Consolidated Kansas

[chicken danz]

Today is one of those days every fiber in my body hurts. Perfect weather for the pain index to top out!
I have a slight problem. I had those new chicks in the kitchen eating and drinking but when I got ready to take them to the brooder some of them ran under the dishwasher. Well my kitchen isn't finished because I need to put in hardwood, so the front of the dishwasher isn't installed. Two of the chicks ran under the dishwasher. I tried to get them out and it spooked them and they ran underneath the floor of an attached cabinet. There is no access to get in there. They've been there since mid morning and haven't come out. I sure hope they get hungry and decide to resurface. I'd hate to have to tear out my kitchen cabinets to remove two dead chicks!!!!
Then I decided to shuffle some more birds. I was cleaning out bins and decided to move some two week old turkeys and some pheasant out to the brooder house. I cleaned up their bin and then decided to move the new hatched turkeys to the bin the older ones had been in. The very first thing they did was get in the water and get drenched. I had put a gallon waterer in there instead of the quart one I had been using. So I had to get a heat lamp out and try to get them warmed up and dried off. A couple of them were not doing well at all. I am trying to get the sweeter heater hot enough I can pull the light again now.
I haven't been out to take care of the birds. I've only opened pens so they can run for a while. I do wish my medications would kick in and start working.
Maidenwolf I need to cull some extra boys too. I just keep putting it off. I have one I will be glad to butcher though. He is the first rooster I have ever had that seems like he is going to be mean. He jumps at me every now and then. I hit him with a bucket a few days ago and he has left me alone since then but I'm afraid that won't last. I don't need him anyway.

 

[cubbysan]

I hope those baby chicks are smart enough to come back out.

 

[ivyrash]

Today is one of those days every fiber in my body hurts. Perfect weather for the pain index to top out!
I have a slight problem. I had those new chicks in the kitchen eating and drinking but when I got ready to take them to the brooder some of them ran under the dishwasher. Well my kitchen isn't finished because I need to put in hardwood, so the front of the dishwasher isn't installed. Two of the chicks ran under the dishwasher. I tried to get them out and it spooked them and they ran underneath the floor of an attached cabinet. There is no access to get in there. They've been there since mid morning and haven't come out. I sure hope they get hungry and decide to resurface. I'd hate to have to tear out my kitchen cabinets to remove two dead chicks!!!!
Then I decided to shuffle some more birds. I was cleaning out bins and decided to move some two week old turkeys and some pheasant out to the brooder house. I cleaned up their bin and then decided to move the new hatched turkeys to the bin the older ones had been in. The very first thing they did was get in the water and get drenched. I had put a gallon waterer in there instead of the quart one I had been using. So I had to get a heat lamp out and try to get them warmed up and dried off. A couple of them were not doing well at all. I am trying to get the sweeter heater hot enough I can pull the light again now.
I haven't been out to take care of the birds. I've only opened pens so they can run for a while. I do wish my medications would kick in and start working.
Maidenwolf I need to cull some extra boys too. I just keep putting it off. I have one I will be glad to butcher though. He is the first rooster I have ever had that seems like he is going to be mean. He jumps at me every now and then. I hit him with a bucket a few days ago and he has left me alone since then but I'm afraid that won't last. I don't need him anyway.

Your having a rough day! Hope it gets better for you, I know how those go. With any luck those chicks will come back out and you can get them caught.

 

[Trish44]

Just popping in to say a quick hi. Still no internet. Gotta love Pixius

. Anyone has internet through them? Cox cable is not available, AT&T U-verse internet is only up to 3 mbps downstream. Since I work from home from time to time, I need faster internet speed.

Still moving. I don't think I'll move again for a very long time. Typing on the phone is no fun so I'll just read and not post till Pixius resolves the internet issue. Plus autocorrect messes up with what I type.

Kuan

I have not had Pixius, but I know others who have & weren't that impressed with it. I'm sorry you're having so much trouble. Good luck on your moving, I absolutely hate moving.

We have Pixius and haven't been too unhappy with them. My DH also works from home and due to the type of work he does he needs really fast upload and download speeds, so we have the max plan with Pixius that gives us close to Cox speeds. It is pricey though, to have that plan. Ultimately we would like to get Cox but it isn't available in our area either. It is close by and they offered to install it to our house if we paid them $40K. Needless to say, we declined their generous offer.

Wow HEChicken only $40K! Yeah that's about what they would tell us here too, even though we're less than a mile from town. You have to get enough people together to make it worth their while to bring it out or they won't.

I am in the same boat you ladies are... except that Satellite internet (I have HughesNet) is the only option out here, outside of dial-up. I work from home so I have to have a decent internet connection. HughesNet meets my needs, but the download limit can get to be REALLY annoying REALLY fast! The local ISP for this area has a point-to-point internet solution out here, but you have to have line-of-sight to one of their points. We live in a deep valley and, therefore, can't use that either. They said that we could install a relay point but that we'd have to provide all of the hardware, plus the phone line, plus the electricity, plus a building to put all of the hardware in. Sounds pretty expensive to me.

So, I was just trying to finish up my work day when I looked out my office window. There, lounging on the side of the black rubber bucket I fill with water for my birds to play in, was one of the biggest bull snakes I've seen in quite some time! Around here, you always double check what kind of snake it is if it is brown with diamonds b/c we have rattlers and they look SO MUCH alike! I went out and double checked to make sure it was a bull snake. Sure enough, it was, but it was BIG! I'm guessing around 5' long. Kinda freaky seeing it in the yard so close to the house. I REALLY dislike snake season! I'm just happy that we've been seeing so many more bull snakes this year and quite a bit fewer rattlesnakes than last year. They look so much alike that they make your heart skip a beat no matter which one you see though... We REALLY need to get the riding mower fixed. Our yard is getting to be WAY too tempting for them!

We had Hughes satellite for 2 years & couldn't wait to get off of it. We had that problem with them & the downloads too & then they "punished" us for 24 hours with download speeds like dialup. Mostly what we downloaded was software updates so we had to eventually schedule those at like 3 a.m. during their "free download" time. How can you help it if Windows wants to download software updates? After that we got on a wireless setup because they put a tower down the road from us on top of a barn on the corner. We happen to have a good enough line of sight to get on that one fortunately. It has been pretty decent, we have occasional hiccups, but it's a lot better than Hughes.

I hated Hughes Net. They were constantly dumping us back to dial speed with no warning, and I can't control how much my work connection downloads to my computer. I have Verizon JetPack and it is OK, not any slower than Hughes Net although not any more reliable.

I need to get my pictures of my mini chicken enclosure for my mini chickens posted soon. Just too busy to play on the computer much lately.

I hadn't heard anyone say how the Verizon thing performs. We don't have Verizon, but I guess you don't have to have your cell phone service with them to get that.

Sorry about your rough week. So did your DH get the fox? I don't know the answer on the Corrid treatment, but with most medications it is 10 days to 2 weeks after you stop treatment, so I would wait 2 weeks if I were you, just to be safe.

Doesn't that make you mad? After I shot my fox last year, we went over to talk to the neighbors and they were kind of like "Ohhhh.....you killed our fox?" like I'd done a bad thing. I guess that is something that I can't get used to in America, that people think of foxes as "cute". Where I grew up, they were our only lethal predator - we don't have raccoons or coyotes or anything else, so as a poultry keeper, foxes were the only animal we had to fear. I grew up thinking about them the way most people here think of raccoons and could not imagine trying to make a pet out of one.

I have the cutest little family going down in the hoop coop. The Mama duck has her 4 ducklings, but I also had a chicken hen go broody and had put her in the hoop coop but didn't give her any eggs. She is a very young pullet - only hatched mid-October last year, so when she went broody at the end of April, I thought she was much too young and wouldn't take it seriously, so I didn't even give her eggs. I should have known she'd be a good broody as her biological mother brooded well last spring and is now broody again. But, at the time I figured she'd sit for a week or two and then get sick of it, so no eggs for her. Well, without eggs of her own, she joined the duck in the dog house and stole about half of her eggs and sat on them really faithfully, even though all told she probably sat about a month. Well, now that the ducklings have hatched, the two of them are co-parenting. It is really cute to watch. The ducklings really prefer to be under Mama Chicken, since she will patiently sit as long as they want to snuggle under her. But they look to Mama Duck to show them the food and water. There don't seem to be any issues between the two Mamas - the Mama Duck is even grooming Mama Hen while she sits and warms the babies. The only issue I've seen was last night Mama Duck was content to sit down and sleep where she happened to be standing at the time. Meanwhile, Mama Chicken was pretty sure you're supposed to return to the "coop" to sleep at night, so wanted to go back to the dog house. She kept going to the doghouse and calling the ducklings and they weren't sure which Mama to listen to, so just stayed with the duck. I left them to it and in the end I guess they got it figured out. I need to get out there and take some pictures of them all.

Okay all, I am looking for some advice. I've had multiple roosters here at the same time with no issues, but mostly they were either raised together, or in one instance I had a mature male join the flock while all others were still young cockerels, so didn't challenge him. Now I have a different situation.

I have my Reese BR cockerel who is now about 7 months old, a decent size, and doing a great job as a flock leader. My plan had always been to add a German New Hamp rooster, fully mature, in the fall. Well, the NH came available a little early so I got him on Friday. I started out with him in a separate pen, but over the weekend, I decided to let him out, and that's when the trouble started. The two of them got into it, and at first I let them go at it, figuring that is the only way they will figure out the pecking order. I.e., one has to be beaten into submission in order to accept the other as "alpha", and then they will get along. Unfortunately, it ended up not feeling like a fair fight. The NH is big but the BR is bigger, plus it is the BR's turf and the NH is the new kid on the block. So he was being beaten up pretty badly and I could tell he was starting to get exhausted, so I grabbed him and put him back in his pen. I left him there for a few days to recover and hoped that interacting through the fence would help to calm things down the next time I tried putting them together.

Yesterday I tried letting him out again and nothing has changed. I really, REALLY want both of these guys and I'd rather not have to always have one segregated, as in winter I like to have one coop of birds so that they all keep each other warm, and I only have one feeder and waterer to worry about on those bitterly cold days when it hurts to be outside. But now I'm concerned I'm never going to get these guys integrated successfully. Does anyone have experience with bringing in a new mature male and having him accepted by the original?

I have never been able to add a full grown rooster when there was one already there. If I add them young before they know any better then it's OK, but I tried to put my Speckled Sussex rooster out there with my Cream Legbar guy & they tried to kill each other. The Speckled Sussex won, so he had to leave & go to a home with no other roosters. I do plan to add a couple of young roosters when they get big enough, but they will still be young enough that they should be able to fit in before they know they should be leading.

Today is one of those days every fiber in my body hurts. Perfect weather for the pain index to top out!
I have a slight problem. I had those new chicks in the kitchen eating and drinking but when I got ready to take them to the brooder some of them ran under the dishwasher. Well my kitchen isn't finished because I need to put in hardwood, so the front of the dishwasher isn't installed. Two of the chicks ran under the dishwasher. I tried to get them out and it spooked them and they ran underneath the floor of an attached cabinet. There is no access to get in there. They've been there since mid morning and haven't come out. I sure hope they get hungry and decide to resurface. I'd hate to have to tear out my kitchen cabinets to remove two dead chicks!!!!
Then I decided to shuffle some more birds. I was cleaning out bins and decided to move some two week old turkeys and some pheasant out to the brooder house. I cleaned up their bin and then decided to move the new hatched turkeys to the bin the older ones had been in. The very first thing they did was get in the water and get drenched. I had put a gallon waterer in there instead of the quart one I had been using. So I had to get a heat lamp out and try to get them warmed up and dried off. A couple of them were not doing well at all. I am trying to get the sweeter heater hot enough I can pull the light again now.
I haven't been out to take care of the birds. I've only opened pens so they can run for a while. I do wish my medications would kick in and start working.
Maidenwolf I need to cull some extra boys too. I just keep putting it off. I have one I will be glad to butcher though. He is the first rooster I have ever had that seems like he is going to be mean. He jumps at me every now and then. I hit him with a bucket a few days ago and he has left me alone since then but I'm afraid that won't last. I don't need him anyway.

I'm glad your chicks arrived safely, but I sure hope they come out from under things so you can get them back where they belong.

My favorite cat got run over by a car last night while I was gone shopping, so I had to come back to find her & pick her up out of the road. I don't know why it always has to be my special cat that something happens to. Why couldn't it have been one of the ones we have out there for mousers that aren't tame? Last year someone shot my calico cat & now this one. She has a litter of 5 little kittens & an extra that she has been fostering that now have no momma. Fortunately they are eating well enough that they will be OK, but I'm sure they're wondering where their momma is. She was going out hunting & bringing them back things to eat. I'm sure that's what happened because she hardly ever left here. Yesterday she brought them a mouse & the day before a baby snake. She was a beautiful long haired black & white cat. So now I guess I'll try to tame one of her kittens. They're a little wild because they're all outdoor kitties. She had some beautiful babies, a couple look just like her.

 

[ivyrash]

I have not had Pixius, but I know others who have & weren't that impressed with it. I'm sorry you're having so much trouble. Good luck on your moving, I absolutely hate moving.
Wow HEChicken only $40K! Yeah that's about what they would tell us here too, even though we're less than a mile from town. You have to get enough people together to make it worth their while to bring it out or they won't.
We had Hughes satellite for 2 years & couldn't wait to get off of it. We had that problem with them & the downloads too & then they "punished" us for 24 hours with download speeds like dialup. Mostly what we downloaded was software updates so we had to eventually schedule those at like 3 a.m. during their "free download" time. How can you help it if Windows wants to download software updates? After that we got on a wireless setup because they put a tower down the road from us on top of a barn on the corner. We happen to have a good enough line of sight to get on that one fortunately. It has been pretty decent, we have occasional hiccups, but it's a lot better than Hughes.
I hadn't heard anyone say how the Verizon thing performs. We don't have Verizon, but I guess you don't have to have your cell phone service with them to get that.
I have never been able to add a full grown rooster when there was one already there. If I add them young before they know any better then it's OK, but I tried to put my Speckled Sussex rooster out there with my Cream Legbar guy & they tried to kill each other. The Speckled Sussex won, so he had to leave & go to a home with no other roosters. I do plan to add a couple of young roosters when they get big enough, but they will still be young enough that they should be able to fit in before they know they should be leading.
I'm glad your chicks arrived safely, but I sure hope they come out from under things so you can get them back where they belong.

My favorite cat got run over by a car last night while I was gone shopping, so I had to come back to find her & pick her up out of the road. I don't know why it always has to be my special cat that something happens to. Why couldn't it have been one of the ones we have out there for mousers that aren't tame? Last year someone shot my calico cat & now this one. She has a litter of 5 little kittens & an extra that she has been fostering that now have no momma. Fortunately they are eating well enough that they will be OK, but I'm sure they're wondering where their momma is. She was going out hunting & bringing them back things to eat. I'm sure that's what happened because she hardly ever left here. Yesterday she brought them a mouse & the day before a baby snake. She was a beautiful long haired black & white cat. So now I guess I'll try to tame one of her kittens. They're a little wild because they're all outdoor kitties. She had some beautiful babies, a couple look just like her.

Seems like it's always the favorites. I just rehomed some kitties that my mama cat brought from my neighbors barn. They were a little wild but they all found homes. I hated to get rid of them but they were climbing inside the cars and I already ran over one on accident and yes, it was my favorite. Now mama cat keeps calling them, I will be glad when she stops that.

 

[Chickies-duckies-etc]

I have a slight problem. I had those new chicks in the kitchen eating and drinking but when I got ready to take them to the brooder some of them ran under the dishwasher. Well my kitchen isn't finished because I need to put in hardwood, so the front of the dishwasher isn't installed. Two of the chicks ran under the dishwasher. I tried to get them out and it spooked them and they ran underneath the floor of an attached cabinet. There is no access to get in there. They've been there since mid morning and haven't come out. I sure hope they get hungry and decide to resurface. I'd hate to have to tear out my kitchen cabinets to remove two dead chicks!!!!

Have you put a light where it will shine back where they are at? Chicks will usually come to a light.

 

[sharol]

We dropped our wireless connection to change to Dish.net. It is by Hughes, but it has different rules. They meter your usage by the month rather than by the day so you can actually get something done. It is fast enough that we can actually stream short videos. Of course the downside is the 10 gb limit for the month, but we don't use the internet for movies, so it hasn't been a problem yet. We average speeds in the 4-5 mbps range rather than the .75 we were paying more for from the wireless. It hasn't been out even during hard rains, so maybe we did the right thing. I've had it since October last year, so we still have 1.5 years on the contract.

*** snip ***
We had Hughes satellite for 2 years & couldn't wait to get off of it. We had that problem with them & the downloads too & then they "punished" us for 24 hours with download speeds like dialup. Mostly what we downloaded was software updates so we had to eventually schedule those at like 3 a.m. during their "free download" time. How can you help it if Windows wants to download software updates? After that we got on a wireless setup because they put a tower down the road from us on top of a barn on the corner. We happen to have a good enough line of sight to get on that one fortunately. It has been pretty decent, we have occasional hiccups, but it's a lot better than Hughes.

 

[Polishpal]

I have some sad news..my faverite cross breed,chickadee, died. She somehow got out of the chicken coop when it was shut or she didn't go up but when I went to put everyone up I found her tiny body laying next to the coop x'c. I'm very upset because she was my sweet baby and the most tame of all my birds but all things must come to a end. I buried her in her favorite spot to dig for worms. I know that she is in chicken heaven digging worms with her other passed flock members. I just popped in to tell you all this so talk to you guys later. :'(

 

[chicken danz]

Sorry Polish pal. Also so sorry about your Cat Trish. I should get some barn cats to eat mice around here but I am afraid that we will bring in disease with other cats. I have my 16 year old cat, a four year old rescue cat, and another 10 year old I rescued. I keep the 10 year old outside but she isn't much of a mouser at all. My 16 year old has a huge tumor on her side and some other health issues and I don't want to chance her getting exposed to anything else. Maybe after she passes away I will get a barn cat or two.
Well my day continued to go bad. We did have a light outside of the dishwasher Chickies,duckies. I thought that would work but the chicks wouldn't come out. Finally DH and myself used a fish net and a flashlight and drug them out one by one. Fortunately there was a support board under the cabinet just a little ways back that kept them from totally getting back there. They have now joined a couple hundred other chicks in the brooder.
I was getting some chicks ready for a buyer later this afternoon and realized I should have marked them. I was starting to get confused about which chicks I was selling and which ones I had purchased.
I sexed my Mandarin baby ducks I had been keeping in the house and out of the three had two males and one female. I took them out and let them join the rest of them in the duck aviary. I hope they'll be warm enough. I put elastic bands on their legs so I hope they last so I can tell who is who. I will need to sell them later.
Then in my effort to get birds moved around I had had a heat lamp on the turkey poults that got wet. DH came running and said we had a fire in the front room!!!

I ran in there and the heat lamp had fallen and burnt through the bin and onto the floor. Unfortunately this is the only room I have the new hardwood installed in!! It stayed hot a long time. I think I probably lost the finish on that spot and it darkened it but it is a dark stained floor so it doesn't show as bad as it could. I am just lucky he found it when he did. I had left the lamp on while I was waiting for the sweeter heater to warm up.
So it is almost 7:30 and DH said I need to take it easy so I can get to feeling better. Gee! I guess once I get the birds all shut up and chased back to their pens later I might do that.

 

[cherwill]

My favorite cat got run over by a car last night while I was gone shopping, so I had to come back to find her & pick her up out of the road. I don't know why it always has to be my special cat that something happens to. Why couldn't it have been one of the ones we have out there for mousers that aren't tame? Last year someone shot my calico cat & now this one. She has a litter of 5 little kittens & an extra that she has been fostering that now have no momma. Fortunately they are eating well enough that they will be OK, but I'm sure they're wondering where their momma is. She was going out hunting & bringing them back things to eat. I'm sure that's what happened because she hardly ever left here. Yesterday she brought them a mouse & the day before a baby snake. She was a beautiful long haired black & white cat. So now I guess I'll try to tame one of her kittens. They're a little wild because they're all outdoor kitties. She had some beautiful babies, a couple look just like her.

I have some sad news..my faverite cross breed,chickadee, died. She somehow got out of the chicken coop when it was shut or she didn't go up but when I went to put everyone up I found her tiny body laying next to the coop x'c. I'm very upset because she was my sweet baby and the most tame of all my birds but all things must come to a end. I buried her in her favorite spot to dig for worms. I know that she is in chicken heaven digging worms with her other passed flock members. I just popped in to tell you all this so talk to you guys later. :'(

I'm sorry you both lost critters that were special to you. I know how much it hurts.