# New Additions



## UncleJoe (Jan 11, 2009)

Don't know if anyone cares, but I thought I'd share.
We've had 2 bantam hens sitting on 22 eggs for the last 3 weeks and last Friday they started hatching. By Sunday we had 17 new peeps. In our pasture we have the full sized chickens. One of the RIR's started sitting right after the bantams and today I went to check on her and I saw 2 little beaks poking out from under her. She is sitting on 10-12 eggs so we expect 8-10 new chicks from that clutch. We were considering buying some more at the start of summer but decided to see if nature would take it's course and sure enough, it did. If they all survive, we'll have 23 bantam's and 17 +/- full size. That's enough to keep us in eggs, give some to friends and relatives and sell some, as well as having chicken for the stock pot this winter. :2thumb:


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## pills (Feb 16, 2009)

awesome. A while back i put 36 eggs in the 'bator. 29 hatched with 23 surviving the first few days. 16 RIR and 7 Black Jersey Giants.


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## Canadian (Dec 14, 2008)

Congratulations! I love chicks.


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## The_Blob (Dec 24, 2008)

:congrat: good for you, keep us posted on your/their progress...

1st-hand information on how much it's costing you would be especially helpful to those of us 'sitting on the fence'

:2thumb:


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## UncleJoe (Jan 11, 2009)

Here are the Bantams with some of the 17 peeps.








Here's the big ones. 7 so far. 6 eggs left.









Blob The adults are all free range, but then we have 3 donkeys that keep the predators out of the pasture. Without them I don't think we would let them run. A friend of ours lost most of his birds a few weeks ago to coyotes.
As far as feed costs, up until now we only bought feed from Nov. through March. 2 50# bags per month at $11 per bag. That fed 15 birds. I'm guessing it will go up a little since the population just doubled.  Although... most of the roosters that come out of this run will go on the table. 
Our son bought the first bag of starter feed. I don't know what it cost and he's not here to ask him. The coop was about $300 to build with most of that being the chicken wire. I got a little carried away and made it much larger than I needed to but now I'm glad I did. There's enough room for the additions without expanding. I think there's a picture of it in my profile.
Feeders and waterers totaled about $100, but that includes the stuff we just bought for the peeps. You could buy 1 feeder and 1 waterer for $25-$30. I got a fairly large feeder so I wouldn't need to fill it so often. Winter is a pain as far as water goes. There's no electric to the coop so water needs changed twice a day if the temp stays below freezing. All in all chickens are pretty easy to keep once you make the initial investment. I have no regrets.


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## CVORNurse (Oct 19, 2008)

UncleJoe said:


> I got a fairly large feeder so I wouldn't need to fill it so often. Winter is a pain as far as water goes. There's no electric to the coop so water needs changed twice a day if the temp stays below freezing. All in all chickens are pretty easy to keep once you make the initial investment. I have no regrets.


Uncle Joe and others I have a hint for you on the feeders and waters. DH, being the wonderful scavenger he is, rigged our feeders so they don't have to be changed so often. He found large pieces of pvc pipe and screw the pipe inside the feeder, extending it up several feet. I believe the pipe he used was old city water piping. It is probably 12 inch in diameter, just fits inside the metal hanging feeders. We can put a whole bag of layer pellets in the feeder now.
As to waters, he has gotten the float devices that keep our waters full all the time. We are currently using old metal refrigerator drawers that were scavenged from someplace. When we go out for eggs, we dump the water and swish the trash out, then let it refill. We don't go below freezing here for more than a few days in a row without a warmup, so for the most part, the waterers work.

Love my chickens. I haven't bought eggs in years.


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## The_Blob (Dec 24, 2008)

:thankyou: to both of you for the info :2thumb:

i LOVE me some chicken, I could eat it every day (& have for MONTHS at a time) I get tired of straight eggs sometimes tho, even tho I know they are a 'perfect' food... good thing a lot of recipes need eggs

I get sunflower seed kernals for about 30-35 cents/lb. & feed to my friends' birds as an occassional treat, they are not supposed to be for human consumption, but I didn't know THAT when I first bought them


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## Canadian (Dec 14, 2008)

Aww... So cute!!!


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## CVORNurse (Oct 19, 2008)

I was just looking at your photos again. Did I see Ameraucana chicks in the second photo?


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## UncleJoe (Jan 11, 2009)

CVOR, Sorry, I've been gone for a while and didn't see your question. I don't know what kind I have. The full size hens and roo were given to us by a friend that was overrun. Someone told me the black one in the lower photo might be a Jersey Giant. The only ones I'm sure of are the 2 RIR's. For the most part I think they are all mutts so that's what the peeps are also. 

UPDATE: All the peeps survived and no more eggs hatched so we have 24 new birds. :congrat: I'll throw some new pics in later.


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## UncleJoe (Jan 11, 2009)

Well, the Banty's were at it again. We came home from dinner last night to the sound of peeping. Went out this morning and found 8 new peeps running around the little coop as well as 2 that apparently didn't make it through the night. There are still 11 eggs that haven't hatched yet so there may be more. We only lost one of the chicks from the early summer hatch, but the black hen in the photo went missing about 3 weeks ago. We have no idea what happened to her. I'm hoping that she is out in the pasture somewhere sitting on another batch of eggs, but I'm not holding my breath.  
I'll get some pics when I'm sure all the eggs that are going to hatch, have.


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## Jason (Jul 25, 2009)

Sometimes the critters make it and sometimes they don't. I don't care how big and tough you are, there are parts of farm life that tug at anybody's heartstrings.

I have no problem butchering rabbits, chickens, turkeys, whatever, but it just kills me to see little ones that don't make it.


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## UncleJoe (Jan 11, 2009)

Went out this afternoon and had another look. We found one that was trying to poke through the shell but didn't make it. Nothing else hatched as of 4:30 but mom is still sitting. We'll see what it looks like tomorrow.


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## TechAdmin (Oct 1, 2008)

My first hatch-lings only produced two roosters and they both died. It's terrible.


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## UncleJoe (Jan 11, 2009)

Down to 5 now. This mom isn't as good a mother as the other ones. If the peeps don't follow her into the coop at night, they get left out in the cold and we find them dead in the morning. We only lost one out of the batch of 17 back in July. Of course it was a little warmer then.


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## TechAdmin (Oct 1, 2008)

Are you rounding them up at night. It's the last thing I did before the sun goes down. Feed horses coop chickens. When I was a kid I used to get a kick out of chasing them. They can turn on a dime.


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## UncleJoe (Jan 11, 2009)

This is our third hatching this year. The first two groups always followed mom home to the coop about an hour before sunset. We never did anything. I don't know why these few didn't. 
You're right about them being able to turn on a dime.  I tried catching one of the first group a couple days ago. So much for that brainstorm.


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## UncleJoe (Jan 11, 2009)

Dean said:


> Are you rounding them up at night. It's the last thing I did before the sun goes down. Feed horses coop chickens.


I took your words of wisdom and started checking for lost peeps. Sure enough, tonight as I was coming in, I walked out and found one of the little guys wandering around looking for mom. I picked him/her  up and put him inside. With the temps headed into the 40's tonight, I doubt he would have made it through the night. Thanks. :2thumb:


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## TechAdmin (Oct 1, 2008)

Good I'm glad it helped. Losing part of your investment is never easy.


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## UncleJoe (Jan 11, 2009)

This past week I lost 5 of the 7 full size young ones in one night to a fox, as well as one of the adults.  We heard a lot of ruckus just as we were getting up at 6:00. Looked out the bathroom window to see the fox carrying off one of the Barred Rock. We grabbed 2 dogs, the .22, and the 12 gauge but couldn't catch him before he got back to his den. The dogs found the den so I now keep the .22 in the bathroom just in case I happen to see him again. This is the first predator problem we've had since we got chickens.
The survivors get locked in the coop at sunset now.


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## Jason (Jul 25, 2009)

We don't have any critters right now for the predators to come after but we still get a steady stream of *****, opossum, occasionaly a fox or even a coyote come through. We have 2 big sodium vapor lights on the outside of the house and if we notice a critter like that wandering past we'll generally pop it. It's really surprising how many of those animals are out there on any given night.


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## sailaway (Mar 12, 2009)

I live by Cedar Point Amusement park and saw a red fox picking at some litter along the causeway Saturday around noon. It could have cared less about all of the traffic comming into the park. I always thought they were an aloof critter.


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## Jason (Jul 25, 2009)

They usually are. That's really weird. Could have been sick or maybe just really hungry.


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## UncleJoe (Jan 11, 2009)

sailaway said:


> I always thought they were an aloof critter.


I haven't seen ours since the morning I put 3 rounds from the 12 gauge down each of his holes. However, there was a dead one in the middle of our road this morning. :2thumb: Hopefully it was the chicken thief.


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## SnakeDoc (Nov 10, 2009)

New hens to be laying as spring starts. That is always a good thing! Nice pics, btw.


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