I went to a chick-lecture at the feed store on Saturday. Picked up a couple good tips, but was a bit put off by the presenter's rather sexist attitude. Even though the audience was quite clearly about half women and men, he more or less addressed us all as housewives with a bit of extra time on our hands. Huh?? I'm guessing he was in his mid-70s, as he said he'd been working for Purina for 50 years (the sponsor, so really kind of an infomercial type presentation, pushing Purina products).

Here were a couple take-aways that I found helpful: (1) When cleaning/replacing water, the birds prefer tepid over cold, he suggested keeping an extra bucket full for the replacement water but I usually clean my waterer at the kitchen sink so can easily just adjust the temp. (2) To reduce waste, keep the waterers and feeders at about the level of the birds' backs. My waterer is at about that height, but my feeder sits flush to the ground and I do note a lot of spillage, so will do some modification there.

Deb - I've found that out about the feeders/waterers the hard way. Especially in my "baby tote" where I have the heatlamp. I don't mind the feed going everywhere because it gives them some practice at scratching in the shavings (the babies are in shavings for their first 4 weeks w/the heat lamp). But then they start kicking the shavings into the waterer and makes a yucky mess there. So sorry to hear that the presenter was a misogynistic moron. Gotta love 'em.. against the law to shoot them.

Picked up some "groovy chicks" as advertised at the local feed store in my town. Where I normally get chicks was pretty much out of everything (everything was pre-sold). But the feedstore sooo much closer had buff orps, so I bought 4 more of those. They're so damned cute, and not much smaller than my little foozy silkies! I need to really clean their tote tonight... The 2 white plymouths are now in the hutch upstairs where the other guys were. They got some broccoli for the first time this morning.. they looked at it kinda funny at first before trying it. I think they were having more fun throwing it around than eating it.

Got more silkies today!! They literally had just come into the store.. the lady had to go to the USPS to pick up the box from the shipper, so I got absolute first crack at them! Picked ones that were pecking around in the sawdust.. they're sooo cute!!




https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

First picture I put a penny in there so you could see how teeny itty bitty they are!!!

Oh my. Tiny cuties!

Toni, What kind of swap did you attend that you sold out so quickly? Your area must have quite interesting groups to support some kind of swap.

Jill - It was a "poultry" swap. Denver is a weird city. It wants to be urban, but be rustic & "Wild West", too, at the same time. I live in the extreme SE corner of the metro (there's 31 cities in the Denver metro area) (city of Parker) and am very close to Elizabeth & Kiowa, which are definite Boonies. Lots & lots of farms & ranches out that way. And everyone wants egger chickens but don't want the trouble of raising chicks (heat lamps, protection from varmits, etc).

Poultry swap sounds like fun! Good for Denver!

http://www.denverurbanhomestea...

Went to this last year, it was fun.

Wish we had a sale like that here. I bought far to many chicks...24....and only want 10 laying hens. So many varieties to choose from and I thought I needed to try a couple of each. My original goal was eggs and a few hens to take care of. I'll try to sell the extras on a news paper web site here. To much bother.

Paul, it is easy to get carried away.

Carried away....just like buying plants.

Paul2032 said:Carried away....just like buying plants.

Paul - Craigslist them!! I bet they'll sell pretty quick once you get them to the right size.

I'm collecting eggs now for the incubator, I only want maybe 10 or so replacement hens, and a couple of roosters to butcher. I want to replace one of my roosters that died this winter with one of his grandsons, but my incubator holds 50 eggs, I hope I can keep myself under control and not raise too many. If not, I can always sell some of them I'm sure.

I'm planning on finishing my coop today or tomorrow and then move my chicks out of the brooder. Then I will need to decide which ones I want to keep and which I will get rid of. I have 2-3 of several varieties and need to decide between keeping the best egg layers or the prettiest.

tveguy3 said:I'm collecting eggs now for the incubator, I only want maybe 10 or so replacement hens, and a couple of roosters to butcher. I want to replace one of my roosters that died this winter with one of his grandsons, but my incubator holds 50 eggs, I hope I can keep myself under control and not raise too many. If not, I can always sell some of them I'm sure.

Hatch many eggs and then sell the chicks later when they get slightly bigger.

Rita....are you enabling poor weak willed Tom?

Paul2032 said:I'm planning on finishing my coop today or tomorrow and then move my chicks out of the brooder. Then I will need to decide which ones I want to keep and which I will get rid of. I have 2-3 of several varieties and need to decide between keeping the best egg layers or the prettiest.

Paul, move them all out together. It is still cold and more chicks might do better all together while the weather is still cold. You have plenty of time to decide on which ones to keep.

Paul2032 said:Rita....are you enabling poor weak willed Tom?

Yep. I love to hatch chicks. It is so much fun. But all the eggs never hatch so my thinking is fill up the incubator. Then have lots of chicks.

Oh I would have so many chickens if I could. Not allowed here.

Paul do wait long enough to be sure you are keeping hens not roosters. Even if you buy pullets, typically 10% of them will be roosters.