hi everyone.I have 4 hylines.they lay brown eggs but two of them have started laying eggs with white blobs on them which are increasing in number.Are they needing something else in their diet!
tjc30,
Sep 29, 3:12pm
oh my poor chicken! Im suprised shes still alive. One of them laid an egg thats huge! they all lay eggs that are about a size 7 and this ones the biggest egg I have ever seen even compared to the larger ones you can buy in supermarkets. I would be suprised if she lays anything today lol.and yay I sold my second lot of eggs. I want them to pay for themselves in what I spend on hay and chook feed. With 8 eggs a day Ive been getting a large collection. But made three batches of homemade icecream and didnt feel bad using so many eggs. Rich and creamy tasting its devine. This keeping chooks has so many advantages lol. I love how the girls come up to me and will let me touch them.
jules.,
Sep 30, 1:49am
Animal control came the other day to take pics of poor Clara. He came again today to collect the written statements of the neighbours that witnessed the attack. I have narrowed down where she lives (which is just across the park from us). She looks to be inher 70's. When I spotted her I was already late for work so didnt have time to stop and follow her unfortunately :( But the animal control guy was going door knocking in the area I pointed out to him, so fingers crossed he found them and will take it furher!
tinart,
Sep 30, 2:05am
tjc30 whats your reecipe for icecream! do you have an ice cream maker!
stompy,
Sep 30, 2:22am
Has anybody had a chook thats had a prolapse! my big light sussex did I phoned our vets (I know them) and I did what they said and wow its gone back in but I know it could happen again, she is a big girl and I know this doesn't help.
tjc30,
Sep 30, 3:34am
#387 I just used the edmonds cook book recipe. 4 egg whites whipped.slowly add 3/4 cup castor sugar (I just use normal) and mix, In a seperate bowl beat the 4 egg yolks with 3/4 cup sugar until thick and pale and then add a teaspoon vanilla. In another bowl whip 300ml cream. Fold egg white and egg yolk mix together and then fold in cream. Put into a container and add whatever you want and freeze. I made a triple batch and then when I put them into seperate containers I did one with mashed tin peaches and maple syrup, another with mashed tinned mango and another with mashed frozen strawberries. I think for better results when freezing maybe keep mixing it up. Its more like frozen yoghart than shop bought iccream but way yummier!. I dont think I would buy shop bought again. It was to easy to make my own :)
les6,
Sep 30, 3:59am
put some stockholm tar on the wound.this will protect from infection and stop the others picking at it which they will.get a little off some horsey people rather than buy a huge container,you only have to dab it on.
tinart,
Sep 30, 11:56pm
thanks TJC! Im sooo gonna try that. yum!I have a recipe where you add a tin of condensed milk to a bottle of whipped cream.layer malt biscuits then ice cream then malt biscuits. cut it up like sandwhiches once its been frozen a few hours. very rich. can also crumble up moro bar or crunchie in it too.mmmmmmm
jules.,
Oct 1, 1:32am
Thanks for the tip! Shes looking well and its scabbed over nicely. She is seperate from the others as she has the babies, shes such a good Mum, after her ordeal she couldnt get back to them fast enough to check on them. I was a bit worried with all the rain forcast, but we got most of ours thru the night while they were tucked up tight. I didnt want the scab to get too wet, but it looks good.
jules.,
Oct 3, 4:07pm
i planted 8 silverbeet plants a couple of weeks ago in the chook run under an old wire crate. it was under the house, kind of looks like an old hangi pot or freezer basket, that type of thing anyway. its working well, the chooks can only get the parts they can reach thru the wire and cant scratch the plants from the ground. i thought that way they will have a continuous supply :)
tjc30,
Oct 3, 6:07pm
what a great idea jules Ive just been picking grass and weeds to give mine twice a day. I need to buy a trailer load of bark as their run is all muddy with the rain. They do have a dry patch under their nest which is blocked off from wind and rain and covered in hay. But its not enough room to exercise in. I am so happy today. My neighbours rouge roamer which has been loose for ages and hanging around my chooks. her greed got to big for her and I left the door open a wee bit while distracting mine down the other end.she raced right on in and I raced as fast as I could to shut the door. Then I celebrated by removing all the makeshift ugly fencing I had put around the part of my vegies she kept destroying.now my garden looks great and my neighbour can come and get her chook!
jules.,
Oct 4, 1:51am
well done tjc, on my next day off (thursday) i will be getting a trailer load of sawdust again as my girls run also is all muddy. well really its just where they race up and down the fence line, however it stinks and it gives them somehing new to dig and scratch around in. mine have been in their house all day sheltering from the rain, they would come out for a bit when it eased but would go straight back in when it got heavy again. now to get them to sleep in it raher that the trees :)
purplegoanna,
Oct 4, 3:46am
i put a good 4 inch layer of leaf/bark mulch in my new chook run.and to my disgust the girls have dug thru to chicna & now theres huge stones everywhere.im gonna keep a bucket in there to gather all the bad odds & ends theyre digging up.ive planted some plants in there run.the comfrey has since disappeared but the carex grasses for shade in the summer so far remain untouched.
cheylitz,
Oct 5, 1:23am
I grow silverbeet in an area that I have netted off and throw the leaves into them, it soon disappears. Also any weeds from the gardens. I also got a load of sawdust and a little horsey poo from the stables and put a really thick layer in their pen.It is the best I have found so far, no mud and they dig it heaps for the worms etc. I just dumped it in by the barrow load and almost overnight they had spread it level.
cfa,
Oct 5, 5:45pm
A newbie to chicken keeping we were given some eggs to incubate for my daughter & now we have 7 six week old chicks kicking around. My question is, how can you tell boys from girls. We are in a residential area & can have hens but not roosters. Any help gladly received :)
purplegoanna,
Oct 5, 6:37pm
cfa i did so much research on that exact question and basically couldnt get any of it right and camme to the conclusion that it comes from experience.so we let allour chicks grow to adulthood then found out we had 30% rooster and they went to live with the roooster man who swapt them for a bottle of vodka and a laying hen! lol
koru_designs,
Oct 5, 9:23pm
cfa.depends a bit on breed Some are easier to tell at a young age than others. In general, you look for larger combs & pointed neck & saddle feathers (the girls have smaller combs & rounded feathers.although some boys are late bloomers - my rooster being one of them!). Roosters also tend to be more aggressive round other chooks & a lot more friendly round humans (but that depends on individual temperment, of course). The tell-tale signs are distinctive colouring (roosters usually have different colouring in their feathers than females of the same colour & breed), spur development &, of course, crowing, but that doesn't start till they mature. If you're unsure, then it'll become more clear as to who is who when they get a wee bit older.7 weeks is still a bit young if you don't know what to look for. My rooster was still looking a wee bit uncertain at 10-12 weeks but I knew for sure by 15 weeks - he had rooster colouring & was just starting to crow. Good luck!
cfa,
Oct 5, 11:42pm
our chicks are a barred rock/brown shaver cross - what age would the roosters do there cockle doddle doo at!
valleystream,
Oct 6, 12:57am
Squawk .
cheylitz,
Oct 6, 1:08am
A nother sign of a young rooster I find is if you have a number of chickens and a couple or so decide to have little face off neck ruffles attitudes to one another they have a very good chance of turning into young roosters.The girls are always much more docile.
koru_designs,
Oct 6, 6:53am
Yep.they're aggressive to other chooks Although my cross-bred girl used to do that with her brother all the time (funnily enough, she became more aggressive in general as a teenager then settled down when she matured). Hens will do the neck ruffle thing too but not as frequently. cfa.when they start crowing is really an individual thing.anywhere from 8 weeks (but probably won't sound like a crow at first) up to 20 weeks. Mine started at 12 weeks (a couple of crows.then he was crowing more regularly by 15 weeks). Incidentally, if you want to keep any of the roosters, I find the easiest way to deal with the morning crowing is to bring them indoors at night. My boy sleeps in a box that was made for the cat to go one the plane in. He has a towel over the cage & it all goes into the garage - we can hear him but he doesn't wake us up & none of the neighbours can hear him unless they're outside. We let him out at 9am so no one complains about the noise. And because he's handled every day, he's very friendly.
jules.,
Oct 8, 4:19am
bump.im not too keen on this new layout, but i guess we will just have to get used to it :)we are on the countdown for the chicks to hatch. it was 2 weeks sunday gone, so hopefully by monday we will have 7 new babies!
teddies4,
Oct 9, 9:43pm
A Question, has anyone had any problems with chooks and their cats!I have a female (cat) who is the hunter in my cat family of three and we are wondering if she will have a go at the chooks!What has been everyone's experience with this!
grandma,
Oct 9, 11:24pm
We have a number of cats in our neighbourhood (including ours) and they don't bother our bantams at all.If your cat is a hunter though, I think I'd keep an eye on her/him to start with - it would be awful if she/he was the exception!(In saying this, I wouldn't let any little chickens roam free even though the mother would be very watchful of them.)
cheylitz,
Oct 10, 2:04am
We have a few cats that roam and should one try their luck the racket the chooks make certainly draws your attention that something is not right.A Mother hen with little chickies was actually trying to take on the cat the other day when I went out to see what was up.Chickies about 1 metre behind her and her all ruffled up and chasing at the cat until it jumped back on the fence and then into the neighbours.
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