With the really cold weather temps in December that continued into early January, the older Welsummers stopped laying again. In February, I decided to give them one more month to get back on track. After the Christmas temps/storm, we begin to notice more and more pest issues. Then we started noticing that we were going through more feed. Soon, we noticed that their water was getting fouled quickly because the varmints eating the chicken feed were climbing the waterer to get into the feeder.
I wondered if the pests were contributing to the older hens' laying issues. Two of the new hens were also not laying well. So, we now take the feed out of the pens each night when the hens roost, and bring it out early in the morning when the hens are up (about 6 am). We do know that the hens will chase any small mice that get into their pens, when they are awake. Took almost a month, but the older Welsummers are back to laying eggs. We are getting about 1 per day from the three of them. So that's better. They were almost stew pot poultry, because I had decided I would only wait until the first weekend of March for them to start laying again. Another upside to the removing food at night is that we are not going through as much feed now. "Imagine that?" LOL
Older hens will be either sold, or slaughtered in about three to four months, anyway. We need to make room for the new chicks. We got three Rhode Island Red pullet chicks last weekend. We also picked up six Cornish Cross this weekend.
Weather-wise, it is super cold again after starting February with some spectacular warm temps. It was in the 60s F the first weekend of Feb. What a cre-azy weather month. Last week the temps started dropping in to 30s during the day and 20s at nights. Then we received, all told, about a foot of snow this past week. However, the most snow on the ground on any given day was about 6 inches. Finally melting and almost all gone. I didn't have any batteries for my camera and didn't get any pix of the snow when it was happening. This is all that is left now. But we may get more this weekend.
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| That was a lot of Snow for February! |
New chicks are all snuggled together in a small pen to keep them safe and warm until the temps in the garage are warmer. The Rhode Island Reds are about 10 days while the Cornish Cross are about four days. We will put them into a larger pen when we no longer need to control the pen (brooder) temps.
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| First Photo of the Day |
New brooder warmer; long story. Short version is that we could not find the power connector for the brooder warming plate and to order one takes more than a week to receive. But, I could get a new warmer shipped overnight delivery. So, yah, different warmer and it is keeping the babies nice and warm. Still waiting for the power cord. [Ugh] For now, it is the one warmer to be shared by all. Thankfully, the Cornish X are about the same size as the 10-day-old Rhode Island Reds.
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| Snuggled under the Warming Plate |
The rest of the photos from last night.
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| Cornish Cross meet Rhode Island Red |
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| Peeking out from the Warmth |
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| Poop is Always Happening |
