop Turkey lol he took that very well so far!


I bet she’ll take to mothering them in no time. Most of mine gave up on their nests. HotRod, my good brooder, is the only reason both clutches in that nest survived. 

Next year, we’re thinking of making them each their own separate little runs with nesting houses. I have one that tries to nest anywhere except the nests. She basically feeds my dogs eggs. It seems my best brooder (HotRod) switched with Annie the nanny and is on her clutch now and Annie is with Shirley, they’re in the original nest with babies. There’s still some unhatched eggs in there (and I saw movement in the shell when I candled a few).

Should I leave the eggs in there even though there’s already a handful of poults needing to be under each hen? I also don’t know if the nest Annie abandoned still has hatchable eggs (no bird was on it for two days) and don’t want HotRod, my dedicated brooder waisting her time if there’s no chance. She’s already done her time. The few eggs I looked at in there seemed fine (but I’m not good at recognizing the viability yet) but they were cold to the touch.


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## Cedarwinds Farm

@FizzyGoats nothing yet! Though I did not check when I closed up the hen house. Didn't want to bother them. More eggs should be hatching Tuesdayish. I think the one that hatched was the one that got sat on for a couple of days before I moved the broody to her own nest and gave her more eggs. If this hen decides to stop setting (no sign of that yet) I have ANOTHER broody who I'm sure would be happy to finish the job.
@Jessica84 I hope you're able to hatch some chicks! 
I have been really happy with this hen. She is a black australorp, and so chill. She acts all menacing when I approach her, but she never has pecked me. My speckled sussex was the same way while she was brooding. I have a buff orpington, on the other hand, who is trying to go broody and has gotten my hand several times when I go to get the eggs from underneath of her. She is not bluffing!
Here's the little dude. I just have a feeling it's a rooster. He has the barred rock adventurous streak, for sure (he might be all barred rock. Barred rock and speckled sussex eggs are really similar). He can hop in and out of the tub that the nest is in...the sides of the tub are slightly taller than he is. Maybe that's not unusual, but I was shocked when I saw him do it.
Moved mama out of the nest to show her some greenery I pulled out of the garden, but she was not impressed. 
















I'm having a lot of fun just observing them. Chicks are such funny little characters.


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## FizzyGoats

[mention]Cedarwinds Farm [/mention] The mama hen and baby are so cute. All the other chicks are going to have an older sibling. 

My turkey hens hiss at me when I try to take a peek under them. They haven’t pecked at me but they do like to hiss. 

I still haven’t decided what I should do with the eggs that are in with the hens and the babies and the eggs that HotRod is now sitting on (Annie’s old nest). If I was confident in my candle skills, I’d taken any nonviable eggs out from under HotRod and swap them for the ones in the nest where the babies are. Those ones are close to hatching, I think.


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## Cedarwinds Farm

And now we've got two chickies! And two more eggs have pipped! 








Interestingly, the eggs that have hatched/pipped so far are all the smaller, light brown eggs that are most likely from the barred rock hens, but possibly also buff orpington or speckled sussex. We still won't be at 21 days til tomorrow, so it's entirely possible that some of the eggs from my other hens will hatch, too, but it makes me wonder if my barred rock rooster just prefers the barred rock girls!


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## Jessica84

If you had a incubator I would say put the eggs in there, but no I would just leave them be. Sometimes there is a reason they don’t hatch. A lot of the babies I help hatch have something up and some die anyways. I just can’t not help them :/ 
And my black mama has one of her very own babies under her! She might have more I didn’t want to bother her too much. So that means the other nests are no good. So I will have to battle them to get them off their nests. 
I sure love seeing all the new chicks


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## Cedarwinds Farm

FizzyGoats said:


> [mention]Cedarwinds Farm [/mention] The mama hen and baby are so cute. All the other chicks are going to have an older sibling.
> 
> My turkey hens hiss at me when I try to take a peek under them. They haven’t pecked at me but they do like to hiss.
> 
> I still haven’t decided what I should do with the eggs that are in with the hens and the babies and the eggs that HotRod is now sitting on (Annie’s old nest). If I was confident in my candle skills, I’d taken any nonviable eggs out from under HotRod and swap them for the ones in the nest where the babies are. Those ones are close to hatching, I think.


I'm NOT a hatching guru at all. But I guess I'd be tempted to give the eggs a few more days and just see what happens. I want to learn how to candle, too. I think it would be a useful skill.


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## luvmyherd

FizzyGoats said:


> My turkey hens hiss at me when I try to take a peek under them. They haven’t pecked at me but they do like to hiss.


You are lucky. The one time we hatched poults; we took our lives into our hands just trying to get a picture.
Both Mom and Dad would not only peck but chase us out of the pen.

I love chicks with their mommies! I do hope we get some broody ones next year.


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## Jessica84

Geeze! I have not had the Turkey hens attack. They have hissed but they have been all talk. 
5 more poults from my golden Narragansett!!! I never could find her nest and thought something got her. So I am super excited about her babies.


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## ksalvagno

How exciting! You will have to post pictures.


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## Cedarwinds Farm

Oh my! Must have been a busy night in the hen coop. 8 chicks! And looks like another egg has pipped. They ALL look barred rock, as far as i can tell, except one yellow one. So that just must be dominant, as I know not all of those eggs were from my barred rock hens.


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## toth boer goats




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## Moers kiko boars

Cmon you guys☝ WE NEED PICTURES! PLEASE😁🥰


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## FizzyGoats

Cedarwinds Farm said:


> I'm NOT a hatching guru at all. But I guess I'd be tempted to give the eggs a few more days and just see what happens. I want to learn how to candle, too. I think it would be a useful skill.


I did candle a few from the baby nest. And a few more hatched. I think we have about 15 poults now. We didn’t think we’d have any. We’re leaving the rest of the eggs in that nest until the end of the week. I also candled some of the eggs HotRod switched to but couldn’t tell a dang thing except I found one blood ring and two yolkers that I got rid of, but the rest are a mystery but I doubt they’re viable and she’s probably waisting her time. I just feel bad because most of those hatched poults owe it to the hard work she already put in. Maybe she enjoys being broody. I don’t know. 


luvmyherd said:


> You are lucky. The one time we hatched poults; we took our lives into our hands just trying to get a picture.
> Both Mom and Dad would not only peck but chase us out of the pen.
> 
> I love chicks with their mommies! I do hope we get some broody ones next year.


Our hens are very used to me going in there all the time and cleaning and refilling food and water. So they are pretty mild tempered and tolerant of us being in there. Our turkeys seem a little more laid back then our chickens , so I guess we have weird birds. 



Jessica84 said:


> Geeze! I have not had the Turkey hens attack. They have hissed but they have been all talk.
> 5 more poults from my golden Narragansett!!! I never could find her nest and thought something got her. So I am super excited about her babies.


Oh that’s awesome! So glad she’s alive and hatched out some poults. I really like Narragansetts. If I hadn’t gone with Bourbon Reds, those would have been my choice. I’ve never seen a golden one. 

My turkeys aren’t even hissing anymore when I crawl in their nest and lift a wing for a little looksie. They’re not happy about it, but the hissing has stopped. I think they find me very annoying right now. 



Cedarwinds Farm said:


> Oh my! Must have been a busy night in the hen coop. 8 chicks! And looks like another egg has pipped. They ALL look barred rock, as far as i can tell, except one yellow one. So that just must be dominant, as I know not all of those eggs were from my barred rock hens.


Wow. That’s so exciting.



Moers kiko boars said:


> Cmon you guys WE NEED PICTURES! PLEASE


I agree. I want more pictures of everyone’s little fluff balls.  And I need to take more pictures.


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## Cedarwinds Farm

I got a few photos. I didn't want to stir the chicks up too much. It's chilly today and I figure they need to stay warm under mom. We've got one egg in the very slow process of hatching. That chick is in no hurry. And one I think may be a dud. Reconfigured the broody area, since I came home this afternoon to find a chick outside the nesting tub and very cold. Now they have a cut down cardboard box that's easier to get in and out of.


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## Cedarwinds Farm




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## Moers kiko boars

Awwww how cute!


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## FizzyGoats

Aw, I love the little one looking up at mama. Too cute.


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## ksalvagno

Cuties!


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## luvmyherd

FizzyGoats said:


> Our hens are very used to me going in there all the time and cleaning and refilling food and water.


Ours were pretty comfortable with us...UNTIL THOSE EGGS HATCHED!! Then all bets were off.🤨


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## FizzyGoats

They were probably more protective than mine. My turkey hens could use a little more instinct to protect. I honestly don’t think they’d fight to defend the babies. 

My turkeys are driving me nuts. I wish I could just take a break from them for these next few weeks and then just see what hatches and survives and what doesn’t. One egg hatched under HotRod last night. No idea if the poult is alive because it was too cold to check. But the egg shell was near her. And it might be the egg from the other nest I accidentally put with the iffy clutch she’s on and then couldn’t remember which one it was. Annie the nanny is sort of a pain. She gets off those babies too much when it’s chilly. I think it’d have been better if she’d stayed on her own nest and not crowded HotRod out because HotRod does not get up unless she absolutely has to. Annie is sort of an idiot. Shirley is doing well and gets up more than HotRod but less than Annie. 

I’m half tempted to kick Annie out and take the iffy clutch away from HotRod and be fine with the number of poults we have. Then HotRod can take care of babies again instead of more eggs (that probably won’t hatch).


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## Moers kiko boars

Wow...that sounds like a soap opera..turkey style...just need...whose the daddy!🥰🤣😂🍿🥤

@FizzyGoats ...hows Carter? I need an update please.....missing him!🥰


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## FizzyGoats

We have daddy drama too.  Gobfather (our biggest tom) was with them the most, but the hens also spent time with Mr. Snoodles and Brokebeak. So I really don’t know who’s the daddy.


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## FizzyGoats

Oh sorry, just saw your addition. I’ll find that thread and update it.


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## Cedarwinds Farm

It looks like 9 chicks is going to be our total. The 10th egg has not pipped and I haven't heard any cheeping or pecking from inside. But 9 out of 10 is a pretty good hatch rate, I think. 
Mama brought her chicks out of the nest. They are all black, with yellow markings, except for one yellow with a single black spot on its back. Whichever one got so cold yesterday is doing fine today...I can't tell which one it is, so that's a good sign. 
View attachment 228661

View attachment 228660

View attachment 228662


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## Cedarwinds Farm




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## FizzyGoats

That’s a great hatch rate. It’s a lot better than my turkeys managed. They are so tiny and so cute!


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## luvmyherd

FizzyGoats said:


> the hens also spent time with Mr. Snoodles and Brokebeak. So I really don’t know who’s the daddy.


Our hen would not breed nor set until we cut it back to 1 Tom. 🤪 
The poults we have now are strictly meat but hearing about everyone's hatchings makes me want to get some heritage turkeys and breed again. (Especially with the price of poults.)
We had so much poultry in the freezer that year.


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## FizzyGoats

Well, either you had weird turkeys or I do. 

I enjoy the turkeys quite a bit. We got them just to see if it’d be worth it. We’re still in that trial stage but I enjoy them and think they’ll be productive, especially if I get set up properly for next season.


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## luvmyherd

Well, personally, I prefer turkey to chicken. Both for broth and meat. It cans well if one is low on freezer space. So, we may find ourselves deep into turkeys next year. Time will tell.


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## ksalvagno

Are any of you worried about the price and availability of feed for your chickens and turkeys? I saw on Craigslist someone local who is selling Midget White Turkeys which is the breed I'm really interested in. But I'm worried about if there will be feed to buy and if we could afford it.


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## luvmyherd

ABSOLUTELY!!
We bought some extra recently just in case. Scary times.
We are having to buy alfalfa from the feed store for an exorbitant price. Still looking for a supplier. Our old guy retired.


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## Cedarwinds Farm

Yes, prices here are going up. But I recently began fermenting the chicken feed, and that cuts my feed use down to about half what it is for dry feed, and the chickens seem to do even better on the fermented stuff.


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## MellonFriend

Cedarwinds Farm said:


> Yes, prices here are going up. But I recently began fermenting the chicken feed, and that cuts my feed use down to about half what it is for dry feed, and the chickens seem to do even better on the fermented stuff.


Tell me more! What is the magical feed fermenting?


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## luvmyherd

My son did that with his chickens. We are getting ready to start it with ours.


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## Jessica84

Yes! It’s getting quite bad. I’m lucky right now and they are free ranging but the grass is turning brown fast so that will come to a end soon. Well I can still free range them but will have to start feeding them. But ideally if one is going to process them or sell, the price for the bird should go up too. Even if consuming your will be saving on what it would cost to buy it from the store. Not sure if in the long run it’s worth it or not though. 
The good thing about poultry over other animals is they can eat a lot of different things other then what is labeled “chicken” food.


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## Cedarwinds Farm

MellonFriend said:


> Tell me more! What is the magical feed fermenting?


Others may have more ideas to share, but I just put their feed in a 5 gal. bucket and then cover it with water. You want to stir the feed up really well, all the way to the bottom, to make sure it all gets wet, and then have the water cover it by about 2 inches. You have to leave plenty of head space in the bucket, or the feed will start to come over the top as it ferments. Then put the lid on, but don't seal it down. I let it set in our root cellar for a day or day and a half, until it starts to get bubbly and yeasty smelling. The chickens LOVE it.


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## MellonFriend

Cedarwinds Farm said:


> Others may have more ideas to share, but I just put their feed in a 5 gal. bucket and then cover it with water. You want to stir the feed up really well, all the way to the bottom, to make sure it all gets wet, and then have the water cover it by about 2 inches. You have to leave plenty of head space in the bucket, or the feed will start to come over the top as it ferments. Then put the lid on, but don't seal it down. I let it set in our root cellar for a day or day and a half, until it starts to get bubbly and yeasty smelling. The chickens LOVE it.


That's really cool! I'll have to look into this more. So, it's a way to stretch the feed because it's more nutritious or something?


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## Cedarwinds Farm

MellonFriend said:


> That's really cool! I'll have to look into this more. So, it's a way to stretch the feed because it's more nutritious or something?


That's the theory. That fermentation makes more of the nutrition available for them, so they need less. Also, the wet feed doesn't get flung on the ground and wasted like the dry stuff does. I was very skeptical when I started, but figured it would be worth a shot. My birds look great, and egg production is good. When I briefly stopped fermenting, I noticed a drop in egg production and shell quality. Now, that's purely anecdotal evidence, and I have seen no actual science to back up the idea that fermented feed is better for the birds. But I feel like it's worth the extra steps and mess of fermenting for the fact that our feed bill is about half what it used to be.


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## Cedarwinds Farm

I have been fermenting the feed since about February. So not very long. But I know there are some people on here who have been doing it longer. I think Jubillee talked about it on a different chicken thread.


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## MellonFriend

Cedarwinds Farm said:


> That's the theory. That fermentation makes more of the nutrition available for them, so they need less. Also, the wet feed doesn't get flung on the ground and wasted like the dry stuff does. I was very skeptical when I started, but figured it would be worth a shot. My birds look great, and egg production is good. When I briefly stopped fermenting, I noticed a drop in egg production and shell quality. Now, that's purely anecdotal evidence, and I have seen no actual science to back up the idea that fermented feed is better for the birds. But I feel like it's worth the extra steps and mess of fermenting for the fact that our feed bill is about half what it used to be.


Sounds like we're going to have to try this! Thanks for the insight!


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## FizzyGoats

The price of feed does concern me. Especially with a bunch of poults needing to be on starter feed for a few months, which is more expensive. And I have to feed it to the turkey hens that are in with the poults because they drop food out of their hanging feeder and the poults eat what they drop. Plus, the game bird feed is getting harder to find around here. The adults are great foragers, both my chickens and turkeys, and could likely do well with little to no store bought feed through most of the year where I live. 

I haven’t tried fermented feed, mainly because I can’t leave a lid loose. We have mice galore. Have any of you found that’s an issue with mice getting in it? All my feed is kept in sealed containers. We’re constantly working on the rodent issue but it feels like a never ending battle when you live in the woods. I know the chickens kill and eat mice, the turkeys might too, so you think we’d be good. So far the bucket lids with the flap have been our best trap. I’ve caught about 25 mice in a less than 2 weeks in the three I have set up.


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## Cedarwinds Farm

FizzyGoats said:


> The price of feed does concern me. Especially with a bunch of poults needing to be on starter feed for a few months, which is more expensive. And I have to feed it to the turkey hens that are in with the poults because they drop food out of their hanging feeder and the poults eat what they drop. Plus, the game bird feed is getting harder to find around here. The adults are great foragers, both my chickens and turkeys, and could likely do well with little to no store bought feed through most of the year where I live.
> 
> I haven’t tried fermented feed, mainly because I can’t leave a lid loose. We have mice galore. Have any of you found that’s an issue with mice getting in it? All my feed is kept in sealed containers. We’re constantly working on the rodent issue but it feels like a never ending battle when you live in the woods. I know the chickens kill and eat mice, the turkeys might too, so you think we’d be good. So far the bucket lids with the flap have been our best trap. I’ve caught about 25 mice in a less than 2 weeks in the three I have set up.


In the cooler weather, I did the feed outside, and set a brick on the lid to keep critters out. It worked fine. You just don't want to seal the lid down. Now that the weather is warm, I have to do the feed in the root cellar or it starts to go funky.


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## ksalvagno

What feed do you use? I can't imagine the feed I'm currently using would ferment well. It is just the pressed pellets. No whole grains.


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## Jessica84

I haven’t gone full on fermented yet because I need to find enough containers to let it sit for the 3 days but even just getting the tub and putting their food in it and filling with water has made it stretch. I also liked the idea for summer time because they would consume more water, ideally.
Most people around here use scratch. That’s what I used but I’m not sure if it heats them up in the summer still being fermented or not. I do know they will eat the pellets when wet though, just not sure one could mix it up like it’s supposed to since it turns to a heavy mush.


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## Moers kiko boars

On the fermenting. I use crumbles,would that ferment? How do you know when it goes bad? Do you ferment just enough for a few days?


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## Cedarwinds Farm

I am not a fermenting expert, but I have seen people ferment whole grains. I use the layer crumbles from the feed store. It does not typically take 3 days for them to ferment here, but that depends a lot on environment, I know. I'm sure that would be different for different people. I do two 5 gallon buckets full, and that will last approximately 4 days. I put four feed scoops of crumbles in each bucket, which would ordinarily be about one day's worth of feed if I was giving it dry, but fermented, it lasts a day and a half to two days. I only do small batches and store it in a cool place, so it doesn't go bad before I feed it. Once one bucket gets emptied, I hose it out and start a fresh batch, so I always have one bucket fermenting and one that I'm feeding out of. I don't know how it will go through the heat of the summer. I expect it will be fine, but...I don't know yet. In the winter, I think having the liquid in the feed will cause problems when it gets really cold, as the feed will start freezing. So I'll either have to come up with a way to keep the feeder area above freezing all day, or just switch back to dry feed for the coldest months - typically late Dec. - early Feb.


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## Cedarwinds Farm

I had to move the fermenting operation into the root cellar again, as the feed would start to get stinky around day 2 when the temps. were in the upper 70s. The chickens still ate it just fine and had no ill effects, but I didn't like the way it was smelling. I had to do the fermenting in the root cellar when I started it in Feb., too, so the buckets wouldn't freeze at night.


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## Cedarwinds Farm

There are LOTS of YouTubes and backyard chicken type resources about fermenting. I took a lot of them with a grain of salt, as they were getting way more fancy than I wanted to do (and a lot of those backyard chicken people are just plain crazy, IMO...I guess they'd say the same about goat people.  ). But anyway, there's lots of extra info and ideas floating around, if someone wants to take the time to sort through it.


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## MellonFriend

I did a little research on it this morning and I found an article that said fermenting can be done with any feed. How to Ferment Chicken Feed for Better Hen Health & Eggs ~ Homestead and Chill Looks like finding a cool place to keep it would be tricky for us. We'd probably have to use what we make immediately and keep a rotational system going unless we want buckets of fermenting chicken feed sitting around in the house. Just thinking out loud here, maybe this would work best as a winter endeavor since we use more feed in the winter anyway. 🤔


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## luvmyherd

I know we are talking about feeding poultry but it is bad for everything. And to make matters worse; the extreme drought has killed two of our big trees that should be providing browse for the goats this time of year.


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## toth boer goats

🤗


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## FizzyGoats

Well, one hen is taking a few of the more adventurous poults for small outings. You can just barely see another hen inside the coop and what you can’t see is a bunch of little poults standing inside by the door, considering their options. Their pen is covered in aerial netting and fenced with the no climb horse fence (2”x4” openings), so I ziptied deer netting all around it the bottom few feet. Now I’m worried that the netting has too much give and they could possibly get stuck between the fence and netting (I know it’s unlikely). Once the current rain let’s up, I’m going to attach 8 inches of hardware cloth to the bottom of their pen. I’m not ready for them to be outside. This is so different than brooder raising them.
View attachment 228886


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## FizzyGoats




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## ksalvagno

How cute!


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## ksalvagno

Hatching has started. The original hen that was sitting on the nest got kicked out and this black hen took over. 🐣🙂


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## FizzyGoats

It’s so sweet to see the little yellow heads poking out from under the black hen. Those are some cuties. Is the white hen beside her the one that kicked out?


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## ksalvagno

No. She is actually an additional one. It was a white hen that sat on them for 2 weeks. Those 2 hens were mean enough that she came out of her broodiness.


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## luvmyherd

From this:








To:
















And
This:








To
This:
















Holy Cow!
Love it though.


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## FizzyGoats

ksalvagno said:


> No. She is actually an additional one. It was a white hen that sat on them for 2 weeks. Those 2 hens were mean enough that she came out of her broodiness.


Aw, poor hen does all the work and someone else swoops in at the last moment to take all the glory. 

My best brooder turkey hen, HotRod, was annoyed (the hens weren’t mean to her) out of the nest after hatching the majority of the eggs and went and sat on a different nest. Now both hens and all the chicks have moved in to that nest with HotRod.  I think she’s given up trying to have some me time. 



[mention]luvmyherd [/mention] My gosh the chicks grew up quickly! And the poults look like they are doing great and growing strong.


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## Jessica84

Poor original hen!!! But I guess that’s one way to get them to stop being broody lol oh birds I tell ya! 
I could use her to break my blue Turkey hen from being broody. She will NOT take the hint her eggs are no good! She now has a chicken hen with her trying to help 
This morning I walked out and there was a cold poult on the front step. I brought it in and put a heat lamp on it and was going to give to the blue hen. We have 2 absolutely worthless cats. The one doesn’t hunt anything, he never has and is just a fat lazy cat. I keep the chicks in the bathroom that way when I leave the dogs in the house I can shut the door and keep them safe. Well this stupid cat decided that he was a hunter after all and got the poor little thing. He has gone in and sat on the counter and just watched them but has NEVER even moved towards them. Savanna, it’s her cat and that cat holds her heart, but she is so upset he did that.


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## FizzyGoats

Poor Savanna. It’s so hard when an animal you love kills another animal. I get it. It’s hard to look at them the same for a while, even if it was completely in their nature to do it.


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## toth boer goats

🤗


----------



## FizzyGoats

A few hens took the poults out for walks today. Of course when I walk up, they all run back to the coop. I heard one little one cheeping like crazy when I was cleaning the barn. It was lost in the pen and couldn’t figure out how to get back inside. Not one of the three mamas was out looking for it. I helped out of course, but this does make me question the mothering skills of my hens.


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## ksalvagno

So cute!


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## Moers kiko boars

Awwww look at those cute little guys! We all are new at mothering sometime. Lol shes just learning, with how many?😂🤣


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## Boer Mama

Anyone have any luck with their Guinea fowl hatching and being good mamas?
I haven’t even noticed mine nesting yet! My friend said he had one hatch out about 25 chicks. But the next day there was only 2 left 😑 
So I’m worried if they do hatch out some I’ll end up losing them all to the cats…


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## FizzyGoats

ksalvagno said:


> So cute!


Thanks. Do you have any more new fluffy ones yet?


Moers kiko boars said:


> Awwww look at those cute little guys! We all are new at mothering sometime. Lol shes just learning, with how many?


True.  There are 3 hens sharing mothering duties over 16 poults. One hen is very broody though and rarely leaves the nest (even though most the littles are ones she hatched out and now she’s trying her luck at another clutch that isn’t hers and probably isn’t going to hatch). 



Boer Mama said:


> Anyone have any luck with their Guinea fowl hatching and being good mamas?
> I haven’t even noticed mine nesting yet! My friend said he had one hatch out about 25 chicks. But the next day there was only 2 left
> So I’m worried if they do hatch out some I’ll end up losing them all to the cats…


I’ve never raised guineas but I’ve heard stories.  They are unique. I lost two poults to my chickens before I realized eggs were starting to hatch and then battened down the hatches. I was so mad at myself and felt so terrible for them. I imagine cats would get them quickly as well.


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## ksalvagno

I had 2 more hatch and found a cracked egg with a dead chick. So I now have 2 white, a buff and a black. 5 more eggs left to hatch.


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## Cedarwinds Farm

Boer Mama said:


> Anyone have any luck with their Guinea fowl hatching and being good mamas?
> I haven’t even noticed mine nesting yet! My friend said he had one hatch out about 25 chicks. But the next day there was only 2 left 😑
> So I’m worried if they do hatch out some I’ll end up losing them all to the cats…


We have had some guinea fowl hatch their own eggs. The tricky thing for them does not seem that they're bad setters, but that they like to make nests out in the brush, so predators often get the eggs, the guinea hen, or both. But the keets are very delicate, so if you want them to survive, you will most likely need to either gather up the eggs and incubate them or keep a careful eye out and catch them the day they hatch. They seem to not survive well if left with their mother.


----------



## Boer Mama

Cedarwinds Farm said:


> We have had some guinea fowl hatch their own eggs. The tricky thing for them does not seem that they're bad setters, but that they like to make nests out in the brush, so predators often get the eggs, the guinea hen, or both. But the keets are very delicate, so if you want them to survive, you will most likely need to either gather up the eggs and incubate them or keep a careful eye out and catch them the day they hatch. They seem to not survive well if left with their mother.


I’ve been trying to see if they are nesting somewhere at all… if they’ve started laying up their eggs, they aren’t sitting yet. They’re mostly just in my yard being little jerks to my chickens 😅


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## FizzyGoats

The group of poults venturing out of the coop and in to the pen is getting larger. The ones who don’t want to go out stay with the hen who is still broody and she somehow fits them and the eggs under her. I guess it’s nice that they have options. Wish I could say I planned it like this but this absolutely wasn’t my plan. Mine was to have all separate nests and little runs and keep each hen separated with her poults. I just ran out of time before I could get it built.


----------



## ksalvagno

So cute! I bet it is fun watching them.

I have 5 chicks hatched and 4 eggs left to hatch. The 2 hens are co-parenting.


----------



## Boer Mama

I’ve got a Muscovy hen who should be just about ready to hatch out her nest. She’s been sitting faithfully… I’ve a few others who are still building and haven’t started sitting yet.
With this weeks weather I hope she doesn’t hatch them out for 4-5 more days! 😅


----------



## FizzyGoats

They’re so round! They are pretty dang cute and I love that you have a variety. 

I know this will make me sounds as inexperienced as I am, but I had no idea hens (turkey or chicken) would co parent. I thought it would be a disaster not having them separate but it seems to be working out for the better, at least so far. This is definitely a learning experience for me. And I’m glad I have people hear that talked me down when I was freaking out about them being together.


----------



## Moers kiko boars

Hey @FizzyGoats , Me 2! Im learning so much from this. Thankyou! I love all the pictures too! So cute!


----------



## FizzyGoats

I have learned so much from all of you. I would have gone even crazier than I have been if you all here hadn’t talked me down a few times, especially [mention]Jessica84 [/mention] 

My little poults learned the joys of dust bathing today. Why they (and the hens) have to do it right next to the fence is still unclear to me.


----------



## ksalvagno

That is so cute! They all have to do it at once.


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## FizzyGoats

ksalvagno said:


> That is so cute! They all have to do it at once.


I know, right? It’s very much monkey see / monkey do around here. 

Have any more of your eggs hatched yet? How are your chicks doing?


----------



## luvmyherd

My chicks all roll around next to the fence to the point that they can get under if we do not stop them.


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## FizzyGoats

That does concern me. I have deer netting on the outside of the fence and hardware cloth on the inside of the bottom of the fence hopping to prevent it. Only time will tell if it’s enough. 

How are your poults doing?


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## Jessica84

Lol I moved my poults out of the rabbit cage and into a smaller chicken cage (those expensive cheap made tractor supply ones) and got fresh shavings and they went nuts dusting in it lol I was like geeze if I knew you would be that happy I would have moved you a long time ago


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## luvmyherd

Ours are happy that we let them roam the large cage during the day. They are fully fledged but with this cold snap we are putting them in at night with the heat lamp.
My husband cleaned out the dog crate. When he dug up the straw there was like a million earwigs!! They went nuts. Absolutely wiped them out.
Wish we could let them free range as we have a bad earwig problem this year.


----------



## Boer Mama

luvmyherd said:


> Ours are happy that we let them roam the large cage during the day. They are fully fledged but with this cold snap we are putting them in at night with the heat lamp.
> My husband cleaned out the dog crate. When he dug up the straw there was like a million earwigs!! They went nuts. Absolutely wiped them out.
> Wish we could let them free range as we have a bad earwig problem this year.


I can’t stand ear wigs. They really gross me out 😑


----------



## ksalvagno

I've had 8 chicks hatch. I have one egg left to hatch. I've tried to take pictures but they dash back under mom before I can take any. But the 2 hens are still co-parenting.


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## Cedarwinds Farm

Loving all the cute pictures! I almost bought turkey poults yesterday, as I found them at a good price. But we would have had to redo the chicken house door so they could fit through, and Dad, the resident remodeler, didn't think he would get to it in time. 
My chicks are growing and doing well! I have them in a stock tank, since they could get out of the grow out cage, so it's hard to get photos.


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## Boer Mama

I have my first clutch hatched out- I think she probably hatched every single egg 😅
I couldn’t count them, but maybe 25-30 babies. 💕😁🍀


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## ksalvagno

Wow! So cute!


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## Boer Mama

A coyote had found one of my mamas nests out in the horse pasture. He came back a couple days in a row and ate all the eggs. I think he may have gotten some of my hens too… the ducks were all staying inside the yard a lot more instead of going out to play in the creek so I think they had a scare.
But if all my remaining hens have as much success as this one did, I’ll be overrun with little babies soon 😂💕🍀


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## ksalvagno

Sorry you lost your hens. I know wildlife need to eat too, but not my babies!


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## luvmyherd

We had a large clutch of duck eggs so close to hatching. Then one morning they were gone. Guessing 'possum or skunk. So disappointing.
Love the little babies and protective mama.


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## Jessica84

Gosh that is a lot of little ones! What a good mama! 
My whole predator issue started with the two ducks I had


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## Cedarwinds Farm

Oh my! Those ducklings are so cute! And what a great mom to hatch out so many.


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## FizzyGoats

[mention]Boer Mama [/mention] those babies are adorable. I can’t believe how many she hatched out! What a good mama. I’m sorry about the predator losses.


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## Boer Mama

Thank you- I love when they are so little and fluffy. Mama is definitely protective and hissed at me while I was taking the pic. Lol
@Jessica84 sorry you lost yours! I was sure surprised when I first saw him in so close and wondered what he was doing just standing there less than 10’ from my horse. (I need to train the horses not to be so tolerant!)

@FizzyGoats last year she hatched outside the yard. When I finally saw her bring her babies in, she only had 2. So she made up this year 😂

I do live right by a birds of prey location as well. So that’s always a possibility for loss. My LGD is pretty defensive about big birds flying low… but she can’t be everywhere 🤷🏼‍♀️


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## luvmyherd

Boer Mama said:


> I do live right by a birds of prey location as well. So that’s always a possibility for loss.


My teenage son once witnessed a hawk snatching a pullet right out of our pasture.😡


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## Cedarwinds Farm

luvmyherd said:


> My teenage son once witnessed a hawk snatching a pullet right out of our pasture.😡


We have never had hawk trouble until this spring. We had small hawks - Coopers hawks, I believe - killing chickens and guineas. The hawks probably weigh less than my birds, so they couldn't carry them away. They would kill my birds, then sit on the ground to eat them...right in the yard! I put up some owl decoys, and that seems to have stopped the hawk trouble, at least for now.


----------



## Boer Mama

I did find a duck carcass up in a crotch of a big tree in my dads yard once, so I’m assuming that was from a bird. Could have been a raccoon tho.. we have owls around, so maybe they keep the hawks at bay…


----------



## MadHouse

I finally caught up with everyone’s chick and poult posts. 
I love all the babies! Sorry to hear about the ones you all lost.
I got chicks this month, I’ll post some pictures tomorrow.


----------



## Cedarwinds Farm

My chickies this morning. They are getting big, so I moved them back into our grow out cage.


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## Boer Mama

So my mama duck has already taken the babies out of the yard into one of the horse pastures. I found one baby in the yard (maybe it got squished under mama?) where they were huddled last night. Then after looking around a bit I saw her out in the pasture. Found another soggy little baby in the creek 😓
I did get a count on the babies she has with her tonight and it’s 17. So hopefully my guess was off yesterday and she didn’t lose 10 babies today! I checked her nesting site and there wasn’t a single egg left I hatched.
She took them back into the yard tonight and they were huddled in the same spot as yesterday so they should be safe for the night.
No new clutches hatched yet.


----------



## MadHouse

@Cedarwinds Farm Those chicks are so cute! How old are they now?

@Boer Mama That is a beautiful picture!


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## Cedarwinds Farm

MadHouse said:


> @Cedarwinds Farm Those chicks are so cute! How old are they now?
> 
> @Boer Mama That is a beautiful picture!


That's a great question, and I did not mark it on my calendar, like a diligent chicken farmer should. But according to my old posts on this thread, the first egg pipped on the 30th. The others hatched about 2-3 days afterward. So the chicks are roughly 10 days - 2 weeks old.


----------



## MadHouse

Ok, so I brought home chicks a week ago. They are 4 silver laced Wyandottes and one chocolate Orpington (all unsexed). Two female Norwegian Jaerhons died within the first 24 hours. I don’t know why.
I went with the outdoor brooder that is within my chicken coop. The heat source is a mama heating cave.
This was the first day


















Adults and chicks can see and hear each other. Apparently it helps with integrating them earlier and more smoothly.










And this was yesterday









This one is the chocolate Orpington, I think









It will be interesting to see how many hens I get. I am planning to keep one rooster, if there is a friendly one. To replace my old rooster. Is it too much to wish for 4 hens and one roo? 😛


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## toth boer goats

How cute.


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## ksalvagno

Cute chicks! I about had a heart attack this morning. Momma hens took the 8 chicks outside. I was hoping they would stay inside longer. The last egg never hatched and today was the day both hens decided they were done just sitting. It has been 24 days since I candled and marked the eggs. So 8 out of 10 hatched.


----------



## Cedarwinds Farm

ksalvagno said:


> Cute chicks! I about had a heart attack this morning. Momma hens took the 8 chicks outside. I was hoping they would stay inside longer. The last egg never hatched and today was the day both hens decided they were done just sitting. It has been 24 days since I candled and marked the eggs. So 8 out of 10 hatched.
> View attachment 229604


Those will be some well-protected chicks with 2 moms looking after them!


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## Moers kiko boars

Awww love the little quackers,and chicks ! So many & so cute! You guys are doing great with all the new fluffs!


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## Tanya

We are having a thunderstorm. Kleintjie wanted in.


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## FizzyGoats

[mention]Cedarwinds Farm [/mention]The chicks are are growing fast! They are pretty neat looking little chickies. 

[mention]Boer Mama [/mention] I’m sorry about the few lost ducklings. They are adorable. But what a good job mama is doing taking care of that many!

[mention]MadHouse [/mention] Your chicks are so cute! I love that mama cave. And letting the bigs and littles live together while safely divided, worked well for me when I brought young ones in. It made the eventual transition to living as one cohesive flock much easier. I hope you get the roo / hen ratio you’re hoping for.  


[mention]ksalvagno [/mention] The mamas are watching their littles closely! The chicks seem so tiny to be out and about already. Do any other chickens or animals try to go after them? Or are the moms able to handle keeping them all away?

[mention]Tanya [/mention] That is too funny! Kleintjie has the best of both worlds. 



I just got back from a few days being gone for wedding. The poults are about 2 weeks old now, all except one that hatched 4 days ago, the day before I left. I found it when I was cleaning the turkey coop, still wet from hatching, flat on it’s back, cold to the touch, but still sort of breathing. I put it in a box under a heat lamp. I probably should have put it out of its misery. While rushing to get ready to leave, we built a brooder for it and set up the brooder radiant heat plate. It couldn’t walk right, so I used vet wrap to make a hobble for it. When we left, I didn’t think it’d make it, but it did. And it can walk great now. Poor tiny thing is lonely though. I take on visits out to the turkey pen. I thought my poults were small until I put Little Bit with them. He just can’t keep up though. I will give him visits during the day until I know he’ll be warm and strong enough. He doesn’t know all the signals the three hens give, freeze, get down, come under me - nope, he just wanders around during those times. He definitely can’t live full time with them yet. But I’m glad he can walk now and get to learn how to be a turkey. When he couldn’t walk right, the other poults would attack him, but now that he walks fine, they don’t seem to mind that he’s half their size.


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## FizzyGoats

Here’s Little Bit standing behind a couple of the other poults so you can see the size difference.


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## ksalvagno

OMG. Little Bit is too adorable! I have to watch out for the barn cats. They discovered the chicks and are very interested. I blocked off places they could get through but I guess they could climb the fence if they really wanted to.


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## Tanya

@FizzyGoats kleintjie is very spoilt. He thinks he is human.

Little bit looks so good. I am so happy he made it. Was he not a lat lay?


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## FizzyGoats

ksalvagno said:


> OMG. Little Bit is too adorable! I have to watch out for the barn cats. They discovered the chicks and are very interested. I blocked off places they could get through but I guess they could climb the fence if they really wanted to.


And I thought it was hard making sure the chickens couldn’t get to the poults. Cats are so hard to keep out of things. Between having to climb the fence and take on two mamas, hopefully they’ll decide the chicks aren’t worth it. 




Tanya said:


> @FizzyGoats kleintjie is very spoilt. He thinks he is human.
> 
> Little bit looks so good. I am so happy he made it. Was he not a lat lay?


He is so funny and a beautiful little guy. 

16 poults hatched out of two clutches two of the hens were laying on. Then one hen left her clutch to come be with the babies and hens. Little Bit is from that abandoned clutch that was only laid on periodically after that. I have no idea how he hatched alive. Then how he survived his first few hours. 

And today, a hen stepped on him. He couldn’t even cheep. I had to run in there and grab him. It wasn’t mean. She just wasn’t paying attention. They are out of their super careful mothering stage and on to the one where it’s the baby’s job to get out of the way but poor Little Bit isn’t there yet. I put him back in his brooder for a while. He’ll get visit during the day but live in the brooder until he can keep up.


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## Tanya

Little Bit sorta reminds me of chicken little. I am sure he felt like the sky was falling.


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## MadHouse

Awww, Little Bit is so much smaller. That is good of you to let him have visits with the moms and siblings. But a hard job, for sure. I hope he recovers from the accident today. He seems like a resilient bird!! 🥰 Such a cutie!


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## Boer Mama

Little bit is so tiny next to the others! I hope they don’t bully him too much. Poor little guy 😅


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## FizzyGoats

He is the turkey version of Chicken Little. 

He didn’t seem to suffer any damage from being stood on by a hen. It’s crazy because I was in the buck pen and had to run all the way around the barn, into the doe pen, and then to the turkey pen. He looked dead but screamed at me for picking him up the second I shoved the hen off and scooped him up. 

They don’t really bully him until he does something they have already learned not to do, like peck at another poult’s toe thinking it’s food. Then they get mad peck him and chase him and I have to save him. He also doesn’t seem to know to get under a hen when he’s cold or to follow the group in general. He meanders and wanders. 

Little Bit is the socially awkward dude hanging out on the peripheral trying to figure out how to belong. I feel bad because he’s so upset being separated but he’d surely be crushed or too cold overnight. I put a mirror in his brooder. Maybe that will finally give him a buddy who gets him.


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## Tanya

@FizzyGoats you can take 1 older poult and host them together untill Lil Bit actually turkey's like he should. The older one will teach him the Turkey way quickly.


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## Jessica84

Let those cats see the chicks now while mamas are super protective over them. It maybe cruel but we always let new cats and puppies meet mama hens when we first get them. They learn really fast those things are not to be messed with. If I didnt think this dang house cat would take off I would go toss him in the middle of that black Turkey hen. She will run clear across the yard to beat up my puppies. Which I tell them maybe if they were not such turds last year they wouldn’t be beating you up lol


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## luvmyherd

We let the poults out into their yard today. They were so happy but soon proved they are as "dumb as turkeys".
I saw one pacing outside the kennel. He was thirsty but could not figure out how to get back through the door.🤪
My son had to round up 3 that were panting and show them how to get to the water. They will have to be watched closely this summer.☀💥


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## luvmyherd

They kind of blend in with the weeds and dirt.








They look like this now. They are loving pecking at the few greens that are left.


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## FizzyGoats

[mention]Tanya [/mention] The older poults lose their minds if I try to put one or two of them in the brooder and just run right over him. They are wild little things and not used to being contained in anything smaller than a pen. I think Little Bit will be ready to join them soon. As long as it’s warm, he spends all day with them. 

[mention]Jessica84 [/mention] I’ll have to remember that for next year. The turkey hens let chickens kill two poults when they first hatched, so I’d don’t know if they’re not protective or just didn’t know what to do yet. 

[mention]luvmyherd [/mention] The turkeys are getting big! How old are they now? And don’t worry, they get smarter. Last year when I was raising mine, it felt like between the ages of 2 weeks and 10 weeks, all they did was try to find ways to kill themselves.


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## MadHouse

Today my chicks’ brooder doubled in size. At first it was scary. They are hiding in their cave.









Then they came out and started exploring. Where did the food tray move to?


















Now I can lie down in their coop. I am trying to tame them, but they still are afraid. I looked up what kind of treats they can have, and read to make the crumbles into mash. I did, and they weren’t interested. I left so e on the tray though, and it was gone later. 
They are so cute to watch. 😊


----------



## luvmyherd

FizzyGoats said:


> How old are they now?


They are just over 4 weeks. They have grown so fast. I am so happy all 4 have made it this far.
We had one years ago who committed "suicide" in the gate. When we bred Royal Palms they were much smarter.


----------



## FizzyGoats

MadHouse said:


> Today my chicks’ brooder doubled in size. At first it was scary. They are hiding in their cave.
> View attachment 229772
> 
> 
> Then they came out and started exploring. Where did the food tray move to?
> View attachment 229774
> 
> 
> View attachment 229773
> 
> 
> Now I can lie down in their coop. I am trying to tame them, but they still are afraid. I looked up what kind of treats they can have, and read to make the crumbles into mash. I did, and they weren’t interested. I left so e on the tray though, and it was gone later.
> They are so cute to watch.


I bet after you sit in there a while, you’ll be their favorite climbing toy. I just love your set up. That cave is the best. They are so cute. 



luvmyherd said:


> They are just over 4 weeks. They have grown so fast. I am so happy all 4 have made it this far.
> We had one years ago who committed "suicide" in the gate. When we bred Royal Palms they were much smarter.


What kind do you have now? Sorry, I’m sure you’ve said and I’ve forgotten. 


I built two little roosts for the poults today because they’re flying up on the fence braces. But do they use those? No, instead they use a stick I set between boards as an after thought.


----------



## luvmyherd

Love them roosting. Ours prefer cinder blocks to roosts.😆
They are Broad Breasted Bronze. So no breeding; just Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. And naturally stupid.😂


----------



## MadHouse

Thanks @FizzyGoats ! The chicks love their cave!
Roost is my project tomorrow.
Your poults look so happy to have found the stick. So cute!


----------



## Boer Mama

I have a 2nd clutch starting to hatch. If you look close on the left side, there’s a little yellow duckling who was fluffy yet. She was still damp from hatching. Mama was not happy with me peeking in at her. Lol


----------



## FizzyGoats

[mention]Boer Mama [/mention] Have any more hatched? You are going to have so many adorable babies waddling around.


----------



## Boer Mama

FizzyGoats said:


> [mention]Boer Mama [/mention] Have any more hatched? You are going to have so many adorable babies waddling around.


I saw at least 4 empty shells this morning. Mama is keeping them under her nice and warm so I didn’t see the babies yet. Lol
I’ll be trying to get a count as soon as I see she has them waddling out and about.. my other mama still has her 17 so she’s been keeping them safe ❤😊🍀


----------



## Moers kiko boars

That is so cool! I love watching for hatchlings! So adorable.


----------



## toth boer goats




----------



## ksalvagno

Cute!


----------



## FizzyGoats

Little Bit was really off today but I still let him spend most of it where he’s happiest, in the pen with the other poults and napping in the hot sun. He kept tipping over and the hens were gently righting him, the same way they carefully roll their eggs. I put him back in his brooder because he couldn’t stay upright and he wobbled to his fluffy bed, feel asleep and then passed away quickly.

I’m not surprised or devastated, just a little sad. I was rooting for him but it was a miracle he lived as long as he did.


----------



## ksalvagno

I'm sorry. I really thought he would do fine. At least you gave him the best chance possible.


----------



## luvmyherd

FizzyGoats said:


> I’m not surprised or devastated, just a little sad. I was rooting for him but it was a miracle he lived as long as he did


That is how I felt about my Kitty Hawk. I knew she had little chance but still wanted to have her around.

Those pictures make me want to have baby ducks!


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## MadHouse

Aww, rest in peace, Little Bit. ❤ 
I am glad you and the hens made his last day so nice.


----------



## FizzyGoats

Thanks. I was kind of taken aback because I thought he was doing well until this morning. Who knows what happened. 

Well, I did another stupid thing. I took out some of the bigger nests and put in some more roosts to give everyone a little more space in the turkey coop. I left the large nest the hens and poults use and one next to it. Well, that somehow tipped everything off kilter. 

The two best mama hens went up and roosted with the single ladies (hens that never went broody), leaving the poults outside with Annie the nanny, who has been trying to quit her nanny job for the last few days, complaining a lot and really slacking. Yet she’s the only one out there in the dark, all 16 poults huddled under her. Trying to get her and the poults in the coop was a circus. I’d get her in, the poults wouldn’t follow. They were just frozen in fear. I’d pick up a few of them and put them inside and Annie was already out and on her way to cover the poults again. I finally got everyone in and tossed one of the moms off the roost and told her to help take care of the babies. I have no idea what I’ll find in there in the morning.


----------



## MadHouse

Oh no, what a circus indeed! I hope the hen that you tossed down woke up and remembered she is a mama!
Good for Annie to not leave her kids outside, even though it made it harder for you.
These turkeys are giving you the runaround!


----------



## Cedarwinds Farm

Sorry you lost Little Bit!


----------



## Boer Mama

FizzyGoats said:


> Little Bit was really off today but I still let him spend most of it where he’s happiest, in the pen with the other poults and napping in the hot sun. He kept tipping over and the hens were gently righting him, the same way they carefully roll their eggs. I put him back in his brooder because he couldn’t stay upright and he wobbled to his fluffy bed, feel asleep and then passed away quickly.
> 
> I’m not surprised or devastated, just a little sad. I was rooting for him but it was a miracle he lived as long as he did.
> 
> View attachment 229815


I’m sorry you lost him 😓


----------



## Tanya

RiP lil bit.


----------



## Tanya




----------



## MadHouse

Thinking of going for a bike ride, Chickie?


----------



## Tanya

Lol. Yeah. Kleintjie loves Chevani's bycicle


----------



## Moers kiko boars

He loves the wind in his feathers,...without having to work! Lol lol


----------



## Tanya

Moers kiko boars said:


> He loves the wind in his feathers,...without having to work! Lol lol


Of course and my coffee


----------



## Boer Mama

My 2nd hen has left the nest with her brood. She didn’t stay out long enough to hatch all the eggs, but she did hatch 14 which is plenty 😅
























my first hen has been taking her chicks out swimming and they’ve been snacking on little bugs and grain. She’s at 14 babies now.
































Have one more hen (where I know the nest is 😅)
Still sitting. She doesn’t like me looking in on her at all!


----------



## FizzyGoats

Look at all those babies! So adorable. 


My hens look like they are roosting tonight. The high today was 88*F and the low tonight is 69*F. Some of the poults can get up there with them. Some can’t. I have lower roosts. But they aren’t using them. 

Do I need to put the radiant heat brooder plate in the coop for the poults? They are about 2.5 weeks old.


----------



## Boer Mama

Love your roosts!
I don’t think the 2.5 week olds will have trouble since that’s a fairly warm night in my opinion. 😊


----------



## ksalvagno

Too cute!


----------



## FizzyGoats

Phew, thanks. That takes away some of my worry. I fret too much. 

Some of the poults got up on the high roosts with the hens. Some got on the lower roosts I built and huddled up there. Some are running around cheeping like crazy. I have one non-mom hen who doesn’t always get on the roost and sleeps on the ground and she keeps running away from the poults who keep trying to get under her. She’s scared of them. It’s a circus here. I just hope all is well when I open those doors in the morning.


----------



## MadHouse

That picture with the poults on top of the hens on top of the roosts is so adorable!
Were those moms being moms again during the day, or did Annie the nanny have to do it all?
Good luck, I hope they are all well in the morning!


----------



## MadHouse

@Boer Mama I love all the ducklings! Do you have a pond for them, or is it a natural waterway?


----------



## Moers kiko boars

Awww the ducklings are ADORABLE!💞💝 And those poults look like hitchhikers !🥰


----------



## luvmyherd

💞💓💖😻the ducklings with mamas!



As to the poults; I am sure they will be fine. However, I have been keeping a light available for mine cuz I am a super worrier/overthinker. And mine are a month old and fully fledged.
It should be quite warm tonight but odds are I will have the hubby go turn it on before we go to bed.😆


----------



## Jessica84

Awww I’m sorry about lil bit  you gave him such a happy life while he was alive. I have noticed with mine that I hatch that if they hatch late or I have to help them they usually eventually pass. I was actually talking to my sister about this and I can see why the hatcheries give them a short time to hatch them just dump the eggs. I’m not sure I can do that though. 
We seem to be on round 2 on the eggs! The hens will NOT be going broody! I’m not sure what is different from last year but they don’t keep them alive this year. Even the black hen that was such a good mama lost hers. 
My husbands shop Turkey has pushed all but 1 egg out of her nest. Thank goodness they didn’t hit the ground lol he is also anti my turkeys but asked me last night how long it takes to hatch the eggs. I said 28 days. He got super concerned and said she’s going to die before then! She won’t come off and eat or drink or nothing lol I had to assure him that was normal but I went out there today and he has a bucket of water in there for her  so maybe he won’t be so upset with the secret order I have coming.


----------



## Boer Mama

MadHouse said:


> @Boer Mama I love all the ducklings! Do you have a pond for them, or is it a natural waterway?


It’s a creek… I guess maybe not natural. It flows out of our spring house, so well water overflow? But it goes thru the horse pastures on out to water the main meadow 😊
The ducks have been loving playing in it tho! ❤


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## Boer Mama

Jessica84 said:


> Awww I’m sorry about lil bit  you gave him such a happy life while he was alive. I have noticed with mine that I hatch that if they hatch late or I have to help them they usually eventually pass. I was actually talking to my sister about this and I can see why the hatcheries give them a short time to hatch them just dump the eggs. I’m not sure I can do that though.
> We seem to be on round 2 on the eggs! The hens will NOT be going broody! I’m not sure what is different from last year but they don’t keep them alive this year. Even the black hen that was such a good mama lost hers.
> My husbands shop Turkey has pushed all but 1 egg out of her nest. Thank goodness they didn’t hit the ground lol he is also anti my turkeys but asked me last night how long it takes to hatch the eggs. I said 28 days. He got super concerned and said she’s going to die before then! She won’t come off and eat or drink or nothing lol I had to assure him that was normal but I went out there today and he has a bucket of water in there for her  so maybe he won’t be so upset with the secret order I have coming.


He probably sneaks her handfuls of grain to eat while she’s sitting too 😂


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## FizzyGoats

[mention]MadHouse [/mention] The moms were still moms during the day. They apparently aren’t working nights anymore though. Not even Annie the nanny. And all was well when I opened the door this morning. I was nervous though. But it was just a bunch of birds who were just fine and a lot of poop. Hahaha, the usual.



[mention]luvmyherd [/mention] When we had ours in a brooder, I kept the heat lamp in there until they were about 8 weeks old. I had no idea the mama hens removed their heat source so early. Lol. I also think the ones raised by mamas are a little hardier. Though now they are so active and more independent and in to everything, I can tell we have entered the trying to kill themselves stage. Fun. 



[mention]Moers kiko boars [/mention] The poults are hitchhikers. They ride around on the hens like that during the day too. 


[mention]Boer Mama [/mention] What do you plan on doing with all your ducks (besides getting them all in a row, hahaha)? Will you keep them, sell them, raise them for meat? I love the pictures of the ducklings! How many do you have now?



[mention]Jessica84 [/mention] Oh my, round 2 of eggs. We have a turkey lay the occasional egg, but we collect it right away, for eating, not incubating. I wonder why your mamas are having a harder time keeping babies alive this year. Do you think it has anything to do with predators? I know people in your area were feeding them for a while, right? Has that stopped and sort of reset back to normal predator pressure instead of ones looking for a handout? Or do you think the moms just aren’t attentive this year for whatever reason? 

I think it’s sweet (and funny) that your anti-turkey husband is worrying over the broody hen. I think you mentioned your secret order but I can’t remember. What are you getting?


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## Boer Mama

@FizzyGoats , once the babies are old enough to tell the sex (I’m not good at that until there’s a size difference, then it’s easy to know no mistakes) I will list some hens for sale. Last year I sold some for $20 each… we will see how that works this year. Maybe I won’t even be allowed to sell ducks due to the flu 🤷🏼‍♀️
we will plan on processing the males. Man it’s a chore tho! I wish there was someone closer by that I could haul them all in to at a reasonable rate. Muscovy is very tasty tho. We usually pluck and leave skin on for roasting. I might go ahead and do some w/ just some meat so it takes up less freezer space. My dad really likes them roasted tho. Lol
Right now we have 28 babies between the 2 mamas. But I won’t count how many we have till it’s time. Too many variables. Lol


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## Jessica84

No I don’t think it’s predators. I think I have taken care of the last of the problem Animals……right in time for the next wave Of there’s not much water and the state is on fire so let’s feed them  but the hens just seem to be super dumb this year. The black hen I had actually collected 3 of her poults that she lost. I lost one right away, another passed and then the cat got the one. I’m assuming she just lost track of the others or maybe it was the flip floppy weather. But I have about 20 poults that I hatched and am raising and they are doing great so slowly I’ll get my numbers back up.


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## luvmyherd

Speaking of...
🦊🦊🦊🦊🦊🦊🦊🦊
near but not yet in the hen house!!

We have lost chickens to fox in the past. Now we have to make sure everyone is locked in _TIGHT_ at night.
It has been years since our last 🦊 sighting.


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## MadHouse

My chicks have been here for two weeks already!
It is a cold day outside, but these young folks are not complaining.


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## ksalvagno

Cute!


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## FizzyGoats

They don’t seem to mind the cold at all. They are so cute!


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## FizzyGoats

This was me cleaning out the chicken coop today in almost 90*F heat. If I ever build another, I’m making one I can walk in like I did with the turkeys.


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## NigerianNewbie

I like your post, the temperatures are sad though. Goodness girl, that coop is nearly spotless. Impressive.


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## MadHouse

Very nice coop! And so clean 😏!
I can see you wish you had built it as tall as you are. It is one of those hindsight things.
How is your back?


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## FizzyGoats

The high temps already are pretty sad. But a storm swept in and cooled thing nicely.

My back isn’t too bad. I spent a lot of the time actually sitting on roosts as I was cleaning.  I was just using a scraper to get in the corners here to get the last of it cleaned out when my husband came by, looked in, and started laughing and snapped a pic.


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## luvmyherd

Lol (I think). I hate stooping! Could not do it even when I was young.

We mucked out the barn today so no stooping. We were both amazed at how fast it went with 4 ND's as apposed to 9-15 Nubian/Togg/Saanens.🙀

I let the guys stoop to do the turkey pen. No way that will ever be taller.

Oh yeah! Near 90 here as well🥵
Got a nice long bath after.


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## FizzyGoats

Oh I definitely had to shower as soon as I came inside. I had cleaned the barn and the turkey coop before that. I was real gross. 

Sorry this pic is terrible. I took it without flash to not disturb them too much but my low light setting on my phone camera isn’t great. 

My hen, Weebles, who doesn’t like to roost and is a non-mom hen and terrified of the poults has finally lost the battle. It’s hard to tell in this but she’s on the ground with a few poults behind her and one little poult’s head sticking up from under the wing. She may not like it, but it now appears she’s a night nurse. Lol.


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## Jessica84

Oh your cool is so clean! But my back hurt looking at your picture. Is that cement on the ground? I bet that is nice though! Way better then dirt. I have debated on putting mats down in mine.
So good news! After reassuring my husband every day that his shop Turkey will not die from lack of food and water (we had the talk again this morning lol) she hatched out her single egg tonight. He came in so excited lol so tomorrow I need to get her and her baby and move them down since she’s way up on a shelf.


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## FizzyGoats

Congrats, shop turkey! Lol. I love that your husband was excited. Sometimes these animals steal hearts in ways we could have never thought up. 

My chicken coop is elevated and just has a treated wood floor with linoleum (then I put barn lime and a deep base of pine pellets down). My turkey coop is part of the barn. It’s nice and tall but has a dirt floor that I sprinkle barn lime on every time I clean it (which is daily for now with all the poults). It makes it easy to just sweep up the turkey poo because it keeps it from sticking to the ground and helps dry it up.


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## toth boer goats




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## Jessica84

Exciting news! I am off to go buy some sweetgrass turkeys today. 2 hens and a Tom. I don’t think the lady knew exactly what she had so they were pretty cheap. $45 each. So very excited to add them. I am very tempted to just keep them apart from the rest. As much as I would love a colorful clock out there sweetgrass and fall fire turkeys are my favorite looking turkeys. I’ll get some pictures when I get them home. I’m heading over at 10.


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## FizzyGoats

Nice! I had to google what they are. Such great colors. I can’t wait for pics.


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## Moers kiko boars

Great news about the Turkeys! Cant wait to see your pics. Have you ever seen a Lilac Turkey? Are they any good to have?


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## ksalvagno

How exciting!


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## Jessica84

Never mind I should have known better with this lady. Just got a message she sold them. Oh well


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## luvmyherd

Well, that's sure a disappointment. I hate flaky people.


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## FizzyGoats

Sorry, [mention]Jessica84 [/mention] That’s such a bummer. 

I was right about the poults reaching the suicide phase. Found one hanging upside down by its leg which was stuck in the tension wire of the corner post. It’s leg was bloody, it was cold to the touch, and gasping, that end of life gasp. I warmed it up under a heat lamp and it improved some but I’m keeping it in the brooder for tonight. I have no idea if it’ll make it. 

I couldn’t find one of my turkey hens tonight at poultry lock up time. After a long search, I found the now broody girl sitting on a clutch in the box blade of the tractor. I brought her and her nine eggs to a nest in the coop but have no idea if she’ll actually continue to lay on them.


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## MadHouse

Jessica84 said:


> Never mind I should have known better with this lady. Just got a message she sold them. Oh well


Aw, that’s too bad! Maybe that means it was better not to deal with her anyways.


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## MadHouse

FizzyGoats said:


> Sorry, [mention]Jessica84 [/mention] That’s such a bummer.
> 
> I was right about the poults reaching the suicide phase. Found one hanging upside down by its leg which was stuck in the tension wire of the corner post. It’s leg was bloody, it was cold to the touch, and gasping, that end of life gasp. I warmed it up under a heat lamp and it improved some but I’m keeping it in the brooder for tonight. I have no idea if it’ll make it.
> 
> I couldn’t find one of my turkey hens tonight at poultry lock up time. After a long search, I found the now broody girl sitting on a clutch in the box blade of the tractor. I brought her and her nine eggs to a nest in the coop but have no idea if she’ll actually continue to lay on them.


That is so sad. How on earth do they do that!? 
Just when you think things are rolling along nicely.
And that hen! She just has to be different.

I have found my chicks i side a fold of the pillow case that covers the mama cave. They crawl in deeper and deeper. I have to take it all apart and fix it, causing them stress. Oh dear. But so far, my 5 have made it.


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## FizzyGoats

I guess the cave just isn’t enough, they need to get in a pillow case fold too.  These silly birds. It’s a miracle any survive. 

The turkey hen is sitting on her clutch in the nest. At least for now. And the injured poult is doing so well I put him/her back with everyone else. It has open wounds on its legs that I sprayed with blu kote, so I’ll have to keep an eye on those. But it might actually survive.


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## MadHouse

I didnt test the cave enough before I got the chicks. I just built it and thought all was good. I didn’t foresee all the shenanigans.
One way of doing it is to wrap the heat mat and wire hoop in Glad cling wrap. I have a different brand cling wrap, and now I don’t want to try it with chicks in the cave. What if it melts!?

So glad to hear mama turkey is still broody on her eggs after you moved her.
And great to hear the poult is doing so well.


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## Jessica84

Madhouse that’s how I’m looking at it. She has always been a little…..off when selling her goats. Just as I sit and watch how she does things. Example: “I had this goat for sale, showed at X show and won 1st in a large class” look It up and yep it won but it was the only one in the class. Or posting goats for sale with serious flaws that should be culled over but a new inexperienced person doesn’t know any better. But that’s fine I didn’t really NEED her turkeys. If I absolutely have to have that verity I’ll pay the extra and order some. 
Fizzy goat I’m so sorry about the poult. They can find themselves in the stupidest situations sometimes.


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## FizzyGoats

She sounds pretty shady. 

The poult is doing really well. I am pleasantly surprised. The hen who was broody in her outdoor nest, now won’t lay on her clutch I moved inside. I’m going to give her one more day then collect the eggs and not worry about it.


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## MadHouse

My chicks are over 3 weeks old now. Today I removed the poly around the chick coop. Because of the two that died on me, I have been hesitant with changes. But it is warm, and I can roll the poly down again, if it gets cold again.








Left to right: Chip, Yoki, Sylvana, Silvio and in front is Yolana









Chip is a bigger breed (Orpington), and is feathering in faster.


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## Moers kiko boars

Awww they are so cute!


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## FizzyGoats

They are so cute! I love the names. The chicken seems pretty curious. 

I took my chickens in one by one to the the turkey pen. They mostly just wanted the yummy poult food so the turkey hens weren’t too worried about them. So my chickens didn’t get the lesson I hoped. I wanted the turkey hens to scare the dickens out of them so they’d respect the poults when they are out someday. One chicken put up a fight but also didn’t learn any lesson. One of my little Rhode Island Reds took on two mad turkey hens and won. So frustrating.


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## MadHouse

Aw, that does sound frustrating! 
I didn’t think chickens would win against turkeys.


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## FizzyGoats

They shouldn’t. I think my darling little fluffy butts are a flock of tiny t-rex in disguise. 


What do your chickens think of their little neighbors now that they can get a good look at them?


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## toth boer goats

How cute.


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## FizzyGoats

We lined the breeding pen with some garden mesh to keep the chickens out so we could expanded the space the baby and mama turkeys have. They were all very happy to run around in their bigger space. They were chirping away and sampling forage and having a great time.


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## Jessica84

Awww they look so happy! 
Went to both feed stores and TSC and no pellets or crumble of any kind. There was scratch but that won’t do it for my poults that were locked up. So they got set free. They are some HAPPY babies!!! They attacked the stinging nettles and flew here and there. Every time I go outside they race to me and follow me around lol I’ll just have to put them back in at night since we have a owl hanging around


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## FizzyGoats

I bet they are thrilled to be out in ‘the wild.’

Our stores were out of scratch and feed for the birds. Luckily, we still have some but I am getting a little worried.


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## MadHouse

@FizzyGoats those are some happy poults! They are so big!!

@Jessica84 , That is great your poults loved the freedom, and so cute they came running to you!


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## toth boer goats




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## MadHouse

My peeps one month old.









Chip, the Chocolate Orpington, is like a clumsy giant among the pretty little Wyandotties. The ugly duckling comes to mind. Chip jumps into the group, regardless of others’ heads or bodies, Chip has to have it all, with its whole body.


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## Moers kiko boars

They are getting so big! Wow they are growing really well!💗


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## FizzyGoats

They are growing so fast! I love your description of Chip.


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## Cedarwinds Farm

Belle thinks the chickies are pretty cool. She likes to just sit and watch them run around. 








The production line. I have 3 hens setting on a total of 43 guinea eggs (finally found some nests!) They did not want to go into the broody area, so for now, they are setting in the nest boxes. I will try again to move them later on. 








Scruffy little teenage chickies, enjoying the sunshine.


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## Cedarwinds Farm

Jessica84 said:


> Awww they look so happy!
> Went to both feed stores and TSC and no pellets or crumble of any kind. There was scratch but that won’t do it for my poults that were locked up. So they got set free. They are some HAPPY babies!!! They attacked the stinging nettles and flew here and there. Every time I go outside they race to me and follow me around lol I’ll just have to put them back in at night since we have a owl hanging around


Do you have a feed mill that sources from local farmers? Or is that not a thing there? I have been getting my feed from a local mill, so as long as my neighbors are able to get a crop in, I should be able to get feed. Though the prices keep going up.


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## MadHouse

Love all the pictures, especially the one with the nest boxes! So cool.
Belle is such a good girl. 🥰 
The teenage chicks are so cute!


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## Jessica84

The closest mill is 3 hours away. Not terrible but still a pain. Luckily they were only out for a short period and I just gave them the kids grain until it came in. A little expensive but that’s ok. 
I do have a small grinder mill thing though. I got some almond hulls yesterday to help stretch the goats hay and the turkeys were all over it pecking away. I’m going to look into poultry and the hulls and see how good or bad they are for the turkeys and if it’s ok for them to have a good amount see if I can grind them up. That should help stretch their feed and have another plan to feed them if it’s hard to find chicken food again.


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## Cedarwinds Farm

Jessica84 said:


> The closest mill is 3 hours away. Not terrible but still a pain. Luckily they were only out for a short period and I just gave them the kids grain until it came in. A little expensive but that’s ok.
> I do have a small grinder mill thing though. I got some almond hulls yesterday to help stretch the goats hay and the turkeys were all over it pecking away. I’m going to look into poultry and the hulls and see how good or bad they are for the turkeys and if it’s ok for them to have a good amount see if I can grind them up. That should help stretch their feed and have another plan to feed them if it’s hard to find chicken food again.


That's good you can get feed again! I would be interested to hear about your almond hull research or any other alternative feeds you may find. We are all going to have to get more creative. 

I have been feeding spent brewer's grains to my chickens. Just spreading it out on the ground and letting them scratch through it and take what they want. I felt like the corn mash I tried to feed last year did not agree with the hens I had at that time, but the brewer's grains seem to be working ok for my current birds. I am still feeding the regular ration, too, but they eat a lot less of it on the days I put the brewer's grain out. My sister has been giving it to her cows and hogs, and I'm feeding the stuff that's starting to go a little 'off' to the chickens.


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## Jessica84

Yes I think we are going to have to get creative about feeds. The good thing is I think poultry really is the easiest to feed. I haven’t looked too much into it but I know show breeders feed a small amount of cat food to chickens especially after molting to grow back their feather faster and better. I haven’t looked into that much so no idea how health that really is but ultimately it won’t kill them. I also for years had fed my chickens milk and table scraps. Again no clue how good or bad that is, I can just tell you I have 2 hens that are 13 so must not be overly terrible lol we sure can’t feed our goats like that! 
I went out to water and looked at my quad which had 2 barrels of the almond hulls and my hay and the turkeys were all over it! I came in and did a real fast google search on it and it looks like almond hulls are very good for them! If anyone is interested, I just did a fast read but seems interesting. I’m going to have to sit down and really read it. I just mainly wanted to know if it would kill them if they really dug into it









Effect of almond hulls on the performance, egg quality, nutrient digestibility, and body composition of laying hens


The objective of this study was to evaluate 2 varieties of almond hulls (prime and California type hulls) as an alternative feed ingredient on the performance, egg quality, nutrient digestibility, and body composition using a total of 100 23-week-old ...




www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov





And because it was funny here’s my two toms. They very much approve of it!


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## FizzyGoats

[mention]Cedarwinds Farm [/mention] Belle is such a good girl. I love the hens sitting on the guinea eggs! 

[mention]Jessica84 [/mention] The toms definitely give the almond hulls two spurs up. Haha. I’m terrible at figuring out alternate feeds. We just bought more because they finally had some but I can’t buy and stockpile poultry feed because I don’t have the space to store it. So I definitely need to start getting a back up plan ready. 

I have one clutch of eggs that my turkey hens sort of take turns sitting on. I will candle them soon to see if the off and on efforts of two or three of the hens is worth it. I’m really fine with the number of poults I have for this year. 

The little one I thought was dead and found hanging in the fence has made a full recovery. I can’t even tell which one it is now. But they are constantly escaping their big pen and then trying to figure out how to get back in, though for some reason they can’t. So I spend way too much time chasing poults who are a lot faster than I am. In the next few days, I will likely just have to let them out in to the big bad world and hope for the best.


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## luvmyherd

We left for WA 5 days ago and said goodbye to our poults. Yesterday our son sent us this!!!!
How did they become turkeys in 5 days??!!??


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## ksalvagno

Wow! They really grew!


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## luvmyherd

ksalvagno said:


> Wow! They really grew!


I KNOW!!!!!!!!

By the time we get home we will be ready for a turkey dinner.🍗


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## toth boer goats

👍😄


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## FizzyGoats

They look like actual turkeys now!

My poults are just about there. Not quite. They are also constantly escaping their pen. I had 12 poults out at once. And these guys aren’t tame so catching them is so fun. It’s what I do with a big chunk of my day, chase speedy, squawking, flying poults who are certain I’m the turkey reaper. Maybe I shouldn’t wear my black hoodie. Lol. The dogs, chickens, and toms don’t mind them out and seem fine with them, so after this week of bad weather, we’ll likely just let them out during the day.


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## Boer Mama

I have a newly hatched clutch… I honestly don’t even know where she had her nest! I thought she was a coyote casualty. Glad she got a fair amount of babies inside the yard tho.
My first hatching are getting some size to them!
And still waiting for these two hens to hatch theirs out. They were not happy with me peeking at them in their hiding spots 😂


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## Cedarwinds Farm

@Boer Mama they're so cute!
I finally got my last broody moved into the grow out, aka, broody cage. Now I have three grumpy hens in a row in there. 








The last hen was so upset about the change. She had been trying to go broody for probably a month and a half in the same nest box, prior to me giving her the guinea eggs, so I guess she got attached to that spot. I found she had a chicken egg under her when I moved her clutch. I guess another hen laid in her box and she adopted it. We may have a random chick mixed in with our guinea keets. These girls are still as gentle as can be. They grump at me all the time, but none of them have ever pecked. 
We still need to tack another layer of wire over the doors of the cage, as I know guinea keets can fit through chicken wire. 








I was trying yesterday to guess the sex of the teen chickens based off comb size. I think we may have 5 roos and 4 hens. Time will tell.


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## FizzyGoats

[mention]Boer Mama [/mention] Congrats on the adorable new floofs. Mama must have had an amazing hiding spot. 

[mention]Cedarwinds Farm [/mention] The chicks are so cute. I can’t even guess what my turkeys are. I won’t even begin to attempt to guess for another month or so. And that is a fantastic grow out cage!


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## Boer Mama

@Cedarwinds Farm thank you- and I too have to agree that you have a great set up!
I have no idea on how to sex my ducks until they are bigger. Then I tell by the size of their feet and actual body. Lol
I still haven’t found any Guinea fowl nests! 🙄
I’m excited to see your babies and how they do once your chicken hen hatched them out 😁

thank you @FizzyGoats 😁


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## MadHouse

I am starting the integration process. The chicks got to explore the main coop today. The adults were locked out, except for Priscilla who sat in a nest box, hidden behind a curtain.

First it was scary when I lifted the hardware cloth up.









Then they all followed the one who discovered it could go through, and they “foraged” on the other side, right by their coop.









They practiced going in and out a few times, and then strolled further into the big coop.
The best part was when they discovered the sun spot under the window!


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## MellonFriend

What an ideal setup you have there, @MadHouse! Will that little panel where the hardware cloth was stay in place, so the littles have a place to get away from the bigger flock-mates? I love how cautious they look in the second picture. 😄


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## Cedarwinds Farm

MadHouse said:


> I am starting the integration process. The chicks got to explore the main coop today. The adults were locked out, except for Priscilla who sat in a nest box, hidden behind a curtain.
> 
> First it was scary when I lifted the hardware cloth up.
> View attachment 231291
> 
> 
> Then they all followed the one who discovered it could go through, and they “foraged” on the other side, right by their coop.
> View attachment 231292
> 
> 
> They practiced going in and out a few times, and then strolled further into the big coop.
> The best part was when they discovered the sun spot under the window!
> View attachment 231293
> 
> 
> View attachment 231294


I love that photo where they have their little necks stretched way out, examining their 'new' surroundings.


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## MadHouse

MellonFriend said:


> What an ideal setup you have there, @MadHouse! Will that little panel where the hardware cloth was stay in place, so the littles have a place to get away from the bigger flock-mates? I love how cautious they look in the second picture. 😄


Thanks!
Yes, the goat panel is for the in and out of little people.
After our practice session today, I lured them back with their bowl of wet food. While they ate, I bent down the hardware cloth again and put a few screws back in. We will do this a few times, eventually with adult chickens added to the mix, and then, once I see they can get away from the big people and know how to get “home”, I will leave it up, so they can always run to safety! They haven’t been outside yet, that is still to come too!



Cedarwinds Farm said:


> I love that photo where they have their little necks stretched way out, examining their 'new' surroundings.


I do too!


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## MellonFriend

MadHouse said:


> Thanks!
> Yes, the goat panel is for the in and out of little people.
> After our practice session today, I lured them back with their bowl of wet food. While they ate, I bent down the hardware cloth again and put a few screws back in. We will do this a few times, eventually with adult chickens added to the mix, and then, once I see they can get away from the big people and know how to get “home”, I will leave it up, so they can always run to safety! They haven’t been outside yet, that is still to come too!


I can't think of a better set up! I'll have to show this to my chicken keeping sisters so they can dream. 😀


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## FizzyGoats

I love your coop and setup [mention]MadHouse [/mention] 

We all recognize that neck stretched, side eye look. I love it! They are getting big. It looks like they enjoyed their adventure. The pic of them sitting in the sun is quite adorable.


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## MadHouse

MellonFriend said:


> I can't think of a better set up! I'll have to show this to my chicken keeping sisters so they can dream. 😀


Aww, thanks! ♥ 
I saw something similar on BYC, but theirs was within the outside run. My coop is so large, and it is cold here for so long, it made sense to do in in the coop.



FizzyGoats said:


> I love your coop and setup [mention]MadHouse [/mention]
> 
> We all recognize that neck stretched, side eye look. I love it! They are getting big. It looks like they enjoyed their adventure. The pic of them sitting in the sun is quite adorable.


Thanks @FizzyGoats ! 🤗 
It was so nice to see them so excited in the giant coop, and then so content in the sun.


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## FizzyGoats

I feel like my poults are still so tiny but logically, I know they’ve grown. Even though they keep getting out and do fine intermingling with the other farm animals, I still shoo them back in as soon as I see them. I really need to let them out for a few hours a day at least, I just have the hardest time deciding when they’re ready.


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## MadHouse

Awww! They are so cute!


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## Boer Mama

Little teenagers testing things out 😂


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## toth boer goats

Aww.


----------



## Boer Mama

I’ve been having a spotted egg layed on a cushion on my deck. I figured one of my wellsummers has a bit of a princess persona … and then I spotted one of the roosters sitting there 🤔
Things that make you go hmm… maybe I’ll get lucky and start Getting golden eggs 😂

















yesterday I had little chick hatch, the fluffy yellow one. Today one more - looks like a little wellsummer - the hen has 2 more eggs under her. Also have another hen sitting on 4 that should be hatching next week sometime 😊


----------



## FizzyGoats

Aw, the chicks are so cute! And the “rooster”
egg is hilarious. 


Today I watched one of my poults chase a squirrel up a tree. It made me laugh. The poults sure have a lot of spunk packed in those little bodies.


----------



## Boer Mama

FizzyGoats said:


> Aw, the chicks are so cute! And the “rooster”
> egg is hilarious.
> 
> 
> Today I watched one of my poults chase a squirrel up a tree. It made me laugh. The poults sure have a lot of spunk packed in those little bodies.


hopefully some of my chicks turn out to be chickens and not more Roos! 😂
I can just imagine what’s going thru the squirrels mind about the crazy little thing coming after it 😂


----------



## Tanya

Thought it would be fun. So these are all the natural colours of checken breeds. It is so amazing.


----------



## MadHouse

Tanya said:


> View attachment 231481
> 
> Thought it would be fun. So these are all the natural colours of checken breeds. It is so amazing.


Wow, that IS amazing!
Are these from your chickens??


----------



## Tanya

@MadHouse
Unfortunately not. But it is beautiful. Even the sizes differ


----------



## MadHouse

Tanya said:


> @MadHouse
> Unfortunately not. But it is beautiful. Even the sizes differ


I guess you would need a lot of chickens to have that range!


----------



## Boer Mama

Sadly, this morning I went to freshen shallow water trays for the baby ducks and saw my mama that had the 9 2 day old babies was down to 4. And the 1 day old babies were down a couple as well. The missing babies were found nearby in a neat pile… so you think this is from a cat? It doesn’t appear even one had been taken to eat, all 7 were stacked up neatly.


----------



## ksalvagno

How sad. I'm so sorry. I would think a cat would eat them but maybe a cat or a dog.


----------



## MadHouse

Aw, that’s sad.
I could only think a cat that gets fed, so it is not hungry, but still likes to hunt.


----------



## Moers kiko boars

Yep, thats why I dont have cats. They kill for fun.


----------



## Boer Mama

@ksalvagno this is inside a fenced area, so dogs are ruled out.
@MadHouse it must be a cat. But I was hoping the duck hens had then scared still. I did see a mama chase off a cat yesterday. He didn’t seem to want anything to do with them. But perhaps when it was night? I’ve never seen them stacked like that tho…
And I do feed my outside cats, but not a lot. They all look a little thin… I want to supplement them hunting. Yesterday morning a mama cat and her babies were feasting on a rat and later in the day all I found was a kitten playing with the tail. Lol


----------



## Boer Mama

Moers kiko boars said:


> Yep, thats why I dont have cats. They kill for fun.


But I have rats and mice and would probably still have rattle snakes without them 😑
Dang it.


----------



## luvmyherd

I am thinking possibly fox. (Of course that's on my mind cuz that is what we are dealing with.)
We lost a lot of chickens to fox years ago and they left them at intervals across the pasture to come back for later. I have never heard of them stacking them but maybe since they are smaller? It sounds like whatever it was wanted a stash to come back to.
I am really sorry you had to deal with such a sad situation.


----------



## luvmyherd

On the bright side:
My son sent this today!








First one off the assembly line


----------



## FizzyGoats

[mention]Boer Mama [/mention] I’m so sorry about the little guys. How sad. I can’t imagine cats just stacking them up and not even eating them. That’s so odd. I guess the could though. 

[mention]luvmyherd [/mention] Congrats on the first (of what I’m sure will be many) eggs!

My poults and a few hens went out yesterday for about half an hour before everyone wanted back in. Today they stayed out an hour and a half and actually walked more than a few feet away from their enclosure.


----------



## MadHouse

Love the pictures, @FizzyGoats !
The poults are so brave!


----------



## Tanya

Mongoose and foxes pile like that. Cats will decemate and leave a mess. And definately will not pile neatly.


----------



## FizzyGoats

MadHouse said:


> Love the pictures, @FizzyGoats !
> The poults are so brave!


 They sure thought so. Although, there were a few times they were a little too brave for my comfort but I was good and didn’t intervene. And you know me and what a show of restraint that was. Hahaha. 



Tanya said:


> Mongoose and foxes pile like that. Cats will decemate and leave a mess. And definately will not pile neatly.


That’s interesting. I had no idea. Thanks for passing on that knowledge.


----------



## toth boer goats

So sorry for the loss.


----------



## Boer Mama

MadHouse said:


> Aw, that’s sad.
> I could only think a cat that gets fed, so it is not hungry, but still likes to hunt.


I got to thinking it might have been my indoor/outdoor cat. She’s well fed. Lol
She wanted out at 3am this morning and wouldn’t shut up about it so I had to shut her in the bathroom cus I didn’t want another slaughter… when I got home from riding, there was 1 little baby from youngest hatching that didn’t make it, but I can’t say if due to predator or just didn’t make it. The mama duck is very protective tho, so maybe a little freaked from experiences and could have chased off something that killed it before they got to eat it.


----------



## Boer Mama

Tanya said:


> Mongoose and foxes pile like that. Cats will decemate and leave a mess. And definately will not pile neatly.


My other thought was maybe a raccoon?
We do have foxes, altho I’ve only seen them when driving and not actually around our place.
We have weasels… idk about mongoose.


----------



## Boer Mama

On a happier note- I came home today to find all 4 of my other eggs that have been under a broody hen hatched out today! Only a day or 2 younger than the first 2 babies 🍀🥰🍀
2
The 2nd chicken had left them to mother the 2 babies that hatched. Thankfully my first hen switched boxes and continued to sit. And thankfully she got rewarded with 4 babies and didn’t have to wait another week!
















I know I need to clean my nesting boxes… I cleaned my coop, but my hens went broody right before that and weren’t gonna move for nothing 😅


----------



## Moers kiko boars

Awwww so precious! Good job Broody mamas!🤣😂🥰


----------



## MadHouse

@Boer Mama , those chicks are so cute! Congratulations!!

Sorry to hear another duckling didn’t make it. I hope that’s it for losses now!


----------



## ksalvagno

Cute chicks! Sorry about the duckling.


----------



## FizzyGoats

Aw, they are so tiny and cute.


----------



## Tanya

Taking roosting to new heights


----------



## toth boer goats

Moving to new heights. 😱🫣😂


----------



## MadHouse

Today I am leaving the hardware cloth up. Chicks and adults can start mingling! 😱 Exciting and scary at the same time… for me!!!
This was a good moment. There are other moments, but too blurry to capture, when all the chicks run for safety.









I do believe I am getting my wish, I think Yoki is the only cockerel. He is on the right, with the red comb. The others all have a dark comb. So, Silvio is renamed, Silvia.


----------



## ksalvagno

You are lucky!


----------



## Boer Mama

Thank you- just got home and haven’t checked chicks or Ducks tonight….I’m sooo tired 😂
But we went all the way today so don’t have to ride tomorrow so I don’t have to wake up at 4am again 😅


----------



## FizzyGoats

My toms are the only animals that really love the water misters we have temporarily set up. Today, we had the baby pool out so if the animals wanted to walk through it or lie in it to cool down, they could. When the poults came out for their daily walk about, they were very suspicious of the thing that is there that wasn’t there yesterday.


----------



## Moers kiko boars

Awww bless their little hearts !Such a cute picture!💗💖


----------



## MadHouse

I love those poults with their long necks, eyeballing the suspicious object!
The tom on the picture looks like he adores that cool mist.


----------



## FizzyGoats

The dogs seem to take turns babysitting poults at the picnic table. And the poults finally ventured in to the more wooded area yesterday for the first time. 

We have some broody turkey hens sitting on a handful of another clutch of fertilized eggs. Most weren’t fertile when I checked, so I removed those. But some are, which is weird because they weren’t with the toms much at all. I have no idea how this will work out if these hens hatch out a new batch of poults with so many older poults already in the coop and no way to separate them all.


----------



## MadHouse

Thanks for sharing those beautiful pictures. Made me smile.


----------



## Tanya

Bloom eye balling me.


----------



## Tanya

My two spring chicks beast and bekkie....


----------



## FizzyGoats

Bloom is gorgeous! The chickies are so big.


----------



## luvmyherd

Got a blue one today 🥳


----------



## FizzyGoats

Nice!


----------



## toth boer goats

How neat.


----------



## Cedarwinds Farm

My guinea keets are hatching! I have been mostly leaving the hens alone, so I dont know how many have hatched so far.


----------



## ksalvagno

Cute!


----------



## MadHouse

So cute! I love when they peek out from under mama!


----------



## Boer Mama

I’m so excited to see them when they are all hatched out and starting to venture out! What are your plans for them after they’re grown? Do you sell, process, or plan on keeping hens mostly for eggs?
I just got guineas last year, supposed to be 1 make and 3 females. Have not seen any eggs or anything still 😑
I have heard their eggs are higher in protein and that they themselves are a nice dark meat.


----------



## Moers kiko boars

Awwww peek-a-boo...so cute!💖💗


----------



## toth boer goats

Aww 😊


----------



## FizzyGoats

Yay! Congrats. They are so tiny.


----------



## Cedarwinds Farm

Boer Mama said:


> I’m so excited to see them when they are all hatched out and starting to venture out! What are your plans for them after they’re grown? Do you sell, process, or plan on keeping hens mostly for eggs?
> I just got guineas last year, supposed to be 1 make and 3 females. Have not seen any eggs or anything still 😑
> I have heard their eggs are higher in protein and that they themselves are a nice dark meat.


We have guineas that free range the property and help keep the tick population under control. I know you can eat them, but we don't. I have never eaten the eggs. They are only seasonal layers, and like to hide their nests, so if your guineas are free ranging, they probably have a nest out in the brush somewhere. 
I am planning to keep most of these keets to replenish our flock. We always lose quite a few to predators. I think our flock is down to about half of what it was last year. But I will sell some if we have a big enough hatch. 
My current plan is to let the hens raise them. I don't know how that will go. I've never tried this before!


----------



## Cedarwinds Farm

At last count, I had 9 hatched under one hen and 2 under another. A lot more eggs still unhatched, I've heard pecking from several eggs. My speckled hen hasn't had any of her eggs hatch out yet, but I know a lot of them were pecking yesterday night when I listened to them, so I expect several of hers will hatch out today sometime. 
I've got to reinforce the cage...again! I found a keet on the floor of the chicken house this morning. They are so tiny, they can squeeze out through little gaps that a chick could not get through. Luckily, the weather is good and hot, so the keet was fine and I stuck it back in the nest.


----------



## FizzyGoats

They are such pretty little things. Hopefully no more slip out of the cage now that you’ve got it all fixed up.


----------



## Boer Mama

I _may_ have found a nest earlier… I was mowing the tall foxtail at back of my dads yard and didn’t see it in time. The eggs were smaller than chicken eggs and I was thinking Guinea hens would have larger eggs but now I think that was a mistaken thought. I had damaged too many eggs so I knew whoever’s nest it was wouldn’t return anyway 😓
Bug /tick control is why I got them… but was hoping some could hatch and increase the flock enough to perhaps try one or two. But I can’t hardly tell difference between the sexes so don’t want to end up eating the hens! 😅


----------



## ksalvagno

They are adorable!


----------



## MadHouse

The keets are beautiful! It’s going to be interesting watching them grow up, following the big hens around.


----------



## MadHouse

My chicks have not left the chicken coop to go outside. They are thorough enjoying flitting around the big coop. At night they choose to sleep near the adults. All the chickens gets chick food now, because the little ones clean up the plates.


















I had to make a bigger portal to the chick coop for Chip, the Chocolate Orpington. I spent time with them trying to teach them the portal, to no avail. They just gawked at it with long necks. I gave up and did something else, and when I moved, they ran and one used the portal. 😂 I think they just played dumb for me!


----------



## FizzyGoats

They suddenly look so big! And wouldn’t that just figure with the chick portal. Hahaha. Looks like a nice one too.


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## toth boer goats

They grow really fast.


----------



## Cedarwinds Farm

Boer Mama said:


> I _may_ have found a nest earlier… I was mowing the tall foxtail at back of my dads yard and didn’t see it in time. The eggs were smaller than chicken eggs and I was thinking Guinea hens would have larger eggs but now I think that was a mistaken thought. I had damaged too many eggs so I knew whoever’s nest it was wouldn’t return anyway 😓
> Bug /tick control is why I got them… but was hoping some could hatch and increase the flock enough to perhaps try one or two. But I can’t hardly tell difference between the sexes so don’t want to end up eating the hens! 😅


Yeah, it was probably a guinea nest! The guinea eggs are smaller and more pointy than chicken eggs. I bet they will try again in another spot.
The guinea hens are smaller than the cocks, and they make a two syllable call. They sound like 'buck-wheat' (others say the call is 'pot-rock), while the cocks only can make a one syllable call. The cocks usually have a larger helmet and wattles when they're mature, too.


----------



## Boer Mama

Cedarwinds Farm said:


> Yeah, it was probably a guinea nest! The guinea eggs are smaller and more pointy than chicken eggs. I bet they will try again in another spot.
> The guinea hens are smaller than the cocks, and they make a two syllable call. They sound like 'buck-wheat' (others say the call is 'pot-rock), while the cocks only can make a one syllable call. The cocks usually have a larger helmet and wattles when they're mature, too.


Thanks for that explanation- I’ll have to listen and look closer now!


----------



## MadHouse

Chicks are practicing the ladder and roost in the day time, while the adults are out.









Some nights they sleep up there, depending on if the adults leave one side open. The chicks refuse the “kid roost” I built (on the right, against the wall). It’s either the top roost, or the floor for them.

Most of the adult chickens are ok with them moving about.


----------



## Jessica84

Look at all these babies you all are having!!! So cute!!!
Well I got my “fancy” turkeys yesterday. I’ve been so excited. I ordered 15, they sent 16 and one was DOA. 2 died by the end of the day but the rest are super healthy. Kinda disappointed in what I got. I ordered the hatchery choice and got some bronze, those holland white ones (they need to go) penciled palms and Oregon grey. So not as fancy as I was hoping and too much white, except for the bronze which I could have ordered from any place. But I knew it was a risk at a big discount so it is what it is. Next year I’ll pay full price and get super fancy ones


----------



## Boer Mama

@Jessica84 i hope the ones that didn’t make it weren’t some of the fancier ones!


----------



## Boer Mama

I lost a baby chick today. I was out in the yard and heard distressed cheeping. Baby was in the blackberry patch next to the run I have the mamas and babies shut in to keep safe from cats. I wondered why it didn’t go back thru the gap under the board (they are so tiny right now, they can go thru the chain link and everything, but the mamas always call them back and pretty soon the won’t fit)… then I saw a bull snake coiled up in the gap with a different baby in his mouth! 😓
So I got the baby where it belongs, worked up my nerve to pick up the snake… I knew it couldn’t bite me with its mouthful… and took it away. I took the chick out just in case it was still alive but it was too late. But I slung the snake out of the yard and over by my dads shed. I probably should have released him a mile down the road… I hope he doesn’t come back for the other chicks since he didn’t actually get to eat one!


----------



## luvmyherd

Yeah! Fresh eggs when we get home.
And we have a rooster so I hope to try hatching some soon.


----------



## ksalvagno

Sorry you lost a chick. I hate that part of livestock.


----------



## MadHouse

Aww, that’s shocking to find @Boer Mama ! Sorry that happened. 
I admire you for picking up the snake, even though it had its mouth full.
How would you have taken it down the road, in a bucket with a lid?


----------



## Moers kiko boars

Yes. I couldnt have done that. You did good. I would have chopped the snakes head off, and thrown it down the road.


----------



## toth boer goats

Sorry for your loss.


----------



## FizzyGoats

[mention]Boer Mama [/mention] I’m sorry you lost one, especially like that. Like Karen said, I hate that part of having livestock. You were brave and handled it well. I doubt that snake will be returning. Being picked up and tossed hopefully taught it that the non-meal wasn’t worth it. That was a big snake.


----------



## Boer Mama

I didn’t think it thru, that’s why I just slung it. My sister told me they will go back to where they found food before so that’s why I felt I should have taken it further but it was too late at that point…. But a bucket w/ lid in the back of pickup would have been a good idea! 😅
I know bull snakes aren’t poisonous but still didn’t want a painful bite 🤣


----------



## toth boer goats

I agree. ☝


----------



## FizzyGoats

My poults found the swing in the pasture.


----------



## Cedarwinds Farm

FizzyGoats said:


> My poults found the swing in the pasture.
> View attachment 232690


They look so proud of their accomplishments.


----------



## Jessica84

Awww and they look so happy with the swing! Did you set it up for them or for actual human kids lol 
I had to admit to keith that I ordered the Narragansett poults lol he is currently picking them up for me since I can’t drive right now. He’s taking it fairly well! He thinks my “fancy” poults are ones I hatched out and I have yet to correct him. 
And my sister gave me some eggs to hatch out. These are little game chicks. So very cute! The Narragansett’s are going to have to go with them until my sister can take them all so hopefully they are not too small.


----------



## MadHouse

FizzyGoats said:


> My poults found the swing in the pasture.
> View attachment 232690


So cute, the kids found the playground!


----------



## FizzyGoats

So I hate admitting it but I put that swing in for me. I love lying on it and watching the sky sway through the branches. It is very relaxing. Well, until some animal joins me on it or gets hit by the swing as they come over to see what I’m doing. 

[mention]Jessica84 [/mention] You make me laugh. At least your husband is getting the new turkeys without a fuss, even if he does think they’re the only ones you ordered. Can’t wait to see them!


----------



## toth boer goats

How cute.


----------



## luvmyherd

FizzyGoats said:


> So I hate admitting it but I put that swing in for me.


Why??!!??
I think it is totally awesome.


----------



## FizzyGoats

As so often happens, the sequel isn’t quite as good as the first. We had the second hatch of poults with just five. I don’t know why it takes two hens to raise five poults, but apparently it does. They are friendlier babies than the first hatch of 16 though. Those ones were wild and crazy from day one and still are!

Four are brave and came to get a drink right beside me and the shy one is hiding behind its mom’s tail feathers.


----------



## MadHouse

Awwww! They are adorable!


----------



## Boer Mama

Cute little fluffs 🥰


----------



## luvmyherd

Awe...I miss having babies.


----------



## Boer Mama

I’ve got kids of various sizes… first clutch is starting to get their feathers so they look kinda funny with their tiny wings. Lol
First 2 hens that hatched out are trying to get broody again. I’m finding their nests and collecting eggs tho… I don’t think I’m going to need more birds to feed. Lol 
The older clutch is big enough I can tell the sex on them so I can post some for sale… I just don’t want to deal with people 😂


















The kiddie pool


----------



## FizzyGoats

Aww, they are so adorable. I love your creative pools.


----------



## Boer Mama

FizzyGoats said:


> Aww, they are so adorable. I love your creative pools.


Thank you 😊 
They have a bigger black rubber tub and a water barrel cut in 1/2 lengthwise for bigger water areas in the yard. And of course, they can go out in the horse pastures and play in the creek. But I like the shallow ones for when they are little- and it’s easier to freshen up for them 😂


----------



## ksalvagno

Lots of fluff butts! So cute!


----------



## Jessica84

Awww look at everyone’s babies!!! 
I guess I have lost quite a few of my fancy turkeys. Not sure what happened but my sister felt absolutely terrible so ordered more for me. I told her that was absolutely not needed and was told it’s too late. So yeah I’m probably getting divorced when I get them all home lol but my Narragansett’s are all doing great. I’m hoping I can am feeling up to getting them this weekend. I need to work on befriending the little fluffy butts


----------



## Boer Mama

Jessica84 said:


> Awww look at everyone’s babies!!!
> I guess I have lost quite a few of my fancy turkeys. Not sure what happened but my sister felt absolutely terrible so ordered more for me. I told her that was absolutely not needed and was told it’s too late. So yeah I’m probably getting divorced when I get them all home lol but my Narragansett’s are all doing great. I’m hoping I can am feeling up to getting them this weekend. I need to work on befriending the little fluffy butts


Sorry you lost some, do you think predator? 
I think your hubby is a secret turkey lover- he’s the one with the shop turkey he just had to care for, right? (Or maybe that was someone else’s hubs? 🤔)
Anyway, they’re gonna be a gift from your sister- you can’t turn it down. That would be rude! He’ll totally get it! 😉


----------



## toth boer goats

All are very cute.


----------



## FizzyGoats

[mention]Jessica84 [/mention] I’m sorry you lost your fancy ones. And if your husband was going to leave you over adding to the farm, he’d have done that 80 animals ago. 




Boer Mama said:


> Anyway, they’re gonna be a gift from your sister- you can’t turn it down. That would be rude! He’ll totally get it!


Hahaha. Love this. 


One of my turkeys hens that’s mama to the new little poults had a vent prolapse today. It looked horrible, but I was able to rinse it, clean gently with diluted betadine, and get it back in. I’ll be checking often now but do any of you know the likelihood of it happening again or becoming a chronic problem?


----------



## Boer Mama

Prolapses are never good 😓
I have no experience with turkeys tho… good luck 🍀


----------



## FizzyGoats

Thanks. I’ll need it. She had prolapsed again this morning. It was interesting getting her all washed up and gently putting everything back in place myself, but I managed.

I read for chickens that you give them a week or so but after that, if they keep prolapsing, that calls for a cull. I am assuming it’s the same for turkeys but it’s so hard to find any information on them.


----------



## Cedarwinds Farm

Could she be needing more calcium? I know insufficient calcium can contribute to hens getting egg bound. Don't know about prolapses and turkeys.


----------



## FizzyGoats

It’s worth a shot. I set out a pan of kelp in their pen today, hoping she’ll pick at it and maybe get something that’s lacking. Having been broody for so long, and now in a coop and pen with no forage, I’m sure her diet is suffering.


----------



## Boer Mama

Poor mama 😓
Hope she can get what she needs


----------



## FizzyGoats

They hardly touched the kelp but I’ll leave it out. This morning she looked normal then she pooped and had a slight prolapse but by the time I wrestled her enough to pick her up and carried her to the milk room, it fixed itself. I’m hopeful she’s on the mend. She walloped me good with a wing to my head. Not that I blame her. The babies are already venturing outside (in a secure pen) with their mamas. The not-so little poults are nearly the size of the hens now and in their awkward bratty stage.


----------



## Jessica84

So with her being broody she might have been holding her poop in, if they do that it can cause a prolapse. So can laying large eggs and needing calcium. Going back in is good! Get some prep H and put on her. Gross I know but I would get some on my finger (a gloved one) and kinda put it up and in there a little. You don’t have to stick your whole finger in, I would just do the tip and kinda go around very very gently!! If she gives you trouble doing this have someone help you and have them hold her upside down by her legs. The easiest way to get a Turkey like that is have her face you, kinda with her head between your helpers legs and and then bend over her and grab the legs and and pull her up. Helper might still get flogged but not as badly. If you can’t get anyone to help, it sounds cruel but you could use thicker rope and tie her from her legs. It will NOT hurt her! Just make sure it’s not thin rope and can cut her.
It’s not a predator issue with the poults, they are still in a brooder. I think it’s the dang temp change. We keep flexing back and forth and some days we get a really good wind and others we don’t. Yesterday we were so humid which isn’t common here and it seemed to just be yesterday. So I think just too much change going on.


----------



## FizzyGoats

That’s great advice. And I’m no longer shy about helping a turkey with their vent after fixing her prolapse twice, once without a helper. I’ll definitely get some Preparation H. I can tell now that I got it all cleaned up and helped her slough of the bad stuff, it’s a much cleaner, less scary looking prolapse caused by just the swelling so that would be perfect. 

These temps have been crazy. I’m so glad I’m not having to brooder raise any in this. I hope you have better luck with your next batch. Loosing them is always tough.


----------



## FizzyGoats

No prolapse today. Woo-hoo!

Here’s a pic of the little poults learning dust bathing and the traffic jam that always happens at night when I let the big poults in to the coop. 
A mama hen is right in the mix with them and you can hardly tell the difference. They are growing fast.


----------



## Boer Mama

Yay on the no prolapse! 😁🍀🎉
And the poults are looking very big… do you sell them when a certain age or process for your own freezer?
I’m just thinking turkeys probably eat more than ducks even. Lol
Prices on cracked corn jumped up $4 a bag over here… COB was same price, so I got that instead to provide along with my grower feed. Trying to stretch it as well as give them variety. Lol


----------



## FizzyGoats

Turkey feed went up $6 a bag. It’s crazy. We were thinking of selling some, but don’t even think we’d make our money back, so we plan to butcher all the toms out of these hatches. If we have too many hens, we’ll sell some. If not, we’ll have a lot of great meat in our freezer. And we kick them out to forage all day once they reach about 6 weeks old, still we go through so much feed.


----------



## MadHouse

Yay for the prolapse staying in!!

The little poults amaze me, and the big poults are huge! 

That works out great for you, that they eat mostly vegetation!


----------



## Boer Mama

I haven’t mowed my dads yard since early in June. Lots of vegetation in there for the ducks and they go out in the pasture and play in the creek… but still act like they’re starving if I don’t feed them in the morning and evening 😂
They also go down to clean up in the goat pen which is kind of nice to help avoid waste.

Also I’m planning on shutting the billy goat in my dads yard when he comes home to try pen breeding. So I won’t mow all summer and there’ll be lots of grass and weeds and tree suckers for him to eat 😅


----------



## luvmyherd

With you all on the price of feed. And the turkeys eat a LOT! And we only have 4. Things have been crazy hectic this week but we will be butchering 2 hens soon. Then the tom and other hen will be grown a bit bigger for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. We have almost no forage left for them it is so dry. Some seeds and bugs but not much. Tonight when we turned on the sprinkler for them the chickens got all excited and lined up at the fence. So we opened the gate and they all showered together before bed.


----------



## Cedarwinds Farm

Guinea keets finally ventured out...all but 6 of them, who are still too scared. All the other birds have been coming by their pen to check them out.


----------



## Boer Mama

Cedarwinds Farm said:


> Guinea keets finally ventured out...all but 6 of them, who are still too scared. All the other birds have been coming by their pen to check them out.
> View attachment 233503


Is that their proud chicken mama with them? She did a good job hatching and then keeping them safe and warm!
A cpl years ago I had a duck who failed to hatch her clutch. Poor mama tried so hard, but refused to nest on the ground, and instead hatched in a raised coop. I think she needed more humidity from the earth to be successful… anyway, she hatched one chicken egg that had gotten in her nest. It was funny to watch that chick hop all over her and go for rides on her back. But when mama wanted to go swimming, the chick knew that wasn’t a good idea. I think the mama thought something was ‘off’ with her baby at that point. Lol


----------



## ksalvagno

They are really cute at that stage!


----------



## Cedarwinds Farm

Boer Mama said:


> Is that their proud chicken mama with them? She did a good job hatching and then keeping them safe and warm!
> A cpl years ago I had a duck who failed to hatch her clutch. Poor mama tried so hard, but refused to nest on the ground, and instead hatched in a raised coop. I think she needed more humidity from the earth to be successful… anyway, she hatched one chicken egg that had gotten in her nest. It was funny to watch that chick hop all over her and go for rides on her back. But when mama wanted to go swimming, the chick knew that wasn’t a good idea. I think the mama thought something was ‘off’ with her baby at that point. Lol


What a funny story about your duck!
I have no idea if these guineas will grow up to be 'chickens' or not. I've never done this before.
That hen is one of the moms, and there is another hen that has adopted them, too. After the first batch had hatched, there were a number of eggs left over, and I didn't know if they were duds or not. So I stuck them in a nest box, since none of the original broody hens seemed interested in them any more. Those eggs sat for _three days_, they got chilled, they occasionally got sat on for a while by one hen or another, but not at all consistently. Then one australorp hen decided to adopt them, and hatched out several keets. I was shocked. So anyway, now she and the other australorp are co-parenting and everyone seems pretty happy. I did lose a few keets, but I think I ended up with 24. I had to count the ones in the photo, then add those that were still inside. It's impossible to count them in real time. They move too fast.


ksalvagno said:


> They are really cute at that stage!


Thanks! Yes, they are.


----------



## luvmyherd

Love the keats.

Great story about the duck mama. I have heard the opposite story of chickens hatching ducklings and freaking out when they take to the water but never the other way around.😄


----------



## Boer Mama

That’s amazing that the Keats hatched out after having a cool period in the midst of incubating. I probably would have given up on them altogether and gotten rid of the eggs before they started to stink (my thinking) 😅
That seems like so many- it’ll really grow your flock out… won’t have a tick around for miles! 😂🍀👌


----------



## FizzyGoats

The keets are so cute! And chicken mama looks to be doing a great job with them. I wonder if they’ll be a little tamer and calmer. It can’t hurt at least.


----------



## Cedarwinds Farm

Boer Mama said:


> That’s amazing that the Keats hatched out after having a cool period in the midst of incubating. I probably would have given up on them altogether and gotten rid of the eggs before they started to stink (my thinking) 😅
> That seems like so many- it’ll really grow your flock out… won’t have a tick around for miles! 😂🍀👌


No more ticks! Huzzah! If I can just keep the hawks away from these guys, we should be good! I think my current flock of adult guineas is about half what it was, due to predation. 


FizzyGoats said:


> The keets are so cute! And chicken mama looks to be doing a great job with them. I wonder if they’ll be a little tamer and calmer. It can’t hurt at least.


I hope they will be less crazy! That would be so nice! 

I found another guinea nest yesterday, and decided to start filming the whole brooding process since I've had quite a few people interested in it. Videography is something I started learning several years ago, and I want to get better at it. I'm pretty rusty, so the videos are not great, but it's fun to practice.


----------



## Boer Mama

That was great to watch and learn about the Keats. I have a question- for guineas, you mentioned pairs. Do they stay paired up? So one roo wouldn’t help 3 mamas nest to hatch?
I may have made a mistake in telling my friend I only wanted one male w/ my hens 🤨


----------



## Cedarwinds Farm

Boer Mama said:


> That was great to watch and learn about the Keats. I have a question- for guineas, you mentioned pairs. Do they stay paired up? So one roo wouldn’t help 3 mamas nest to hatch?
> I may have made a mistake in telling my friend I only wanted one male w/ my hens 🤨


So...guineas are weird! We have several pairs here, and some roving bands of bachelors hanging out with one or two hens. I think they prefer to pair up, but will make it work if the numbers are skewed one way or another. The hens will typically lay 20+ eggs in a nest, so even if you only end up with one pair of guineas and one hen laying fertile eggs, you would have plenty to hatch. I think free range guineas behave differently than ones kept in confinement, too. I remember reading that people who raise them in confinement recommend a smaller number of males to females. It was like 1:3 or something. I would have to look it up again to be sure.


----------



## Boer Mama

Cedarwinds Farm said:


> So...guineas are weird! We have several pairs here, and some roving bands of bachelors hanging out with one or two hens. I think they prefer to pair up, but will make it work if the numbers are skewed one way or another. The hens will typically lay 20+ eggs in a nest, so even if you only end up with one pair of guineas and one hen laying fertile eggs, you would have plenty to hatch. I think free range guineas behave differently than ones kept in confinement, too. I remember reading that people who raise them in confinement recommend a smaller number of males to females. It was like 1:3 or something. I would have to look it up again to be sure.


I know my friend who I got them from had to climb up his pine tree to get them after they were roosting up there for the night. He put them in his enclosed coop and when I went to get them the next afternoon, he found one of the males dead. So maybe the males fight too much if enclosed?
I still haven’t found anymore nests anywhere 🙄
I have a broody hen again too! Dang it 😅


----------



## Cedarwinds Farm

Boer Mama said:


> I know my friend who I got them from had to climb up his pine tree to get them after they were roosting up there for the night. He put them in his enclosed coop and when I went to get them the next afternoon, he found one of the males dead. So maybe the males fight too much if enclosed?
> I still haven’t found anymore nests anywhere 🙄
> I have a broody hen again too! Dang it 😅


Yeah, they do fight! Even free range, I will see them chasing each other around the yard. 
We have had keets hatch in September/October, so you still have a chance!


----------



## Boer Mama

Cedarwinds Farm said:


> Yeah, they do fight! Even free range, I will see them chasing each other around the yard.
> We have had keets hatch in September/October, so you still have a chance!


Oh that’s good news! I thought they were a little more seasonal layers as in springtime. Lol
I’ll just keep searching and maybe one day I’ll stumble on a nest without destroying all the eggs. 🍀🍀🍀
Thanks for all your info on them! 😊


----------



## FizzyGoats

That was a great video [mention]Cedarwinds Farm [/mention] ! I enjoyed it. I don’t have guineas or plan on getting them but I watched the whole thing because it was interesting and entertaining. Well done.


----------



## toth boer goats




----------



## The Goat

That was a amazing vid [mention]Cedarwinds Farm [/mention]


----------



## MellonFriend

I enjoyed your video too, @Cedarwinds Farm! 😃 You officially have me as a subscriber. 😙


----------



## Cedarwinds Farm

Thanks, guys! I just uploaded another one last night. I filmed it several days ago, but it took me a while to get it posted.
My broody hens are hanging in there and the second guinea egg hatching project is looking hopeful!


----------



## luvmyherd

HEY TURKEY PEOPLE!!!
What do you think these are breedwise? I don't think they are what we thought.


----------



## ksalvagno

Do a search on Bronze turkey hens. Here is a video on bronze broad breasted turkey. 




Yours look like they could be either.


----------



## Cedarwinds Farm

Well, I don't know what they are, but they're pretty!


----------



## luvmyherd

Thanks. They are supposed to be broadbreasted bronze. But I felt like these are smaller than the ones we have raised before. The Tom seems more interested in the ladies than our previous ones.
They are about 13 weeks old and judging from that video I think they are BB's. They just seemed tall and skinny to me.


----------



## Tanya

Kleintjie (Caxton) is no longer small. He is interested in his hen now and crows like a big boy. But he stills comes in to say hello and find extra tidbits that the other chickens cannot get to. He is looking more like his dad and I am hoping he gets his rust color soon.


----------



## FizzyGoats

Aww, that’s so sweet.


----------



## Tanya

On patrol


----------



## toth boer goats

Aww that’s cute.


----------



## MadHouse

That is amazing he still comes to the kitchen!
I love it!


----------



## Tanya

He comes in for little crumbs. But I dont leave those anything around but I love his visits


----------



## Tanya

Those match my coloured tray of eggs....


----------



## luvmyherd

From








To








And so yummy.


----------



## ksalvagno

I bet that was good!


----------



## toth boer goats

😋


----------



## FizzyGoats

I bet that was so delicious. We still have a while before it’s butcher time here. Our first batch of poults are as big as the adult hens. It’s crazy. Our second and much smaller hatch are still cute babies. They got their first fun time in the extended pen today. These two mamas are much more protective of their poults. Maybe because they only have 5 poults and the other two had 16 to look after.


----------



## MadHouse

How exciting for the little ones! I am glad their moms are more protective. The first moms couldn’t keep up with all the dangers. These two are showing them how it’s done.

Is that poison ivy in the front of the picture?


----------



## Boer Mama

Glad they are being good mamas! They’ll make sure they all grow up big for you. 😁

ive got ducks that are needing to be butchered already. Saw one of my bigger ones hadn’t really grown in feathers like everyone else… do you guys know what would cause this? Maybe they are short on something needed?

















Most of my ducks look quite healthy and normal. Lol


----------



## Cedarwinds Farm

Got some new chicks last week! Mostly mcmurray red stars. A few Whiting true greens, ameraucanas, two cuckoo marans. 
I've seen pretty mixed reviews about the Marans and ameraucanas from mcmurray, so didn't get many of those. I have been so busy, I've barely taken any photos. But if you want to see them, they're in the first part of this video. I also updated about the broody hens and guinea eggs, so those who are following along with that can kill two birds with one stone.


----------



## Cedarwinds Farm

Boer Mama said:


> Glad they are being good mamas! They’ll make sure they all grow up big for you. 😁
> 
> ive got ducks that are needing to be butchered already. Saw one of my bigger ones hadn’t really grown in feathers like everyone else… do you guys know what would cause this? Maybe they are short on something needed?
> 
> View attachment 235365
> 
> View attachment 235366
> 
> Most of my ducks look quite healthy and normal. Lol
> View attachment 235367
> 
> View attachment 235368


Your ducks are beautiful! That is weird about the feathers. Looks like pinfeathers on the wings. I almost wonder if it lost some feathers at one time and is trying to grow them back? Or has it always been like that?


----------



## Boer Mama

Cedarwinds Farm said:


> Your ducks are beautiful! That is weird about the feathers. Looks like pinfeathers on the wings. I almost wonder if it lost some feathers at one time and is trying to grow them back? Or has it always been like that?


She’s one of my babies from this spring, so maybe 3.5 months old? Their wing feathers are pretty stout, so pin feathers in wing and tail. I don’t recall noticing anything weird earlier on as they were growing their wings in, so you’re probably right about her losing her wing feathers. But it does seem strange that she lost all of them on both wings and seems otherwise uninjured. 
I have one duckling from a younger clutch that seems to have hurt it’s leg on one side, walks with a limp. So maybe something has gone after them recently. I haven’t lost any that I know of tho.


----------



## Boer Mama

@Cedarwinds Farm i need to borrow your dog cus I still haven’t found another nest! I always see all my guineas running around together so I feel like nobodies even sitting on a nest. But it’s been really hot out, so perhaps they don’t need to remain on their eggs too long. Lol
Maybe you can build a large trough size crate thing (2x2’s with small opening hardware cloth on it) to turn over the top of the hen and her nest of eggs? Or do you think she’ll just flip completely out and then won’t finish sitting anyway?
Good job on your video- and on that jar as well. That things gotta be squeaky clean! 😂


----------



## Jessica84

Cedarwinds Farm said:


> Got some new chicks last week! Mostly mcmurray red stars. A few Whiting true greens, ameraucanas, two cuckoo marans.
> I've seen pretty mixed reviews about the Marans and ameraucanas from mcmurray, so didn't get many of those. I have been so busy, I've barely taken any photos. But if you want to see them, they're in the first part of this video. I also updated about the broody hens and guinea eggs, so those who are following along with that can kill two birds with one stone.


You will like the red stars. I have two of them and they are good layers and pretty laid back. One hatched out 2 chicks and are a few weeks old now. I went out yesterday and she now has 3 new chicks as well. I think she either stole them from another chicken or maybe the chicken didn’t want them. Either way though she is a good mom. She will walk and when one of the little ones fall behind she stops and calls them until they catch up.


----------



## Boer Mama

The secret about the deck pillow is out … there’s competition for it now. Lol


----------



## The Goat




----------



## Cedarwinds Farm

Boer Mama said:


> @Cedarwinds Farm i need to borrow your dog cus I still haven’t found another nest! I always see all my guineas running around together so I feel like nobodies even sitting on a nest. But it’s been really hot out, so perhaps they don’t need to remain on their eggs too long. Lol
> Maybe you can build a large trough size crate thing (2x2’s with small opening hardware cloth on it) to turn over the top of the hen and her nest of eggs? Or do you think she’ll just flip completely out and then won’t finish sitting anyway?
> Good job on your video- and on that jar as well. That things gotta be squeaky clean! 😂


I thought about constructing a cage, but I think it would just stress my poor, feral guinea hen out way too much. She's still on the nest! I take a quick peek at her every day.
The jar was returned to me with dried milk stuck to it. 😖 it is really hard to get that stuff off!
I hope you get some guinea keets!


Jessica84 said:


> You will like the red stars. I have two of them and they are good layers and pretty laid back. One hatched out 2 chicks and are a few weeks old now. I went out yesterday and she now has 3 new chicks as well. I think she either stole them from another chicken or maybe the chicken didn’t want them. Either way though she is a good mom. She will walk and when one of the little ones fall behind she stops and calls them until they catch up.


I have some red stars from last year. They are great birds! I think they were the first to start laying and have been really consistent. I had one go broody a few weeks ago, too, and was so surprised. I have never had a sex link production bird do that before. However, she has stuck with it and is currently hatching some guinea keets. The first one hatched tonight!


----------



## Boer Mama

It’s so tiny and cute peeking out! You’re gonna lose count of how many Keets you have 😂


----------



## The Goat

Awww


----------



## Cedarwinds Farm

Boer Mama said:


> It’s so tiny and cute peeking out! You’re gonna lose count of how many Keets you have 😂


Hoping to sell these guys! But the amount of guineas who actually make it a full year to breeding season is often depressingly low, so it wouldn't be the end of the world if I kept them.


----------



## Cedarwinds Farm

Well, the hatch is over! I got some cute guinea keet footage I shared here


----------



## ksalvagno

Nice!


----------



## Boer Mama

@Cedarwinds Farm theyre so cute with their little stripes and black eyes 😍
Have you noticed from your first hatching if they are a little calmer being raised up by chickens? 
maybe these ones will get used to human interaction if you do continue to mess with them Dailey… just gently get ahold of a few and hold them till they’re calmed down, set them by food or back with their mama hen. 
it seems like it should work anyway 😂


----------



## Cedarwinds Farm

Boer Mama said:


> @Cedarwinds Farm theyre so cute with their little stripes and black eyes 😍
> Have you noticed from your first hatching if they are a little calmer being raised up by chickens?
> maybe these ones will get used to human interaction if you do continue to mess with them Dailey… just gently get ahold of a few and hold them till they’re calmed down, set them by food or back with their mama hen.
> it seems like it should work anyway 😂


They are cute! I love watching them. The older set of keets are really calm. I haven't done anything extra special in the way of taming them. They pretty much behave like chickens, just are more athletic. They are actually such little rule followers that they will all come into the chicken house and line up on the roosts before it even gets dark. I will see the chickens still wandering around, while the guineas are inside. I don't know if they will stay this tame or eventually integrate with my 'feral' guineas and become more wild. That's a good idea about keeping them tame. It would probably be helpful with some that were not being raised by my hens.


----------



## Boer Mama

Maybe they will always think of themselves as chickens 🍀😂🍀
At least they can completely act like a chicken whereas if you’d had a duck hatch them out she might try to lead them to a pond and they’d either drown themselves or be like umm, no, what’re you doing mom?!?

I had a duck hatch a single baby chick (her whole nest failed other than the one chicken egg in there) who would ride around on her moms back and hang with her all day… but that chicken knew she didn’t want to go to the water no matter how much her mom tried persuading her 😂


----------



## FizzyGoats

The keets are so cute! If I wasn’t swimming in birds, I’d be tempted to get some. 

My little poults went out on the acreage for the first time today, just for a few hours. The mamas are very protective and made sure all the animals stayed away from their babies. The only ones that tried to bother them were the older poults (who are as big as the adult turkeys now). But the mamas put them in their place immediately.


----------



## Boer Mama

They’re so big! The older poults I mean… I wouldn’t want to mess with those mamas either! Lol
I bet they all enjoyed their free ranging spree 😊

my duck with the weird wings looks like their finally growing in more. The others are looking pretty big…


----------



## Moers kiko boars

Ok all you Knowledgable chicken peeps! I need your help. I have 38.chickens, all from Cackle Hatchery. ( they are all great). Out of all these...no roos? Unless this is? Can you tell by this picture? Its thinner & longer than the others.


----------



## Cedarwinds Farm

Is that a leghorn? I've never had those. But I think the hens have big combs like that. 
I guess just wait and see if any start crowing!


----------



## Boer Mama

Compare the feet side by side and usually they’ll be a bit bigger if a roo!
But yeah, it looks like they’re getting big enough that he should be experimenting with crows soon.
My friend in town got some chicks and she sent me a video saying this one’s making a funny noise… I said it’s a rooster and he’s practicing his crow 🤣🤣🤣


----------



## Jessica84

So I saw this on FB and thought it was such a good idea! So I’m sharing with my goat chicken friends lol


----------



## ksalvagno

That is cool!


----------



## toth boer goats

👍


----------



## MadHouse

My chicks are big now!
I told them on September 6 I expect the first eggs!
Chip, Silvana…









…Silvia, Yolana and Yoki









They are doing a great job integrating. Some of my hens let them eat from the same feeder at the same time.


----------



## Cedarwinds Farm

MadHouse said:


> My chicks are big now!
> I told them on September 6 I expect the first eggs!
> Chip, Silvana…
> View attachment 236894
> 
> 
> …Silvia, Yolana and Yoki
> View attachment 236895
> 
> 
> They are doing a great job integrating. Some of my hens let them eat from the same feeder at the same time.


They're so pretty! I'm hoping for some pullet eggs from my spring chicks in the next month or two.


----------



## ksalvagno

Pretty chickens!


----------



## Moers kiko boars

What pretty girls!


----------



## Cedarwinds Farm

I think this was my first pullet egg from the home raised chicks!








Though I do get the occasional 'fairy egg' from my hens, so maybe this was one of those, just a bit bigger. I'm waiting to see if I get some more over the next few days.


----------



## Boer Mama

Guess what?

Chicken Butt!









Rooster Cogburn doesn’t appreciate bing the butt of the universal kids joke


----------



## toth boer goats

😂🤪


----------



## ksalvagno

Guess what I picked up today. 🙂


----------



## Moers kiko boars

Are they females or males? How exciting!


----------



## toth boer goats

Cool 😎


----------



## ksalvagno

4 females and one male. Midget White Turkeys.


----------



## Moers kiko boars

That is awesome! Ill enjoy watching you raise them. Hopefully Ill be getting Turkeys in the Spring. Im so excited! 😁


----------



## FizzyGoats

Midget whites are hard to find around here. That’s really cool. Are you going to let them mate and hatch out some babies in the spring?

We were just getting ready to sell some of bourbon reds because we have plenty to butcher and then read that TN just instituted a statewide ban on all live poultry sales because of an avian flu outbreak. That would figure. 

Anyway, now that the males and females aren’t together and breeding, the toms finally look nice again. They were looking haggard with broken feathers.


----------



## ksalvagno

I do plan on letting them breed. Supposedly they are endangered. My plan right now is to let them try to hatch any eggs laid. I'd like to sell poults and raise some for processing.

Those Bourbon Red toms are almost too pretty to process.


----------



## FizzyGoats

That sounds like a good plan. I’m excited to see how they do. I don’t know a lot about them because I couldn’t find any around here. Are they usually pretty good brooders and moms?

And my toms sure think that they’re pretty. They love to strut their stuff.


----------



## ksalvagno

Everything I have read says they are very good moms and good at hatching eggs. So I hope it is true. After taking a closer look at them, I may have 2 toms and 3 hens. Four of them are obvious what they are, the fifth one I'm not positive. I just wanted smaller turkeys. I really don't have the space for regular size.


----------



## MadHouse

My chicks all growed up.
Rooster Yoki









Yoki, Chip and Silvana


----------



## Jessica84

Oh yay! You got your midget whites!!! I got a few in my rare breed order and let my sister have them since she took care of my poults for me and she said they are a lot friendlier then the straight heritage. So I think you will really enjoy them. 
Everyone’s babies are all grown. It’s so exciting to see. 
All my birds are on lock down. I can’t even turn them out during the day now because the coyotes come in for them. So the birds and I are not overly thrilled about it all.


----------



## ksalvagno

MadHouse said:


> My chicks all growed up.
> Rooster Yoki
> View attachment 237933
> 
> 
> Yoki, Chip and Silvana
> View attachment 237934
> 
> 
> View attachment 237935


They look great!


----------



## MadHouse

ksalvagno said:


> They look great!


Thanks! 😊


----------



## MadHouse

@ksalvagno That’s exciting! I’m glad you found a smaller breed. They are cute!

@FizzyGoats That’s too bad that you can’t sell them now. They are gorgeous looking!


----------



## MadHouse

Jessica84 said:


> Oh yay! You got your midget whites!!! I got a few in my rare breed order and let my sister have them since she took care of my poults for me and she said they are a lot friendlier then the straight heritage. So I think you will really enjoy them.
> Everyone’s babies are all grown. It’s so exciting to see.
> All my birds are on lock down. I can’t even turn them out during the day now because the coyotes come in for them. So the birds and I are not overly thrilled about it all.


Ah, that’s terrible! So sorry to hear that. But… we do what we can to keep them safe.


----------



## Boer Mama

@Jessica84 hopefully that little Bear grows up quick and the coyotes realize it’s her territory and start staying away! 
sorry your birds are on lockdown for awhile.


----------



## toth boer goats

🤗


----------



## Jessica84

Boer Mama said:


> @Jessica84 hopefully that little Bear grows up quick and the coyotes realize it’s her territory and start staying away!
> sorry your birds are on lockdown for awhile.


I told her she was not off to a great start lol my daughters dog and my dads dog got into a argument, and she’s tucked tail and ran. Then the next day I had to chase the coyote off and who knows where she was at the time lol but my husband, you know the one that I was worried about divorcing me over her, informed me she was just a puppy and she hasn’t been trained to kill coyotes yet lol I thought that was so cute. 
But yes life isn’t fun for my free ranging birds at the moment but at least they will live. Since this is their new normal im going to get one of the car ports and turn it into a huge coop so at least they will feel half way free. Not that they are in a super tiny cage but definitely far from free range


----------



## Boer Mama

She is just a puppy… I’d hate for her to get hurt by a coyote or something.
Your dads and daughters dogs should have focused their energy to the coyotes! 😅
Maybe you can make the carport attached to a base with wheels (if you can think of a feasible way to do that and keep it heavy enough to withstand winds) so you can have it mobile for fresh graze for your flock 😊


----------



## FizzyGoats

[mention]Jessica84 [/mention] that shows intelligence in the dog. Dumb dogs race toward danger as puppies. When working as a pack, this endangers the pup, aggravates and distracts the dogs trying to do their job that now have a pup in the way, and the livestock that those dogs are supposed to be protecting. So don’t feel disheartened. That’s a smart pup (not a cowardly one, not yet anyway, lol). One day it’ll click and she’ll have the size and confidence and she’ll go tearing off after them before you even know they’re there. 

My hen/poult group can empathize with your birds. They are up half the day because they are mean to the baby goat, so time out is split between them.


----------



## Jessica84

Oh no I am perfectly fine she didn’t even notice the coyote! I was joking about her not being off to a good start. And especially since my brother called today (lives across the street) and he had 2 coyotes come in to drink out of his pond.


----------



## ksalvagno

So. We created a low roost for the turkeys since everything I read said they needed a low roost no higher than 18 inches. This is where they are roosting. 😳🙄


----------



## Boer Mama

The turkeys forgot to read all the recommendations 😂


----------



## FizzyGoats

ksalvagno said:


> So. We created a low roost for the turkeys since everything I read said they needed a low roost no higher than 18 inches. This is where they are roosting.
> View attachment 237960


 Yep, that’s turkeys for you. Mine do the same. Mine don’t like to use any roost I build unless it’s in the coop. Other than that, I build what I think is the perfect roosts and they refuse to use them and find their own.


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## Moers kiko boars

Awww cmon guys...Turkeys cant read! How do they know the rules? And they cant count either!🤣😂


----------



## ksalvagno

I knew goats didn't read the book but expected the turkeys to.


----------



## toth boer goats




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## Boer Mama

Ducks this morning… they might be hard to catch for processing 😅


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## ksalvagno

Oh my.


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## Jessica84

Lol well it looks like the turkeys are getting along with the chickens at least lol mine will roost way up in the trees. 
Oh goodness your ducks know what’s up lol


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## toth boer goats

😂


----------



## Boer Mama

My airplane duck 😅
























This is the same duck I’d posted about his funny wing tips before. His pin feathers have grown in, but they are upside down… they splay out instead of hugging his body 🤷🏼‍♀️
We still haven’t gotten around to doing any processing. I’ve actually called some places to see if they do ducks cus I’m really kind of not feeling like doing them this year 🤣
Most places only do chickens and turkeys…


----------



## MadHouse

That is so odd!
Can he do everything that ducks do?
I totally understand not wanting to process them.


----------



## Cedarwinds Farm

That is strange! You've got mutant airplane ducks now!
My brother in law was processing his meat chickens, so I took my five surplus roosters along. They were a decent size! Not as big as the meat birds, but still a good amount of meat. I made one into chicken pot pie yesterday. He was delicious and tender. The dark meat was so dark! But they were always getting out when they were little, so they were practically free range birds, and I'm sure got lots of bugs and goodies to eat. I'm planning to hatch eggs again next year, since this seems like it's a pretty good option for getting both replacement hens and meat birds.


----------



## Boer Mama

MadHouse said:


> That is so odd!
> Can he do everything that ducks do?
> I totally understand not wanting to process them.


I feel like he uses them as a way to get thru everyone more (like a bully lol).
We’ve processed ourselves the last cpl of years and it is a chore. My husband doesn’t really want to dedicate a weekend to it, or a day for a cpl of weekends. Which I understand… I just wish we could find a place within 50 miles. I think I’ll be looking at a 200 mile round trip to drop off and pick up, plus cost of the processing 20 birds. But also, since we have so many to process this year, it kind of makes it seem worth it 😆


----------



## Boer Mama

Cedarwinds Farm said:


> That is strange! You've got mutant airplane ducks now!
> My brother in law was processing his meat chickens, so I took my five surplus roosters along. They were a decent size! Not as big as the meat birds, but still a good amount of meat. I made one into chicken pot pie yesterday. He was delicious and tender. The dark meat was so dark! But they were always getting out when they were little, so they were practically free range birds, and I'm sure got lots of bugs and goodies to eat. I'm planning to hatch eggs again next year, since this seems like it's a pretty good option for getting both replacement hens and meat birds.


For sure! And they’re so much healthier if they have a chance to graze greenery and get all the little bugs 😊
I cooked a rooster that we had in the freezer (we’d processed a cpl years ago, so not super fresh. Lol) in the crockpot using veggies to hood up out of the cooking liquid a little bit and it was very moist and tender. Kids really enjoyed it that way- kind of like a rotisserie chicken.

I think all 3 of this years surviving chick hatch are roosters 😅


----------



## ksalvagno

The turkeys are doing well. They are now out with the chickens and very happy to be able to go outside. I'm back to thinking I have one tom and 4 hens.


----------



## FizzyGoats

It looks like the chickens aren’t bothered by them. That’s good. My turkeys and chickens get along a lot better than my goats and turkeys, which is weird. My turkey hens can be mean to the small goats sometimes. 


I wish I could find someone who processed turkeys around me, but no one around here does any poultry. I don’t want to do it myself because I have no experience and my husband is always gone. When he’s home, there’s a thousand things to do but now we’re getting to crunch time where we have to get some in the freezer.


----------



## FizzyGoats

Here’s my jakes that hatched this spring and my three mature toms. The toms are to the right. You can hardly tell the difference. That is until you go to pick them up. The older toms have a lot more heft to them.


----------



## Boer Mama

They’ve really grown! I bet they’re eating a ton of feed now 😅


----------



## ksalvagno

You can definitely tell the difference. They all look great!


----------



## MadHouse

@FizzyGoats Do any of the Amish neighbours have turkeys that they process? Maybe they would do it or teach you and your son how to butcher.


----------



## luvmyherd

We are thinking we may have to do our Tom before Thanksgiving. He is huge and getting slow. He somehow lost a tail feather and the chickens were pecking at the blood.
We got him cleaned up and healed but he is eating a TON!!!!! We guess he is over 50 pounds on the hoof. (Or is that talon?)
The son wants to brine him and smoke him. I am drooling already.


----------



## FizzyGoats

Between all 12 of the males (jakes and toms), they eat two big scoops of food a day. I think it’s a 3 quart scoop. So not as bad as I thought. I think it helps they are out all day. 

The Amish near us don’t have turkeys. No body does. Everyone has horses, cattle, pigs, and chickens. We’re the odd ones with our goats and turkeys.


----------



## Jessica84

Maybe put a ad in and see if you can trade a turkey or 2 to process the others for you. 
We had a fire by the house today so helicopters and planes flying super low. The goats all ran and hid in the houses, the cows and chickens ignored it all, the Turkey hens kept making their danger call and the Tom was ready for battle lol I just sat out there and watch the whole funny farm, especially since the wind was t blowing the fire my way


----------



## FizzyGoats

Yikes, another fire nearby. Glad it wasn’t blowing your way, but still, that’s scary. 

That’s a good idea with the ad. I might try that. 

We rarely get helicopters or planes but when we do, every animal is watching that huge loud bird. Lol. I know what you mean about it looking like a funny farm when that happens.


----------



## Calistar

Omg @FizzyGoats what are you going to do with all those turkeys?? Are they all going into the freezer for yourself?

Sorry if you've already talked about it! I'm just jumping back into this thread. I had hatched some marans eggs to refresh my laying flock and to replace my jerk of a rooster, Chad. I had 14. Yeah, "had." The very first night I put them outside, a skunk dug in and killed all but one. And of course the survivor ended up being a rooster. (Not a total loss because I needed a rooster so I could get rid of Chad anyway.) So I put another batch of eggs in the incubator and they are just hatching now. I put in a main group and then I kept adding to it, so I have staggered hatch dates. I have 12 hatched so far but the incubator is still half full.


----------



## FizzyGoats

[mention]Calistar [/mention] Oh no, so sorry you lost all but one of the recently hatched marans. That’s terrible. 

As far as what I’m going to do with all the turkeys, the plan for this first year was to butcher and eat all the jakes. We also thought we’d have maybe 3 or 4 hatch and survive. Well, we had a bunch more than that hatch and survive. So in addition to our original 11 turkeys, we have 21 more, 10 jakes and 11 jennies. We decide to sell some of them and the day after the sale of all live poultry was banned in TN. I’m hoping the ban is lifted soon. If not, I guess they’re walking food storage until we make room in our freezer or buy an additional one. We’d like to sell all but 4 of the jakes and keep maybe 5 jennies.


----------



## Boer Mama

@FizzyGoats Good luck trying to sell them! I was worried you wouldn’t be able to sell for what feed cost was to raise them up.
@Calistar - that stinks about the skunk (see what I did there? 😜) hopefully you get some hens raised up to be layers for you from this next batch!
There’s a place about 40 miles from me who processes chickens $5, and turkeys $7.
They don’t do ducks.
The place that does ducks is 100 miles away. $17/bird. Plus $30 lot fee. And no duck date available until after thanksgiving. 😓
So… I have 4 caught up tonight. They will sit overnight so they can get over the excitement of the chase and their muscles can relax some. We’re gonna do them ourselves, but a few at a time. Lol
I’m rather upset cus I seem to be missing both my 2 larger crates and I’m stuck with only a smaller one that can only fit 4 ducks. I’m afraid someone must have driven out here when nobody was home or something… seems weird. But I know I didn’t loan them or even bring them somewhere 🤷🏼‍♀️


----------



## Calistar

@FizzyGoats So that's 32 turkeys?! Wow! That's a lot of thanksgivings! Glad you slid in right before the ban!

@Boer Mama Thanks, I sure hope so too! The skunk was....taken care of.....but even so, the next batch of chicks is going out in electric! Or maybe I'll pen them right next to my new LGD puppy and it can be a dual purpose protection and training situation...


----------



## FizzyGoats

[mention]Boer Mama [/mention] Sorry about your missing crate. I think we’re going to have to do a few turkeys at a time too because we just don’t have the freezer room or time for it all at once. And I doubt I will get what it costs to raise them, if I can sell them. But I guess we’ll have to cut our losses. 

[mention]Calistar [/mention] I unfortunately slid in right after the ban.  I spoke with my husband on the phone about it and we made the decision on how many to sell. The next day, I go to post them online and see the ban just enacted. I have excellent timing. But I still people selling them, so who knows. Maybe I should give it a try.
And I think it’s an excellent idea to put the new birds next to the LGD pup. It may benefit them both.


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## ksalvagno

So. The small egg is a large chicken egg. Is it even possible for a chicken to lay that big of an egg? How old are turkeys when they start laying eggs? The egg is so large it doesn't fit in the egg carton.


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## Moers kiko boars

Thats amazing. I feel for that chicken.


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## MadHouse

Wow! I hope it was from a turkey hen!


----------



## Boer Mama

Maybe a triple yolker? Lol
Sometimes chickens will lay huge eggs when first getting their system going, but that one’s a little ridiculous 😅


----------



## MellonFriend

It could be from a chicken. We've had the occasional whopper. I'd be surprised if there wasn't a second yolk in there!


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## ksalvagno

My turkeys should be too young to lay eggs but it seemed ridiculously big for a chicken to lay. Hopefully no more eggs this big. I worry that it will harm a chicken.


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## Jessica84

It’s a chicken egg. Turkey eggs will be speckled and they are seasonal layers. They shouldn’t be laying right now. 
It’s probably double yoked, but open it for breakfast and see, sometimes there’s a egg in a egg, super rare but has happened. I’m always checking the big ones for those double eggs lol


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## toth boer goats

Wow, that is a big yoker one. 😉


----------



## Tanya

THree little visitors


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## Boer Mama

Those are the kind of visitors that are welcome even if they don’t call ahead 🤣

My ladies are looking a little rough 😅
A hunch of blunt bums w/o tail feathers lol


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## luvmyherd

Our grown up turkeys.


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## ksalvagno

Pretty!


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## Tanya

Aw... all looking so cool....


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## FizzyGoats

[mention]ksalvagno [/mention] I have a chicken who consistently lays eggs the size of the turkey eggs. The speckled shells of the turkey eggs are the only way I can tell them apart. And they aren’t double yolkers. She just lays huge eggs and has for years. 



Jessica84 said:


> It’s a chicken egg. Turkey eggs will be speckled and they are seasonal layers. They shouldn’t be laying right now.
> It’s probably double yoked, but open it for breakfast and see, sometimes there’s a egg in a egg, super rare but has happened. I’m always checking the big ones for those double eggs lol


 I’m glad you said this because I keep finding random turkey eggs. I tell them they are supposed to be done with that. They still lie down to submit for breeding too. What is wrong with them? It’s usually the jennies hatched in early spring. I’m wanting to put everyone together again. I’ve had the boys and girls separate so there’s no fighting over breeding and it’s worked really well. The males get along great when not with the females. I assume I need to wait to let them be one big flock again until all the laying and mating business is passed. It just feels like that will never happen. What do you think? 



Tanya said:


> View attachment 239388
> THree little visitors


Aw, they are so cute. 

[mention]Boer Mama [/mention] Blunt bums or not, your ladies still look lovely. 

[mention]luvmyherd [/mention] They are so big. And beautiful. I love the rich chocolate color. Gorgeous birds.


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## Moers kiko boars

@luvmyherd what Beautiful Turkeys.


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## toth boer goats

Looking great 👍


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## Tanya

our 















our gobbles


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## ksalvagno

City turkeys!


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## Moers kiko boars

Awwwww💕


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## FizzyGoats

What a pair! They are cute.


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## MadHouse

One of my young ones is sick. Not sure what it is, she has a respiratory issue (several in the flock had/have it), but then also developed a weakness in her right leg. Then she kept one eye closed for 2 days. I flushed it twice a day, and it opened again. But she also quit eating 😢. I put her in a cage in the chicken coop, where she has sunshine and friends coming to see her. She drinks her water that has Nutridrench and garlic in it, but does not take food. She makes head movements towards the food, in the air (?).
She always talks to me, and answers when I talk to her.
I tried force feeding her boiled egg for a couple of days, but it became a fight, so I stopped.
She does not look too miserable, so I just leave her be. There is a little hope she recovers, but I am prepared for the worst. 
I even wonder if she had a stroke or cerebral palsy, as she shakes.


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## ksalvagno

Poor little thing.


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## Moers kiko boars

Awww thats so sad! Im sorry.


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## FizzyGoats

Aw, [mention]MadHouse [/mention] , I’m so sorry Chip isn’t improving. I know you’ve been working hard to get her through this mystery illness. She’s such a pretty little thing. I hope someone on here has an idea for you to try.


----------



## MadHouse

She tried to eat later on today! She picked at bits of food and spread them around. She emptied the whole bowl. This is a small improvement, and I am hoping it leads to more improvement!
I read about a chicken that recovered from a stroke. Who knows what this is, but I am going to help her as much as possible, as long as she is not suffering.


----------



## ksalvagno

I hope she continues to improve.


----------



## Boer Mama

@MadHouse I’m sorry she’s been feeling badly but I hope that that is indeed a sign of her turning the corner and feeling better! 🍀🍀🍀
@luvmyherd those turkeys are big!! Somebody’s gonna gobble gobble at thanksgiving dinner - I’m sure they gobble a lot no matter what day 😉

@Tanya that’s a cute pair out taking that stroll 💕


----------



## MadHouse

Moers kiko boars said:


> Awww thats so sad! Im sorry.





FizzyGoats said:


> Aw, [mention]MadHouse [/mention] , I’m so sorry Chip isn’t improving. I know you’ve been working hard to get her through this mystery illness. She’s such a pretty little thing. I hope someone on here has an idea for you to try.





ksalvagno said:


> I hope she continues to improve.





Boer Mama said:


> @MadHouse I’m sorry she’s been feeling badly but I hope that that is indeed a sign of her turning the corner and feeling better! 🍀🍀🍀


Thank you all, 🤗 I appreciate the good wishes!
@FizzyGoats I’m working hard, and now it looks like she is working too. 🤞


----------



## Jessica84

Look at the scales on her legs. Are they raised and kinda crusty? It could be mites. Also could be vitamin B or even selenium deficiency. And sadly it could be mericks so just in case keep her from the others.


----------



## Jessica84

My baby dinosaurs feathers are coming in nicely Porters website is down so I can’t look up what exactly I have. I think the white and black is a penciled palm, the white with a little brown is a calico and I know I have Narragansett’s. Sadly I think most are toms :/


----------



## Boer Mama

Hopefully you have at least one or two hens so you can have a chance at a better ratio with a hatch next year!


----------



## toth boer goats

🤗


----------



## MadHouse

Jessica84 said:


> Look at the scales on her legs. Are they raised and kinda crusty? It could be mites. Also could be vitamin B or even selenium deficiency. And sadly it could be mericks so just in case keep her from the others.


Her legs are smooth, so not mites.
I gave her 0.2 ml Vitamin B complex orally today and will do the same again tomorrow. The Nutridrench has selenium in it.
I read up again on Marek’s disease, and it seems very likely she has it.
Originally I was focused on the respiratory thing, which a couple of other flock members have and it went away for one of them. Chip is still sneezing (but no discharge).
If it is Marek’s, at this point the other birds have been exposed for weeks already. The virus sheds off the skin and goes into the air.
Only time will tell now. Wish me luck that it’s not Marek’s.

Edited to add that today Chip is eating awkwardly on her own, and I think food must have gone into her yesterday too, as her poop is firm now, not the green diarrhea of a bird that’s off feed anymore. So, I stay hopeful.


----------



## FizzyGoats

[mention]Jessica84 [/mention] Those are some neat looking turkeys. Some of them are really unique. Too bad you think they’re mostly toms. Hopefully there’s enough hens in there to keep some of those pretty birds around for a while. 

[mention]MadHouse [/mention] Oh man, I really hope it not Marek’s disease. And hopefully Chip recovers from whatever this is and none of the others get sick.


----------



## ksalvagno

Love the coloring on the turkeys!


----------



## luvmyherd

I love seeing everybody's turkeys.
Yes our big guy gobbles at every little noise. Including his own gobbles I think.
And yes! He will be gobbled up next month.🦃🍗


----------



## Jessica84

I have 3 for sure hens, 5 for sure toms and the rest I’m not totally sure about just yet. Usually when I’m not sure they turn into toms lol 
Many people have mericks in their flock. Nature kinda takes care of the weaker ones and in the end they have a super hardy flock against it. But it’s not for sure you have it so don’t freak out. I would just do my best, keep helping her out and giving her the vitamin B and hope for the best. From my understanding you can’t cure what the disease has caused (blindness, lameness and such) so if she recovers then I think it’s a good bet that’s not what she has. 
But with the respiratory issue, do you have nuflor? My sisters birds had some kind of wonky respiratory issue and I gave her a bottle of nuflor and that was the only thing that cured it. Not sure exactly what it was but she just gave them a drop orally a day and it cleared up


----------



## MadHouse

Jessica84 said:


> I have 3 for sure hens, 5 for sure toms and the rest I’m not totally sure about just yet. Usually when I’m not sure they turn into toms lol
> Many people have mericks in their flock. Nature kinda takes care of the weaker ones and in the end they have a super hardy flock against it. But it’s not for sure you have it so don’t freak out. I would just do my best, keep helping her out and giving her the vitamin B and hope for the best. From my understanding you can’t cure what the disease has caused (blindness, lameness and such) so if she recovers then I think it’s a good bet that’s not what she has.
> But with the respiratory issue, do you have nuflor? My sisters birds had some kind of wonky respiratory issue and I gave her a bottle of nuflor and that was the only thing that cured it. Not sure exactly what it was but she just gave them a drop orally a day and it cleared up


I hope you get more hens, Jessica.

Thank for you wisdom about Marek’s and other issues. I read that if it is Vitamin B2 deficiency, to give it on two consecutive days. Do you think I should give it longer than that?
That is good to know that if she recovers then it was not Marek’s.
I do not have Nuflor.
The respiratory issue went away on its own for the first bird that got it, but it took 5 weeks. They sneeze, or gurgle, no discharge. One other bird other than Chip still sneezes too, but he is otherwise completely normal.


----------



## Jessica84

I don’t see how giving it longer would hurt anything. It should be the same for goats and they just pee it out if they can’t use it. Let me pick my chicken friends brain. She might have something that I don’t know about to suggest


----------



## FizzyGoats

I hope Chip recovers. She seems like a sweetie and she’s not giving up yet. 


When I let my toms and jakes out in the morning (even though they’re kept in a small pasture and hardly hurting for space), they go zooming across the acreage like it’s their first ever taste of freedom. They do this ever day. Today, at the end of their freedom run, they erupted in a chorus of those high pitched alert sounds, so I stepped out of the barn to see why. Archer went rushing past me to go back up his feathered foot soldiers. Then I see this massive shadow of wings on the ground. I look up to see a huge crane getting the heck outta this crazy place. Why that gigantic bird was visiting our tiny, mostly dried up pond, I have no idea but the turkeys weren’t happy (or quiet) about it.


----------



## Boer Mama

Good boy Archer!
We’ll get a crane every now and then just standing in our pasture. Weirdest thing. Lol


----------



## Jessica84

They are such good watch dogs! I think they are better then the actual dogs lol 
I had a crane living in my goat pasture. Couldn’t figure out why but he showed up every day. Googled what all they eat and they pretty much eat everything! They like fish and frogs best but will eat snakes and I think in mines case the gophers. I was very thrilled to have him after that! Lol


----------



## Tanya

chevani calls them Pietie, Sussana and Jana. 😖


----------



## ksalvagno

Cute!


----------



## FizzyGoats

Aw, adorable little fluff balls.


----------



## daisymay

MadHouse said:


> One of my young ones is sick. Not sure what it is, she has a respiratory issue (several in the flock had/have it), but then also developed a weakness in her right leg. Then she kept one eye closed for 2 days. I flushed it twice a day, and it opened again. But she also quit eating 😢. I put her in a cage in the chicken coop, where she has sunshine and friends coming to see her. She drinks her water that has Nutridrench and garlic in it, but does not take food. She makes head movements towards the food, in the air (?).
> She always talks to me, and answers when I talk to her.
> I tried force feeding her boiled egg for a couple of days, but it became a fight, so I stopped.
> She does not look too miserable, so I just leave her be. There is a little hope she recovers, but I am prepared for the worst.
> I even wonder if she had a stroke or cerebral palsy, as she shakes.
> View attachment 239670
> 
> 
> View attachment 239671


- i used a syringe and cut the end off and fed my pullet mushy food that way. i used gamebird crumble and a bit of water. fed just enough to keep energy up.


----------



## MadHouse

daisymay said:


> - i used a syringe and cut the end off and fed my pullet mushy food that way. i used gamebird crumble and a bit of water. fed just enough to keep energy up.


I might try that. Thank you!


----------



## MadHouse

My girl Chip did not recover.
RIP, sweet little bird. 😢


----------



## Boer Mama

Oh no- I’m so sorry 😓


----------



## Jessica84

Oh madhouse I am so very sorry. She was such a beautiful girl


----------



## ksalvagno

Oh no. I'm so sorry.


----------



## FizzyGoats

You did all you could for her. I’m sorry. She was such a beautiful, sweet little bird.


----------



## MadHouse

Thank you, everyone.
She was a sweetie. She still answered when I talked to her on the last day. 😭 
It’s the hardest part of farming. But unfortunately it’s part of it.


----------



## MellonFriend

Poor little Chip. 😔 I'm sure she knew you cared for her the best you could. Hugs!


----------



## MadHouse

MellonFriend said:


> Poor little Chip. 😔 I'm sure she knew you cared for her the best you could. Hugs!


Thanks Mellon!
You guys are all so sweet! 💕


----------



## Moers kiko boars

Ohhhh Im so sorry. I know you did all you could. 💔


----------



## toth boer goats

I am so sorry 😞


----------



## Tanya

MadHouse said:


> Thank you, everyone.
> She was a sweetie. She still answered when I talked to her on the last day. 😭
> It’s the hardest part of farming. But unfortunately it’s part of it.


I am so sorry she passed.


----------



## luvmyherd

Oh no! I am sorry. That is a hard part of farming.


----------



## MadHouse

Thank you @Tanya and @luvmyherd .
💜


----------



## FizzyGoats

For the first time in my life, I participated in dispatching and butchering an animal. I’ve always struggled with it but I was finally able to do it. We harvested four turkeys last weekend. One went to a friend and we kept three for us. We rested all the meat in the fridge for a few days, then dry brined one for Thanksgiving and then processed the other two. We kept the breasts and vacuum sealed them in freezer bags and ground the rest of the meat. The large bones, necks, hearts, gizzards, and livers are all going to be used to supplement the dog food. I forgot to put the necks and organ meat in the pic as it was already in the outside freezer. 

The actual killing of the turkeys went smoothly and peacefully, each one was calm and passed out well before the death flop started. And even that wasn’t as dramatic as what I had seen when I was watching videos to learn how to do this. I am so thankful for that. We learned a lot and will tweak a few things in our prepping the carcass steps, but it all went fairly well. 

We overestimated the time it would take to dispatch, pluck, eviscerate, clean, and bag the turkey. We underestimated the time it would take to cut off and package the meat and such. But now we have a new skill, an improved respect for the beautiful birds in our pasture, and food for us and our hard working dogs. We will be butchering more soon as we didn’t have luck selling any, and our freezer will be stocked with so much wonderful meat. I definitely have a lot to be thankful for.

I can’t believe the turkeys hatched this spring are already producing such a great harvest.


----------



## MellonFriend

FizzyGoats said:


> For the first time in my life, I participated in dispatching and butchering an animal. I’ve always struggled with it but I was finally able to do it. We harvested four turkeys last weekend. One went to a friend and we kept three for us. We rested all the meat in the fridge for a few days, then dry brined one for Thanksgiving and then processed the other two. We kept the breasts and vacuum sealed them in freezer bags and ground the rest of the meat. The large bones, necks, hearts, gizzards, and livers are all going to be used to supplement the dog food. I forgot to put the necks and organ meat in the pic as it was already in the outside freezer.
> 
> The actual killing of the turkeys went smoothly and peacefully, each one was calm and passed out well before the death flop started. And even that wasn’t as dramatic as what I had seen when I was watching videos to learn how to do this. I am so thankful for that. We learned a lot and will tweak a few things in our prepping the carcass steps, but it all went fairly well.
> 
> We overestimated the time it would take to dispatch, pluck, eviscerate, clean, and bag the turkey. We underestimated the time it would take to cut off and package the meat and such. But now we have a new skill, an improved respect for the beautiful birds in our pasture, and food for us and our hard working dogs. We will be butchering more soon as we didn’t have luck selling any, and our freezer will be stocked with so much wonderful meat. I definitely have a lot to be thankful for.
> 
> I can’t believe the turkeys hatched this spring are already producing such a great harvest.


It looks like you did a great job! Harvesting a meat animal is always a bittersweet experience. I will say the whole thing does get a bit easier with time. That whole bird looks amazing! 😃


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## Boer Mama

Great job @FizzyGoats - that does look wonderful! And grinding the meat into burger packages does take up a whole lot less space in the freezer. Lol
I bet thanksgiving dinner tastes wonderful for you this year 🍀❤👌


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## MadHouse

You did great, @FizzyGoats !

I was just wondering what size fridge you have, to fit 4 turkeys on there to rest.


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## Moers kiko boars

Those are Nice packages and Beautiful bird in the pan. Im glad the " kill" was uncomfortable! Thats normal, I worry when it doesnt bother you. We all underestimate the time frame. But with practice, you do get a pattern, and it goes by faster 
Isnt it amazing ,how after processing, you appreciate your animals more?


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## luvmyherd

Congratulations
We got our big guy done yesterday. Took my husband and son hours! I am used to them doing 5 pound chickens that go so much faster. Butchering day used to be an event when our kids were little. It often turned into a biology lesson. They loved slicing open the gizzards to see what "treasures" they had swallowed🙄


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## toth boer goats

Very nice. 👍😁


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## ksalvagno

Great job!


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## Jessica84

Great job you guys! This is a dying skill that not many know how to do any more. I think it’s a important skill, even if one never uses it I think it’s worth knowing. I see so many posts with way out butchering dates and people with animals they need to put in the freezer. You my friends will not be one of them  
The death flop (good name for it by the way lol) is definitely something that bothers me. I know with the birds they really have passed because they have no head but other animals im questioning it to the end. But I think that comes from my biggest fear of them not being dispatched fast and pain free. 
You will have to let us know how the heritage turkeys taste! Next year is definitely the year im trying it. It’s not that I have anything against trying one of my own it’s just hard to butcher one that brings so much money when I’m not a huge turkey meat fan to start with


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## Boer Mama

I use a construction cone nailed to a post to help prevent the death flop. That way the wings can’t beat up the meat either 😉 
With our muscovies, I try to catch the day before so they have a period of fasting calmness overnight. That also allows them to empty their systems out… then I hold them gently upside down a little while for them to get dizzy, lower them into the cone and have twine around their head to stretch their neck down to prevent them from pulling the head back up. Then a quick slit allowing them to bleed out and they don’t normally flip around much.
I did have my dad pop a drake in the head for me the last one we did (they were wary of me lol) and he was a little messier to clean out since he had a full gizzard and system.


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## toth boer goats

🤗😁


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## Jessica84

Boer Mama said:


> I use a construction cone nailed to a post to help prevent the death flop. That way the wings can’t beat up the meat either
> With our muscovies, I try to catch the day before so they have a period of fasting calmness overnight. That also allows them to empty their systems out… then I hold them gently upside down a little while for them to get dizzy, lower them into the cone and have twine around their head to stretch their neck down to prevent them from pulling the head back up. Then a quick slit allowing them to bleed out and they don’t normally flip around much.
> I did have my dad pop a drake in the head for me the last one we did (they were wary of me lol) and he was a little messier to clean out since he had a full gizzard and system.


That is a great idea to hold them upside down for a bit!


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## FizzyGoats

We do it in a similar fashion. We put them in a small pen in the morning so we can catch them without chasing and stressing them. I would hold the bird upside down, hugging it around the wings and my son would hold the feet and we’d carry it over to the cone that way. The birds really are calm upside down for some reason. Then we put them in the huge kill cone. They are so relaxed. None of them fought us or kicked or flapped during all this. They seemed content. We hold their head to keep their neck elongated. We speak in soothing, calm voice and thank them. We use a razor sharp knife and make a deep laceration near the jaw line on each side of the neck. It must not hurt because not one turkey seemed to notice the cuts. No twitches, no sounds, just still calm and content. So we keep that knife sharp and keep a sharpener out there because we figure it must be sharp enough that they don’t even realize they were cut. We keep a hold of their head (and are usually stroking it softly too) so their loose neck skin won’t cover the bleeding (which sprays out with a force I wasn’t prepared for on the first one). In less than 5 seconds, without ever struggling or seeming panicked or uncomfortable, their eyes close and they lose consciousness. It all happened so peacefully. Later, during the death flop, we hold their legs and keep downward pressure on their backside to keep them from flopping right out of the cone and that is an easy way to control it and produces very little drama or movement. We let the blood continue to drain for a bit before we scald the turkey in a big pot and pluck and prepare it. I’ve never tried it without scalding, but the feathers came off super easy and plucking only took a few minutes per bird. 

And I have to say, it was the best turkey we’ve ever had. It was so moist and didn’t have that tacky texture turkey can get when you chew it. And the dark meat, oh my goodness. I never knew I was such a fan of dark meat until I had it from this turkey. 

And it is strange how after taking an animal’s life for food you feel such a deep gratitude toward them. I’m not saying my turkeys don’t still drive me crazy, because they sometimes do, but now that we’ve begun to harvest them, I have a new respect and perspective. 

We had to purchase a used fridge that we put in our shop to let turkey rest for a few days before processing. Luckily we found a good sized one that isn’t pretty but works well and wasn’t expensive. And the place gave us another fridge for free that doesn’t work at all that we laid on its back and use as a feed storage bin. So that was a bonus.


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## luvmyherd

We had to put ours in a bin and buy 20 lbs of ice to cool him down and brine him.
You are right about that dark meat. I always hated it until I had a thigh from our homegrown birds. Both the turkeys and the chickens. Yum!


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## Boer Mama

So, last night I heard a crash sort of sound and then what I thought was cat meowing kind of but weird… I got out of bed and verified the 2 inside cats are ok. Listened out the kitchen window and heard it coming from out there. I know it was a rooster but almost strangled type short sounds.
Sure enough, this morning I saw my white hatchling from this year (pretty sure was a rooster, but didn’t have the arched tail feathers )
Had been dragged out 15’ from where he liked to roost right by my house. Head off and magpies at work. I went out to see what evidence I could see amidst all the bird feet prints. I found one footprint… several different areas of just 4 long claw marks. Like 3-4” long.
I’m thinking raccoon?


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## FizzyGoats

Oh no. With the head off, I usually think it is a raccoon or an owl, and since you found tracks, it does sound like your bird might have been killed by a raccoon. I’m sorry.


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## Jessica84

Oh no I’m so sorry! With the sound, the head gone and the track my bet is raccoon too. Although when this coyote was coming in he would end up biting the heads off the birds and leaving them and taking the body but I’m sure If interrupted the body would have been left behind. But I still think it’s a raccoon in your case.


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## Moers kiko boars

I dont think and owl would leave that type of imprint. It looks like a racoon to me. A weasel maybe, but I dont think you have those in your area. Im suprised your dogs werent barking. 
Sorry for the loss of your rooster.


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## Boer Mama

I do have weasels here, but the only ones I’ve seen have been very small and wouldn’t be able to leave that large of a print. We have badgers as well, but I’ve never seen them come into the area right near the houses. I wouldn’t think we’d have raccoons around since we do t have a really large creek/wooded area. But I have seen one before- one that was laying out exposed in the daylight. I think Luna had gotten a hold of it…
Another option, we have porcupines once in awhile. I don’t know if they’d go after birds tho?
My inside dog did do some barking but she’s been giving a lot of false alarms with ducks and everything 😅
Whatever it is, I hope it doesn’t come back for any hens! I have a live trap that would be big enough for a weasel but not a raccoon or the others. I don’t know how I’d trap a raccoon and not get a cat tho. 🤷🏼‍♀️


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## NigerianNewbie

Boer Mama said:


> I don’t know how I’d trap a raccoon and not get a cat tho. 🤷🏼‍♀️


Had an opossum one year that dug a hole underneath the foundation to have a cozy winter home. Drove my dog insane because she could hear it moving around. She would track that critter from the inside floor and once the opossum made a growling and hissing noise in answer to the barking and growling dog. UUGGHH! I only caught cats 5 (five) times, and the same cat twice, before catching the culprit. I just apologized to the various cats and gave them a parting cat treat. Except the idiot cat that got caught twice, didn't get a second treat. He belonged to me.  I checked the trap last thing before lights out and first thing the next morning. I also put a bell on the flip door so I could hear when the trap sprung and investigated what was caught. This opossum was the largest I've ever seen, including road kill, and was out to do bodily harm to whatever came close to the Have-A-Heart. Yep, I was intimidated by all the hissing and growling, and those double rows of pointy spike teeth weren't anything I wanted to ever be bitten with.


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## FizzyGoats

This reminds me of my first encounter with a possum. I’d lived in the mountains of Colorado my entire life with a pack of LGDs and never saw one. I then moved to TN. One night, living in suburbia at the time, I go out to confront a possum that was stealing dog food. I thought it would play dead. That’s what they did on TV. Nope. That thing was hissing and growling. The claws and teeth were more intimidating than I expected. It sure seemed like it was willing to fight me to the death over some kibble. I went back inside and the next day made sure I never left dog food outside again. So yeah, I completely lost my first (and only) battle with a possum. Classic case of underestimating my opponent.


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## Boer Mama

I don’t even think I have an opossum around here and after hearing your guys stories I’m rather happy about that 😂
When I was kid, we were up at cow camp for the summer and we stayed in a little wood cabin. No water or anything, had to run way across the way to the outhouse! Lol anyway, I was washing dishes with water heated on the stovetop. I kept hearing little scratches. Nobody else was hearing them tho… I finally got everyone to stay quiet so my dad finally heard what I was hearing. The next morning he ended up shooting the porcupine that was underneath the cabin… didn’t want it to chew it’s way inside!
So then of course, we had to get it out of there so it didn’t stink up the cabin… I don’t remember who did it, but twine was tied to it and it was dragged out. Had to watch out for quills for a bit.

@FizzyGoats … reading what you said about being raised up with a pack of LGD’s made me think of Mowgli being raised by wolves 😂
But that’s probably just because I’m reading that book right now. Lol I was gonna say that’s how come your so good with dogs- you speak their language 😂❤😉


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## FizzyGoats

Boer Mama said:


> @FizzyGoats … reading what you said about being raised up with a pack of LGD’s made me think of Mowgli being raised by wolves
> But that’s probably just because I’m reading that book right now. Lol I was gonna say that’s how come your so good with dogs- you speak their language


Add in some horses and change the jungle to a mountain and that pretty much nails it. 

I may have never encountered a possum until TN, but we had a lot of porcupine encounters in CO. Well, the dogs did. Those quills are awful. There seemed to be two types of dogs, one that got a face full of quills then saw a porcupine again and seemed to think, that’s the thing that stuck me full of quills so I’ll avoid it. The other type seemed to think, that’s the thing that stuck me full of quills, I’ll get it this time (even if ‘this time’ was the 10th losing encounter). So glad I don’t have to deal with that anymore as I have a feeling both my current dogs would fall in the second category.


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## Tanya

when you rescued a 5 month old layer from certain festive death by over feeding and over laying in a cage no bigger than my 2 hands up and 2 hands sideways.

This is snow flake.








This is the hug of gratitude when she actually can walk to you and ask for love.

On the 24th of December Snow flake weighed in at 2.3 kilograms. She could not walk, breath properly or even make a chicken sound.

Today on the 3rd of Jan she weighs 1.7 kilos, free ranges in my yard and is walking with 2 chicks and a rooster learning how to chicken.

Buying her out of that crate was the best thing. She is the sweetest. I wish I could have bought all 10 that were in that crate, but I dont have the space for all of them.


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## FizzyGoats

Those pictures are so sweet! And that is a huge change in such a short time. Well done! She is lucky to be in your care now.


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## ksalvagno

Aw. Glad you were able to save her.


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## Boer Mama

She’ll have a much happier and healthier life walking thru the yard looking for little snacks to eat. Lucky chicken 🍀


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## MadHouse

Aww, I’m so glad you rescued Snowflake.


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## toth boer goats

Aww 🤗


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## luvmyherd

💖


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## Tanya

In the morning when I give breakfast she waits for me right by the back door. She walks at my pace down to the lawn, calls the rooster and chicks so they can come and eats only what she needs. She then free ranges the whole day. Free choice snacks. She discovered yesterday if she tries real hard she can get ontop of the crate to perch. We also discovered yesterday that when she cuddles with you she actually makes a sound like a chicken purr. She is just the sweetest litle girl. She has waddled into our hearts here. I was so afraid the others would reject her. But they are teaching her the way of chicken. My heart broke when I saw her. I am happy to help at least one.


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