where have you all gone????

[thesockmonsterofdoom]

the chicken keepers is getting a bit less active at the moment, missing everyone, I just want to talk about chooks, where are you????

My ex batts are doing great and have started to grow some feathers, mixing with the big girls is not going so well and I think we will end up buying them their own coop.

am up to 6 eggs a day from 9 chooks, so definalty getting there, spring is here, cant wait to see if my grass ever recovers.

Ding a wish list for next year, so far have cream legbars (from babies as they are autosexing), wyandottes thats it, what do you fancy getting next?

Anyway enough mad talking to myself.

We have three at the moment (two Speckledys and a Bluebelle) in a large ark with run extension although a lot of the time they free range in the garden ,we are thinking of getting a couple of pekin bantams I'm just a bit worried that the Speckledys will bully them ...what do you think?

We thought that we would put them in a borrowed small ark to start with ,someone suggested pupping food around the base so that the others peck at it and realise that the newbies won't take their food .We can't put the new ones inside the others run as its just not big enough.

Do you think we stand any chance of getting them all into the original house eventually?

Sorry putting food not pupping!

floaty, we have 3 big hybrids with two partridge pekin bantams.. slow introductions definately needed, but they all cohabit very happily now

i must confess, when this chicken keeping topic started i was excited - but someone on here mentioned omlet and since investigating i have largely defected to their chicken keeping/gardening website nowadays

in my defence, now the dc's are older a lot of the topics on mumsnet seem to be from a different planet!

I have a similar name on there, ladyship, maybe we've met already on threads!

Herladyship,I know what you mean i have the same problem ,am also on the omlet forum although we don't have an eglu.

Well we have taken the plunge and putdown a deposit on two pekins,he is holding them until I get a separate house sorted out.We got our original house from him but they are soooo expenssive.Would a small ark be OK to start the pekins off in?do yours all sllep together as well as free range?

I've got an arucana, she's a lovely bird, but quite flighty, will happily sit on my lap for a stroke once she's let me catch her, haven't had any eggs from her yet though as she's only POL, also have a POL Speckled maran and Black rock, got a light sussex too but she's laying really well, just can't wait until the others start laying too! We did get 4 very different birds who should all lay very different eggs so we can tell whos laying when. Dd (3) also has a thing about blue eggs since we got some from the farmers markets. We may get a cotswold legbar too soon to increase the bluey egg production!

yes floaty, my pekins & big girls live together in a wooden coop and walk in run.. i am sure your new little ones would be fine in an ark, especially near to your other hens so they can eyeball one another without bloodshed!

bramblebooks i am 'chickens@61' on omlet (a reference to our address NOT to my age, ) will dfinately say hi if we 'meet'

Many thanks,we will go down that route,am quite excited we are having a lavender and a buff....my only brown hen,how do you find the eggs are they very much smaller than LF,my speckledys lay quite small eggs although the bluebelle's eggs have been quite large recently.

I am Florence on Omlet by the way,lurk more than post though as don't have an eglu

By the way,Dh asks how long did it take for you to get them all in together

Bear in mind that a hen's eggs will be smaller in her first year of laying - the older she is, the bigger (but less prolific) her eggs will be

That's all of my girls back in lay. I've had ONE egg from my new leghorn who we've had for a month, she better pull the finger out or I'll make stew out of her! One of my hens has been crowing though .

my lot eyeballed each other for about 10 days before moving in peacefully together..

our pekins are sisters, one lays quite large eggs (for a bantam)that are creamy brown coloured and the other lays china white eggs that are virtually round and TINY.. there seems to be no logic in this, but at least we know who is pulling their weight in the laying department as we can tell which eggs belong to which chicken!

Scrap? I missed a scrap.
The only scraps about chickens I normaly come across are between eglu lovers and haters.