Keeping hens and ducks chat.

edwink

Not a late April Fools joke honest. Cayuga ducks are black and they can and do lay black eggs although sometimes the are grey, white and grey, white and black. It is just slightly larger than the average hens egg.





Edwink

Cheery_Daff

Ooh, that's unusual Edwink, how exciting! :j

Stopped and bought some eggs from a box by the side of the road this morning, just round the corner from us. Feels like the first step towards our own chickens :rotfl:

edwink

Edwink

edwink

We have 3 of these feeding troughs for them now. We just remove one or two of them when our numbers go down and put them back in again when we rehome more girls.


And yes that is a Cockapoo on the right hand side of the picture in the chicken coop with me and my hens. She doesn't take any notice of them at all and they just ignore her.


Edwink

Pyxis

Well at least your dog is part fowl! The name, anyhow! :rotfl:

edwink

Pyxis wrote: »

Well at least your dog is part fowl! The name, anyhow! :rotfl:

Sadly not our dog Pyxis as she belongs to a friend of ours. We look after her when our friend goes away a number of times throughout the year.

Would love to get a dog of our own but the cost of keeping one worries us especially the insurance these days. We have owned 2 recue Boxer dogs, not at the same time, which thankfully were insured. I put in medical claims worth just over 5K for both of them. One of them had a stroke and the other very bad knee problem, tumours then heart problems. It seemed a never ending visit to the vets for us. I think we will get one later down the line but really not sure when:)

Looks as though the weather is going to get warmer and cheer up here towards the weekend:dance:. Hoorah!! Getting a bit fed up with all this rain.

Edwink

dizzybee

well was going to make a start on the shed, but the heavens opened, so only got the base done, hope its better tomorrow, i have signed up with fresh start for hens for two hens, rehoming day is in may, so will be up loading some photos of my girls,
just a few questions i know they eat pellets and veg, what other food do i need to buy, and is it hay for the floor.

edwink

dizzybee wrote: »

well was going to make a start on the shed, but the heavens opened, so only got the base done, hope its better tomorrow, i have signed up with fresh start for hens for two hens, rehoming day is in may, so will be up loading some photos of my girls,
just a few questions i know they eat pellets and veg, what other food do i need to buy, and is it hay for the floor.

Hi dizzybee

I posted a picture earlier for you of the feeding trough we made. Really quite simple and so easy to make. Glad you have the guttering for yours.

Its great you now have your rehoming day sometime in May. That's not that far away is it? How exciting for you.

Layers pellets should be the main bulk of their food. You can also give them greens, cabbage, lettuce and that sort of food, No need to chop it all up as they should be able to just peck away at it throughout the day as this will help keep them active. They love cooked potato peelings too. Food like sweetcorn could be hung from their enclosure roof and just dangle there for when they fancy some. Mind you sweetcorn never lasts long with my girls. Do not give them anything like crisps and salty products like that as they are dangerous for them and they could die. A little piece of bread for a treat now and again is fine or a little left over mash potato. In cold weather make sure you have some porridge for them as it will help to keep them warm but do not whatever you do give them porridge in the Summer as this could make them overheat.

Bedding wise definitely not hay as although it is nice and soft for their fluffy bottoms it is just so dusty for them so should be avoided if you can. Straw is better and much cheaper than hay or you could get something like Unibedding which is bagged straw shavings which they can make lovely little nests with to lay their eggs in. Around here it is about £11 for a HUGE compressed bag and it goes such a long way. For 2 hens unibedding or similar will last you months and months it really will.

You may like to get something like a metal dustbin, ask if anyone has one going for free on Freecycle if you belong to a group where you live. Keeping their feed in a metal dustbin will not only will it keep it dry it will also stop any rats and mice getting to the feed. Always best to keep the metal dustbin in a dry shed along with their bedding for example.

Worming wise you can buy poultry pellets with the worming product in it or you can buy a separate worming product for them. We give ours Verm-X pellets as it is easy to use as you just add the required amount with the provided scoop to their normal mornings feed. We normally worm our girls every 3 months or so but some worm their girls every month. There are a lot of worming products on the market but with most you must withdraw the eggs for a while once the hens have been treated but with Verm-X you can continue to eat the eggs.

Hope that is of help to you. Any further questions please just ask.

Edwink

dizzybee

wow thank you, have made a shopping list, we have a good pet shop that sells every thing so will drop me list of nearer the time and get them to deliver, looking a lot dryer to day so just waiting for my son to come over to help with shed, going to make the feeding trough whilst i am waiting, got some logs yesterday day to put them on and make some perches,
will look at free cycle,facebook for metal dustbins, if not can get them from work,
just got the day through for rehoming 19th may, so getting excited.

suki1964

Dizzy, try a farm supply shop if you are anywhere near the country, pet shops are so expensive

I just spent £14 on corn and pellets. Both 25kg bags, the corn will last most of the year, the pellets 2 weeks

I also use dust free shavings for in the coop. A compressed bag lasts about six full cleans ( Ive a dozen hens at the moment , usually more) and for the run I go to the saw mill and get two builder ton bags of scalpings ( the shavings of the trees) for £8. They are fantastic as when they are nice and dry and fresh the hens love digging around them looking for grubs, then as they get wetter, they just mulch into the ground

My hens eat nearly anything/ We don't give any of the onion family and they aren't keen on carrots, but everything else is just gobbled up. I boil up the potato peelings along with the cauliflower stalks and rough cabbage leaves and they love it. They also get the plate scrapings - roast chicken as well. If I crack an egg - they get it back scrambled. Oh and they go batty for spaghetti and pasta. Bread, cheese, ham, cat food, they gobble it all up. And I hope you aren't squeamish as they are pretty partial to mice

This coming week they get to go into the vegetable plot to dig it up before we start to plant out. The ducks are very helpful with this job as they dig out slug and snail eggs which helps to keep the pests at bay

The 19th will soon be here