Now with more bunnies

I've started a new hobby in addition to chickens, raising Jersey Wooly rabbits.  Jersey Woolies are soo fluffy, their wool can be spun like angora, and their poo is great fertilizer.

I currently have a buck, a doe, and the doe's litter of four adorable baby bunnies.  It's been fun watching the babies grow and taking the buck to shows.

My rabbitry is called Red Arches Rabbitry.

Coturnix or Japanese quail statistics and numbers

I've become interested in coturnix quail.  I've been doing a lot of research to find statistics and measurements for them.  I thought I'd put it all in one place.

Coturnix quail

Height: 8"
Can they be sexed by color: yes for certain colors like the wild type brown and Itallian (pictures of different varieties)
movie of chicks and adults: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UL18IIUTCHg

Eggs
Laying: once a day, April- September
How many quail eggs per chicken egg? About 6
Average size egg: .3 oz, size of chicken egg: 2.4 oz
How much light do they need to lay? 14 hrs
age they begin laying? 8 weeks
What is the variety called that lays blue eggs? Celadon

Meat
Best age for harvesting: 8 weeks - 8 months (younger is better)

Housing
How much room do quail  need? 1 sq ft of space per bird
Cage height: 12" or over 4 feet.  (So they don't hit their heads hard when startled.)
What do they eat? Insects, seeds, plants
What should I feed them? Turkey or Game bird starter.  25% protein
Nesting box size: 8"x8"
Dust bath size: shoe box or large dog bowl or cake pan size

Waters
Age for open bowl: any
Age for vertical nipples: 3 days
Age for horizontal nipples: 4 weeks

Hatching
Age of eggs to set: less than 7 days
Age of hen the egg came from: 10 weeks - 8 months
Age of cock: less than a year
Time to hatch: 17-18 days
Temperature in incubator: 99.5 degrees

a good guide to hatching:

Brooding
1 day - 2 weeks: in the house
2 weeks - in shed
3 weeks outside, still in brooder
4 weeks in adult cage

Heat: heat plate (watch this closely because they grow really fast and their height changes quickly.  If they are huddled in the middle the plate is too high or too cool (if using a rheostat)

Chicken care coloring book

When I went to Idaho Chickenstock last year, I had a great time.  I also noticed how many children were there, both buying chicks with their families and just looking.  I thought it would be fun to have a coloring page or book that children that explained how to take care of chicks.  My daughter was nice enough to illustrate it for me.

This page released under the Creative Commons License with Attribution.  It is also available as a pdf.

If you need help folding it, these directions explain how better.

Mareks, now what?

Disclaimer: I know very little about mareks, but I have read a lot the internet, so here's my opinions and summaries of what I have read, but take it all with a grain of salt.

I had a hen that died from cocci with a secondary cause of death being mareks.  This was diagnosed by the Veterinary Diagnostic clinic, so I'm inclined to accept their judgement.

Step 1: take a deep breath.  Don't make any hasty decisions.  If you are like me and only had one sick bird and the rest seem fine, you have time.  If you have multiple birds sick, cull the sick ones.  

Useful facts:

• There are several different variants of mareks
• It is present in the dander of infected birds and can travel for miles.
• You can carry the dander on your clothes and infect other birds.
• It can live for years in the soil
• It is safe to eat birds with Mareks
• Hens do not pass Mareks to their eggs
• The incubation process (in an incubator) kills Mareks 
• There is a vaccine for certain strains.  Vaccinated chicks need to not be exposed to Mareks for the first two weeks.
• You need special chemicals to kill Marek's.  Just bleach or vinegar isn't going to do it.
• Certain breeds (silkies, polishes) are very susceptible.
• Quail can catch mareks.  Turkeys have their own version that can be used as a vaccine for chickens.  Ducks do not catch it.

What to do with current birds? 
First, what should I do with my current birds?

1. Cull
2. Leave them alive

There's several different kinds of Mareks.  My hen got the kind that causes tumors and leads to immune suppression (hence the cocci).  No one else showed any symptoms, so to me this meant I had a very mild strain.  Mareks can live in the soil for several years, so just culling and starting over is no guarantee that the next batch wouldn't catch it. 

My current choice is to leave them alone.  They are laying.  They are not acting sick.  I will cull as soon as I see symptoms instead of separating them and giving them a "grace week".  It does mean I have a pair of shoes I never wear in the backyard and if I'm going anywhere with other chickens I change my clothes first.

What about cleaning?
I'm no longer using the used bedding from my chickens in my garden.  When I clean out the coop next year before I add new chicks, I will buy one of the cleaners like oxine (not sure if it has to be activated or not) or virkon that kills mareks.

What about the future?
Chicks
OK, so what about the spring.  I like to have a few pullets so I get eggs over the winter.

1. Buy birds older than 16-weeks.  Older birds are less susceptible, but they can also introduce new diseases
2. Create my own strain of chickens. Breed from hens that haven't died and raise chicks that are immune (this isn't a choice for me since I'm not allowed roosters)
3. Use breeds that are less susceptible.  Egyptian fayoumis and some strains of leghorns are immune.  These breeds are flighty though and the fayoumis need to free range and like to fly.
4. Buy eggs or chicks from a local petting zoo.  If those chickens are still alive, they're probably immune to everything known to mankind.  I called and they do not vaccinate, so it should be true immunity.
5. Hatch eggs and vaccinate chicks myself.  The vaccine is expensive and has to be shipped frozen.  Once mixed up the batch has to be used with a few hours.  It is possible to break the wafer into pieces so you can save part of the vaccine for later.  The chicks need to not be exposed to Mareks for two weeks so the vaccine can take hold.
6. Buy vaccinated chicks.  The chicks need to not be exposed to Mareks for two weeks so the vaccine can take hold.

I keep going and back and forth between hatching eggs from the petting zoo and buying vaccinated chicks.  Currently I'm planning on just buying vaccinated chicks.

 Vaccine issues

The vaccine is awesome, but presents a few problems.  

1. Chicks must be kept isolated from Mareks for two weeks (so no broodies).  The chicks also can't be housed near your other birds and also, not in the shed where you kept your sick chicken.
2. The vaccine is leaky.  What this means is that it keeps chickens from dying not from getting sick.  This means they have Mareks, but don't die.  It means they might keep shedding virus for a long time instead of dying.  It also means that a very strong strain of Mareks might be passed on instead of killing all the chickens who caught it. 

End of life / Extra birds
Marek's also complicates the extra hens / roosters issues.  You cannot sell / giveaway /rehome any bird from your flock if you have Mareks.  It isn't worth the risk to other flocks.  So any bird that comes onto my property has to leave via the stewpot or proper burial.

A bird with Marek's is safe to eat.  Eggs from your flock are safe to eat.  Others could hatch those eggs as long as they understand the eggs must be incubated in an incubator.

Honestly, this is the part that bugs me the most.  I was hoping to just sell my older hens as they got to the end of their laying, but now I will have to cull.  I still haven't decided if it would be ethical to sell extra birds "for eating only" to someone who doesn't have chickens (Probably not, but maybe if I knew someone who would wack them right away it would be OK.)

When I first found out I had Mareks, I was very upset.  Now I'm more hopeful.  We'll see what the spring brings :)

Chicken breeds most and least susceptible to Marek's

Marek's is a chicken disease that can cause paralysis, tumors, immunosuppression, and death.  I recently put a sick hen down and had a necropsy performed.  The result? Cocci, but underlying cause of death was Marek's.  

Mareks can live for several years in the environment.  Once you have it, you have to assume all your hens have it and are shedding the virus through dander and feathers.  There is a vaccine for it, but it doesn't prevent the spread of Marek's, just the growth of tumors.

I am not allowed to have a rooster, so I can't breed my own immune flock.  The best I can do is buy chicks from breeds that aren't as susceptible, although it varies by individual.  

I haven't decided if I want to buy vaccinated chicks.  I may try just getting unvaccinated chicks.  The strain of Marek's only affected 1 of my hens, so it isn't one of the more virulent ones. Once I vaccinate, all will have to be vaccinated.

From what I've found online, here are breeds that are most and least susceptible:

Most susceptible 

Silkies

Polishes

Most immune / least susceptible 

Egyptian fayoumi 

White leghorn*

Campine? (Supposedly descended from the fayoumi so maybe)

*certain bloodlines.  Things I read said leghorn were less susceptible than rode island reds

 

Dealing with Marek's

Marek's is a horrible and annoying disease.  Traditional Marek's causes paralysis, tumors, and lesions, but there are different strains, some with different symptoms and mortality rates.  Once you have it, not only do you loose a number of chickens, but you must accept that 1) your surviving hens are carriers and 2) you have the virus in your soil where it can live for months, sometimes years.

I recently had to put down an eighteen-month-old hen.  She had diarrhea and wasn't eating.  I separated her and treated her for coccidiosis, a disease that causes green diarrhea, but she didn't get better.  After a week and a half, I put her down and took her to the Utah State University Veterinary diagnostic clinic.  They quickly called me back and told me cocci, a very bad case.  I felt bad and was surprised the Corid didn't treat it since I had done everything correctly.  When I got the written report a week later, it had a second diagnosis.  Cocci killed her, but she had Marek's as well, contributing to her death.  Some forms of Marek's suppress the immune system making hens very vulnerable to cocci.  She hadn't been vaccinated since I hatched her myself.

I felt some relief, putting her down had been the right choice, but now what?  Did I have to put down my other hens too?  After reading on-line, I came to the conclusion that it wouldn't help all that much.  They were acting fine, so were probably resistant, but I had to consider them carriers.  This meant I couldn't sell them next year as I had planned.  Any chicken I brought on to my property could not leave.  I would need to process them or allow them to die natural deaths.

I'm still dealing with what to do about new chicks.  Here are some of my thoughts:

1. All chicks I buy need to be vaccinated. They also have to be kept away from my older chickens for at least two weeks for the vaccine to make them resistant.  This also means I can't use a broody to raise them.
2. I cannot get silkies like I had planned.  Bantam chicks can't be vaccinated.  Also, Silkies are very susceptible to Marek's
3. I could try hatching chicks from resistant lines.  Marek's is not spread through the egg.  There is a petting zoo / farm near us that sells hatching eggs.  I could get eggs from there because I'm pretty sure those chickens are exposed to all kinds of stuff, and if they're still alive then they must have some resistance.
4. I had put some of the used bedding in my garden to use as compost.  I will remove as much as I can and not do that anymore to prevent build up of pathogens.
5. In the spring, I will clean out the coop thoroughly with oxine or vikron-s before I get new chicks and again before I add the new hens in.  Bleach is not effective against Marek's.
6. I'm wondering about putting down cement pavers in the run so it would be easier to clean and disinfect.

Fortunately, I have all winter to figure out what to do. 

Giving a broody chicks (grafting)

In chicken forums, there are two opinions on giving a broody chicks either from an incubator or from the feedstore:  1) do it during the day, so you can watch as needed 2) do it at night.  I've given a broody chicks two times now.  I think either way works, but with two caveats: 1) do it when it is cooler (either the morning or evening) 2) keep an eye on things.

In my experience, a broody doesn't notice much.  I can add chicks and she just sits there.  My broody is a nice girl, though.  If your broody is mean, night might be best so she doesn't attack.  I put the chicks under her wings.

Yesterday when I tried giving my broody chicks, I had a problem.  The chicks didn't know she was there mom, and it was warm enough in the coop that they didn't need to stay under her.  They ran around exploring instead of sitting under her like good little chicks.  I had to keep tucking the chicks under.  Eventually, everyone got the memo and this morning momma took them all off the nest to eat.  So broody is broken and operation add-a-chick was successful.

There's something white coming out of my hen's vent

aka something weird coming out of my hen's butt

I found one of my hens with something weird coming out of her vent.  It turned out to be the outside of a soft shelled egg that had broken.

I am not an expert, but here's what I did for my hen (my hen is fairly tame):

1) I gave her a warm bath for about 10 minutes (I learned later it should be closer to 20).  She liked the bath and just sat there.

1) I donned a glove and put ky jelly on a finger. I gently put the finger in my chicken's vent.  Supposedly you want to feel in and up about 2 inches.  I didn't feel anything, so I figured the egg was gone and there wasn't another one stuck.  If I had felt something, I would have given her half a tums mixed in yogurt and another warm bath.

2) I put Preperation H on the glove finger and gently rubbed it on the inside of her vent.  Straining can make things swell and hard to pass eggs.

3) I blow dried her so she wasn't wet.

4) I mixed half a tums with some yogurt and fed it to her.  Soft shell eggs are harder to pass.  I wanted to get her extra calcium so she could get some egg shells on those eggs.  I also mixed in a drop of poli-vi-sol (no iron) to get her some extra vitamin D to help with calcium uptake.  I also switched my layers off of all flock and put them on a regular layer pellet with 20% protein.

5) I stuck her in the (dry) bath tub (too lazy to get out the dog crate) for about an hour to keep an eye on her.  She seemed to be acting normal.

6) I didn't keep her separate from the flock, but now I wish I had.  It would have been easier to tell if she pooping normally.  It also would have been easier to tell if she was still laying soft shelled eggs.  (The next day, she laid another soft shelled egg in the run and all the other chickens ate it.  I really don't want my other chickens learning eggs are full of egg.)

Mama Heating Pad attempt

So on backyardchickens.com, there is a thread about using a heating pad on a frame to brood chicks instead of a heat lamp.  I wanted to try it out.  I had two chicks die on this method, one I think was sick, the other was my fault.  Here's what I learned:

1. This post was very useful: http://www.backyardchickens.com/t/956958/mama-heating-pad-in-the-brooder-picture-heavy-update/2960#post_16594470
2. The heating pad needs to be inside the frame
3. I used a scrap of hardware cloth to make the frame.
4. The back of the frame should be 2 inches and the front 4".  I ran into problems with the plastic box (don't know what it's called) that attaches the cord to the heating pad.  It's actually pretty big.  
5. I ended up with my frame 5" and 3".  This was an issue because the chicks need to be able to touch their backs to the pad while laying down.  I put a folded up hand towel inside.
6. If you take a pillow case and cut it in half horizontally, half will cover the heating pad and half can be used to cover the wire enclosure.
7. I used 3/4" wide elastic to make giant "rubber bands" to hold the pillowcase around the wire frame and heating pad.  I used bungee cords to hold the heating pad to the wire frame.

Hatching eggs from Thanksgiving Point

This February, I got chick crazy.  I was just ready to have chicks, but my incubator hatch last time wasn't very good.  I didn't want to try again with any kind of expensive or special eggs.  Fortunately, Thanksgiving Point Farm Country sells hatching eggs for $.50 each.  I got a dozen, 6 leghorn, 6 brown egg layer (later determined to be buff orpingtons), and 1 mystery bantam egg.

What I learned this hatch: I really need a better thermometer.  I tried with one of the probe meat thermometers from Wal-mart, but it just wasn't reliable enough.  It had this cool feature where it would beep at a certain temperature, so I set it to beep if the incubator got too hot.  It would decide it was hot randomly and beep while the other thermometers showed no temperature spike.

Egg turners are awesome.  I got an egg turner and had much better results than I had without it.

Results: 10 eggs went into lock down.  I had 6 chicks hatch: 2 leghorn, 3 buff orpingtons, and a mystery feather footed bantam.  One of the orpingtons hatched on day 18.  I was convinced I had run my incubator too hot and killed all the other eggs.  Fortunately, on Saturday and Sunday I had more eggs hatch.

How long after the first egg with the other eggs hatch? Well in my case, more than 24 hours.

Small prebuilt coops - reality and work arounds

We've all seen them around, those cute little chicken coops.  A covered run, easy access they promise.  How nice it would be, just buy one and put it together.  This past spring, the lure of a small prebuilt coop proved too much for me.  I wanted a bantam coop to hold two or three bantams and did not want to spend the next month or two building it like I had my big coop.  I ended up buying a new coop, very cute, already assembled from the local equivalent of craig's list.  Here's what I learned:

 Preparation

• The hardware on the prebuilt coop was not adequate.  While the nesting box had a lock, the doors didn't.  To prevent raccoons and other predators from gaining access, I added those, along with latches to keep the roof and droppings tray from being opened.  I like to use the catches from the leashes I bought from the dollar store.  They are cheap and easy to use.
• More ventilation was needed.  It had one little screened window.  I used a drill and key hole saw to cut a hole in the other side of the coop and covered it with hardware cloth to provide more ventilation.
• Updating the roosts. The roosts were lower than the egg boxes.  Moved one of the roosts up 12".
• Restaining.  I performed the water bead test on the coop.  Put a drop of water on the coop.  If it soaks in, it isn't waterproof.  I bought some stain from a local hardware store and repainted it.
• Adding additional run space.  The hens and chicks looked a little crowded, so I added some additional space by building an extension under the external egg box.  This gave them an extra 2 square feet of space.

Access

The coop I bought had four access points: a door to the run, a door to the coop, the lid to the external nesting box, and the roof that opened.  The roof that opened was not as useful as I had thought.  It was hard to reach the bottom of the coop.  There was only a single door to access the run.  This meant if a chicken went under the coop, there wasn't any good way to reach it.  I took out one of the hardware cloth panels under the coop and added another door.

Another thing I realized is to reach into the run required me to kneel down.  This meant I often ended up with little chicken presents on my pants since they like to hang out near the coop when free ranging.  This also meant while cleaning I was on my hands and knees.  I finally bought a pair of knee pads for gardening to help with this problem.

The small doors also made it difficult to access the run when wearing a heavy coat in fall and winter.  The coat kept getting me caught in the door way.

Dealing with food and water.  

Those pictures of happy chickens in these coops rarely show food or water.  I made a feeder out of 3" pvc pipe parts.  I didn't need to glue the pieces together, I just used duck tape.  I put it in the coop to keep it dry and used a wire and some eye screws to keep it from getting knocked over.

For water, I added chick nipple waterer I had purchased at the farm supply store.  

Summer turned to fall.  The temperatures started dropping below freezing.  The water started freezing.  Because I was going to need someone else to watch my chickens sometimes, the "carry out hot water" approach wasn't going to work.  

I tried two different solutions. I tried a heated dog dish.  The water didn't freeze, however, when I tried to get the bowl in or out of the coop, I often spilled it, which meant tons of wet bedding.  The second solution was a three gallon horizontal nipple waterer with a stock tank heater in it.  I was able to get it in and out without spilling, but it took up more room.

Cleaning

I did not find the slide out tray to be very useful.  The metal it was coated with made it very slippery for the chickens to walk on, so I added in pine shavings.  When I tried to get the tray out, the bedding tended to fall out into the run.  I discovered I had a small dust pan that fit right through the door, so I just used that to scoop out bedding when it needed to be changed.

The pop door

The pop door was a horizontal sliding one.  Bedding liked to get caught in the track and prevent it from closing.  I was often down on my knees picking pine shavings out of the track so the door could close completely. My plan was to put a paint stick across the doorway inside the coop to keep the bedding in.  I haven't gotten around to it.  This pop door also doesn't lock.  I decided since the run was locked, that was good enough.  I think something could be put through the push handle to lock it.

Weather

Something I quickly learned was the run was not as weather proof as I had hoped.  Because the run is only a little over two feet wide, rain and snow can blow the entire way across it.  In a light rain, it's ok and things stay reasonably dry, but add in a few gusts of wind and all the pine shavings in the run are soaked.  I found this out the hard way, culminating in me having to blow dry three shivering, snowy silkies.

Small coop as a brooder

I had two different bantams hatching eggs.  I put one in the nesting box and the other in a cardboard box in the run under the coop.  Having a broody in that nesting box was ideal.  I had easy access to her and later, her chicks.

The final transformation

With winter on us, I finally decided this small coop wasn't good for the snowy winters we get where I live.  It was great for a bantam hen and her chicks.  It was great as a grow out pen.  It did not work well as a permanent home.  I sold half my bantams and moved the rest into my other coop, until next year when I use this coop to hatch more chicks.

More hatching...and chicken math

I have shipped silkie and frizzle eggs under a bantam cochin broody set to hatch August 28.  

This is actually a convoluted story involving chicken math.  I thought my cochin and my silkie were going broody at the same time.  I wanted to see if the cochin is a good broody because my silkie's only redeeming characteristic is her maternal instinct.  If the cochin was just as good, I could rehome the silkie and get a more congenial hen.  So I thought, I'll give the cochin some eggs and have the silkie as back up.  

I couldn't find any local eggs, so I ordered some from papa's poultry.  As soon as I ordered eggs and moved the cochin out of the coop, of course the silkie decided she wasn't broody anymore.  I put the shipped eggs under the cochin, but got nervous, "what if she quits on day 16 or something", so I bought a hovabator incubator.  

Then a week later, a fellow BYCer offered me some different silkie and frizzle eggs.  "What good is an empty incubator? I have to make sure it works,"  I thought, so I put some of those eggs in the incubator with two left over which I kept around.  Three days after the incubator eggs started, my silkie went broody, so I put the last eggs under her.  

I started with 9 shipped eggs under the cochin, 2 shipped eggs (a week old by this time) and 10 local eggs in the bator, and 2 eggs under the silkie. 

After candling, I have 6 shipped eggs under the cochin, 6 local eggs in the incubator, and 2 eggs under the silkie.  I have my fingers crossed that I will end up with a few chicks.

Broody Hen Timeline

I thought it would be useful to have a timeline of my broody silkie, Fluffy, raising her chicks.

• Day 1-3 - Fluffy acting broody and sleeping in the nesting box.  Gave her two fake eggs.
• Day 4 (at night) - put Fluffy in a cardboard box in a dog kennel with two fake eggs.  She settled right in.
• Day 7 - gave her real hatching eggs

Starting the count over from when she got her eggs

• Day 1-19 - sat on eggs.  threw her off the nest once a day to run around and relieve herself.
• Day 19 - stopped taking fluffy off the nest
• Day 20 - two eggs hatched
• Day 21 - final egg hatched

Starting count over from when the first chicks hatched

• Day 1-3 - Fluffy still in hatching mode.  She did cluck to chicks.  I could hear the chicks, but saw no sign of them unless I lifted her up.
• Day 3 - Fluffy clucking to the chicks encouraging them to eat mash that I put in the nest.
• Day 4 - Fluffy took the chicks out of the nesting box to eat at the chick feeder.
• Week 2- Fluffy took the chicks out of their pen to go play outside. Chicks have about half their wing feathers and are getting tail feathers.
• Week 5 - chicks and Fluffy moved to box in run.  Protected from big chickens by plastic fence.
• Week 7 - barrier removed so chicks and big chickens can mingle.  Fluffy done caring for chicks.
• Day 52 (7 weeks 2 days) - Fluffy and chicks roosting in the coop.
• Week 11 - one chick started to crow. Rehomed
• Week 13 - chicks starting to bawk instead of peep.  Chicks mostly hang out on a high perch we put up in the run.  (The bigger chickens don't usually go up there.)

Other dates that might be useful:

2.5 weeks - age when chicks were using a ramp up to the brooder coop just fine.  They might have been able to do it sooner, but I didn't trust them before then.

Easter egger odds (chicken genetics)

A few weeks ago, I got some haching eggs to test out if my constantly broody silkie would be a good mama hen.  One of the eggs was a houdan and three of the eggs were easter eggers.  The silkie has been faithly sitting on the eggs for 18 days now (fingers crossed).  To distract myself from the waiting, I had to ask: what are the odds a chick (assuming a hen) would also lay a colored egg?  

There are several different egg color genes, the wild white color, a blue color (dominate to white), a brown egg color (which is controlled by several genes), and  a pink egg color.  A dominate gene means if that gene is present, you can't tell the other gene is there (it is not expressed).  A co-dominate gene means both genes will show (be expressed).  The blue and brown are both dominate to white, but co-dominate to each other.  If a hen has a white gene and a blue gene, she will lay blue eggs.  If a hen has a white gene and brown gene, she will lay a brown egg.  If a hen has a blue gene and a brown gene, she will lay an olive colored egg (blue and brown combined).  This is because blue is the color of the egg shell, but brown is an overlay to the egg shell.  A person can scrub the brown off an egg, but the blue eggs are blue even on the inside of the shell.

The most likely scenario is the rooster has at least one copy of the blue gene and the hen definitely has at least one copy (she laid a colored egg).  So, if each had a copy of the blue gene and a copy of the white gene, 25% of their chicks would lay white eggs and 75% would lay a colored egg.  So if there were four chicks, three would lay blue eggs and one would lay white eggs.  (Keep in mind this isn't strictly true.  If a person hatched hundreds of eggs, then these numbers would be right, but for small numbers of eggs like 3 or 4, a person could have all white eggs or all blue, who knows.)

The best case senario is that either the rooster or the hen has two blue genes.  In that case, 100% of the chicks would lay blue eggs.

Worst case is the rooster had two copies of the white gene and the hen had one copy of the white gene and one copy of the blue gene.  At that point, 50% would lay white eggs and 50% would lay blue eggs.

Now an interesting thought is what if the rooster had a copy of the brown egg gene?  If the rooster had two copies of the brown egg gene and the hen 2 copies of the blue egg gene, then all would be olive eggers.  If the rooster had one copy of the brown gene and one copy of the white gene and the hen had one copy of the blue gene and one copy of the white gene, then 25% would lay white eggs, 25% would lay blue eggs, 25% would lay brown eggs, and 25% would lay olive colored eggs.  So, 50% of the chicks would lay a cool colored egg of some kind. 

Resources:

http://sellers.kippenjungle.nl/page2.html

http://www.utilitypoultry.co.uk/eggcolour.shtml

Trying a broody

Fluffy, the silkie, went broody again.  This will make the third time she's been broody since October.  My curiosity got the best of me and I wanted to find out if she would hatch eggs.  I've never done this before, here's what I've done so far:

1. Make sure she was really broody.  I've read that the hen should sleep on the nesting box for three nights in a row to prove she is broody.  Some other signs are sitting in the egg box and making a ticking noise when she's let out in the yard, then running back to her nest.  She also might pull the feathers off her chest.
2. Prepare her space.  There is a lot of debate about whether you should move a broody.  I don't have room in my coop and she was keeping other hens out of the nesting box.  I got a 3 ft x 2 ft dog crate for her to be in and put it in the shed.  I cut a hole in a small sized moving box from Lowes and filled it with pine shavings.  The small sized box seems to be just right for a bantam broody.  I cut a little hole in the box to fit the nipple from her horizontal waterer, so she could get water. I also put some of her fermented feed in the lid from a nutella jar and sprinkle scratch on top.
3. Move the broody.  After it was dark, I lifted her out of the nesting box and put her in the box I had prepared.  Then I put the box in the kennel in the shed.  I also put 2 wooden eggs in the box for her to sit on.  I figured the sooner I moved her the better.  That way, if she broke, she wouldn't have been sitting on real eggs.
4. Find hatching eggs.  This was way harder than I had thought.  I wanted to time her hatch date to coincide with the days that my local farm store gets chicks, so I could see if she'd adopt a chick.  This meant I had a few days to find eggs.  But people don't return calls very quickly.  My first and second sources of eggs ended up not working out, but I found someone who was advertising on KSL classifieds near me that had some.  I only need four eggs, so I was able to get some that day.
5. Give her the hatching eggs.  I let the eggs I got sit large side up in an egg carton overnight. I debated whether to wash them or not (some were kind of dirty), but decided not too since the bottom of a chicken isn't that clean either.  Since my kids wanted to help, I let each of them set an egg next to Fluffy (one at a time).  I'd close the door to the shed and when I opened it again, the egg would be gone, tucked safely underneath.
6. Throw the broody off the nest once a day.  Fluffy is one of those chickens who will not get off the nest on her own.  Once I realized this, I put water and food in the nest with her.  Once a day, I take her off the nest and let her run around outside.  Before I pick her up, I carefully spread her wings a little.  She likes to keep eggs under there.  Then I pull her out of the box and set her down outside and give her a little nudge to get her to stand up.  She runs around for about 20 minutes, poops, then goes back to her eggs.  The first few days, she went back to the nesting box where the eggs had been, but now she goes back to her new nest.
7. Wait.  This is the part I'm currently on.  I plan to candle the eggs at 8 days and maybe 14 ( to check for bad eggs).  The eggs should hatch sometime between 20-23 days.

Putting down a chicken

Holly, the hen, had been fading all winter.  Her comb turned pale.  I tried worming her.  I checked her for parasites.  I had a fecal float test done.  Nothing.

I began to suspect she had internal problems.  She was our little chick that wouldn't grow and, at 9 months old, had never laid.  Eventually she couldn't stand up.  It was time to put her out of her misery.

The method I eventually chose was to use a killing cone and a sharp knife.  A killing cone is a metal cone that restrains a chicken so that it can be killed.  Since it was Sunday and I didn't want to go to the store, I made a cone out of a cardboard box.  (One time use only).  I clamped a piece of 2x4 to a ladder to suspend the killing cone from.  I put a large garbage can with a trash bag in it under the killing cone.  I put her in.  I think she expired right then.  To make sure she was dead, I cut her veins like you would for a meat chicken.  I used a kitchen knife, but I learned it wasn't really sharp enough.  Next time I'll use a filleting knife or a box cutter.  Then I disposed of her body appropriately.

It was stressful, but I was glad she was out of her misery.

Thoughts on breeds - the current flock

I realized that I've had my chickens for almost a year now.  I thought I'd share what I thought about the breeds I have chosen.

Gold Sex-link - Amazing hen.  We've gotten a medium / large brown egg from her every day (except 2) since she started to lay.  She is friendly and even tempered.

Barred Rock - Curious and bossy.  She's larger than the others.  She lays a large / extra large light tan egg.  She layed through the winter just fine.  She lays about 4 times a week.

Silkie - She lays really well for about a month, then goes broody.  She even layed in the winter.  Oddly enough, she's top hen.  She's gone broody 3 times since October.  It takes about 5 days to break her.  I just gave up on her and got her some eggs to hatch.  If she'll hatch eggs and adopt chicks, then she'll be earning her keep.

Bantam Cochin - She didn't lay the entire winter.  She's started laying again.  She went broody once, but was easy to break. She'll also sit on my lap.

I had one chicken die, she just sort of faded over the winter.  She never laid, so I think there was something wrong internally.  She was sold to us as a sex link, but I think she was actually a wellsummer.

So, do I like my hens?  Yes.  I'm happy with all of them.

As I gradually replace hens in my flock, I'd get another gold sexlink.  I wouldn't get the barred rock or the bantams again.  The barred rock is big.  The cochin bantam doesn't lay very consistently, but her eggs are adorable.  I like her, but can't decide if I'd ever get another one.  The not laying all winter put her on my naughty list.  For the silkie, the jury is still out.  She lays, but her broodiness is a little annoying.

I might be getting an easter egger to replace the chicken who died.  We'll see how that goes.

Dogs, Chickens, and the vet

Thursday my sister, her husband, and her dog came over.  My brother-in-law wanted to let the dog out.  I knew the chickens were locked up, so I said sure.  The dog made a bee line for the chickens.  I knew the dog couldn't get the chickens, the dog knew, but the chickens had missed the memo.  They reacted as any bird would, jumping into flight.  However, in their enclosed run, they hit the hardware cloth.  I had three bleeding chickens and a sick heart.

I cleaned off the blood with wet q-tips and put the triple antibiotic cream on their wounds.  Two had cut themselves right above the beak at the base of the comb.  Betsy the barred rock wasn't so lucky.  She had chipped the end off of her beak and was bleeding at the top of her beak.  But she seemed OK.  The next evening, her beak started bleeding again after she pecked at some hardboiled egg I had given them. 

I decided to take her to Creekside Animal hospital.  I don't know enough about chickens to know if it was serious or not.  It was Saturday and they were closed Sunday and Monday (for Labor Day).  I packed Betsy up in a Lowes medium sized moving box with bedding in the bottom.  $80 later, I had a chicken with a fixed beak.  We worked out that she must be worth about $18 a pound.

I don't regret taking her to the vet although I do wish I had asked some of my neighbors who had chickens, because I think at least one of them has fixed something like that before. 

On the way there, my little four-year-old prayed that "Betsy wouldn't die and she wouldn't get eaten."  After that, how could we not pay :)

Nesting box woes

Sunny, my gold sexlink, started laying about a week ago.  Her first egg was in the middle of the run.  Hurray, I thought, I have an egg.  

The second egg was layed in the corner of the coop, by the nesting box.  

I put an empty ice cream bucket in the corner to discourage her from laying there.  She layed in the other, far away corner.  I put the ice cream bucket in that corner.  Then I did some nesting box renovation.  I put a lip across the front of the nesting box and filled it with several inches of pine shavings.  I put a fake wooden egg in it.

The next day, success.  An egg sitting right next to the wooden one.

First egg

I got my first egg about a week ago.  Sunny, a 17-week-old gold sexlink laid her first egg.  She's layed an egg a day for the past week.