Hi everyone, thank God I found you. I am glad to see so many old faces here. Some of you know me from the Grumpy thread complaining about the neighbor's range chickens.
We had chickens for years here on the farm and got rid of them when they became too much to handle with the other animals and full time jobs. I do not remember some of the things I am going to ask. I do however remember the hens wanting to sit the eggs which we seldom allowed since we had plenty of chickens, but I also bred and raised exotic birds for 10 years and although poultry and exotic birds are different in some ways, they are still birds and some things are just basic.
@Bonehead, Hi, I love your story about your chickens and what a great looking rooster. Wow. If we wanted to hatch eggs we would candle them and remove them and put them in the incubator because it was so difficult keeping the eggs separated from the other hens if she gets off to eat another hen will lay for sure. You can mark the eggs but the hen will keep rolling them around (turning) because the eggs need to be moved to be sure the chicks develop properly. If she has too many eggs in the nest she can not keep turning them. In an incubator you can put an x on one side and a 0 on the other side so you can remember if you moved them or not. It is difficult to mark all eggs in a nest used by more than one hen.
It takes 21 days if I remember to hatch and then the chicks need to be taught how to eat. Forgive me for giving all this info if you have already gone over it. I read many of the posts but I could have missed one because I really came here to ask a question about Range chickens.
I have four 5 ft. boxes I fill with flowers and also some large containers for the barn yard. Last year the neighbor's chickens were just little and flew over the fence a few times using the one big container by the fence as a ladder to help them get up high enough to fly over the fence. They are not dumb. They picked at the plants but I do not think they ate them, at least not that I could tell. I need to know what flowers they DON'T eat. So far they have destroyed all our tulips and bluebells from scratching and picking. They do not bother the daffodils but I am talking violas, petunias, pansies or something like that is what I usually put into the boxes for color and they last almost all summer.
The hens have now made my yard their home and I hate tramping in that chicken poop when they are not my chickens. I am a bird person and I feed my backyard birds all summer to keep the cardinals and the finches breeding in my big arborvitaes beside the house...now the hens sleep and perch In them also and do not go home to the chicken house. One hen and the rooster are in the house at night....the other 8 are now MY chickens to deal with. City people who want to be farmers make me crazy. He thinks it is funny since he got those chickens for his son and son could care less about chickens and does not remember to feed or water them unless told. I am sorry for rambling. Just need to go buy plants for my boxes so when our company comes Mother's Day they look good. Have no clue what they do not eat. HELP PLEASE. I do love chickens but when they are controlled and fed properly.
