Consolidated Kansas

[Trish44]

I got lucky today! I went to atwoods to buy some feed and a bag of pine chips for the chicks and forgot the pine. So I decided I would go another day... Well on my way home I saw a sign saying free wood chips. The guy has a wood chipper and a huge pile of chips so I loaded up the minivan with about 15 large trash bags full ( knew I kept those in the car for a good reason) so now I am good in the wood chip dept. and he said there was no cedar. Mostly elm and pine. I am trying the deep litter method for my coop and now I just need the grass to grow so I can mix that in.

I would think the other wood chips would work too, I never thought of using other tree chips. The problem with what we have at the recycling center here is that it's so coarse & holds moisture in. The thin stuff you get from the farm stores doesn't hold the moisture so much. Let us know how that works for you. You sure don't want mold growing in your coop, but if you can keep it turned & keep it dry it might be OK. I have used dead leaves in the fall in with my shavings & did fine as long as they were dry when I put them in there. I have a huge compost area full of stuff from my coop now since I just cleaned it out. I also use the DLM method & it has worked well for me, it sure does save a lot of work. I didn't get it turned like usual this winter due to my breaking my leg but it still did OK. I don't recommend putting fresh chicken manure on a garden, it needs to break down for awhile because it is too rich & will burn the plants. I use rabbit manure because it doesn't burn the plants & doesn't have to be composted first. It's supposed to be one of the best fertilizers you can use. I had wonderful tomato plants last year & would have had a lot of fruit to eat if the darned goats hadn't decided they liked the whole tomato plant & ate them all.

I agree with you tweety, this wind has been brutal lately, I'm tired of it too. It sure isn't helping my allergies & my ear. I'm sorry to hear about your plants, I hope they recover. I wouldn't put anything tender to frost out right now because we have a hard freeze coming Monday night. I hate to see that because all of our fruit trees out in the orchard are in bloom. We have pear, apple, & cherry left out there & they're so pretty right now & smell so good.

Danz I can't wait to see your little coop when it's done. I probably need something like that in my hoop coops, but I don't really have the room in there.

I'm so relieved to have that big coop cleaned out. Now I need to start cleaning the stalls in the breeder coop. At least those won't be so bad & I can get them done a little at a time instead of all at once. One of them is empty right now waiting on another color of Orp if I ever get the chicks. I paid for these chicks quite some time ago & the people haven't been able to come through on my order. I'm getting pretty tired of the whole thing, I just want my chicks.

 

[chicken danz]

22qzoo... glad your son is attempting to communicate using the ipad. My daughter is trying hard to verbally tell us something now as well. It is great to see them finally make progress, no matter how small a progress that is. Maybe small for others but they are huge to me and you! I hope he gets to feeling better soon. Is the Dr giving him something for his chronic severe sinus infection? Poor thing...

Tweety always glad to see you when you get a chance to pop in. The people that came here yesterday have a son who is non-communicable. He kept pointing at me and touching me. I got the biggest kick out of him. He was so excited about the birds. He kept shaking his hands and smiling so you could really see how much he liked them.
I still don't have my potatoes planted. I guess they will have to wait until it warms up a little now.
Originally Posted by okjenyp

We have a new wrinkle, after letting everybody out to free range all day when it's about time to put everybody up for the evening the geese think they should go up in the coop and have been harassing the broody momma. They have broke 3 eggs so far, DD was so mad, I think she wanted to wring both their necks! Now that they have become a breeding pair they have turned into putzes. I'm wondering, if the other eggs got some yoke and egg white on them from the ones that broke does that mean that these egg are now contaminated ?DD cleaned the nest box out and put some new hay in there but she didn't do much to the eggs other than just put them back and set her back on them . What should we have done ? Now I need to figure out how to keep the broody safe and keep the geese out of the coop. Gerr...
Egg and yolk won't hurt the eggs. That happens around here all the time. An egg will get broken under a hen and get on the other eggs. They still hatch like normal. Poop however is another matter. The geese will settle down and be sweet again once breeding season is over.
DANZ- DD still wants to get another duck to replace the one we lost last summer and I need to do some culling later on (putting it off as long as possible,,)and if this broody doesn't go well we still might need to get a few speckled Sussex . I have actually been selling allot of eggs so I'd like to keep up with the layers.
I'm going to have to check into Golden seal, heard of it and have seen it on the store shelf but never gave it much thought. Good to know.
msy8x- thanks for all those tips anyway,DS and I have both had trouble with sinuses the last couple of years. A little coconut oil in my saline rinse and I'm good to go, him not so much,I was doing sinus rinses,naturpathic & homeopathic stuff, probiotics,humidifiers and air purifiers,yadda yadda.. With a non-verbal kiddo who has to deal with the genetic cards he was dealt sometimes you just throw everything at the wall and see what sticks. Good news is he's getting better and this round of antibiotics seems to be working and now that we know what the issue is, we can try to stay on top of it.
Which kind of ducks did she get? I can't remember although I remember her getting a couple. I have four huge nests of duck eggs no one is sitting on full time. It is driving me insane. I was kind of hoping they'd hatch some on their own but so far they are just laying like crazy. I just don't have room to set duck eggs with all these other eggs I have. I'd love to see K again. If I don't hatch I could always donate some eggs and one of your broodies could hatch them. Chickens do a pretty good job on duck eggs as long as there aren't chicken eggs that hatch earlier.
TWEETY - you're right progress is progress and we'll take it any way we can get it. DH has done a great job setting up his talker program, I'm so glad he has stuck with it and burned all that midnight oil to get him where we are now.

We got a bit more planted today -- carrots, fennel, wax beans, and kale. I found a small envelope of broccoli rabe at Wal-Mart, so we planted that. I'm curious to see how it is. I also found some kind of beet that looks more purpley and is supposed to be better for pickling. I'll let you know if it really is. Most of the leeks are looking good, the shallots are all sprouting, and the peas are looking good. Only two or three potatoes have sprouted so far, and the beets are just starting to come up. Just in time for a possible "wintry mix" this next week.

I hope it doesn't happen.

I swore I was going to get a garden in early this year but I have all kinds of stuff that isn't planted yet. I've never heard of brocolli rabe before? Looked it up. You'll have to let me know how it is.
I had a customer come today to get buff orps from nearly 150 miles from me. He plans to show them. He was pretty impressed with my birds. Since he shows birds regularly I felt pretty good about that.
I also had another customer that was going to buy my Mandarins but he waited until we had a major storm move in so I told him to wait until the weather was more cooperative. I wasn't going to try to catch birds over a pond in the rain and lightening.
I was working on my coop and got the chicken door made. I had to take the main door off to cut the chicken door through it. I cut too far cause I was using the circular saw and I guess got to day dreaming or something so there's a couple extra cuts. Oh well I never claimed to be perfect. I was all done and ready to hang the big door back on the coop when I got rained out for the second time today. This time it's a major thunderstorm and the temperature is falling. Why did the weather man have to be right this time? Once I hang the door though, the new coop is all done except the roof. I'm still on the fence about what I want to do with it. I'm also not sure if I want to paint or just water seal the outside of the coop. I kind of like the rough texture of the wood. Oh and I guess I haven't made a ramp for it yet either. I need to make one I can detach so when I open the main door to clean or whatever I can get it out of the way. I just keep adding things to this. The biggest problem will be it is getting heavier and heavier with every little addition I make. I'm so anxious to get it done!! Then onward to a million other projects.
I have geese hatching today too. I think maybe 5 or 6 of them if they all hatch.
Tomorrow is a big hatch day for chickens etc. Where on earth am I going to put them??

 

[okjenyp]

The guy said they just chipped the wood a few days ago. And with the nice warm days we have had ( not today!) it was very dry when I was scooping it. I only took stuff off the top layer anyways. Was kinda dusty and looked fresh. I think it will be fine.

 

[lizzyGSR]

Golly! What a difference one day makes in the weather! Yesterday was a beautiful 80 degrees with very little wind. Absolutely gorgeous! Today, it is windy, and we hit our high for the day just after midnight, and the temps have been falling steadily since. When I got up this morning, it was 37 degrees. When I went out to do chores this evening, it was 29 and VERy cold comparatively. We got a brief bit of rain this morning, and it has been snowing/sleeting off and on all day since. It was nice to wake up to rain on the roof this morning - that is after I quit freaking out about what that strange noise was

(I do have to say that the baby was crying so I couldn't hear it real well over him). Of course, I had to laugh at myself when I realized what it was making that noise!

I guess the good news about this weather is that it will keep the rattlesnakes in hibernation for a bit longer. I am NOT looking forward to snake season this year, especially since I now have a little one to worry about.

 

[okjenyp]

Oh I hope we don't get rattle snakes around here. I've never seen any. Only garder snakes and bull snakes. It is my first year raising chicks so I don't want any predators. My dogs do a good job running anything four legged off.. And they have never encountered snakes... If princess is anything like her cousin bob ( both dachshunds) than snakes beware. He found a 4 ft bull snake once and shook it to death at my grandmas. And she tears the living day lights out of her toys... Just hope she never gets ahold of my chickens...

 

[lizzyGSR]

Oh I hope we don't get rattle snakes around here. I've never seen any. Only garder snakes and bull snakes. It is my first year raising chicks so I don't want any predators. My dogs do a good job running anything four legged off.. And they have never encountered snakes... If princess is anything like her cousin bob ( both dachshunds) than snakes beware. He found a 4 ft bull snake once and shook it to death at my grandmas. And she tears the living day lights out of her toys... Just hope she never gets ahold of my chickens...

From what I understand, there are rattlesnakes all over KS. However, growing up in Central KS, we NEVER saw a rattlesnake. We had black snakes, bull snakes, garter snakes, and others, but I never knew what a rattlesnake looked like 'till I moved out here (NW KS). It just so happens that we live in a place that is close to a sand pit, and we tend to have a higher concentration of rattlesnakes here than in any other part of the county from what I've been told. That's why I'm so concerned about snakes. Bull snakes don't bother me. Neither do the Blue Racers. It is the poisonous snakes (i.e. rattlers) that bother me.

 

[22qZoo]

Glad to hear the eggs aren't contaminated, we moved the broody momma into a pink pet carrier with the door removed, and then put that inside a big kennel with some food and water inside the coop. If that doesn't work I don't know what else we can do.
DANZ, the duck we got last year was a Cayuga , a black one with the white on the front of her crop. As much as DH can be kind of ambivalent about all the animals and birds he's the one telling me that she (the duck) needs a friend. K's got a b-day coming up so maybe we can run down there sometime.
I would like to try to get some garden stuff done this week and then next weekend ,the forecast doesn't look all that nice. Shaving a little money off the grocery bill would be nice , grocery prices have really gone up especially beef (holy cow!) .

 

[okjenyp]

I have never seen a rattle snake here in Wichita. And hope I never do. My husband is from Africa and there are many poisonous snakes there. Well, this fall when it was starting to cool off, a garter snake snuck under the threshold of our front door. And we wondered why they cat and dogs were making a fuss.. Poor little guy was cornered. My husband was looking for the broom to kill it while I just picked it up. He about peed his pants when he saw it in my hand. He thought it was gunna kill me. It was maybe 6 inches long!! I laughed so hard. Well I took him outside and put him where he belonged. In the garden. Then a week later another one came in the house. I think those will be my snake problem. I can handle garter snakes all day. But I won't go picking up any big snakes, harmless or not. But I'm not cruel and kill it neither. Unless one of them rattle snakes decide to move to Wichita.

Ok so u know the lovely weather we are having. I've never grew tomatoes before. And I know if they frost u can lose them. So what do u guys cover them with? I put a 5 gal paint bucket over them. I hope it works. I prob should go put some heavy rocks on top cuz of the terrible wind

 

[chicken danz]

Quote:

Glad to hear the eggs aren't contaminated, we moved the broody momma into a pink pet carrier with the door removed, and then put that inside a big kennel with some food and water inside the coop. If that doesn't work I don't know what else we can do.
DANZ, the duck we got last year was a Cayuga , a black one with the white on the front of her crop. As much as DH can be kind of ambivalent about all the animals and birds he's the one telling me that she (the duck) needs a friend. K's got a b-day coming up so maybe we can run down there sometime.
I would like to try to get some garden stuff done this week and then next weekend ,the forecast doesn't look all that nice. Shaving a little money off the grocery bill would be nice , grocery prices have really gone up especially beef (holy cow!) .

I guess I could set a few eggs. I haven't noticed the cayuga eggs that I can identify. Some of the cayuga eggs are green so they are really easy to tell but I haven't noticed any. Like I said I can give you eggs if you can hatch them, or maybe when this cold breaks I can set a few. Let me know. I don't have much room but I can set maybe 4-5 so you could get a couple ducklings.
Originally Posted by okjenyp
The flint hills are full of rattlesnakes and we have a huge amount of them right around here even though we are on the far edge. We have the Massasauga rattlesnakes around here that are a smaller rattler but they are extremely venomous and the babies are particularly dangerous. They can't control the venum the inject so they can easily deliver a deadly amount in a bite. this area has a huge amount of limestone and these things love laying on the rocks to sun themselves,especially near water sources.
okjenyp, your chances of seeing snakes might increase if chicken feed draws in mice. And the black snakes and bull snakes will eat eggs so keep your eyes open.
Most people cover tomatoes with things like upside down milk cartons or something. It may however get too cold for them even with protection. If possible get out there and take the cover off when it gets around 40 degrees or so.They need the light to survive. Just be sure to cover them back up.
I sure hope the cold doesn't ruin my radish or my garlic. That is all I have out there. I am more concerned about my grape vines and the fruit trees right now than anything. I was really counting on having some this summer.
We have snow on the ground and instead of it dissipating it just keeps snowing harder. I've got to take off after bit and I hate the idea of driving in the snow. One more dentist appointment. At least it will be a good night for soup!!

 

[tweetybaby2005]

Glad to hear the eggs aren't contaminated, we moved the broody momma into a pink pet carrier with the door removed, and then put that inside a big kennel with some food and water inside the coop. If that doesn't work I don't know what else we can do.
DANZ, the duck we got last year was a Cayuga , a black one with the white on the front of her crop. As much as DH can be kind of ambivalent about all the animals and birds he's the one telling me that she (the duck) needs a friend. K's got a b-day coming up so maybe we can run down there sometime.
I would like to try to get some garden stuff done this week and then next weekend ,the forecast doesn't look all that nice. Shaving a little money off the grocery bill would be nice , grocery prices have really gone up especially beef (holy cow!) .

22qzoo, I meant to respond to your question the other day. Like Danz said, I've had mine broken while the inexperienced hen sat on it last year and all I did was wipe the egg bits off and put them back in. I think I only had maybe 2 that didn't hatch after that. Those 2 problaby either were not fertile to begin with or just quiters.

Gardening this year seems to be quite challenging. The weather is certainly unstable... more so this year than any years in the past that I've been gardening. I have seen people just putting old bed sheets over young plants when a frost was in the forecast or like Danz said, putting milk jugs over them. I've heard of people putting hot water in empty milk jugs and putting them around young plants then put the cover on to help them stay a bit warmer during frosty nights. Hopefully this will be a thing in the past in the next couple of weeks because the average last frost date here is end of April (I think!).