Consolidated Kansas

[chicken danz]

Sharol, what a beautiful baby! I'm jealous! I really want a grandson. I hate waiting.
I have those campines hatching today. I think there are only 5 viable eggs. With luck I might have some to offer.
Posted by michelleml

My DH and DS are gone hunting, Since my body hasn't adjusted to the new time I got up and hour early and couldn't go back to sleep. I decided that was enough time to make some loaves of pumpkin bread before church. I cooked two loaves in the oven, and 1 loaf the convection, we'll compare.
I got up early too and read on BYC instead of doing anything useful!!.

Wow those are so cute. I am just amazed at how many you have. I work with some people from Kenya who would love to eat those you may want to sell in the future. They want goats, ducks and chickens. Anyway looks like there are a couple of months before that in this case. Danz you must truly have a ton of animals. You go Girl!

I just sold 66 baby ducks. Yep these are all going to the feed market after they grow a while. I have a bunch more eggs in the bator. Hopefully I can hatch about that many more in the next few weeks and make some more money. I sold my doves but two got away as well.
It paid for my peacocks and my gas from yesterday so I am pretty happy.
I love my animals Mike. They are what keeps me going. I love hatching as well and that is the only way I can make money on them. I just wish I had a place to hatch that wasn't in my house. I really do hate the chick dust and smells.
Mike I will have some ducks for sell for sure in the future. Most spring/summers I hatch several hundred.
I just put another batch of Marans eggs in the incubator as well. I should be well stocked with Marans and barred rocks.
That reminds me. I went ahead and placed an order for white rocks and some red star chicks this weekend. Not sure when they will be available. I will raise the red star girls to be layers and the white rocks will be crossed with a new hamp rooster to make my own future red stars. That should keep me in egg layers for a couple years any way. I've been very impressed with the red stars and how they lay.
I've learned my egg market leads me to other people wanting other birds for pets or to eat and I never can seem to fill enough orders.

 

[michelleml]

Danz very cute ducks.

We got new birds I bought a few different breeds just to have some different colors so i bought two black sexlink, and two Silver spangled Hamburgs along with 4 buff orpingtons. They said they are 9 wks old but they look younger what do you all think?

 

[chicken danz]

Yes those are younger than 9 weeks. By that age they should be fully feathered. My guess would be 4-5 weeks.

 

[maidenwolfx80]

Danz very cute ducks.

We got new birds I bought a few different breeds just to have some different colors so i bought two black sexlink, and two Silver spangled Hamburgs along with 4 buff orpingtons. They said they are 9 wks old but they look younger what do you all think?

cute chicks, they look the same age as mine and mine will be 5 weeks on tuesday

 

[HEChicken]

Yes those are younger than 9 weeks. By that age they should be fully feathered. My guess would be 4-5 weeks.

x2.

Sharol - your grandbabies are gorgeous!

Hey Danz, the mouse trap finally caught a couple of mice. We heard some scrambling in the walls of the barn so I set up one trap in there a couple of days ago. Then I brought back the trap I had set at our horse barn, and I put it in our barn as well, in a corner (the first one was just against a wall). I checked them this morning and the first one was still empty, after being there two nights, but the one in the corner had a mouse in it. I fed that to one of my snakes and put the trap back against the wall and this evening there was another mouse in it. That was fed to another snake and now it is back there to (hopefully) get its third victim tonight. The smell of mouse in there is now quite strong and I'm wondering if that will a) encourage other mice to enter the trap or b) smell of mouse fear so discourage others from entering. I guess I will find out in the morning.

 

[checoukan]

Hi, to all.
Well, I made the National Rosecomb show!! My cockerel placed 5th in the first show, and 3rd in the second show.
The pullets did not place, but, I had a lot of comments on the girls. They had some very tough competion. My girls were a lot younger than a lot of the pullets there. Some were even laying. My girls have not crossed that line yet. I would say most of the pullets there were 11+ months old. Mine are only 9 months so I am not unhappy. I learned so much from the "BIG SHOW BREEDERS" They were all so nice, and we talked a lot about birds, breeding, and conditioning. I have a lot of work ahead of me but will get it done, and my birds will be better for it. I will be attending Hutchinson the 17th. They will be having sale cages there. Breeders will have birds there for sale. If you are just wanting to pick up something new for your flock, good place to look. All birds have to be tested, so they will all be pollurium clean.
I took a couple of pictures at the show, I have to get them uploaded, and then I will post them.

 

[HEChicken]

Congratulations Rosie - sounds like you had a great show and weekend! Looking forward to seeing the pics.

 

[mikeksfarmer]

Hawks ~ usually the red tail hawks winter here. They sit on power poles, etc along the highways, and I am sure other places also. There was one that claimed the mile of county road between me and the highway last year. I often saw it sitting on the power pole in the field next to me. I was NOT a happy camper and neither were the birds because they had less freedom than they were used to. They are showing up sitting on their look out posts along the highways again. So far, I have not seen the unwelcome one here. They arrive in the fall and leave in the spring.

Others have already mentioned most of the things I have heard to deter them. You can make hiding places for the chickens with pallet tepees or other places the chickens can get under to hide. On another forum it was suggested to use a big, realistic predator kite. An eagle, osprey, etc. I have a hard time figuring out how it would work to keep one flying.

There is a huge bird that sometimes hunts the fields around here. I wish I knew what it is. It is as big as a goose, but flyes in a hunting pattern close to the ground. I have never seen it indicate any interest in my birds and the way it behaves it seems to be hunting mice or small critters. Someone said it is a chicken hawk, but I doubt that is what it is.

Just want to remind you of the bottle rocket launcher. if your in the country just launch a few every once and a while. Works for me. I have never lost a bird to a bird of prey. I encourage screech owls or sparrow hawks to eat my mice. I get a few hawks in the big cotton wood trees just above the pen. I use the bottle rockets then. I hear you can use old CDs on fishing line to scare hawks away. Seems like you could tie about 10 feet between 2 and toss them into a tree so they hang and swing in the wind. I have a covered pen for the day time then a big open pen for half the day not that any of them stay in the big pen.

 

[Kansas Prairie]

Quote: Congrats! Sounds like it was an enjoyable time! I wish I lived closer to Hutch so I could get some better birds, not show birds but some well bred utility birds. That would be a 5 hour drive one way.

My DS got a nice deer this afternoon.

 

[mikeksfarmer]

thanks for the note Danz I was looking at this site today at work and someone asked me for ducks. Next spring i want to get some black copper murans I may have to expand my chicken space some day. thinking I have something I can turn into a chicken tractor so may help. any way lots of good family stuff on here. Kids and chicks are way cute. Keep up all the great stuff folks