The New Weird Chickens on the Farm

I present to you the weird chickens good morning weird chickens [Music] I have two types of chickens on my farm I have regular chickens and I have weird chickens the thing about the weird chickens is they're weird [Music] thanks [Music] now when it comes to the weird chickens the weird chickens are really just for funsies they are delicate they require a little bit more protection which is why they're actually even in this little fenced-in Paddock to begin with not that I'm saying that he would do it but Pablo Barn cat always looks at them a little bit hungrily and if I were to have a weird chicken go head to head with Pablo Barn cat I would definitely put my money on Pablo Barn cat hey sweetie can I coax you out huh she's a little bit slow and a little bit shy the upside dude she's really handy handle yeah so she's a nice pure white silky right here you know Toby dog she looks a lot like you is she a Toby dog chicken oh it looks like we got weird chicken egg hey Toby Doug since I'm going to be carrying around this egg all morning I'm gonna share it with you so we have Rosie we have Rosie's daughter we have Captain Janeway and then we have this new gal who is a lavender silky I actually just moved them into a brand new yard over here and so as you can see we have this new lavender silky cross who's wandering here in the grass and then we have this Frizzle feathered rooster who you might have just heard Khan a moment ago and at certain times I've actually been like you know what I'm swearing off the weird chickens I don't want to have weird chickens I'm getting rid of them because they're just a waste of my time but the reality is not everything with my farm needs to make money and not everything with my farm needs to be a part of a business venture and so I've actually grown to really enjoy the weird personalities and weird looks of my weird chickens and my plan for them is over the course of the summer I'll be breeding weird chickens just for the heck of it with a fresh new rooster as well as some interesting genetics I think it should make for some fun baby birds the other really nice thing about these weird silky bantamish type chickens is they make for really good moms they go broody very easily they will sit on a nest very well and so the odds of them hatching out some baby birds are high for the last couple of years Rosie who's actually our oldest weird chicken she's hatched out a couple of different clutches of eggs and done a really good job with them last year she hatched five Birds one of them died young three of them were roosters and then the other one actually you can see here it's cool too because she has like the same coloring as Rosie except because her dad was a silky she's got a different Feathering so she's that like it's known as satin which is like half like Bantam feathers like regular normal chicken feathers and half silky feathers so when I say silky feathers too I mean like her she's pure silky and what's interesting is if you look at a silky feather under the microscope it looks drastically different than a chicken feather now the important thing to note about this chicken feather is the chicken in question is half silky and so that means you can see some of that silky Feathering show up in the feather itself so yes our farm now has some new weird chickens but I think the real question is what are we going to call them as you guys know I name pretty much all the animals on the farm but one of the few exceptions is that my wife Allison has the naming Authority for all the weird chickens and so she's the one who selects the chicken names I can make suggestions you guys can make suggestions But ultimately the decision rest with Allison welcome to your new home particularly like this rooster he's got that Frizzle fry feather look like he's like permanently wet that's just how he is and so he'll be breeding with all five of these girls like I'll be curious to see what a cross between That Guy and Captain Janeway is gonna look like could make for a very interesting bird now for folks wondering about the weird chicken house that I introduced a few videos ago I continued to be a very big fan of it in fact I only have two regrets about it and both of those are my fault number one the company that makes this they actually also offer like a wheel kit and it's way better than what I just sort of hacked together here myself I just had some spare parts lying around the farm the other thing is they actually sell like an automatic door that opens and closes with the sun which I think would be super super useful I have one for my other Chicken Coop and yeah I probably will bite the bullet and buy both the wheel kit and the doors because they're just good inventions and improvements but overall this thing has been easy to keep clean it's been easy to move around I'm a huge fan of it now one thing I had mentioned in a previous video was that I wanted to cover the side of the weird Chicken Coop with a whole bunch of stickers and so I put the call out to you guys saying hey can you send me some stickers and I've gotten so many stickers I know I haven't even gone through all the envelopes yet but I did want to start sticking them here on the side of the weird Chicken Coop let me just get this drive it's raining last night my plan is for this to just be a constantly updating space and so you know the first sets of chicken stickers that go up will go up and then I'll probably get more I'll keep putting more and by the way this is like a trade if you send me a self-addressed stamped envelope to Gold saw Farm PO Box 225 Peach and Vermont 05862 and that self-addressed stamped envelope I will send you one of my stickers in return so it's like we're sticker trading you see back in the day in the alternative Comics punk rock Zine scene that I was a huge part of as a kid trading stickers was like a very big thing and so I'm excited to be able to trade stickers with you guys but just remember send me the self-addressed stamped envelope I can't send you guys stickers back if you don't send me that envelope with your address on it and a stamp but yes let's see what the first batch of stickers has produced because there's a lot of them and so I do want to just say a special shout out and thank you to Jamie Michaela Rusty Dan Cheryl Lynn and Mika Tucker and Matt Jamie again Melissa I think I need to get a tattoo from these guys they're not too far and over in Randolph and like I said this isn't even all of them these were just up to the envelopes I opened up to yesterday morning I got a whole bunch more in the mail yesterday afternoon and so I'll keep sticking them on the house if you guys keep sending them and so thank you thank you thank you all right there we go I am loving that now the goal is just to get this thing entirely plastered with stickers and I think we'll be in business and yes once I run out of room I'll just keep putting new stickers on top of old stickers of course by the way you guys might be wondering about this one so somebody sent me so I could spell z-e-n so like Zen like weird chicken moment is in but I think I left the N inside so stay tuned a viewer called Sarah actually uh sent us this collection of chicken toys now in past videos I've come down pretty hard on chicken toys saying that chickens don't need any sort of enrichment whatsoever and when Sarah sent them to me she clearly addressed them to the Brothers who are two of our roosters up on the top of the hill but this whole collection of toys seems like so much fun and since the weird chickens are for fun it felt like it was more appropriate to put him down here maybe I'll save one or two of these toys for the Brothers so let's see what we got we got like a little uh xylophone type dealy oh this is a chicken swing chicken hammock chicken ladder pecking post or a scratching post I guess let's try setting a couple of these up what do you think girl can you test this out a little too bouncy all right I'll leave the weird chickens to their devices and we'll see if they play with them I actually do have some real farm work we got to do probably the first task I'm gonna have to deal with is the Ducks sound like they're about to Riot right now so I gotta go feed the Ducks and get them fresh water I gotta talk to you about something to do oh I've got a new invention that I think might help my watering problems with the ducks and geese and invention is kind of a grandiose term so what I've done is I've taken this 35 gallon water tank I painted it black and I strapped it to an old cart that I had just kicking around the farm but the probably more interesting part about all of this is I've constructed this thing so about a year or so ago back a viewer by the name of Alexandra she suggested these waterfowl drinking cups and so they're little cups that fill up with water and so I'm wondering if this is actually a better way to conserve water with my ducks and geese as well as keep them from making such a mess as well as preventing them from damaging my pasture as much and so I went on the internet I ordered a couple of these things and I spent I don't know an hour yesterday afternoon tinkering around trying to figure out how to put it all together and so now I think I have a system where I can connect these things to the water container that I have maybe this becomes a new better more mobile way of watering my birds at first I wanted a design where like this part was built onto the cart but I had such trouble engineering that component of it that I feel like I'm probably better off making just these mobile mounts to hold it I don't know let's see if this even works this could be a disaster the idea with the chain was it'd be an easy way to level the water because these cups need to stay roughly level I just got a new quick connect coupler so now I can just swap the heifer water line for the duck water line and I just can run this hose right into here to fill up the reservoir it'll obviously take a couple minutes for the reservoir to fill up but once that's full I will give it a go and we'll see how this works first let's feed the birds I bet the Ducks are following me oh yeah they're following me all right so this was like Tall Grass just yesterday and now they've flattened this whole area down I'm gonna move their feed dishes some of you might be wondering why I don't have like just one big beater and I keep it rationed in this blue trash barrel the reality is if I didn't do it this way they would just eat all the food and they would be overfed and they'd be foraging lesson so I find this is a more effective way all right this seemed pretty much full now let's open up this gasket here I'm just gonna let the water flow right through that's kind of interesting seems like this cup is filling up quite nicely this cup is dripping from up by the hose this one's filling up pretty well this one looks bone dry so I don't know we've got some testers coming down the hill now after getting their breakfast so let's give them a chance to test this one out so it seems like everybody is passing on the new design this might be a failed design attempt I think Toby I'm gonna have to go do the cow chores and we'll come back in and check and see how they're doing okay you want to stay here with the ducks and geese while Abby and I go do cattle yeah okay since I already have the side by side out I might as well take it up to the top of the pasture but it's not nearly as fun a way to travel up to the top as my bike that's for sure yes today is just kind of a dreary weather day it's like I don't know 40 degrees and drizzly which is just not a fun day to be out here but you got to do what you got to do right so last night I came up here at around nine o'clock to move my chicken coop to a new spot and I got up to the top of the pasture here and who did I see standing right here but none other than the combination of Joey Ramone and Amanda hug and kiss now Joey Ramone he is our steer he has been like paired up with Randy Macho Man Savage our Bull and like I've been keeping the two of them up here but separate from everybody else because I wanted to wait another week or two before I introduced my bowl for breeding and then Amanda hug and kiss is one of our cows she's like the newest to the herd and she's still working out the Kinks on how to be a good grazing animal and anyway the two of them were loose in the pasture just running free outside of any of my electric poly wire fences which is most definitely not the thing you want to see at nine o'clock at night when you're just trying to close up shop and call it a day and move on and maybe have a little relaxing time at home with your wife and watch that episode of Ted lasso or something and so I spent darn near 30 minutes chasing both Joey Ramone and Amanda hugging kiss back into a paddock unfortunately I couldn't get Joey Ramone back in here with Macho Man so now he's over there with the cows there's really no issue with him being introduced to the cows I mean number one they know him in fact he was even reunited with his mother Annabelle last night but the downside is Macho Man is all alone here this morning so I gotta figure out what to do how are you doing you're in this great big pasture and you're all by yourself I'm sorry pal you can poop all over yourself what were you doing are you rolling in your poops he is such a sweet bull I will probably try to get Joey Ramone to come back here today I don't want to leave Macho Man here alone but I also might just move Macho Man over there because you know as you guys have seen I can walk Macho Man like a dog and bring him over there no problem Joey Ramone is a little bit more rambunctious so I gotta figure that one out this is all just another example of farm problems of course he's not totally alone he's got the heifer girls in the next Paddock over and they've been yelling at each other back and forth over the last couple of hours I heard him this morning as I was doing all the chicken chores come here Bonnie come here Belinda how are you girls doing you like that handsome boy across the way well you're a little too young for him but next year I think you guys are gonna get to know each other really really well I think this is going to be a good pairing here or I guess I should say Trio okay chicken here I come I just had to refill your feeder so take it easy you got 50 pounds of fresh feed ready to go for you yes the chickens are in their new spot you'll notice actually I have a separate Energizer so this is another solar Energizer that I have set up here it's very low voltage it's meant to really keep the chickens in and maybe keep the Abbeys out if I need to I don't have this fence connected up to my main fence because one of the things I've found is this chicken wire just drains the heck out of the power of your fence number one you just have so much likelihood of contact with the ground and the grass and that's gonna short things out and reduce your power and then number two there's just a lot of wire that goes into one of these fences and so I'm opting to just use this tiny little guy here that's portable because again my goal isn't to try to keep big predators or big animals out it's just to Simply keep the chickens in place all right let's hook you up with some water and some speed so obviously you guys can't do the side-by-side comparison right now but these gals are three four times the size of the weird chickens and so that's why the weird chickens are so likely to get plucked on I mean especially the biggest of them all right let's see what we got for eggs here this morning we got a couple so far two eggs hang them in this basket up here come back for the rest of them later as you can see I've got this one girl who's still putting in some work I should expect some eggs pretty soon from her and then you can also see that both of the Brothers who were supposed to be the recipients of those chicken toys that Sarah sent us they're hanging back did you lay an egg yet oh she did just now wow look at that just out of the chicken so that bill and filter gal right there just dropped this egg I feel like today is a day to catch up on some of these viewer gifts that you guys have sent us lately and so uh I do have something I want to put right here so last summer a very kind soul sent us these little tiny Raptors pictures which I absolutely love and have just been looking for a chance to hang this up it's like drove the ATV up today I figured I might as well bring a couple screws in my driver with me there we go I think that looks pretty gosh darn good thank you for sending that now I guess while we're at it it's probably figure out how to install this ladder under this work it's like a DNA helix I don't know let's try to see if they'll play with it okay so apparently they don't seem all that interested in it but I don't know I'll leave it up for a few days and see if they play with it personally I'm not that disappointed because I never had any expectations that they would like it but what I am disappointed in is that that over there do you see that I have all my cows inside the fence except for Amanda hug and kiss yet again what you doing there Amanda [Music] after my adventure last night that's not the site I wanted to see that said I am happy to report that everybody else is in place including Mr Joey Ramone how's it going Joey how are you doing so Joey is Annabelle's son actually Bonnie McMurray is Ariel's son and then Belinda Carlisle is Anna Green Gable's daughter but you look like some cows who could use some fresh pasture huh Girl Let's Go All Right girls come on girls fresh cross coming thank you let's go come fresh grass come so my theory is that Amanda hug and kisses the low girl on the totem pole and she gets pushed around a little bit by the other cows and so that's how she ends up on the other side of the fence is usually she's getting pushed out of here and so while I like to keep my grazing paddocks tight because it makes the cattle more selective at least for a couple of weeks I'm gonna try doing a little bit bigger of a grazing Paddock so this is usually like twice the size of what I give them in hopes that it keeps everybody in their place once I have the whole herd trained and everybody's behaving the way I'd like them to then I might try experimenting with smaller grazing paddocks again but at this point I just can't be chasing cows at every last given second and particularly with Randy on the other side of the pasture I don't want to create any oopsie accidents I mean for all I know Amanda hug and kiss could have been looking for a man to hug and kiss last night and she ended up over in Randy's paddock at one point so I got to be careful and so I'm going to do less efficient Grazing In The Name Of better more effective animal management so often it's about these trade-offs you know one thing I was noticing just now there were like some birds sitting on the wires of our electric fence and they weren't getting shocked this is like a question I get from folks all the time and the reason that a bird can touch the electric fence yet me or the cattle or Abby if we hit the electric fence We Get Zapped is because the bird is standing only on the electric wire and it's not touching the ground you see our electric fencing wires have multiple grounding rods buried deep into the ground creating essentially the lowest grounding point and when we touch the ground our feet become a connection to the ground and then that completes the circuit with the electricity when a bird is just standing on the electric wire they're not touching the ground so they're not going to get zapped but if that bird had one foot on the ground and one foot on the wire they would get that and if you got an Abby who has one nose on the wire and four feet on the ground she's definitely going to get zapped foreign [Music] I was just coming down the hill and I noticed that the Ducks are starting to use their duck Drinkers and it seems like it's working so I don't know I'm gonna keep watching this one so I don't know maybe this will work I'm gonna be a little patient and give this a couple of days and a couple attempts to see if this system works if it does I don't know this could be pretty cool so I don't know maybe you should probably stay tuned and click the Subscribe button and hit that notification Bell and obsessively keep checking our Channel page to see when we upload new videos you're bound to find out what happened eventually let loose the goose [Music] [Music] I'm coming I'm coming I'm coming how are my little piggies doing huh everybody's just chowing down doing good I think I'm gonna have to build you a second one of these because starting to run out of space for all three of you at once they are getting big really quick yes foreign welcome to the world's little ones hi guys so it looks to me like these baby birds are done baking so let's break them out and put them in the brooder hi guys oh look at you you all seem so ready to go full of life one two three four five six seven eight nine and we got lucky number ten so yeah these guys just hatched out and this was actually one of my smaller hatches so actually in this batch I only put 19 eggs in the incubator that feels like a really good hatch percentage and then on top of it all what happened with the eggs is you know after I checked in on like day nine I had three that looked like they were infertile and so really it's like 10 out of 16 eggs that were fertile hatched and so I'm very happy about this all right here you go you're gonna go in with your brothers and sisters so now this batch is gonna basically stay inside now for I don't know I'll keep them inside for probably about three or four days and then I'll move them outside with all the bigger Birds I've been doing just every week for the last several weeks now and so far it's worked out really well and so if you guys just watch this video right here you'll find out what happened with all of these little baby birds and uh should be pretty exciting

Channel: Gold Shaw Farm

Views: 93,383

Keywords: gold shaw farm, duck farm, goose farm, vermont farm, feeding all my animals, feeding my pets, all my animals, feeding all my pets, meet my animals, farm vlog, silkie chickens, weird chickens, weird birds, bantam chickens, weird chicken moment of zen, white house on the hill, chicken breeds

Id: JXbh4OnrZxU

Length: 21min 41sec (1301 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 26 2023