Have you ever considered giving up on being SS?...Spoke too soon???

[old fashioned]

Okay, so life has been tough around here for the last couple of years for one reason or another. BUT there is some hope yet.

As in 'Little Bit' hen. She's been sitting on her hideaway nest since late Friday. :bun YAY we got us a broody..........Now if only those eggs are fertile and hatch There are about 10 eggs under her. I don't expect all of them to hatch, but even if only a few do-it would be AWESOME

 

[dragonlaurel]

I hope she ends up being a great Mama hen!

 

[Denim Deb]

Okay, so life has been tough around here for the last couple of years for one reason or another. BUT there is some hope yet.

As in 'Little Bit' hen. She's been sitting on her hideaway nest since late Friday. :bun YAY we got us a broody..........Now if only those eggs are fertile and hatch There are about 10 eggs under her. I don't expect all of them to hatch, but even if only a few do-it would be AWESOME

I know that feeling! Penny is sitting on about 2 dozen in her hideaway!

 

[old fashioned]

Me too! That is, if she'll stay on them. Now we've got to figure out what to do in THAT situation given our fence has plenty of holes in it for chicks to escape without Mama and I worry about the other chickens going after them too. Right now I don't want to mess with her or the eggs, but IF & when they hatch I'll need to move them to a safe pen. We do still have the old 'rabbit hutch'. It's not very big & doesn't give them much room (4' long x 3' high x 2' wide) but it might work for a little while. Maybe we'll build something a little bigger so we don't have to move them too much.

*going to check out those brooder threads for ideas*

 

[Denim Deb]

Yep, that's my problem too. I didn't want a bunch of chicks out at the farm until I got something better. I have 2 weeks to come up w/something!

 

[old fashioned]

Yeah!! I hope we both get babies!!! and yea, I hear that clock tickin away :/

 

[rhoda_bruce]

Yeah, my girls got the fever too. I have 4 broodies on clutches of eggs here and today one more decided to join the brigade, but I'm giving her a few days to make sure she is serious. I really wouldn't be interested in more chickens, but the girls are mainly working on duck and guinea eggs for me and a few araucana eggs, because I need more meat and I want a few chicks to improve my flock....some of my birds have tails and I really have very few tufts, so I am going for it.
All of my brooders are full, but I recently emptied 3 tractors and I'm about to empty one more big one, so I can probably rotate the older things to tractors later. And then rotate to the freezer, I guess.
Well I have 8 guinea eggs and I guess the new broody gets it if she is serious.
One thing I hate: My family members either don't understand how to check under the broodies when I'm not around or they don't care for holding a full grown hen in their arms and don't see the importance of picking up the fresh eggs in a timely manner. I have told them and told them that it would embarrass me greatly to be informed that their was spider veins in the eggs I sell and that they have to bring the unmarked eggs in the house every afternoon. I therefore don't trust the family enough and have pretty much assumed responsibility for the broodies almost completely.
Don't know about ya'll,, but I'm wearing rubber boots lately and my coop and barn is a mush. I still wouldn't consider giving up SS, but at this point, I could do with a little less mud and mess. And the slaughtering I am planning: Well, I hate killing and cleaning filthy roos. They been walking around in mud.....well, its mainly dirty feet. Better than muddy feathers, throughout.

 

[old fashioned]

How many chickens do you have for so many go broody? What area are you in, to have mud? Even here in Western Washington we've had nice weather for the last couple of days anyway. Although nothing like the rest of the country.

 

[rhoda_bruce]

I have been selling a lot of my RIRs and I'm probably down to about a total of 70 chickens now....RIRs and araucanas mainly, plus I have 15 pullets that I bought a few months ago to mix with RIR roos for a sex-link project I want to start (which is why I am thinning out my RIRs). The broodies are mainly araucanas or RIR/araucana mixes.
And its been raining a few weeks here in Louisiana every day. At first it was wonderful because it had been completely dry for about 3 months and it was all we could do to keep the garden alive....I won't even talk about producing, but now its really soggy and the garden is a jungle. I brought in a whole lot of produce today. I'm tempted to make pickles because we never gonna be able to eat all those cucumbers fast enough.
I just don't like slouching around in mud, but the geese seem as happy as can be and really the chickens don't weigh as much as me, so they not sinking in the mud like me. I'm going to have to figure something better out. I can handle a light flood, because its wet a couple of days and then it goes away, but everyday rain??? Not pretty. If it was fall or winter, I could just rake up some leaves and cypress needles to put as a carpet, but not so in deep summer.

 

[Naughty]

Well, I guess we can never have a big 'ole SS meetup somewhere in the middle of the U.S. - we're all gonna be too poverty stricken to get there!

this IS a big ole SS meetup - we are just doing it via keyboard