Consolidated Kansas

[123casper]

That is disgusting that she didnt clean the eggs!!!!! My people would never buy that lol!

 

[HEChicken]

Hechicken are you sure it is gape worm and not another respiratory infection? I was reading that ivermectin is effective against it and I thought you wormed with ivermectin.

Well, not completely sure but the symptoms fit. I looked on YouTube for what a chicken with gapeworm looks like and the way she was gasping for air was identical. I did worm with Ivermectin but from the research I did, although it is effective for gapeworm, it doesn't work immediately. Here is the info I was going from, written by Covery Rise Plantation who is said to be "the expert on gapeworm"

Just a couple pictures I took yesterday. First my baby Sebbies so far: I have one more pipped today.

And just for fun my lavender and lemon cuckoo babies.

Awwww....congratulations. What is that blue container you are using as a brooder in the lower pic?

Last night, he was in the run and the girls were in the yard when a redtail showed up just west of the yard. I yelled HAWK!!!! and they all ran for cover. I guess I'm a decent rooster, too.

LOL!

(B) (i) The producer owns more than 50 hens but fewer than 250 hens;
(ii) eggs are washed and clean;
(iii) eggs are prepackaged and labeled as ungraded with the name and address of the producer;
(iv) cartons are not reused unless all brand markings and other identification is obliterated and the carton is free of foreign material;
(v) sales are to consumers only; and
(vi) eggs are maintained at a temperature of 45° Fahrenheit or below.

You pretty much got it right, but you forgot the "Ungraded" labeling.
We did have someone get "warned" at a local farmers market for that, and dirty eggs. She put up the "cleaning eggs is bad for them" argument - but lost, LOL.
I believe she was also the one with Eggs Labeled "Organic" - but had no certification.

I come under the "A" category of having under 50 hens. Isn't it strange that if I have less than 50 I don't need to label them as ungraded, or provide my name and address?

Hi everyone! I'm new to BYC and glad to find a Kansas group. I'm new to chickens. We recently moved about 5 miles east of Ellinwood and am so glad to finally be back out in the country. I look forward to getting to know you all and learn all I can.

What chickens do you have?

Hello fellow Kansans.

Figured I'll jump in with both feet to join the Kansas group here after reading lots of the posts for months in lurkdom. DH and I just bought a small acreage and converted a horse stall into a chicken coop last August. He owns a landscaping business and we have 2 young kids. DH went to a very small town and bought an entire flock from someone who was moving away but couldn't take the flock with her so we started with a few different breeds of chickens. Then I got bit by the chicken math.

I hatched some barnyard mix in November and then again last week. I also ordered 25 chicks from Meyer. My kids love the chickies, especially my son. It is a stress relief for me to tend to the chickens and see them do the chicken things after a long work day.

Hoping to meet some new friends with chickens because most of my coworkers don't have chickens. Sometimes a girl just needs to mingle with some chicken friends.

Here are the chicks from Meyer. Sorry for the blurry pic. I took it with my cell phone.



Here is one just hatched from my iddy biddy incubator (really don't need a big one to tempt me)

Whoa - that is a HUGE brooder you have going there? Anything that can make an EcoGlow 50 look that small, must be really big. What was in that cardboard carton originally????

HEChicken, my BLRW eggs got here this morning that I had told you about & they were packed very well. I'll let them sit for a day & then candle them to see how they made the trip. She had them in two separate boxes & the inner one had the eggs with foam peanuts & each egg was wrapped in bubble wrap with the ends open. It only took them two days to get here, so hopefully they weren't traumatized too much. Congrats on your turkey egg developing, that's exciting! Maybe you will get another hen so you have a trio. Mine have only laid two eggs so far & one of them got broken before I found it.

Yay! Congrats on the safe arrival of the BLRW eggs. Now

for a good hatch from them. Darn it on the broken turkey egg. I have finally figured out my hen is laying every other day. Hawkeye said Seymore laid daily but from reading on another turkey thread, every other day seems more common. I guess she was just lucky with Seymore! Anyway, I do plan to keep a female from whatever I do hatch so that I will have a trio next year. But - I've been reading a lot about traits to look for in a well-bred chicken, but realized I know nothing about what to look for in selecting a keeper when it comes to turkeys. I have some time to figure it out. Always something learn, isn't there?

Ironically, they didn't lay any eggs, except 2 on the day I took them back! lol They were the biggest chicken eggs I had ever seen! I threw one away because it had a lot of poop on it, but it was quite a bit bigger than the other one I kept, which was so large that the egg carton couldn't shut all the way! 0_0 lol

Anyway, my chickens are healthy and happy and laying 3-5 eggs each day. Perfect for our family of 3.

This will come up again in the future so just FYI, you don't need to throw out a poopy egg - just wash it and you're good to go. A good rule of thumb is to wash in warm water. This makes them less susceptible to absorbing bacteria into the egg.

 

[mrsdanamiller]

This will come up again in the future so just FYI, you don't need to throw out a poopy egg - just wash it and you're good to go. A good rule of thumb is to wash in warm water. This makes them less susceptible to absorbing bacteria into the egg.

Okay! That's good to know. Thanks!

 

[Deerfield Acres]

Greetings to all you new fellow chicken lovers

!!! So nice to have you here -- so true, you really need to have friends you can talk "chicken" with, without getting the dazed and confused look! Hee hee.

On a much gloomier note, we had a terrible chicken tragedy. I lost my best (naturally) Aloha hen to a freak pen accident involving my poor, tender-hearted 10 year old son. His 12 year old sister was partially at fault for refusing to follow protocol in having two there to prevent just such an accident. He didn't notice Nicoletta had come to join him and he turned loose of the pen to let it fall back into place, at the same time Nicoletta decided to dash in and have a scratch in the fresh bedding. Those kids just cried their little eyes out. I just explained that everyone makes mistakes and that's just how we learn. I told them they will never have heavy bookshelves that aren't anchored to the wall because they will already know what can happen, if their child decides to climb it. Better to lose a chicken, even a much loved chicken, than a child in later years. Poor kids, I hurt so badly for them, I forgot to hurt about losing my hen. She was a very sweet and chatty bird, I'm going to miss her terribly. I'm thankful she didn't suffer for her sake and the kids. What a disaster.

I absolutely hate losing birds.

 

[tntblake]

Wichita folks do you know if I need to call the post office about my chicks that are being shipped on April 3rd? If I do need to call would I call the local substation or the main one at the airport? Or will they just call me when they come in? I am not sure how it all works since it is my first time dealing with shipped chicks.

 

[HEChicken]

Greetings to all you new fellow chicken lovers

!!! So nice to have you here -- so true, you really need to have friends you can talk "chicken" with, without getting the dazed and confused look! Hee hee.

On a much gloomier note, we had a terrible chicken tragedy. I lost my best (naturally) Aloha hen to a freak pen accident involving my poor, tender-hearted 10 year old son. His 12 year old sister was partially at fault for refusing to follow protocol in having two there to prevent just such an accident. He didn't notice Nicoletta had come to join him and he turned loose of the pen to let it fall back into place, at the same time Nicoletta decided to dash in and have a scratch in the fresh bedding. Those kids just cried their little eyes out. I just explained that everyone makes mistakes and that's just how we learn. I told them they will never have heavy bookshelves that aren't anchored to the wall because they will already know what can happen, if their child decides to climb it. Better to lose a chicken, even a much loved chicken, than a child in later years. Poor kids, I hurt so badly for them, I forgot to hurt about losing my hen. She was a very sweet and chatty bird, I'm going to miss her terribly. I'm thankful she didn't suffer for her sake and the kids. What a disaster.

I absolutely hate losing birds.

Awww

to all of you.

Wichita folks do you know if I need to call the post office about my chicks that are being shipped on April 3rd? If I do need to call would I call the local substation or the main one at the airport? Or will they just call me when they come in? I am not sure how it all works since it is my first time dealing with shipped chicks.

The first time I was getting a shipment, I did call but they acted like they didn't really get why I was calling, and were quite impatient to get me off the phone. I called the main post office downtown since due to my location at the time, it was the one that serviced my area. I'm not sure they treated it any differently than any other package as a result of my calling them. They did call me that morning to come and pick them up, but if the instructions on the box said to do that, perhaps they would have anyway? The only other shipment I've received I didn't call the PO. That time I did not get a call but to my surprise my postal carrier rang my bell quite early in the morning (he normally delivered to our street mid-afternoon) with the box of peeping chicks. I thanked him effusively for making the separate trip to drop them off vs. carrying them around in his truck all day. Later I talked to the husband of a friend of mine who is a retired postal worker and he said the carrier didn't do it for me or the chicks but for his own sanity! He said he used to hate getting deliveries of chicks because they were so noisy in his van.

 

[Hawkeye95]

Hawkeye - Google for more. http://www.forestry.ok.gov/order-seedlings

Wow, thank you!! All set up for Oklahoma! Nice to know!

Has anyone built a poulty pen UP in height? If so, what did you use?

The pen in front of the barn is so wet and icky and with *hopefullly* wet spring weather coming, I need to do something with it. The main problem is a sidwalk that runs along side of it so that forms an unmovable height barrier. The geese and ducks remove the dirt in the pen whenever it gets wet and then the water from rain or snow fills it making it a huge mess. The only thing I can think of is to fill the pen with something they can't remove - like larger gravel or rocks. Any thoughts? I am thinking if it is higher than the sidewalk then I can hose it off and the dirty water will fun off over the sidewalk onto the yard space. Maybe not ideal, but better than the pools of wet muck that it is now.

We have gotten enough water from those nasty snow storms and the rains that some of the ponds I pass going into town are filling up. Some were clear dry/

I did for the layers. I just threw in a bunch of sand.

OK, this is pretty weird.

Over the weekend I found a fart egg on the roost. It was really tiny. It was about the circumference of a nickle.

Yesterday I broke it to use the white of the egg in some scrambled eggs for the girls. this is what I found.

What makes it weird is that the internal egg is green. I thought that green eggs were a result of brown over blue, but this inner egg is pure green, inside and out. In addition, this girl lays light green eggs, so a really dark green is odd. The color in the photo is pretty much correct.


The color in this one is a little light compared to the egg itself.


Notice that the inner egg is green on the inside, too. The outer egg had a blue cast on the inside when the lining was peeled away (but the photo didn't work).


Just wanted to share my laugh of the day.

THAT is nuts!! Thanks for sharing! Isn't that wild???!

Bumblefoot hen. Hawkeye, I'm so sorry I forgot to update you on her. I changed out the dressing on day 3 after the surgery. I was really hoping to see the swelling significantly reduced but unfortunately I couldn't really see a difference from when we did the surgery. However it is healing well. I added more triple antibiotic although I suspect it was already healed over enough that not much got up into the foot. That poor hen. When I picked her up to carry her back to the house she was very agitated at the idea of going through another experience like she had on Friday. I removed the dressing and soaked her in some more hot water to get the foot clean and when I wrapped her in the towel and laid her on the counter I'm sure she thought she was in for more pain, and it was a huge relief to her to just get a clean dressing and be returned to the flock.

Turkey eggs. I candled just one at the end of day 3 and I could tell that it is developing! It was the first egg laid so I guess Ned is getting the job done after all - yay!

Glad she's healing, but I sure hope that swelling goes down. She might need some penicillin shots... just have to wait and see.

Just a couple pictures I took yesterday. First my baby Sebbies so far: I have one more pipped today.

And just for fun my lavender and lemon cuckoo babies.

Adorable! The geese are sooooo cute!

Hi everyone! I'm new to BYC and glad to find a Kansas group. I'm new to chickens. We recently moved about 5 miles east of Ellinwood and am so glad to finally be back out in the country. I look forward to getting to know you all and learn all I can.

WELCOME!!

Here are the chicks from Meyer. Sorry for the blurry pic. I took it with my cell phone.



Here is one just hatched from my iddy biddy incubator (really don't need a big one to tempt me)




Kuan

Cute little Brinsea! WELCOME! What part of Kansas are you in? Is that a chicken or turkey in the above picture?

I gave back the three sick chickens and got my money back. He wasn't offended and treated me fairly. *Yay!*

Ironically, they didn't lay any eggs, except 2 on the day I took them back! lol They were the biggest chicken eggs I had ever seen! I threw one away because it had a lot of poop on it, but it was quite a bit bigger than the other one I kept, which was so large that the egg carton couldn't shut all the way! 0_0 lol

Anyway, my chickens are healthy and happy and laying 3-5 eggs each day. Perfect for our family of 3.

SO glad he was okay with it! Yeah, I'd wash the egg too.

That is disgusting that she didnt clean the eggs!!!!! My people would never buy that lol!

I don't wash my eggs, I'm not down with letting in bacteria by removing the bloom. I suppose if I were selling them at a markey I probably would. I do some local selling here-- nothing significant and I NEVER wash my eggs for anyone. I will rub off anything that is yucky. But for the most part, the eggs just aren't that dirty and no reason to encourage bacteria. I know Danz washes her eggs-- but I believe the people buying her eggs are using them immediately.

Greetings to all you new fellow chicken lovers

!!! So nice to have you here -- so true, you really need to have friends you can talk "chicken" with, without getting the dazed and confused look! Hee hee.

On a much gloomier note, we had a terrible chicken tragedy. I lost my best (naturally) Aloha hen to a freak pen accident involving my poor, tender-hearted 10 year old son. His 12 year old sister was partially at fault for refusing to follow protocol in having two there to prevent just such an accident. He didn't notice Nicoletta had come to join him and he turned loose of the pen to let it fall back into place, at the same time Nicoletta decided to dash in and have a scratch in the fresh bedding. Those kids just cried their little eyes out. I just explained that everyone makes mistakes and that's just how we learn. I told them they will never have heavy bookshelves that aren't anchored to the wall because they will already know what can happen, if their child decides to climb it. Better to lose a chicken, even a much loved chicken, than a child in later years. Poor kids, I hurt so badly for them, I forgot to hurt about losing my hen. She was a very sweet and chatty bird, I'm going to miss her terribly. I'm thankful she didn't suffer for her sake and the kids. What a disaster.

I absolutely hate losing birds.

So sorry about the hen and the tough lesson for the kids. That's a rough one. It will stick with them, for sure. That's not a bad thing to learn though. Yeah, no one wanted it to happen, but I'm going to bet they will pay more attention from now on. Anyway, so sorry!

Wichita folks do you know if I need to call the post office about my chicks that are being shipped on April 3rd? If I do need to call would I call the local substation or the main one at the airport? Or will they just call me when they come in? I am not sure how it all works since it is my first time dealing with shipped chicks.

I call up to the post office at the airport. Your local PO isn't going to know anything about it. You can get transfered to the loading docks and they might have the birds back there ready to go out the next day. I've shipped in about 8 separate times now-- and it seems that my birds arrive anywhere from 2pm-8pm and they will wait to put them on the trucks the next morning. So I call in the day I know they are coming in and just pick them up at the PO. Have your ID ready since they aren't being delivered. Ask your breeder what time/day they shipped. Your birds should be coming in on the NEXT day on a afternoon to evening flight. Then you can call and go get them. They will NOT call you. Even if their is a number on the box, they leave that up to the local PO it's supposed to go to. So if you need to call them back 4 or 5 times checking to see when they are coming in, then so be it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

oh-- and just wanted to add if it's after hours and the PO has closed, the loading dock is ALWAYS open there at the airport. So you just walk thru the fence to the back of the PO to the loading docks and then knock on the door (or ask a person loading a truck) about your birds and say you called ahead and they ARE there. I've been up there as late as 9pm getting a much anticipated bird! The front PO was closed, but it's busy behind the gates. Just park up front where you would for the PO and then walk the sidewalk to the back.

 

[tweetybaby2005]

Originally Posted by HEChicken


Thanks for the welcome. The box is big. My office just bought a new server rack and it came in that box. I brought the box all the way home in my car. I still have the other half of it in the barn. In case I need to use it for new chicks in the future.

I called up the local PO and asked about when they will call us when the chicks arrive. They told me they usually call around 7:00ish. They didn't take my name or anything but they did call me around 7:40ish the next morning but won't let me pick them up until 8:30am.

For some reason my multi quotes didn't come up correctly... some posts are missing?? That's OK. I can practice again next time.

Kuan

 

[HEChicken]

I call up to the post office at the airport. Your local PO isn't going to know anything about it. You can get transfered to the loading docks and they might have the birds back there ready to go out the next day. I've shipped in about 8 separate times now-- and it seems that my birds arrive anywhere from 2pm-8pm and they will wait to put them on the trucks the next morning. So I call in the day I know they are coming in and just pick them up at the PO. Have your ID ready since they aren't being delivered. Ask your breeder what time/day they shipped. Your birds should be coming in on the NEXT day on a afternoon to evening flight. Then you can call and go get them. They will NOT call you. Even if their is a number on the box, they leave that up to the local PO it's supposed to go to. So if you need to call them back 4 or 5 times checking to see when they are coming in, then so be it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

oh-- and just wanted to add if it's after hours and the PO has closed, the loading dock is ALWAYS open there at the airport. So you just walk thru the fence to the back of the PO to the loading docks and then knock on the door (or ask a person loading a truck) about your birds and say you called ahead and they ARE there. I've been up there as late as 9pm getting a much anticipated bird! The front PO was closed, but it's busy behind the gates. Just park up front where you would for the PO and then walk the sidewalk to the back.

Good info, thanks! I guess I called the wrong PO and that's why they weren't interested in talking to me

Originally Posted by HEChicken


Thanks for the welcome. The box is big. My office just bought a new server rack and it came in that box. I brought the box all the way home in my car. I still have the other half of it in the barn. In case I need to use it for new chicks in the future.

Ducklings are cute but they are MESSY! There is nothing that doesn't get dunked in the water and it gets splashed out and played in constantly. It is almost impossible to keep the brooder clean and dry when you have ducklings. I have 6 Muscovy ducks and I like them but as adults, they still make a mess wherever they go. Ducks have to have water deep enough to submerge their whole beak so they can flush out their nostrils, but mine will also crawl into the water bowl for a bath, even if it is way too small for them. Then they splash all the water out and there's nothing left for the chickens but a goopy, muddy mess on the bottom. They do have lots of personality, lay well and are said to be good for meat, so they have their redeeming qualities, but don't say you weren't warned

On the egg washing issue, I don't wash mine either, for the same reasons Hawkeye mentioned. If it were covered in poop, I probably would, under warm water. And occasionally I will have an egg break in the nest box and get the others covered in yolk, and those I do wash, but the rest I don't. 98% of the time the eggs are clean - even the duck eggs - and if they have a little straw or something stuck to them, that rubs off pretty easily. The eggs will last a lot longer if you don't wash them.

 

[bbsnooks]

Hello to the new folks !!!! its real friendly around here..

I wanted to thank Trish.. for the info on the hoop coop. I think this will work for me.. and i have a spot under a tree i wanted to put the coop at.. but didnt want to really dig thru tree roots by hand.. such a relief.. i can get it done before they're laying.. They come 2-3 weeks

bbsnooks, I also have a "permanent" hoop coop that I have my peafowl & guineas in. They're really heavy, so I doubt anything would be able to move them. I don't happen to have wire dug down around mine, but I do have rocks all the way around & I also have GPs for LGDs here. They have a bed not too many feet from that pen, so even when they're sleeping they're not that far away. We're getting ready to build another hoop coop also for the broilers we have coming next month, they're really nice because unlike the flat type of pens no water or snow can sit on top & cause the top to cave in. I have a huge tarp over the whole length of mine & plastic from that on down & on the back & it's not been that bad in there this winter. I didn't close the front in because I wanted air circulation, but it stayed warm enough in there even at that. I will be removing the plastic as soon as the weather warms enough & just leave the tarp on top.

Hello LizzyGSR I Live south of Dodge City 18 miles in Minneola.
Its been a while since ive been to Goodland but I'll be glad to make you coffee if you get this way..
-- i wanted to thank yo for posting the Egg law.. and for Danz.. clairifying .. just what the hobby farmer needs to know.

However, I'm surprised to find someone else from Western KS on here. Whereabouts are you? I'm in the Goodland/Colby area.

Here is the only part of that law that applies to the home backyard egg producer highlighted in red. The rest doesn't really matter.

that sure saved me some time.. ( im way behind.. Ive been reading a variety of threads.. - hard to keep up on all of them)

I did gather some information on poop boards.. and Sweet ? pdz stall freshner.. that i picked up at TSC yesterday.
I am thinking about using that with the chicks along with some puppy training pads.. has any one used that stuff?

I'm ready for the chicks.. and have done a trial 4 day temp check in my brooding area inside the back porch.
and I have a spare heat (red) light - have food/ feeder / 2 waterer's 1 gravity feed and several chicken nipples I thought I'd try both.
I need to put the chicken nipple waterer on some thing smaller than 5 gal bucket
I'm thinking i should ask if any of you have some creative ideas..

Thanks for the help ...Deb