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Red Pile Chickens

Awwww, congrats!!! :thumbsup:

I don't have any chickens sitting yet, but have a mama turkey sitting on 24 eggs. I did have another one sitting on a nest, but unlike the smart one who laid in the barn, where the yard dog keeps watch over her, she went waaayyyy out into the grove and made her nest, and a critter got to the eggs. She looks rather forlorn wandering around the yard now, hopefully she will decide to share the nest with the one already sitting.
 
Cat_72 said:
I did have another one sitting on a nest, but unlike the smart one who laid in the barn, where the yard dog keeps watch over her, she went waaayyyy out into the grove and made her nest, and a critter got to the eggs.
Click to expand...

We used to have a rottweiler (spelling?) that would go into our duck pen and gently carry the ducklings out, one at a time, in her mouth into the yard. When she decided they had, had enough she would carry them back into the pen.

I miss having critters ( I had some moscoveys that thought they were dogs) I cant wait to get a little land and a few ducks/ hens again.
 
Chris Steele said:
Aw I'm sorry about her nest. Good luck with the other though. What do you do with all those baby turkeys? Cattle sale?
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Thanks....my son set a live trap out near there last night, bu it was still empty this morning. He baited it with cat food, which normally works well...but I think we'll try eggs tonight, since this critter obviously has a taste for them. Silly thing is, as much as it ticks me off that the coon or whatever did that......I'll end up driving it 15-20 miles from here and turning it loose again, it's only doing what it's naturally supposed to do. (but not to MY eggs!) Unless it's a skunk....

We usually have all of the babies sold to people we know by the fall..and if not, they have an exotic animal sale not too far from here in the fall as well as the spring.

texasnewbie said:
We used to have a rottweiler (spelling?) that would go into our duck pen and gently carry the ducklings out, one at a time, in her mouth into the yard. When she decided they had, had enough she would carry them back into the pen.
Click to expand...

Awww, how cute! We had a big ol Golden Retriever named Charlie that used to retrieve our Call Ducks when they would get too far from the barn....those little suckers can really fly, I never did see how he caught them, but saw him carry them back a couple times, lol. A slobbery mess they were, but completely unharmed, other than their pride. ;)
 
Well....Josh caught the critter. It was the biggest dang raccoon I have ever seen!

Probably fat from eating all of my eggs.
 
Good job catching it. My two older hens are laying again now, but my new ones haven't. It looks like I have four roosters and ten hens, I lucked up.
 
Unfortunately, that one raccoon seems to have been just one of a whole "gang". I lost all of my baby turkeys, a batch of Cochin chicks, as well as a couple of my best hen chickens this season. Josh has caught 3 or 4 raccoons, and 2 possums. The killing of my birds seems to finally have stopped, but it just wasn't a good season.

Glad to hear you're getting eggs, at least....and you came out pretty decent on the sex ratio. :)
 
Turns out I have one less hen, one more rooster.. massive one, but he just now got his comb and started crowing. He's the biggest chicken I have.

I had some questions that I mgiht have asked before. Is it ok to inbreed for eggs to eat? Will a hen mate with its sibling or kid? A rooster with its sybling or kid? Will they mate better raised together or introduced as adults. With 12 hens, what would be the best amount of roosters in a roughly 12x14' cage? With that many hens do I need a certain number of egg nests, will 3 do?
 
Out of curiosity, what exactly gives a rooster dominance. From what I've read online, it is the one who can fight the best. This doesn't really make complete sense to me though, because my pyle is dominant over a much larger rooster I have that I'm sure could take him in a fight.. they never fight though, the big one just runs. I didn't find a thing online about hens being dominant, but I know some of mine are dominant over others, why?

While I was reading I ran into the origin of the chicken. Are there any pure Red Jungle Fowl on the market these days?
 
I think it's a lot like people.....sometimes, just their attitude is enough to imtimidate even much larger roosters. Same with hens, mine have always had a specific "pecking order".

As far as finding any TRULY pure Junglefowl....I highly doubt it, IMO. It seems to me there was a breeding program in Conneticut working with them, but I don't know that they were releasing any. I have on rare occasion seen some offered for sale at "Exotic" sales, but still would doubt the purity of those.
 
I think after I get out of college it would be pretty exciting to try to get a hold of pure ones and get them breeding. After reading about them and the history and all, I've been thinking about them quite a bit.

I don't know if I posted this yet, but I thought it was really interesting so I'll share. One of my hens turned out to be pretty much pure white (light vanilla really). I'll post a picture if you'd like to see.
 
I think it would be a neat thing if you could find some that were pure....you may want to try talking to some of the bigger hatcheries and see if they can offer help. The hatcheries do breed most of the chicks themselves, but always have other "suppliers" as well. I know one of Murray McMurray's duck suppliers is in Minnesota, and they did actually give me a contact number for him when I was dealing with a muscovy duck issue that I couldn't get any answers on from vets. They won't usually do that, but the big hatcheries usually will have the connections to find you whatever you are looking for.

There's an exotic sale coming up in my area next month, I can ask a couple of the "old school" guys if they know of anyone who has them if you'd like, if I get the chance.
 
Nah, I'll wait to seriously look into it till I'm out of college, no reason to look deeply into it when I won't be getting any for another 2-4 years if there are any to get when that time rolls around.
 
I've never had any trouble at all keeping the different sized hens together.

And yes, if I didn't answer it before......chickens will mate with whomever is handy, whether it be relation or not. ;)
 
Yep, they do lol....especially this time of year, packing it away for the winter...not that they REALLY need it in NC, but they can't be too careful. ;)

The exotic sale last weekend was a blowout, there was hardly anything there. They DID have some of the nicest Silver Duckwings I've seen in ages, but I'm just not needing any of those....it was a treat to see them though. Don't see many these days with the proper size and such good quality.

All I came home with was 2 Aracauna hens, and a hairless rat. LOL.
 
Well atleast you got something you wanted. I went to the cattle sale this morning and saw the biggest rooster I'd ever seen, it was about the size of a turkey with the exact same coloration as my "pyle" rooster. All of the other chickens there were pretty bad looking.
 
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