I've never had cochins or any kind of bantam. Those are some really cute chicks!

I have raised bantams in the past including several colors of old English game. black and blue Rosecombs, Seabrights, Japanese, Mille Fleur, Cochins....etc. I enjoyed them all.

I reduced my flock form 22 to 12 yesterday which was my original goal. A friend took the other 10. Should cut my feed bill in half. I'm feeding Start and Grow and also digging them a couple of large Dandelions each day. They love the greens.

Paul do you grow them for eggs? They are currently about $2.00 per dozen in the supermarket here. I saw your pictures in an earlier post and they are good looking chickens. (And a nice mix of colors)

Leon....I grow them for several reasons. I have had chickens on and off most of my life. My Mother told me that when she was expecting me in 1943 that Dad had bought a bunch of Rhode Island Red chicks. He was at work and the chicks got out so Mother went out and crawled around the garden to catch them. She said it marked me. I am anticipating the eggs. I have a 21 year old Grandson who is a body builder and eats a lot of eggs. I also wanted something to watch and take care of. Not a dog or cat! So chickens were the choice. I used to have several coops but now just have one which is probably a blessing or I might try to fill them up.

Paul, An interesting history! We were always "dirt" farmers as a child: And raised almost everything we ate & sold the rest for income. It's difficult not to have this heritage ingrained in me. My country roots go deep so I am hopelessly retired where I always wanted to be: Out here in my country home away from all the traffic & confusion! I am learning to restrict my gardens and animals to what I can easily handle. I do have some help from a son & grandson which I appreciate.

Lovely chicks Leon.

Toni

Leon, your little Bantams are really nice. You will enjoy them. Paul, the story of your mother catching chickens is really funny. She must have been chasing them in an iris patch as well! I have always liked chickens. I remember begging my parens to let me have some Red Hens when I was a kid. They finally let me have a dozen rhode Island reds, and I was in heaven. I'd run out the the coop every few minutes to see if they had laid an egg. Then I'd sell the eggs to my grandma for 50 cents a doz. and though I was rich! But when you think about it, you could get a candy bar for 5 cents, and ice cream cone with two scoops for a dime, and a bottle of soda for a dime as well. Oh well, times have sure changed. I've had chickens most of my life. I now have about 40 hens. I sell some of the eggs, but mostly I give them to friends or take them to the food pantry. I just had some hatch this week, really poor results, only got 4 chicks, two Americana's and two Blue Laces Red Wyndottes. I think some of the eggs got chilled before I collected them, and also I lost one of my roosters, so maybe they were not fertile. I'm going to start another batch. I better get busy, have to cook Easter dinner. Happy Easter everyone.

My Chicken McNuggets are doing quite well! They're approx. 4 days old now and are running around their big totes. They're a little freakish, so I've been trying to handle them every day so that they're used to being with humans. I'm going ot have to do some research on cochins.. never had them at all. I've did some quick looking & they're supposed to be fluffy chicken dogs, wanting to be with you & very very friendly, but not good for egg production. I wonder exactly what colors I'm going to get. One of the babies is almost pure yellow.. maybe that'll be a white bird? A couple I'm guessing are going to be blue or splash, one is almost pure black...

Here's a good place to learn about your cochins.
http://www.feathersite.com/Pou...

I got my massively huge monstrous coop done yesterday. But, by the time I got it done, it was too late to move the chickens over, so I did that this morning after putting down a nice layer of straw on the bottom. It's huge, it's HEAVY, and it can hold a billion birds. Well, maybe not a billion, but way more than the 6 that are in there. It's 10feet long, 4feet wide, & 3 feet tall. I also built a 5foot long by 3foot wide by 38inch tall tractor-thingie so that they have access to outside but still protected from predators (we have hawks & falcons that live way too close for comfort. This coop is ridiculous!!



I moved 1 of the Black Sex Links outside. She's about 3 weeks old & fully feathered on her back & wings. I put in her with the 4 silkies.. she can snuggle up to them if she gets too cold at night. Next weekend probably I'll stick the other Black sex link & the 6 white Orps outside.

The McNuggets are doing quite well. Some of them are not as friendly (or more freakish) than others. The teeniest one, the one that's pure black, seems to be the least scared of me. I have been holding them at least twice a day every day, gently stroking their heads & scratching the back of their heads. I know that cockatiels love that, so I'm hoping that chickens do too. Oh, that reminds me.

My big big BIG chicken.. at least I bought as a chicken, but I swear it could be a turkey! has no feathers on the back of his neck (I'm sure it's a him as he's developing wattles on either side of his beak). I guess the others keep pecking at him. That's another reason why I wanted to move them into the big big coop.. more space! Hopefully his feathers will grow back now.. keeps developing pin feathers, but they keep getting plucked before they can unfurl.

Great coop project and I know your chickens are happy. Good that you are keeping them safe.

Quite a construction project! Do they get closed into the coop part at night?

PPal - The way I have it set up they can be outside in the pen or in the coop part, whichever they want to be in. I also found in my pile o'lumber crap an old rabbit nesting box (like this one: http://www.buildanark.net/imag...), so I filled it with hay & put that in there too.

An amazing - from tragedy to triumph - chicken story!

As I posted earlier, I don't keep the chicks once they're grown up. I keep them until they're almost full size to full sized, then I sell them. When I went to the Denver Urban Homesteader swap on the 5th, I had purchased 5 "white rocks" for $20. I kept them until yesterday. I sold 4 of them plus my last feathered buff Orpington for $15/ea, so made a tidy profit there. Also sold my last silkies (I think this will be the last year I do silkies as not many people want pet chickens, they want eggers). So I was kinda busy yesterday afternoon after I got off work to do chickens. After I sold the chickens, I moved the 6 white orpingtons from the bunny hutch inside the house to the bunny hutch OUTSIDE the house. They're 3/4th feathered, so it's time for them to get prepared for outside (plus it's so nice right now.. but starting tonight/tomorrow it's gonna be bleh as far as weather). So I opened the hutch, put the babies I was moving (6 white Orpingtons & 1 Black sex link) into a bucket and moved them outside. Was doing that, then got prepared to go dig up a couple of pine trees that was being given away on Craigslist. Went to that guy's house, dug up the 2 trees (1 smaller, only about 6', the other a huge 12-14'), brought them home, planted them (have to replant the one again as the wind knocked it down), then went to pick up DH from work (he's at the train station waiting on me). One of my cats goes into a closet & won't get out, so I'm getting irritated about that, plus have to do another craigslist on my way to dinner to pick up an ancient phone for my father because he refuses to use anything modern. Get dinner (chicken wings, natch), then go to Home Depot to get some plastic fencing to prevent the dogs from digging up the new trees. That HD didn't have the fencing, so went to another HD.. they had it. Finally got home at about 9pm. Was checking my email and decided to clean the kitty litters as I usually do that in the afternoon, but didn't because I was busy with chickens & trees & Craigslist & everything else.

And saw that the bunny hutch was STILL open.

There WERE 8 chicks in there: 4 buff Orpingtons, 4 light Brahmas. Now there were only 3. 2 Buffs, 1 brahma. Omg. OMG OMG OMG. Crap. I *really* screwed up. I have a houseful of cats.. let's just say I'm in double-digits, and leave it at that. Everyone has claws. And, well, they're cats. And these are chicks.

So I run downstairs as, most of the time, when the cats have a new toy, they take it down into the den/bedroom to play with. I'm expecting to find feet & wings & heads & feathers & a huge mess EVERYWHERE. However, not a feather to be found? So I look under the bed, under the couch, under everything. Nada. I have cats following me everywhere.. whatcha doing? I inspect the cats for tell-tale signs of chick murder: feathers stuck to their collars, blood on the chin. Let's be honest.. these are cats! And these are little cute fuzzy helpless chicks! But, not a sign anywhere of imminent chick death. So where are they?

I go back upstairs into the room (I call it my craft room) where the bunny hutch is. No, there's only 3 chicks in the hutch. I can count to 3 really well. So I start moving everything around, looking behind the hutch, under the cat chair that's in there, everywhere. Then, lo & behold? behind the door, under one of the big floor fans I have, is 3 little chicks all snuggled down for sleep. Simply stunned, I called DH over. He comes over & can't believe what he sees. There's the 3 missing light Brahmas, all in a pile! I pick each one up, no feathers/down messed up, no blood, nothing. Cranky because I woke them up, but who cares! I quickly put them into the hutch & make sure that it's 100% sealed. Now I'm just missing 2 chicks.. 2 buff Orpingtons. I've torn the house apart and cannot find them anywhere. Depressed because I like Orps, take a shower & go to bed. It's now about 11:45pm.

Lay there in bed, try to get comfy. Depressed about missing chicks. My own fault. I did it. I'm a chicken murderer. Cats are just being cats. That's what cats do. I can't blame them, I can only blame myself.

Just as I'm drifting off to sleep, along with DH, I hear a chick chirp. ???? No way. I must be dreaming. But I sit straight up as does he. No, I'm not dreaming, there's a chick in here somewhere! But where? I already moved everything around... so I get outta bed & start inspecting under the bed, behind the dressers. No more chirps. But I know I wasn't dreaming because DH heard it too! But where is it? I can't see under the dressers well because it's dark, so he volunteers to go upstairs & get me a flashlight. We have a big flashlight downstairs, but I think the battery's dead. So, I pick it up.. and there's the chick!! Behind the flashlight, hidden between it & the nightstand! Holy guacamole! Tons of kitties, and there's a chick? Reason for her to chirp is because she's getting cold (we keep the bedroom chilly.. like around 65degs). I hold her close, and inspect her. Yea, she's hurt. Got some skin damage on her neck, the base of her tail, and some pin feathers on her left wing were broken. There's a little bit of blood here & there... don't like the missing skin on her neck. But she's alive! Wow! So many kitties.. but cat spit is toxic to birds. I know. I've lost many a canary that way. So, I put her in with the Chicken McNuggets in the tote in the spare room under the heat lamp & hope for the best. She's gonna be dead in the morning.. cat spit is toxic to birds and I never found the corpse or pieces of the last Orpington.

Got up this morning, went to check on the Nuggets (the silkie passed away, but the cochins are OK... the silkie was not a strong baby & had a nasty eye infect that would not clear up). And, the middle of the food thing, is the Orpington! Running around, cheeping, being just fine! Holy mackeral Batman.. catspit is toxic to birds! Well, I guess we don't tell THIS Orpington, now do we?

Got dressed, went upstairs to put on shoes. The huge pine tree I planted last night (not well) fell over (winds are bad with the storm we've got brewing right now), so getting shoes on to go outside & replant the tree. Heard a chirp. Nothing uncommon, hear chirps all the time because I've got babies in the craft room which is adjacent to the living room. But this chirp wasn't from the bunny hutch in the craft room.. it was coming from here in the living room! I look over to my 8'x4' bookshelf where all my movies are and there's Odin staring down at something. Hope wells up within me, so I dive down between what he's watching (not playing with, just looking at) and, amazingly, there's the last chick! It's been like a damned Easter Egg hunt in the house, but with live chicks and tons of cats! A few feathers on her head are wet from where the cat was LICKING the chicken (???), but no damage done at ALL! So all chicks are present & accounted for, plus hardly any injuries at all! 8 out of 8!

From Tragedy to Triumph!

Boss sent me this picture that he saw on his Facebook feed.. I'm definitely gonna make a smaller version of this!

@abhege you should show this picture to Matt. This system may help with the problems in his chicken house.

Toni, I like it! I think I may make one too.

PPal - Mine's gonna be mini.. this is like industrial sized and I don't have that many. But I'm hoping that this will cut down on the waste.. they throw more food than they eat!! Grrr!! With the chicks I've had this year, I've gone through over 120lbs of food.. and I'm guessing that probably half was tossed!