I should have added that when ready to tan, it should be rehydrated in a bucket of salt water and then I would just use a brush on tan.

Great tips Huntress, thanks! I think I will rustle up some salt and get that done today. I double bagged the pelt and put it in the fridge, much to DH dismay.   Won't be around this weekend, will be visiting with dear old friends up nort. Glad to know I can come back and finish the job later. Will the salting take the odor out, so I can at least store it in the house?

WiCookChick- A home for my roo?  Well we do need to get him a new home. I have been looking, but it is so hard to find someone that is not gonna just 'XXX' him and serve him for dinner. We want a good home for him so he is happy and most of all ALIVE!  If you are an 'enabler' and wouldn't mind poking around to see if smoeone needs my roo, I would be most grateful.  We live in Madison near the East Highschool so if someone you knwo is close to us that needs my roo, the more the better.

All - I do have a few questions.

1: Are Coffe Bean hulls from the roaster a good idea for the floor of my run?  Another thing I was considering is diatomaceous earth which another chicken person here in town suggested, though I have not researched it.  Has anyone here had an experience with either of these options?

2: My nesting area for the chickens:  They dont go in it, at all, never have for 5 months. The poke around the rest of their run and coop and then 'bowling ball flutter' up to a perch which they roost on all night.  Is that normal.until they start laying?  Should I start coaxing them in there with food, etc and placing golf balls, etc in there?

Anyways, thanks for all the info! I loves this forum.  Soon I will post some pics of our birds!

-Ryan

Quote:

Originally Posted by rcathman 

WiCookChick- A home for my roo?  Well we do need to get him a new home. I have been looking, but it is so hard to find someone that is not gonna just 'XXX' him and serve him for dinner. We want a good home for him so he is happy and most of all ALIVE!  If you are an 'enabler' and wouldn't mind poking around to see if smoeone needs my roo, I would be most grateful.  We live in Madison near the East Highschool so if someone you knwo is close to us that needs my roo, the more the better.

All - I do have a few questions.

 

1: Are Coffe Bean hulls from the roaster a good idea for the floor of my run?  Another thing I was considering is diatomaceous earth which another chicken person here in town suggested, though I have not researched it.  Has anyone here had an experience with either of these options?

2: My nesting area for the chickens:  They dont go in it, at all, never have for 5 months. The poke around the rest of their run and coop and then 'bowling ball flutter' up to a perch which they roost on all night.  Is that normal.until they start laying?  Should I start coaxing them in there with food, etc and placing golf balls, etc in there?

 

Anyways, thanks for all the info! I loves this forum.  Soon I will post some pics of our birds!

 

-Ryan

you do not them sleeping in the nest boxes..  they would poop them full in no time.. roosting is a good thing..  do not put food in the nest either.. it just would get moldy and stinky.. DE is good , so I have heard.. I have never used it..  I would think the coffee hulls would be OK also..

..........jiminwisc......

Quote:

Originally Posted by Huntress78 

I should have added that when ready to tan, it should be rehydrated in a bucket of salt water and then I would just use a brush on tan.

One more question (until I think of another one!): I skinned it so the pelt forms a tube, if you know what I mean. I would need to cut it up the belly to have it lay flat. Do I need to open it up or can it be worked with as it is?

rcath, DE is good for keeping bugs at bay and for odor elimination. But you can't be breathing it in, it's a very fine dust that irritates the lungs. I use shavings for bedding and sprinkle the DE over it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amyable 

One more question (until I think of another one!): I skinned it so the pelt forms a tube, if you know what I mean. I would need to cut it up the belly to have it lay flat. Do I need to open it up or can it be worked with as it is?

That is called 'case' skinned....Lay down the cardboard and put a layer of salt on it, work some salt into the skin, lay it down and cover with salt. Be sure you have salt on ALL exposed skin or the hair will slip (it may anyway on a summer coon).

After fleshing you can wash the hide in a little dish soap (Dawn is best) rinse well, rolll up in a towel to get moisture out...dry hair with a fan or hair dryer on COOL setting before turning skin side out and salting. This should help with the smell and the Dawn will help degrease the skin.

The sooner you get it to the salt dry stage the better...in this heat bacteria build up quickly causing hair loss.

F.Y.I.

Crime and Courts: Proposal to legalize domestic chickens in rural areas meets opposition

July 19, 2012 6:20 am  •  STEVEN ELBOW | The Capital Times | selbow@madison.com

 

Many of Dane County's cities and villages let residents keep chickens. You can even raise chickens at your Maple Bluff mansion.

But the county doesn’t allow it for its most rural residents.

Patrick Miles wants to change that. So Miles, a County Board member from McFarland, has introduced a county ordinance that would allow town residents to keep up to six chickens, as long as they’re in a clean, covered or fenced enclosure, meet a number of location regulations like being 25 feed from residences on adjacent lots — and as long as the chicken owner pays a $15 permit fee.

“Quite frankly, I think there are a lot of people keeping chickens basically illegally,” says Miles. “This will allow people to be able to do that in compliance.”

But Miles’ proposal, which will be the subject of a public hearing before the county zoning committee in August, is ruffling some feathers.

Miles says that some town boards are opposing the measure because of fears of plummeting property values, the imposition of “liberal Madison” views on rural Dane County, and bird-borne disease.

“Let me just kindly say I was really surprised at the level of histrionics over the level of health effects,” says Miles.

But according to Berry Town Chairman Anthony Varda, a lot of opposition is coming in the form of another complaint: that it's needless bureaucracy.

“We don’t see any reason to charge $15,” Varda says. “We don’t see why it’s limited to six chickens instead of 10 or 12. It’s creating a bureaucracy for no purpose.”

Varda says his Town Board hasn’t addressed the issue yet, “but we’re going to be.”

He says he has nothing against his neighbors having chickens. In fact, a lot of them already do.

“Chickens have been grown in rural Dane County since rural Dane County existed,” he says.

But he and a lot of other town officials in the county have a problem with bureaucratic “overkill.”

“As soon as you make it $15 for a license, well, maybe next year it will be $20,” he says. “Or maybe we’ll make it an annual license like dogs and then we’ll collect every year for it. And then we’ll collect for every chicken.”

He adds: “It shouldn’t be a revenue maker. They don’t need to know where every chicken coop in the county is.”

A better solution, he says, is to simply change the rule to fit the reality.

“They ought to just change the rules to say you can have chickens,” he says.

And that’s what he says he’ll be pushing for.

“I think if we get a large group against it, maybe they’ll amend it,” he says. “We might just go through the Towns Association and see if we can’t simply get an agreement to change it.”

In fact, if enough towns oppose the ordinance, they can block it.

Miles says he was surprised at the level of opposition to the proposal. He introduced the ordinance after several people in his district complained that they couldn’t legally raise chickens, while most every municipality in the county allows it.

In Madison, residents are allowed up to four chickens if they pay a $10 permit fee.

“It just seems crazy that some of our communities like Madison, Monona, even Milwaukee, allow chickens on a residential lot, but not in our towns, which are in a sense by definition more rural,” he says.

Rcath~I agree with Amy about the DE.  I am a staunch  FOOD GRADE (very important) DE user (do a DE search on this site for LOTS of great uses) and use it as a "dust" in both my coop bedding and in the run, especially sprinkling it liberally in the wallows as it is a great chicken, coop, run and nest box "debugger".  I also sprinkle it lightly on their feed as a natural wormer.  It also supplies some good minerals, etc.  In fact, many human type folks consume it as a health food.  It is present in most animal feeds in small amounts where it is used as a binder.  It is NOT however, appropriate as the only material for bedding, etc.  As Amy pointed out, it is a fine dust and should never be breathed in so be sure and wear a dust mask before spreading it.  Oh, one more thing.  It is also a fairly good odor controller so I always sprinkle a liberal amount into my base litter in my coop and any time I rake up the run.  Hope this helps.  

Jim~ about the well thing.  I think you got two different well chats mixed up.  Having a hard time keeping track of us girls again, aren't you?   The sand points we were talking about were extra ones driven out near garden areas, etc. which are fine, at least by us anyway.  Everyone here in "sand country" has one.  Many of the homes here (including ours until a few years ago) have sand points for their homes.  All inspected and legal. My step son is a professional well installer/maintainer for many years (His uncle owns the company that does installs of all forms state wide) and keeps us up to speed (aka legal) .  That said, I know that many counties/municipalities have their own, even stricter, regulations than the state and they are all getting stricter every year, like with the septics, yuch.

Unk and whomever else was interested: I had my mom come over and help with Blackberry, the chicken. (She's a nurse and I'm squeamish of blood ) We took a needle and syringe and tried to drain the mass. Nope. While it is soft, it is a mass. No puss. No clear liquid. We couldnt get anything to come out, and it bled where we tried to aspirate it. We poked about 4 holes in it and put antibiotic ointment on it. But it is not a folicle issue. I dont know what to do. I guess let her live with it and if it becomes a problem limiting her quality of life, cull her. Or do I just cull her now, to avoid feeding a bird that will just have to be culled later? I'm torn. 

ok... have to go get on the darn treadmill!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Huntress78 

Good morning all. I'm new to the site but glad I found this thread as I have a 'regional' question...I'm looking for Brahma breeders in N.E. WI. Do any of you have, or do you know of anyone who has, pullets for sale?

 

 

Amyable, I am a taxidermist and wouldn't recommend tanning a summer coon as the fur quality is not good and much of it may fall out during the tanning process. Coon meat is very good as slow roasted BBQ....parboil first. Congrats on your catch!

Welcome Huntress!

LMAO..... I saw Amy's post about the coon and was going to tell her almost the exact thing! You could also do a "pulled pork" type thing or crock pot it. It's a sweetish meat and pretty greasy so you may want to drain some of the grease as it cooks.

ok... back to reading posts.