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I love The Croods!!
My suggestions would be:
Funny:
-Despicable Me 1-3 (2 isn’t as good as the other two, but it’s still worth watching)
-Megamind
-The Master of Disguise (Don’t know if you’ve heard of Dana Carvey. He’s a standup comedian. He’s the star in the movie. Super funny)
-Planes Trains and Automobiles (Steve Martin & John Candy)
-Austin Powers (Always good for a laugh. Kind of a lot of sex jokes, but if that doesn’t bother you it’s a great time)Do you like Will Ferrell at all? I personally love him, even though is movies can get pretty raunchy sometimes. If you like him I’d highly recommend:
-Talladega Nights: The Balled of Ricky Bobby
-Blades of Glory
-Elf (Yeah, it’s Christmas, but still great)
-Step Brothers (If the other two are PG-13 this one is definitely R for language at least. It’s still pretty good though. I highly prefer the first three listed, but most people seem to this this is one of his best)Action/Adventure:
-Terminator Franchise (Except Terminator Salvation. That was awful. Forget it ever happened)
-Tremors Franchise (B Movie Gold/Cult Classic. One of my top three favorite movie franchises of all time. Funny and good sci-fi action. There are 6 of them now I believe. All good except 4 & 5. Forget those happened)
-Rocky Franchise (Skip Rocky V unless you’re a super hardcore fan. The Creeds are also worth watching as a continuation of the story)
-Indiana Jones Franchise
-Hellboy & Hellboy 2: The Golden ArmyI’m sure I’m forgetting some stuff, but these are all my favorite movies. I also love anything from Studio Ghibli, but they’re not really funny or action adventure, and if you’re not into weirdly beautiful movies from Japan they probably wouldn’t be your thing. They are stunning though, so if you feel like branching out they’re a good way to go. I recommend My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki’s Delivery Service, Spirited Away, Whisper of the Heart, just to name a few.
Susie is the best! Always so helpful and kind, never hesitating to do everything in her power to help out.
I still feel guilty to this day, because at one point I was having major issues with collections companies calling me trying to collect money from some woman I’d never heard of. This went on for months. I’d get calls from numbers I didn’t recognize and it would always be a collections agent. I told them over and over that there was nobody by that name here, I’ve never heard of her, stop calling me. I was pretty upset at this point and I’d scream and cuss at them to just leave me alone. When the calls first started I was polite and everything, but they very clearly weren’t getting the message, so I stopped trying to be nice. One day I got another call from an unknown number, and I proceeded to lay into the person without letting them even say a word, and it turned out to be Susie….
I feel SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO bad that she got lambasted like that for nothing (she was just calling trying to help me with something. I forget what). She said she forgave me, and has always been very nice to me in all our subsequent interactions, but I still think about it quite often and I truly feel awful about it. XPCompleting a collection is such a rare/hard earned treat! Congratulations! A very impressive collection indeed ^_^
Most commercially bred (by hatcheries) popular breeds that die early due to reproductive complications (tied to line breeding etc) are: rocks / barred rocks, orpingtons, australorps, Rhode island reds, leghorns and any production breed such as sex-linked hens (golden comet, red star, black star, amberlink, tetra tint, etc…. all of these birds are hybrids and bred ONLY for egg production and not health).
Gosh, that’s the vast majority of the chickens I want to get…Now, I know you followed this up by saying any chickens can succumb to this, but do the ones that come from large hatcheries have a higher propensity for it than small breeders? I looked into it, and there really aren’t any small hatcheries near me, so I think I’m stuck with online. Oh well, even if they won’t live as long they still deserve to have a nice life.
I do also urge some caution about mixing too many breeds. If you are going to free range and have a lot of space for them, it’s not as important, but if you need to fence them in a run or have long snowy winters like I do where they spend a lot of time in the coop, it can be very problematic to house breeds with very different temperaments together. Some of the breeds you’ve listed can be quite sassy and bossy, and others not so much. It may be disappointing, but at first it is actually sometimes easier to narrow it down to fewer than three breeds.
They will not technically be “free range”. I’m way too scared they’d run away or get attacked by something, but they will have a pretty large enclosure 16′ x 18′ and probably 9′ – 10′ tall. I’m open to letting them out in the yard while I’m there to supervise. What are the odds they’d just bolt though? I’m not Rocky Balboa. I don’t think I could catch them if they ran. The winters here are rarely long/snowy. We did have a storm this year, but that’s highly unusual. I don’t foresee them being stuck inside the coop basically ever. At least half of it will have a roof, so even when it rains they should be able to come outside.
Can you tell me which breeds tend to be sassy/bossy? I’m curious about temperament overall. Because I’ve read plenty of generalities, but then there are always people who write in with the exact opposite experience. And I’m certainly not trying to disagree with you about the varied composition potentially being a problem. I hear constantly about chickens fighting with each other, but when I was a kid we had a pretty varied flock and they all got along fine (except for Skedaddler, but that was because he was a bad rooster I think). Theoretically, buff orpingtons are supposed to be a nice/gentle breed. Not so with him.
I’ll give the updated list of chooks I’ve picked and what I “know” about them, and you can let me know what you know/think of them:
Hens:
-Rhode Island Red (Roosters are aggressive, but hens are fine. Mine was super sweet. Such a good girl.)
-Barred Rock (Supposed to be friendly. Mine was very calm and gentle.)
-Australorp (Supposed to be calm and friendly. Mine was. Never caused any trouble. She was a runt as a chick. Grew up fine though.)
-Silver Spangled Hamburg (More flighty/wild. Friendly toward other chickens but less affectionate with people. Read several accounts of people with friendly/affectionate hens though.)
-White Leghorn (Energetic and possibly nervous. Some say they’re quite sweet and tame. Guess it depends.)
-White Cochin (Supposedly a doglike chicken. Super cuddly and affectionate.)Rooster:
-Silver Spangled Hamburg (Supposed to be kind to his hens and kind of indifferent to humans. Also, not large enough to inadvertently smash anyone to death.)I hope my hens love him as much as your hens loved Trousers. I get all warm and fuzzy inside when I see the pictures of them all crowding around, just wanting to be near him. And your one girl sitting on top of him, just hanging out. <3
I’ve heard that instead of having a door that automatically opens when the sun comes up (leading to super early morning crowing) some people keep their coops on a timer that opens at the same time every day. If the rooster doesn’t know the sun is up will he still crow? Like, if he’s shut up inside the coop in the pitch black will he still crow? I’ve read some accounts that as long as the coop is totally dark inside the rooster won’t crow. Theoretically a person could let them out/have the crowing start at 9 am. Is this true, or just wishful thinking? Now that I think about it, if a person has any kind of venting that’s always open, there’s probably going to be light inside the coop…
Thanks for the info merrillan. I will take that into account. 🙂
Let me just say, I’m so glad to have you guys to talk to.
Of all the rooster breeds you’ve had what one would you say has been the kindest to your hens?
I mentioned to a coworker today (who has chickens herself) that I was planning on getting some, including one rooster, and she asked me why I wanted one. She said that roosters basically rape the hens all day long, and she’d never put her girls through that.
I read the whole topic on Trousers (hopefully this isn’t painful to bring up) and he sounded like a perfect gentleman. Do you think it was his breed (Cochin?) or just because he was special (because he undoubtedly was)? I’ve tried googling what breeds of roosters are the kindest to the hens, and the only result I have managed to find is the following list: Cochin, Brahma or Langshan. I’ve also heard that the bigger the rooster breed, the more laid back in general. Do you find this to be true? I don’t want to get a rooster if I’m just setting my girls up to get raped every day of their lives…
Oh my goodness, I’ll need to take some time to properly respond to your whole post Jennifer, but the main points are these:
1. I read your post on BYC and you have sold me on the Bielefelders. I need some in my life. I will buy an incubator so I can hatch eggs you send me. I just put the eggs in and wait, right? The picture of your rooster nuzzing his face into your hand kills me. So adorable. >.<
2. I wish you lived near me, because I’d love it if you could come to my house and be my chicken consultant. I really wish I had someone near me who knew what they were doing and wanted to spend time guiding me through the process.
3. I’d really love to talk shop with you. I have 2 threads on BYC trying to figure out the baby/intermediate stage living arrangements, and another for the fence/coop construction questions. Maybe you could read them and give me your input, or I could pick out my most burning questions and post them for you. Whichever is easier. I’ll put the links here:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/can-someone-approve-my-brooder-plans.1293399/
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/fencing-help.1293314/My rhode island red was totally sweet so I’m hoping my next one will be too. I’m pretty sure I’ll get one.
I’m the most excited for the cochin I think. I want a little loaf chicken glued to my lap at all times. A feathered dog, basically, lol.
Ok, so maybe that’s a breed thing. I always wondered if other people’s buff roosters looked like mine. Maybe buff roosters just don’t look overly masculine in general.
And sorry, there was supposed to be a picture in there for you, but the Windstone forums seem to have issues posting all the pictures (for me at least. I’ll put stuff in and then it disappears). Do you think light orange matches this pic the best?
I’m going to have a fence with a roof on it, so no worries there. Believe me, I’m probably overly paranoid about it all, but I’m really trying to max out their safety. Nobody gets out, and nothing gets in.
Suzanne-Marie: I’m sorry you were so traumatized by what happened with Big White. I have kind of a similar situation with Skedaddler, but the ending is a bit different. He was a big bully too, so if he came up and started bothering me I’d whap him on the back a little with my hand. Not enough to hurt him, but enough to tell him “Hey, you don’t do that. Stop it.” And this sounds awful, but one time, and I have no idea why (Maybe he was being especially aggressive? It might have been he was hurting one of the hens) I had this little kid sized shovel (since I was just 6 at the time), and I bopped him out of the air with it. He didn’t seem to take it personally like Big White did though. I think he just took it as pecking order being established. He was never afraid of me, but he never attacked me again. He’d still come up and let me hold him/pet him, and he was a good boy to me ever since. Can’t say the same for my parents though, and that’s what ultimately cost him his life. I kinda wish they had just put him in his place as well so we could have all lived together, because I think we’ll all agree, a “gentle” bop from a shovel beats getting your head cut off. But yes, I was lucky with how he took it. If he had been scared of me from then on (like Big White) I would have felt terrible. I loved him, I just needed him to treat others with respect, the way we respected him.
Pipsxlch: Beautiful job on your PYOs. I’m excited to see what you do with Tenderfoot. I found a photo on the internet that pretty well sums him up. I wish I had some that were actually of him, but all I’ve got are the ones my mom took at the time, and she was 8-9 months pregnant when they were adults, so she wasn’t feeling like doing chicken photo shoots too often at that point. Here is a general idea of how he looked. Not overly roosterish actually. Pretty small, and didn’t have a super bright red comb or huge wattle or anything. Even Skedaddler kind of looked like a giant hen to me. He didn’t have the cool tail plumage that I thought roosters were supposed to have. I kind of wonder if he was just a big butch hen all along, lol. I read that in the absence of a rooster hens can undergo a sex change and start acting like roosters (Growing bigger combs/wattles, stop laying eggs, crowing, trying to fertilize eggs…though this hasn’t been confirmed as possible)
I kind of wonder if I should just send a hen bank to you. It would probably look more like him, but I think I’ll honor the poor boy’s memory and let him be immortalized as the rooster he probably wished he could have been.
Jennifer: You did such an amazing job. She looks like she could get up and start clucking any moment. I have confidence in Bodine, and I really hope the Barred Rock she does for me turns out as nice as yours did. It’s just amazing. So many tiny details. How long did it take you to paint her? Also, did you do the dark orange eyes? I’m trying to figure out eye colors. What color do you guys think Tenderfoot should have (based on the above photo)? Light orange/some kind of tan/sandy brown? I’d like Susie’s input honestly, since she can see all the eyes in person. And I heard there is a new eye color chart that I don’t think I’ve been able to find yet.
And yes. I am in a place where I could raise a flock. I’ve been heavily considering it, and I think I’ve decided to go ahead. The coop from when I was a kid is old and nasty, and the fence is gone, so I’ve decided to have a new fence and coop built in a nice location in my yard. It’s not going to be cheap unfortunately, but at least it will have some of the cool features that modern coops have that’ll make my life easier. It is kind of sad, because this is the kind of project I feel like a partner and I could do, but since I’m alone now it’s all just too overwhelming. I’d like to paint the coop after the guy builds it. He’s going to use treated wood I think, so paint isn’t necessary, but I’d just like it to look nice. Even that seems really daunting to do alone though. I miss having a life-partner so much. Almost makes me not want to do stuff like this because it just draws attention to the fact that I have to hire it out because I can’t do it alone, but if I can just get through the construction process and get the animals I’m sure they’ll help. In a lot of ways I have kind of an obsessive mind, and I tend to hyper-focus on one thing, so having all the chicken planning to think about 24/7, instead of my breakup, has helped a lot.
That is so sweet of you to offer to send me eggs, Jennifer. I don’t have an incubator, and I don’t know anybody that does, but it’s definitely the thought that counts. Maybe I can name a peeper after you 😉 I’m currently trying to settle on the breeds I want. I’m trying to pick from among these breeds (these are all available on mypetchicken.com. I’ve heard good things about the site, and it’s less overwhelming to me to just get them all from one place. Maybe if you guys feel that I’m really going to be missing out on a fantastic breed that’s not on the site though, I could look at other online hatcheries):
-Buff Orpington
-Australorp
-Barred Rock
-Blue Laced Red Wyandotte
-Silver Laced Wyandotte
-Silver Spangled Hamburg
-White Cochin
-White Leghorn
-Exchequer Leghorn
-Rhode Island RedSince these are supposed to be pet animals, I do hope to get tame/friendly birds. I know I can help this along by handling them a lot from an early age, but I also know that chickens are people too, and there’s no accounting for that. A lot of people recommend Buff Orpingtons as being super friendly/nice, but case in point, Skedaddler wasn’t any of the above. He was a big bully, in spite of being one of the “friendliest” breeds. If any of you guys know/have experience with any of the above breeds I’d love to hear about them. I plan to have one rooster and the rest hens. Rooster will probably be either a Silver Spangled Hamburg or an Exchequer Leghorn. Does that sound alright? I’m a little nervous about the white cochin (never had a chicken with feathery feet before. I feel like they’d get dirty so easily, and they are more susceptible to leg mites), but I’m told they’re super loving lap chickens. And just look at this loaf. >.< I think I’m gonna give it a try.
Oh, and in case anyone is interested, I think I figured out what kind of chicken Yellowy was. My dad always called her a “fryer” but I couldn’t find anything online that used that terminology. I did find reference to “broilers” which I imagine is probably the same thing. I know I had mentioned Leghorn (which was my best guess at the time. Yellow chicks and white adult birds) but leghorns aren’t typically called broilers I don’t think, and they don’t grow especially quickly. I’m fairly certain she was a Cornish Cross. I’m looking at pictures of the older chicks, and they look just like her. And they’re bred for meat, and to live short lives (2 months) 🙁
Here is a picture of her and another chick at the feeder. You can see how huge she is. (Even in the pick of the three hens roosting on the porch railing, you can see how much bigger she is than the other girls).
