Chickens and Quail

[chris]

Hi All,

my dad has confirmed that we will be building a chicken run at the top of the garden and housing chickens in it for eggs as soon as this Bird Flu nonsense is behind us.

anyway, we've never kept chickens before so i'm wondering if anyone has advice on what breeds are good as laying hens, and what breeds have quiet cockrels (if there is such a thing :lol: )

also i wouldn't mind housing a few Bob White quail in there also for there eggs, maybe even Japs or italian laying quail (just bigger japs). If anyone knows if this is possible let me know, i'm fairly confident with the bobwhites as i have sen that they are fairly large, however japanese quail are somwhat smaller and maybe victimised by the chickens?

i think the run will be in the regions of 12' long but since we're still very much in the planning stage here i don't know for sure. All i do know is that it will be happening shortly

any advice welcomed:grin:

Chris:wink:

[kenny]

hi laura

if space is at a premium you may like to try bantams unless you particularly want full size chickens but there are a lot of different types of bantams and they eggs the same and if you are thinking about bob whites i reckon they would not be much bigger

www.backyardchickens.com (http://www.backyardchickens.com/) this shows you all the mutations

kenhttp://www.feathered-friends.co.uk/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=192&stc=1

[chris]

Hi Kenny,

cheers mate, and who told you about my sex op and name change?

Laura:wink:

[Waxbillman]

hello chris thats great news,

i kept chickens 3 years ago now, lovely birds, that size pen is huge mate, you will be able keep alsorts of chickens,

i had 3 chickens in a 6ft pen which they were very happy in and laid eggs daily, when i was in let them roam the garden - not a good i dea if you are a keen gardener like me!

i got mine from my great uncle who got the eggs from the farm,

they were silkie crossed with light sussex bantams so they were quite small, the eggs were a little smaller than the eggs you buy from shops.

my uncle lives is surrounded in house now so doesn't have any cockerials perminently, you can get fertile eggs from many farms, you can also lend a cockerial to run him in with the hens for a week or so then you won't get too many people whining.

they love, sweet corn they go crazy for it.

like i say in that size you could keep most varieties., such as the leg horns or rhode isleland reds

Matthew

[chris]

Hi Matt,

cheers, the 2 you mentioned at the end have been recomended to me by my next door neighbour who used to keep chickens also. i don't know exactly what breed we're going for yet, i'm guessing bantams due to the small size but i don't know yet.

i do have an incubator which can take 6 hen eggs so we will probably order a few eggs and hatch em ourselves. i can't wait :grin:

Chris:wink:

[Waxbillman]

great,

i watch mine grow from tiny little fluffy chicks, to full grown egg laying adults.

Matt

[kenny]

really sorry chris had just been posting to laura and it was a slip of the wrist

ken

[chris]

:lol: :lol: :lol:

don't worry about it

Chris:wink:

[laurab]

We used to keep Indian Runner ducks, they were great egg layers!

[josoll]

Hi Chris, If you just wanted them for laying you could go for hybrids, the best being lohmann brown,but for more interest, light sussex, welsummers,are good layers,marans give good brown eggs but a lot of them are not very prolific layers.you can get bantam light sussex and welsummers.The silkie cross light sussex are excellent broodys, but will tend to go broody rather than lay. The larger quail should be fine with them. If you need any books on the subject,let me know has we have loads,

[Pyxel]

I agree with Josoll, hybrids are good for laying. I have about 20 hybrids with a Maran cockerel, thinking of possibly breeding some next year. I can't think of the hens exact name or maybe hybrid number but I know they are a special egg laying hen, I will try to find out. I wouldnt put them with the Quail though as they could attack or kill them, maybe some of the smaller breeds of Chicken would be OK but I know my flock would kill the Quail, they do enough fighting amongst themselves. As for noise, I dont really know, I think you can split their tongue to stop them crowing?

[kenny]

hi pyxel

i think thats a bit barbaric mate

ken

[Pyxel]

Hi Kenny, I don't actually know if that's what people do as it's just something I heard along the way. I don't know if it hurts the bird or maybe you have to do at a certain age as with dog's tails? I will try to find out more about it.:-?

[chris]

Hi Pyxel,



thanks for the info mate, i don't know about spliting the tounge though as it sounds a bit painful. i'm sure i've heard of someone who hatched a batch of quail eggs alongside some chicken eggs and both birds get on fine, however the chickens won't mix with quail that were'nt hatched with them.



Chris:wink:

[PAUL HEARN]

Hi Pyxel,

I've no intention of an arguement on this one, but I think the days of tongue splitting for any purpose should be a practise that is long gone!
There is no place for this practise on this Forum, if you cannot put up with a crowing Cock whether it be a Chicken or Bantam cock don't own one!!

No offence intended mate.

Paul.:wink:

[Pyxel]

Hi Paul, the tongue splitting thing was just something I heard; I didn't know whether or not it actually hurt the bird or not, otherwise I would not of mentioned it. I havent done it as crowing is no worry for me, if it was then I wouldnt have a cockeral.

Hi Chris, i have heard some of the smaller Bantams crowing and it isnt really much noise, although the Silkies my mate had were quite loud and never stopped, all through the day, it was maybe a competition with them for dominance/hens.

[josoll]

I have been involved in poultry for the last 20+ years and have never heard of tongue splitting. Chris, you will find a bantam cock's crow is usually much more high pitched than large fowl and many people find this more annoying,if birds are kept in a dark shed overnight and not let out until most people are up,this minimises the very early morning crowing. If your neighbours might be a bit suspect re having chickens in the garden,i would start off with a few hens first to see what the reaction is,as they can give quite a cackle when they announce they have laid an egg!

[chris]

Hi All,

on the topic of chickens, what causes a Double yolked egg? is it the breed of chicken or is it something else?

(just had a double yolked egg and thought 'how the hell!?!' :lol: )

Chris;)

[josoll]

Hi Chris,You tend to get double yokers when a pullet is coming into lay,not all birds do it,but one bird might lay quite a few,before its reprooductive system gets it right and they lay single eggs. When i used to work with commercial layers we used to put them to oneside for ourselves and favorite customers;)

[PAUL HEARN]

Hi Chrisand Jo,

Double yolks aren't just restricted to Chickens, there are many other Birds that lay double yolked eggs too, Canaries, Zebra Finches etc can lay double yolkers, they are simply twins.
So if one day you have a hen Finch lay six eggs and you end up with seven chicks you will know what has hapened.:D

Paul.;)

[chris]

Hi All,

we wil be having 3 hens some point this year. bantams probably but since it's just the 3 i might go for something bigger. i know how many, and i have a rough idea how we're building the pen and run, still no idea what breed though:lol: and if you've noticed the 'goose' thread you may have realised we could well be having at least one of those too (although i'd much prefer a small flock)

Chris;-)

[kenny]

hi chris
mind you dont get all the shallow minded people who live in your neighbourhood thinking they will catch bird flu mate

ken

[Waxbillman]

glad to hear of the new stock you might be getting, very usefull birds are chickens

Matthew

[chris]

Hi Ken,

to be honest i don't think i'll have anything to worry about there. my neigbours are fine with the birds and know this bird flu business is blow out of proportion, one of them has kept chickens in the past also, 2 doors down keeps pigeons and doesn't have any trouble, and a few doors up has chickens or something as i do hear them every now and again.

still, my garden is quite large (length wise anyway) so i doubt anyone will know other than my direct neighbours who i doubt will have a problem with it

Chris;-)

[kenny]

hi chris
i will swap you neighbours then mine are rubbish one even complained about my cpq making a noise

ken

[PAUL HEARN]

Hi Ken and Chris,

Ken,

I'm sorry to hear just how sad your neighbours are mate,:roll: I could lend you some of my CD's which you could put on repeat at full blast and go out for the day, I quarantee they won't find your Chinese Painted Quail so noisy after that.:lol:

Chris,

I confess I'm not exactly an authority on Poultry,:???: but how about Silkie Bantams?
As far as I've been told they are very good layers (that might have had something to do with the fact the guy was trying to convince my Dad to take them) and neither too big or too small.

Paul.;-)

[Waxbillman]

or even better Chris silkies crossed with light sussex, you don't get as many feathers on the legs then, and yep, very good layers and like all hen got a gob like an market trader when the hens announce thier eggs.

Matthew

[chris]

Hi Matthew/Paul,

thanks for the advise, i'll take it into account when deciding on what breed to go for.

Paul, my neighbours tolerate me playing the guitar quarter blast (trust me, full blast is a big no no as it'd be the end of my windows:shock: ) so i think a few CPQ, chickens and geese will go down a treat:lol:

Chris;-)

[PAUL HEARN]

Hi Chris,

I've got no worries on your part mate,;-) I was thinking along the lines of sorting out Ken's petty neighbours.:lol:

Paul.:D

[josoll]

Kenny,It sounds like your neighbours & ours should get together they would get on great. Ours hate animals full stop,so with the dogs, ferrets & birds guess what they think of us!

[chris]

Hi all,

we will be getting our chickens by next wednesday. not 3 though, 5:D and they're big buggers. apparently the grey one is aggressive, but the rest are nutters:lol:

i think we're getting a 10 foot shed also to house them in along with the run. now there's no way my dad is using all 10 foot of the space inside, so maybe this presents an opportunity to move my cages arounf and have an indoor aviary where the cages are now.... hmmmmmm

Chris:wink:

[Waxbillman]

great, a 10ft shed for 5 chickens, lol, bloody hell they must be big buggers.

like you say though you might get some space fore cages

Matthew

[kenny]

hi chris
you have to grab the space when you can mate.look at me by the time i am finished the only thing my garden will have is sheds.i have hardly any plants now since putting the chippings down ,just don`t tell your dad till you have moved your birds in.and like matt says they must be big buggers what breed of chickens are they giganticii chickinii domestico

ken:-D

[chris]

Hi Ken,

i'll know when i get them, we were told but i've forgot the names since. there were some bantams in with the 5 we're having which the owner is keeping, the ones we're having are twice the size of the bantams at least.

all i need now is a couple of chinese geese to finish the job

Chris;)

[chris]

Hi All,

we picked up our chickens, the run, thehen house and everything else yesterday. turns out the people we were buying the birds off sold us all there birds in the end with their runs and everything, so we now have a total of 11 chickens, 7 adult hens and 4, 4 week old chicks which we've got in the house. i've got a list of which one is which somewhere but according to the woman we had them off they are several rare breeds worth £45 each at 8 weeks of age. i know one has a crest as i've claimed that one:razz:

when we got the adults back it reminded me of the scene in the first jurassic park film, where the raptors are in the cage shaking it violently, then you see an eye in one of the holes. the chickens were shaking the box pretty badly, and then one looked out:lol:

anyway, it was an empty box of roast chicken crisps so maybe that explains there nervousness:lol:

Chris

[Waxbillman]

great news then Chris

i look forward to hearing what these varieties are

Matthew

[PAUL HEARN]

Hi Chris,

You couldn't have chosen a worse box to bring them home in could you?:lol:

I'm sure they feel a lot better after being placed back into their familiar house and run though.:D

As Matthew has already mentioned it will be interesting to read what Breeds you have mate and I'm sure Jo will be interested too.

Paul.:wink:

[josoll]

Hi Chris,Glad youve got them home ok,What a box:-P . Very interested ti know what breeds you have.The one with the crest is possibly, a Polish, or Sultan . If the crest covers the face as a good Polish does you have to keep a check on the eyes,as they can get mite in the crest and their eyes get stuck shut.

Lets hope you can soon tell us.We miss our poultry,but it's not possible where we live at the moment.

Enjoy

[kenny]

hi chris
glad to know they all arrived safely ,but i would like to know what was going through their minds whilst being in that box i bet they were pooing themselves

ken:-D

[chris]

hi kenny,

not quite but one did lay an egg :lol:

[PAUL HEARN]

:roll: :lol: :roll: :lol:

[chris]

Hi All,

i think i know what breeds we have now so here goes:

Adult hens: 2 x silver laced wyandotte bantams, 1 black star, 1 white star (that's what we were told but she isn't as the eggs are brown not white, and she has brown and white feathers). i can't remember the other 3, two look like standard brown hens? and the other one is a steel blue/grey and i've forgot the name although i do know!

Chicks: 1 cream legbar hen, 1 cohin hen (we think), 1 blue laced wyandotte and 1 blue laced red wyandotte. both of the latter i reckon are cocks but we won't know until the spurs start to develop - if they are cocks anyway.

i've claimed the cream legbar as my sister has claimed the cohin:lol: i will try and get some photos when i think about it but at the moment we are very busy building runs, chicken houses/pen/coops/ whatever they're called, and building concrete foundations for both runs and coops.

Chris;)

[Waxbillman]

great, i have head of those varieties excpet cohin?? have you missed a C as i have heard of cochins.

hope you get everything completed soon.

Matthew

[chris]

yep that's the one

[kenny]

hi chris
join the club with the building mate i hope to be having some of that at this weekend and i cant wait

ken

[kenny]

hi all
i cant understand why it happened,as the weather has been good and she has had no problem before.........but my c p q hen had a prolapse after laying an egg i had to carefully catch her up.....fortunately she is very tame ,as she takes anything out of my hands that i feed her i put her in the hospital cage while i got a very thin dowel 1/4 in that i had been using for joining bits of wood and rounded of one end with some sand paper sterilised it and put some vaseline on the end,i then picked her up and gradually eased it back in it frightened me to death but it did work as i checked on her at 9-30 and she is fine but it looked awful all red and hanging out it looked realy painfull but she didnt seem to mind it that much so i have given her a couple of mealworms as a reward and left her in the hospital cage while the morning i hope she will be ok but i think a vet would have only done the same


ken

[Waxbillman]

hello Ken, thats a shame, i hope she has made it through the night and recovers.

Matthew

[chris]

Hi Ken,

it could be down to a number of things really, but the most likely is that she had egg binding and the rough shell of such an egg would have pulled out part of her organ as she laid it. what i would do to help aviod this happening again is to feed a little seed with some olive oil or similar mixed in with it to help provide some oils to lubricate her insides, and also if you take a cuttlefish bone, grind it up as fine as you can and mix this in with her food so it looks as though it is covered in white dust, this will help ensure she has enough calcium in her diet to prevent egg binding and help ensure eggshells are produced correctly.

also, a bit late now but an old trick with the leopard geckos when they get a prolapse is to coat the organ in icing sugar mixed with a little water. this soothes and shrinks up the organ so it goes back in naturally. ofcourse if it still doesnt go back then you have to use the cotton bud treatment and push it back in very gently

let us know how she gets on but by the sounds of it you've got it sorted

Chris:wink:

[kenny]

hi chris /matt
i was in there this morning as soon as it got light ....around 4-15am i think as i was worried to death about her,its funny but i noticed she was laying a couple of days ago and was giving her some extra niger for a day and a half before it happened.she seamed ok though as she always comes to me for a dandelion or chickweed leaf and she came straight to me and i was really pleased that when she turned round there was no sign of the thing from yesterday.i think i was just lucky to catch her in time i had a good look at the egg and you were right chris it had really rough texture.i had already been giving her cuttlefish but i will grind some up tomorrow and also put some cod liver oil in the seed mixture just to make sure! i am really pleased she is ok as i have had her a while and she is as tame as anything.most of the others i have had in the past always shot up skyward when i went within ten feet of them.i will keep you posted on her condition and i will do the seed /oil thing tomorrow as it is to late now

ken

[Waxbillman]

good to hear she is alright Ken

Matthew

[vixen]

Hi All Its raining so i have got some time off Ive missed all the gos anyway glad your cp is OK Ken i bought five cpq they were from a pair of birds at a pet shop nr me i was only going to have 3 but they gave me the others. 4 of there are female all brown the other is Grey and male they are feeding out of my hand.what i wanted to now is that the male will take the meal worms in his mouth and offers it to all the females but never eats he seems a lot smaller the others
Trudy

[chris]

hi,

the cock bird will do that while in breeding condition, while out of breeding condition he'll simply eat them himself. it's a way of ensuring his mate is well few and fit for breeding. they should all be roughly the same size, about 5inches in length. any bigger than that and they may well be japanese quail

Chris

[kenny]

hi chris
my female is fine now it must have been just luck me catching her like i did,she has laid another egg today and there was no sign of the prolapse i have beefed up her diet today and given her some cod liver oil on her seed and i ground up some cuttlefish i have an old coffee grinder that i have used for years for doing stuff like that and it ground it up great what a carry on over a quail but i have a fondness for them that i cant explain!


ken

[chris]

Hi All,

here's our golden laced wyandotte chick, my mom's named him after Mcqueen from the great escape (if i've spelt the name right..) as he's good at getting out! at the moment they're kept in an open topped box in my shed, this one jump to the top of the box when someone is in the shed and is usually waiting there first thing on a morning.

tamest one yet though, put your arm out and he jumps right on then climbs up to your shoulder, or head, fortunately he doesn't have wet smelly droppings anymore otherwise he wouldn't get that far :lol:

Chris

[kenny]

hi chris
hes a handsome little devil........when does he take his motorbike lessons


ken

[laurab]

Nice pics Chris :)

Elsa has a pair of quail but the hen hurt her leg last year and now she just hobbles around the aviary. Good news is, she is sitting on 5 eggs! :razz:

[kenny]

hi laura
hobbling or not at least she is sitting on them,mine have set a small stall up inside the aviary and they are selling them buy the dozen


ken

[chris]

hi kenny,

if you could get to stafford i'd give you one of my proven p/r hens, or if you know of someone who is going and could pick it up for you?

Chris;)

[kenny]

hi chris
thanks for the offer mate but it looks like it is going to be no to both of those ....what with the sheds the aviary and paying the builders £5,000 i am absolutely skint this year i have been going through my finances and its very dire....but thanks a gain chris really appreciate it

ken

[Waxbillman]

hello Ken

you better bump your your rich son's rent


or get a new job, you surely can't earn much from being a lolly pop taster

Matthew

[kenny]

hi matt
cant really bump his rent up he has just paid of my credit card bill for me.....if you have been taking notice jimmy and i are thinking of buying a boat and taking people round the estuary at maldon....yo ho ho and a packet of crisps

ken

[Waxbillman]

:lol: that should be funny watching captain Jimmy with he burberry captain suit, usually its a bottle of rum but in this case captain chav will be drinker white star

Matt :lol:

[kenny]

hi matt
yep he deffo wants to be the boss and i am the scivvy ithink it wont be long before i mutiny and sail off to the pitcairn islands to start a new strain


ken:lol: :lol:

[Waxbillman]

:lol: now theres a thought