Baby chicks!

[Chicken lady]

Dh encouraged me to order new chicks now that the raccoon massacre of 2017 seems to be over.

i was very conservative and only ordered 18, but the hatchery only put 17 in the box, and one didn't make it, so I have 16 peeping fluff balls in my barn.

When they grow up I will be back to 27 chickens (20-25 hens), which is a good number I guess. At one point I had 45, (my coop is big enough for a maximum of 60) but I was selling eggs regularly, and I'm not doing that anymore.

the reason I don't know how many hens I will have is because some breeds are only sold straight run - boys and girls mixed at random and no way to tell until they grow a bit. And because I have one (one - lol!) farm hatched chick. There is an expression "like a hen with one chick" and if you could see my broody hen, you would understand. Helicopter mom and fire breathing dragon rolled into one!

[mamalatte]

What do you do with your roosters? We recently got one by mistake in an order of chicks that was supposed to be all hens. After keeping him for about a year (he was beautiful and had a lot of personality) we had to "re-home" him because he was tearing up the chickens backs trying to mate with them all day long -- their ripped out feathers still haven't grown back after months. We tried separating him from the hens by keeping them in their pen and letting him free range, but he was unhappy and got very aggressive. Keeping a rooster is not legal where we live anyway; you are allowed to keep up to six hens but no roosters. Anyway, we actually found a rooster rescue group to give him to. So many unwanted roosters! I was surprised to see that, at the rescue, they had all the roosters together in one pen. I would have thought they would fight.

[Float On]

Did you contact the hatchery about that mess up? I was never shorted chicks the hatchery I ordered from always threw in some extras. That's how I came to love Turkens the year they threw 6 in to my order. Funny personalities.

mamalatte, I butchered my roosters because I didn't want the noise in my rural neighborhood though I have plenty of neighbors with roos. I did egg and meat chickens.

[Chicken lady]

If the roosters are sweet, they live out their lives with the flock. If the roosters are potentially dangerous, I offer them to some of my meat eating friends - if I get no takers, I feed the carcass to the vultures/coyotes.... Anything left within 20ft of the creek is completely gone by morning.

Because I have a lot of hens and they free range, I don't generally have a problem with overbreeding.

i called the hatchery. They said that the hatch might have gone up short and because they weren't hatching one of those breeds any later into the year they just filled my order the best they could. I had one extra buff orpinton and one deceased New Hampshire red. They said to call back tomorrow with a live count at 24 hours and they would refund any I was short.

[Float On]

they would refund any I was short.

good

[CathyA]

All my chickens died (last one lasted 12 years). I ordered 15 hens and got 16 hens. I thought that was pretty unusual, since it's my understanding that the sexing isn't always right. I was a bit disappointed, since I did want at least one crower. haha
It's funny, I've always heard that the roosters are either very submissive or gentlemanly or downright wretched. Funny how there's that difference........but I guess that goes for human males too. haha

Chicken lady......how can you be sure your coon massacre is over? I had mine in what I thought was the Fort Knox of coops and a coon got in and killed 2 of them and injured some others........it found the weakest part of the whole place. Mine wouldn't have survived a week if I'd free-ranged them. Wish I could have though.

What are you going to do with all those eggs now? I sure miss my "home-made" eggs. More than that, I miss my girlfriends......but I don't have the energy to take care of any more. The way I kept them was a lot of work.
Good luck with your new ones!

[Chicken lady]

I killed the raccoons and I haven't seen any footprints in the mud for a week.

i lose some free ranging. A fox got 7 once. I caught her with #8 in her mouth, chased her down yelling like a madwoman, and took my chicken back. Then I kept them in the coop for a month and she moved on. The roosters will actually challenge the Hawks when they see them, and I think there are enough easier meals elsewhere the hawks don't want to risk it - they can't carry the meal away, and a 12 lb rooster jumping on your back could really ruin your lunch. They also have good shelter to hide from Hawks, but again, now and then the Hawks win.

If the chickens wanted to stay in the coop in the barn all day they could - I leave their door open. Most of the predators are an issue at night - when I close up the barn, so just raccoons and the rare weasel

[Chicken lady]

Oh, I won't have a lot of eggs again until spring.

mostly my family (3 households) eats them and I bake a lot, but extras go to the food bank.

[CathyA]

Chicken lady, can I ask where you ordered them from?

[Chicken lady]

Cackle - I really wanted barnevelders, and the last time I went with an unknown small breeder it was an expensive disaster. Since I didn't know anyone who could recommend a breeder, I went cheapest commercial I could find.

the live chicks are individually marked for identification, strong, and healthy. They air condition the hockey sticks out of our post office, so the dead chick might just have been cuddled to death.