i've decided to host a hatching egg swap for spring here is the link with details. i hope you will join me and have fun hatching!!
silkie
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/814323/
hatching egg swap!!
If you do this next year I will join, Just starting out with my chickies. Next year if all goes well I will have Sultans...
congrats that is awesome!! i love sultans!! welcome to the poultry world u will very much love and enjoy it!!
well i was hopeing for it to be a twice a year swap for us poultry fanciers if this one goes well but so far no one has joined yet. there is swaps for everything else under the sun and shipping eggs is less hard on transit than shipping live chicks and way cheaper and i know lots of us will be ordering spring peeps soon. it is so much fun and rewarding to hatch peeps yourself and we can share our babies with others as well as get some new things we want to add mabe we couldn't before.
so come on and have some fun with me even if we only have a few people we can still do it!! i'll add a pic of my silkies for ya all so u can se the breeders mabe that will help get ya motavated,lol.
thanks,
silkie
I have seen some pics of your babys, they are beautiful!!!
Great idea !!!
I've got chicks in the brooder, eggs in the bator , and have signed up for a couple swaps elsewhere. Come on spring!!!
Here is lil guy I hatched a couple weeks ago...
He is the result of a Blue Orpington Roo over a Buff Orpington hen.
Julie =0)
This message was edited Feb 17, 2008 3:46 PM
I would do it in a second, silkiechick, I just don't have any eggs. Maybe next year, if I can sneak in a rooster. I think it is a wonderful idea.
What a wonderful idea.
Hopefully we will sell this house soon and move to our SC home so I can get a few. Once I do, you can count me in also.
Love that pic
thanks. i got 2 ban frizzle cochins in the brooder. about 1.5 dz to go in the hatcher in 2 days those are silkies and seramas i got shipped in and still 40+ eggs in the sportsman from mine. i just got in 24 rir, silkies and orps today. it will be peep central here soon,lol. he is so pretty i wanna see pics when he grows i've never seen one like him!!! way to cute i wonder what color he will be when growing up?
hmm. quietest roo i know of is a serama,lol. they r so we little and cute, when our eggs hatch it will be our first for this breed. i can't wait!! hopefully we can do this at least once a year i think it would be awesome and loads of fun!! mabe next swap i host we can do a chicken theme so those who can't do this one can still partake in a chicken swap. mabe have it so we exchange chicken items like magnets, towels, trinkets or something like that.
awe i hope u can move to where u can enjoy some, we couldn't for so long. i got a big flock and honestly i love them they are all my kid's couldn't imagine life without them now, we will always have them.
Silkie, do you allow yours to free range or are they in a fenced yard attached to their housing?
they are in 4 in 1 breeder pens/coops. each houseing unit is one big coop divided into 4 seperate coops. attached to them is a huge run divided into 4 runs one for each coop. they sit some 3ft off the ground some 4ft due to the creek that runs behind incase of flooding. they are too close to a main highway and woods with to many preditors so they have to be confined unless we are in the yard with them where we can play and watch them. other than winter mths for warmth since they are unheated everyone is seperated by breed/color unless babies in the grow out pens.
i'll see if i can post some pics of some of them so u see what i mean. we usually store buckets of feed and bedding under the coops. when we need to clean them ya pull up a garbage can drop the drop doors on front of coops after you chase them in the runs and ya can scoop everything out in the can from the back doors. so much easier to clean,lol.
this one is part of a back shot of one there is 4 coops but only 3 are showing. the one with the door open has babies in it. was hot that day so we put screen up and left the brooder light off too keep them cool. wow that look crooked,lol but in person it's not they must of fixed that,lol. this is the first one we built.
this is a front shot of same unit. each pen front has half fencing and half wood door or fence door. this shot shows most of 2 pens in the middle.
this one is my newest one it is not finished in the pic. built same but better. the silkies have a double sided coop with divider and double run since i have more of them. the other side is 2 singles seperated.
this one is built a little different i don't have pics of front. it's built the same but smaller for smaller bantams. it's a 5 in 1. 4 on top like the others but the bottom under neath stead of storage it is the standard turken pen. it has a pair in it. the others i don't have pics of they were built after these pics where taken before i got my new cam since my kid's broke my first one,lol. i forgot some are 4 in 1 ground ones too for the standards but most are like these ones.
silkie
Thanks so much for the pictures. They all looks so comfy. How do they keep from getting there tiny little legs from falling through the bottom of the elevated yard pens?
This is a great site! Just found it. Can anyone give me info on how to get my hens to start laying? I have black sexlings, one year old (bought chicks last spring) they have quit laying, only have 5 with 1 rooster. Hope some of them will sit a nest this spring, but they have to have some eggs to do that. Just bummed that I am buying layer pellets but getting no eggs.
Thanks for any suggestions.
your welcome, they are on harware cloth (it has small spaceing between wire)and braced with boards accross at about 3rds for added support of weight.
when i start my girls i make nest boxes and put golf balls in or plastic easter eggs filled with sand or dirt and superglued shut. if they kick em out keep putting them back in and set them in there with it. some learn it quick others take forever. i still have a pullet lays in the feed pan,lol. i think she is the only one still out of box till spring pullets start to lay.
I did the same thing, Silkie, using plastic easter eggs. With this flock, I haven't had any trouble with them using the nesting boxes. The last ones used to lay under the boxes, in the corner (they made a nest there), out in the woods, and after we got them confined to the run, out on the bare ground.
Just goes to show you, they don't call them bird-brains for nothing.