CHICKENS

[Maelstrom]

I have never had any Silver Spangled Hamburgs, but
the name is memorable and the write up in the catalog
[Mc Murray]makes them sound perky/pleasant to look at.

http://www.mypetchicken.com/chicken-breeds/Hamburg-B48.aspx
http://www.hobbyfarms.com/farm-breeds/poultry-profiles/hamburg-chicken-2.aspx

Hey tree ,the description of them having dark bones is most puzzling, it is a silky trait but I have silkies and there was no sign of ever laying I wonder what the other breed is in them?

 

[tree]

The Hamburg was developed by the Dutch.
Maybe they did some trade with the orient to get
some dark boned chickens.

I don't know.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamburg_chicken
http://www.cacklehatchery.com/silspangledhamburgpage.html
https://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/silver_spangled_hamburgs.html
http://ps.oxfordjournals.org/content/87/1/160.full

 

[Mia]

So 'broody' is the desire to incubate eggs? Does this last for an extended period of time? Is the final result the hatching of offspring? What if none hatch?

 

[tree]

So 'broody' is the desire to incubate eggs? Does this last for an extended period of time? Is the final result the hatching of offspring? What if none hatch?

Yes, 'broody' is similar to 'in heat' [mammals, like goats, cattle etc].
Broodiness more likely to occur in the spring and the fall, when the length of
daylight is similar to the spring.

It depends on the hen how long the broody period lasts.
Some are very feeble and give it up after a week & a half.
Others will go 6 weeks---which is excessive, since it takes
a chicken egg approximately 21 days to hatch.

A neat thing about the "21" days is that it is not absolute.
The hen lays an egg one day, another the next, and so on....
& the chicks hatch within 3 days of each other, not all on the same
day. After that, the hen will leave the nest to go forage with
her chicks.

Any eggs left won't hatch.

If no eggs hatch, she might keep sitting on them for another
3 weeks. Or less. Or she might give it up on her own.

 

[Maelstrom]

I just stick a golf ball in the chicken nest so my chickens don't go laying eggs in the weeds. My silky hen tries to hatch the golf ball sometimes, I just let her do it until she gets bored and quits. I tried the chicken jail thing once to break the broody cycle but the chicken got so hungry it tried to eat a brick in the watering dish and bent its beak, so I don't do that anymore.
I have hatched a couple of batches of eggs with hens, put little saucers of food and water near the hen to keep her well so she doesn't leave the nest too much, sometimes a little chopped clover too.

My new chickens are doing quite well I got 6 eggs out of 6 hens today...these breads are listed as being worse than the more commercial ones but the egg rate is almost as good so far and they eat allot less $.
The Americanas seem to eat even less than the rocks, I think I'm coming out ahead so far on the cost per egg front.
One of the green egg hens is funny she will bounce up to me puffed up a little like she wants to peck me and she pretends to run away from me when I reach down to pet her, but she runs away just slow enough to get petted a little.
Some people seem to play that game in life too....

I should get me a hamburg and breed me some super rocks and Americanas. Green and brown eggs look nice in the egg carton.

 

[Maelstrom]

I'm going to have to research those Hamburgs some more I'm not sure which version is the closest to the original egg layer, I don't want any dirtied up feather breed....feather breeds should stay separate...just like pigmy meat goats should not be bred with nigerian dwarf milk goats....not good for the farmer.

 

[Maelstrom]

5 eggs today wasn't expecting any because I got 6 yesterday that is pretty good for just 6 class 3 egg hens maybe the chicken charts need updating? I suppose I may lose a little in the spring to broodiness but this looks good for me! green eggs with brown eggs and no ham .......

 

[tree]

Recently I have seen people saying to not feed
onions to chickens. I haven't noticed that they
were particularly interested by onions or harmed
by them, either.

Some ideas for treats for 'pet' chickens.
And a couple myths regarding foods.

http://www.the-chicken-chick.com/2013/06/5-healthy-treats-for-chickens-and-3.html

 

[Maelstrom]

Recently I have seen people saying to not feed
onions to chickens. I haven't noticed that they
were particularly interested by onions or harmed
by them, either.

Some ideas for treats for 'pet' chickens.
And a couple myths regarding foods.

http://www.the-chicken-chick.com/2013/06/5-healthy-treats-for-chickens-and-3.html

I aggree with you tree , I have fed massive amounts of onion tops to my chickens with no visible harm, it seemed to help suppress stomach troubles, But Garlic seems to help stop thrush from killing my chickens even better I smash the garlic and put in their water or chop it into their mash. Garlic is easy to grow if you keep a nice row growing all the time let it winter over and snap the tops in the spring. I feed my chickens clover, swisschard leaves, bolted lettuce, leftover fruit from the orchard, and they get a mixture 2 to 1 mash every morning with a little oyster shell and egg shell mixed in, (2 cups of pellets with some water and just enough grain for every chicken to get some without getting fat about one cup of grain). Mornings only fat chickens stop laying...they have grass and clover and hard pellets to eat when they like but they don't like the pellets enough to get fat.
If a person doesn't have room to pasture their chickens I recommend growing some rows of well fertilized swisschard and breaking off a leaf or 2 for each chicken every day, it makes nice orange healthy egg yokes.

some moderation on the onions and garlic may be wise. I was at the time losing my flock to thrush I saved only one chicken but I did seem to stop it from dying by putting crushed garlic in the water spreading the garlic oil around on the chicken enough so the thrush, (a toxic mold), didn't come back.
The store medicine didn't seem too cure long term and seemed to cause fatal egg factory blockages...not good. Some of my chickens basically exploded.

 

[tree]

It seems implausible, but some people don't realize that a good
quality egg has a tall yoke, deeply colored.

Not 'New York City' people.
Just ordinary rural, small town kids
I went to high school with, for instance.
One girl said that if the yolk was very pale,
that meant it was a really good egg. o_o

Which reminds me of the fairy tale, when the servants
test the new wife. When she asks for a fresh egg, they
bring her one the hen has been sitting on for 2 weeks.

She sees how shiny & polished it is and says, No---I
must have a FRESH egg. So they realize, ahhhh...she
is not a fool after all. They respect her knowledge from
then on and co-operate with her.

 

[wyverary]

I have an ex (from high school...we are on very good terms) who is obsessed with chickens.

I see chickens all the time, and know a lot of people who keep chickens, being in a rural area and all... More than once I have had to swerve to avoid hitting them with my car! (You can make any "why did the chicken cross the road?" joke you like, heh) I don't like them, myself...they are smelly and I don't like eggs.

 

[Maelstrom]

I have an ex (from high school...we are on very good terms) who is obsessed with chickens.

I see chickens all the time, and know a lot of people who keep chickens, being in a rural area and all... More than once I have had to swerve to avoid hitting them with my car! (You can make any "why did the chicken cross the road?" joke you like, heh) I don't like them, myself...they are smelly and I don't like eggs.

Eggs are high in protein if you eat them for breakfast you get less hungry the rest of the day and get less fat.... well at least that is my excuse...I also don't eat meat so getting enough protein matters more.

Why did the chicken cross the road?...because Wyverary was chasing it with his car.............

 

[zurb]

My mother always said she liked the bantam eggs for baking due to their darker orange colour. I understand though that its not that they were bantams, but that they got a richer more varied diet than factory hens.

 

[Elemental]

Recently I have seen people saying to not feed
onions to chickens.

This is because the smell & taste of the digested onion can taint an egg's flavor

I only killed a chicken once & that was after I'd accidentally shut it in a gate. I was leaving the chicken run after feeding the birds & as I slammed the gate behind me I heard a noise & saw this hen flapping about by the gatepost.

I immediately realized what I'd done, trapped her as I slammed the gate behind me without looking. I thought she must be so mortally wounded that I'd have to cull her & quick.

I couldn't bear the thought of trying to wring ithe neck so I picked her up in my arms & ran to a water butt & held her under the water. The only air that came out was it's lungs emptying; it never took a breath, it likely died instantly when the gate struck.

The only reason* that particular Warren had ran towards me, ignoring the feed that the others were eating was that she had recently been ill that Xmas & I had nursed her back from near death indoors over the holidays.

*possibly

 

[tree]

Elemental
That's true.
What the chickens eat does affect the flavor of the egg.

At one point I had too much milk to deal with and I was
giving sour milk to the chickens. When cooked, the eggs
did smell like and have a flavor of, sour milk.

That is a sad story about the hen in the gate.

The reason I had read, about not feeding onions to chickens,
was that it would kill them, though. Not the concept that food
eaten affects the flavor of the eggs/flesh.

 

[Maelstrom]

This is because the smell & taste of the digested onion can taint an egg's flavor

I only killed a chicken once & that was after I'd accidentally shut it in a gate. I was leaving the chicken run after feeding the birds & as I slammed the gate behind me I heard a noise & saw this hen flapping about by the gatepost.

I immediately realized what I'd done, trapped her as I slammed the gate behind me without looking. I thought she must be so mortally wounded that I'd have to cull her & quick.

I couldn't bear the thought of trying to wring ithe neck so I picked her up in my arms & ran to a water butt & held her under the water. The only air that came out was it's lungs emptying; it never took a breath, it likely died instantly when the gate struck.

The only reason* that particular Warren had ran towards me, ignoring the feed that the others were eating was that she had recently been ill that Xmas & I had nursed her back from near death indoors over the holidays.

*possibly

I'm too tender hearted to kill my chickens....if they get sick I hand feed them until they get better or decide it is time to go. My silky hen still runs around happily she is pretty old and almost died twice but is still having a good time cheating death...a proper chip off the old block.

 

[Elemental]

I'm too tender hearted to kill my chickens....if they get sick I hand feed them until they get better or decide it is time to go. My silky hen still runs around happily she is pretty old and almost died twice but is still having a good time cheating death...a proper chip off the old block.

I had some Silkies; as you likely know, they go broody at the drop of a hat so are great for hatching clutches of eggs. I also had a white bantam Silky cockerel called Spartacus who had to go live on a farm up the mountain - genuinely, not that kiddy-friendly euphemistic one - as he was waaaaaaaaaaaayyyy to vigorous with my hens & him being small, they couldn't shake him off & they were losing feathers ugh!

 

[tree]

Many frizzles:
https://www.google.com/search?q=fri...EwjB0N7E6IjJAhUKPiYKHaNWD5U&biw=1920&bih=1006

One frizzle....

 

[Cosmophylla]

My mother always said she liked the bantam eggs for baking due to their darker orange colour. I understand though that its not that they were bantams, but that they got a richer more varied diet than factory hens.

Also the eggs have less white to them, so they give that strong yolk flavour.

 

[Cosmophylla]

We just bought a few 7-week-old chicks from our neighbour. Finally getting back into keeping chooks after a break of a few years. We now have two cats as well and they haven't seen the chicks yet... It'll be interesting to see what happens.

The chickies are a total mixture of breeds...they have silkie and ISA brown and I don't know what else. A couple have fluffy legs and they're all still feathering.

We really want Australorps but they are so popular here (it is Australia, and they are Australian birds ) it's hard to get your hands on them. But they are so lovely to look at, big and black and mysterious.