Pets chickens

[estibador]

Yeah maybe you could hang some self feeding setup higher up off the ground that they can't get into but the chooks can still reach could sort out the problem.

That's what I've done - hung a dispenser halfway up their cage at beak height.

For all I know the rats and mice are still stealing it all, but it still beats having to manually feed them at some ungodly hour of the morning.

 

[Papa Juggs]

That looks the business. Have you got one? Do you have to train your hens to use them?

There are training bolts to help the chickens get used to it.



I myself never bothered but rats were a problem for me I have to admit. One morning came out and found a small one swimming in the water bowl.

 

[Teriyakicat]

Wife was beside herself. She's in denial that the dog did it because we are close enough to where Foxes are sighted that she think a fox got in. She did blame the dog for a while though.

The little one had a confused look when the ducks were gone. We just said they were gone. She's 2 and a half now. She loves her "bokies" and "baby duckalings".

We were visiting extended family who had chooks and thought they were ducks. This was at a stage when she was just using 1 or 2 words. She said "duck, duck". I said "no not ducks, what do ducks say?" .... She says "quack".... "listen to what the chickens say"........ "bock, bock"....... Next day she says... "feed bokies?" We had to get some.

Thats so cute!! I talk to my chooks.
Guess what I say? Yep- bok bok bok!!

Coulda been a fox- my friends' chooks got snatched a week or two ago by foxes when her daughter forgot to lock them up. She's in Banjup. I've had hens taken before- but in August. It's about the right time of the year. Could the dog have been an accessory after the fact?

 

[Teriyakicat]

I am looking to swap my 16 week Austrolorp as it is a touch too loud for my suburban block.

She is an awesome layer and ploughs through her feed. Unfortunately she likes feeding at 6am.

My GF is none too impressed so if you want to save a chicken from being rotisserie'd, I am looking to swap her for another layer.

See if your local vet can find someone- or ask City Farmers or Pet Barn if they'll let you put up a flyer. Also try Gumtree - a layer is easy to get rid of. Sell it- ask the same price as what you'll pay for a Hyline (or Isa Brown) pullet, then go and buy one of those from CF. Mine make very little noise- they're efficient little machines, too- an egg a day.
I'd love to take your Australorp off your hands but I have to get rid of my own hens over the next few months and could only give you 3 year old hens (or roosters -lol) as a swap. Sorry I can't help you.

 

[Teriyakicat]

That's what I've done - hung a dispenser halfway up their cage at beak height.

For all I know the rats and mice are still stealing it all, but it still beats having to manually feed them at some ungodly hour of the morning.

I was buying 2 x 40kg bags of poultry mix per week until the bloke at the stock feed place suggested I might have a rat problem. He was wondering why I was in there every week buying so much chook food! In the past two weeks, I've fed the rats 100 Racumin baits and am now down to 1 bag of chook food per week (for 21 chooks and roosters, half of them bantams). The rats are really hoeing through the bait, I've found two dead rats and a litter of newly born baby rats in my worm farm (ugh!!) since I started baiting. This morning was the first morning that I found two blocks of uneaten bait. I'm putting out about 10 baits per night in my chook shed and scattering another half dozen in the greenhouse. Unbelievable!!!
We've been here 10 years and I have never had such a huge problem before- though my cat would catch probably one rat a week over the spring, maybe into summer. He's getting old- maybe that's why the rats are so prolific.

 

[Teriyakicat]

There are training bolts to help the chickens get used to it.



I myself never bothered but rats were a problem for me I have to admit. One morning came out and found a small one swimming in the water bowl.

Ten years too late!!
I'd have loved a couple of those!! Along with the local rat population, I'm assisting a population explosion of native pigeons.

 

[Kram]

Don't tell me you are buying a 20kg bag of feed a week??

 

[Teriyakicat]

Don't tell me you are buying a 20kg bag of feed a week??

I still have a bit left of the bag I bought about 8-9 days ago but ... yes
I just thought it was the pigeons....

I WAS buying 40kg per week prior to the rat cull.

 

[Teriyakicat]

I feel so stoopid ...
It was one of those gradual things- buy something, see the empty bag, buy more ...
I wasn't taking any notice of what day I was buying the stuff- I just dropped in on my way home from shopping. Once I realised I was going quite often, I tried to keep track.

 

[Papa Juggs]

Once I had the rats sorted my 1 chicken would last about 3 months on the 1 bag.

The first 20kg bag went really quick though. Wish I had got a picture of this thing I was feeding, when I first saw it no s**t I thought it was a possum.

 

[Kram]

I still have a bit left of the bag I bought about 8-9 days ago but ... yes
I just thought it was the pigeons....

I WAS buying 40kg per week prior to the rat cull.

Wow... I recently used to have over 20 chickens as well and and I know they can rip through the feed but that is quite ridiculous lol.

I was bored and went for a drive out past the CBH last night and found some scrap wheat in bin for the first time this months so hopefully I wont have to buy much feed at all now for a while with it heading into harvest now. Usually it's pretty rubbish but occasionally you actually find some pretty good quality wheat chucked in there.

 

[Kram]

6 days down, I can't stand all this waiting lol.

All 3 seem to be doing a good job sitting even the old bird, so fingers crossed wont have many duds. Wish I had of just bought 2 cartons of eggs, only 3 Pekin eggs runs the small risk of only getting a couple of roosters or something.

 

[Teriyakicat]

6 days down, I can't stand all this waiting lol.

All 3 seem to be doing a good job sitting even the old bird, so fingers crossed wont have many duds. Wish I had of just bought 2 cartons of eggs, only 3 Pekin eggs runs the small risk of only getting a couple of roosters or something.

I meant to ask how the prospective young mums were going. I hope everything is OK.

 

[Kram]

I meant to ask how the prospective young mums were going. I hope everything is OK.

Good thanks, 10 days left now. Only noticed 1 dud egg so far, usually the good hens pick the rotten ones out and roll them out but I thought this one was amusing because it went to the extra effort to move it about 3 meters from under the house right out on to the patio.

 

[Teriyakicat]

Good thanks, 10 days left now. Only noticed 1 dud egg so far, usually the good hens pick the rotten ones out and roll them out but I thought this one was amusing because it went to the extra effort to move it about 3 meters from under the house right out on to the patio.

lol- must've thought you might appreciate it for brekkie!

Might be something that hens do to fool predators into thinking their nest is nowhere near the offending object. If she put it near her 'good' eggs, a rat might be tempted to hang around and wait to pick up another feast.

I hadn't realised that hens do that- we had only 1 not hatch from our dozen and it just sat there with the others.

Here are a few pics of our silkie chicks, just to make you more excited about what's happening in 10 days' time!

 

[Teriyakicat]

Have you ever tried to hypnotise a chicken/hen?

 

[Kram]

lol- must've thought you might appreciate it for brekkie!

Might be something that hens do to fool predators into thinking their nest is nowhere near the offending object. If she put it near her 'good' eggs, a rat might be tempted to hang around and wait to pick up another feast.

I hadn't realised that hens do that- we had only 1 not hatch from our dozen and it just sat there with the others.

Here are a few pics of our silkie chicks, just to make you more excited about what's happening in 10 days' time!

View attachment 90974 View attachment 90975 View attachment 90977

Yeah the good ones turn the eggs over every so often to even the temperature which is I guess when they notice and roll them away. Quite clever really, I mean it's easy for us because we can just pick them with our hands and they rattle but they just have feet.

Nice pictures, from memory I don't think I've ever seen a Silkie in the flesh before. Great mothers but lay hardly any eggs I heard?

 

[Teriyakicat]

Yeah the good ones turn the eggs over every so often to even the temperature which is I guess when they notice and roll them away. Quite clever really, I mean it's easy for us because we can just pick them with our hands and they rattle but they just have feet.

Nice pictures, from memory I don't think I've ever seen a Silkie in the flesh before. Great mothers but lay hardly any eggs I heard?

I gave my son 2 silkies and got back a few behavioural reports. *thought they were both female but one turned out to be male

The hens lay eggs at a slightly more advanced age than, say, HyLines. Around 5-6 months, from memory- that's a month or two later than the better layers and also depends on the season (they don't seem to lay a lot over the hot months, nor the cold months).

The silkie hen would lay an egg, then bury it under the nesting material. Apparently they try and gather a few, then sit on them. I have two hens so it's hard to see who's laying when but my son's hen would lay for a week or so, then go clucky for a few weeks. I have either one or both of my silkies clucky almost the whole darn year, it seems! My son said his hen was too young to stay clucky for long enough to hatch the eggs, so he threw a few away Not sure when it was old enough but we actually put our fertile eggs under chickens that happened to be clucky at that time, not waiting for the Silkie to be ready- just in case....

I read somewhere that silkies lay between 90-120 eggs per year. So that's around 1/4-1/3 of the year they will produce an egg. Australorps produce about 250 per year and HyLines around 300 eggs per day for the first 2 years or so.

The whole egg-laying thing is fascinating. A friend told me a couple of years ago that hens have a production line of eggs sitting inside them, all at decreasing developmental stages, ready to lay. (apparently her Dad chopped open one that he'd killed for dinner and that's how she discovered that amazing fact).

 

[Kram]

I don't think I'd bother to go specifically looking for any but if I come across one for sale I would probably grab a silkie just to see what they are like.

 

[Teriyakicat]

I don't think I'd bother to go specifically looking for any but if I come across one for sale I would probably grab a silkie just to see what they are like.

The hens are gorgeous and very mild-natured (though one of mine gets pecky when she's clucky).
We always intended to get frizzles at some stage but, when we hatched the roosters, somehow that plan fizzled out
Aren't these just gorgeous??

 

[Kram]

haha, getting a bit too out there for my tastes.

I think a lady in the next town has a lot of silkies but wanted something silly like $50 for a dozen eggs, that's just being greedy imo.

 

[estibador]

I think the bottom one is a dog.

 

[Teriyakicat]

haha, getting a bit too out there for my tastes.

I think a lady in the next town has a lot of silkies but wanted something silly like $50 for a dozen eggs, that's just being greedy imo.

I don't know what the going rate is for the eggs.

 

[Kram]

I don't know what the going rate is for the eggs.

Pure breed eggs seem to be usually around $30-35, the bloke I got some off only wanted $20 though which was good. Young adult laying hens look to be around $30 each.

If they are good silkies maybe you sell a few of your eggs to try and offset at least some of your astronomical feed bills

 

[Teriyakicat]

I think the bottom one is a dog.

Nah- it's got feathers.
It'd be pretty embarrassing for a male to look like that, though- I hope that one is a hen!