Good Morning! <=2017

[Ontario Chick]

Good morning!
Stood amongst my "used to be" lovely flock this morning, more pathetic sight has never been seen, the place looks like a flock of chickens has been plucked, ground is more white then green, mostly the hens are pretty much naked.
The only Ameraucana laying is the broody who took 3 month of for sitting and maternity leave and only Ameraucana looking like a chicken is Solo a very pretty pullet.
Wyandottes seem to be fine and laying at about 50% rate, but not really showing any molting signs.
On a positive note the weather is lovely so if anybody is NAKED, better now than January.
Have a sunny one!

[Happy]

@Ontario Chick are you chickens dropping feathers earlier than normal this year? My Cochins are in various stages of molt and it's their first adult molt so I'm not sure what normal is. My Rocks haven't started.
I may need to do some plucking on Liza my Black hen. She kept "a few" old feathers. She had a sympathy molt with Lola the blue one after her broodiness. Can you tell Liza's old feathers? Lol she resumed laying last week so I don't have a lot of hope that they will fall out on their own.

[kenya]

Weird her old feathers stayed.

[windwalkingwolf]

@Happy , could she be where your baldy chicks are coming from? It kinda sorta makes sense to me that if feathers grow at drastically different rates on the same bird, that molting progression *might* also be affected

[Happy]

OH MY GOD @windwalkingwolf you're right. I didn't think the two would be related but this girl took FOREVER to grow her feathers back in. Lola the blue was rockin her full body and Liza had these baby feathers forever. Stella the black chick definitely came from Liza's egg. I think the blue cockerel did as well but not positive.

[Happy]

Just thought-this also explains why none of my mixed chicks have been slow feathering (same rooster is father).

[WLLady]

morning all!
happy, they'll likely fall out eventually probably late into the winter.....the slow feathering types usually switch out but the breakdown of the shaft to release them from the follicles can be slow too...the new forming feather has to push the old one out. and if the new grow slow as mollasses, she'll moult slow as molasses too.

well. physio day again today. and then it's the weekend and once again i have grandiose plans! (watch out @poultry_admin LOL) the garden needs a new fence. and the late blight needs to go and the weeds....OMG how DO they DO that! grow 2 feet in 3 days!? everything is pretty much done now, there's another 2 watermelons, and a pile of tomatoes and some lettuce.....and a couple butternut squashes and the peppers going yet, but everything else is done. i want to get some fall peas in.....but the whole thing needs to be cleaned out and tilled over to work in the shavings. maybe it's too early to pull everything. sigh. we are going to have frost really soon, there were 4 nights last week that were awfully close! and this year i'm replacing my strawberries, so i need to get the old wussy ones out.....and get the garlic planted. herbs need harvesting and drying. and the fence needs doing and the raspberries need to be fought into submission and contained again.....was thinking i could just fence the garden with those canes, but the dog has figured out how to eat them without getting stabbed, and i like raspberries. dog doesn't need them! and theres some chickens to move and turkeys to sort out. have to give jimw and dominion link a shout-might be headed to montreal again in october, might be able to do delivery service.....hm. have to figure out if i'm going hunting or not. maybe i'll try the bow this weekend. and see if i can even get into a tree stand. and even better, if it can get OUT of it afterwards! lol.
hopefully it's a nice weekend for being outside. and we have firewood to finish cutting and splitting and stacking.
and swimming. and bbq-ing. and bonfires and maybe a dump run too.
boys in my grow out coop are getting big enough that i might process them soon. have a couple i want to keep and replace older breeders with them. and i need to split up the girls growing out in the barn into their final pens and get the old slacker freeloading girls to the layer coop outside and decide what to do with them-if they are laying at all. if not, i might send them down to hagersville. some of them are pushing 5 and i'm not sure even my crockpot can help that.....
hope everyone has a great weekend!

[Happy]

Ok I'm already tired after reading @WLLady 's list of to-do's lol.
I've been digging up a very over-grown garden at the South side of my house that's been neglected for far too long. Of course I have 13 chickens and 12 chicks all helping! I'm actually thinking about using it for vegetables next year. What would be best to put there? It's full on sun and always feels about 10 degrees hotter there since it's wind sheltered and the brick from house heats it up. I'm thinking peppers?
I have a very young raccoon hanging around my house. I've seen him mid day several times. The dogs treed him and I thought that would be enough deterrent to stay down in the ravine but the lab found him under the front deck yesterday afternoon. I'm going to have to trap him I guess. probably should have got the trap out last night but i don't really want to "deal" with him. Aside from being turned out on his own too young and at the wrong time of year he really hasn't committed a crime. He's much younger than I would expect to see in September so guessing mom went for just one more litter. Uggg.

[ross]

In my case "ta do " isn't always"ta done ".
Have a great wknd all . Luck

[labradors]

Happy, Peppers and eggplant (if you like 'em) really like the heat. Of course there are always tomatoes too!

I don't envy you having to deal with the raccoon

Linda