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  1. echosrevenge

    The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

    So because it's that cockerels-getting-bigger time of year....is anyone else's barnyard starting to sound a bit like this? (silly, a bit bawdy)
  2. echosrevenge

    Maine

    I'm a bit fed up with the rain...i need to finish my bachelor pen, it digging post holes doesn't work so well in the mud. Its getting a bit like this out there: Except, there are six of them and they're not bantams! Like the man says, not even the water pump is safe!
  3. echosrevenge

    Maine

    MustardTiger, your dog is adorable. Looks like a happy little troublemaker.
  4. echosrevenge

    Mumsy's Romantic Garden Advice

    @aoxa, a handy tip for IDing maples is that they are always symmetrical. Sometimes it can be hard.to spot because one of the branches took off while the other died, but they always grow branches and leaves in opposite pairs. With regard to goats & poison oak/ivy, yes they love it but some...
  5. echosrevenge

    The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

    My favorite pullet laid her first egg today! She's half Faverolles and half Kinardly ('kinardly tell what her dad was", other than that he was the best rooster I've ever had) and her egg is big for a pullet egg, dark tan with white speckles. Really neat looking. She's the one that used to fly...
  6. echosrevenge

    Maine

    My Rocket laid her first egg! She's half Faverolles and half Kinardly ("kinardly tell what he is") and her egg is dark tan with white speckles. She was surprised as hell, and I am delighted! Everyone else is either broody, raising chicks, or molting - this is the first egg I've had in more than...
  7. echosrevenge

    Maine

    Scaley leg mites are very, very small and hard to see with the naked eye. Raised/irritated leg scales are often the only sign.
  8. echosrevenge

    Maine

    Yep, regular ol' wood ash from the fireplace. I screen mine but only to separate out the biochar for the compost pile - the hens dont mind a few cinders, and I've seen then eating them from time to time. The ash is extremely alkaline and dessicating, so it'll do a number on any soft-bodied...
  9. echosrevenge

    Mumsy's Romantic Garden Advice

    Dammit! My phone ate my post....here goes again. Osage Orange is native to the southern/westernish US and Mexico. It is a fast growing, thorny hardwood prized for furniture, implements, and especially bows for hunting and target shooting. The fruit it produces look citrusy, but as far as i know...
  10. echosrevenge

    Mumsy's Romantic Garden Advice

    Aoxa, hawthorn is traditionally used in the British isles as a stock-proof hedgerow plant - they are coppiced and the thorny branches woven together to make a hedge even a determined goat will think twice before pushing through. I dont know how easily they propagate, but it might be a long term...
  11. echosrevenge

    Maine

    Seconding the wood ash. We struggled with lice for a while this spring (learned all about why hay is bad chicken bedding...) and couldn't kick them with even sevin. I ended up converting 1/5 of the coop floor into a dusting space with peat moss, wood ash, DE, sulfur powder, and builders sand...
  12. echosrevenge

    Mumsy's Romantic Garden Advice

    You all rock my freaking world right now. Loniceria maackii. Grows freaking EVERYWHERE here. I have been trying to ID it for almost two years, the chickens love it but it's been driving me absolutely crazy trying to figure out what it is. I've asked everyone I know, and gotten a wild range of...
  13. echosrevenge

    Home Feeding Ideas and Solutions Discussion Thread

    The old farmer's adage is that corn creates warmth, but I dont know how actually factual that is. My birds are eating a LOT more now that the heat wave has broken here...i know I didn't want to eat much the last few days either, so I can't really blame them. Maybe try some chilled greens or...
  14. echosrevenge

    Mumsy's Romantic Garden Advice

    Wow, that lady was unbelievable! I dont blame you a bit for taking down the sign.... I bet that same lady would be horrified at the idea of doing the same at Lowe's garden department. What a piece of work. This thread has totally re-lit the fire under my bum to seek out nice cuttings...
  15. echosrevenge

    Mumsy's Romantic Garden Advice

    Kassaundra, im not sure exactly what the willow water was - some (I presume) willow-based concoction my grandma used to keep cuttings shed take while out and about. Given how easy it is to root willows, and how many rooting solutions contain willow in one form or another, im sure it worked well...
  16. echosrevenge

    Mumsy's Romantic Garden Advice

    I would never take a cutting from a nursery, or even from someone's yard without permission. That is indeed stealing. Public spaces are sort of grey to me, I'd ask permission first, but nurseries and yards are definitely private property. If it was something crazy rare and amazing that was...
  17. echosrevenge

    The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

    Chicks are wicked resilient. I had a broody cochin mama kill all but one of her clutch this weekend. The one survivor had nasty wounds to both sides of his neck, and none of the other broodies would accept him. I put iodine & my homemade ghetto-nustock (sulfur & pine tar mixed into an ancient...
  18. echosrevenge

    Maine

    MustardTiger, this year I've had a hard time with greens too. Chard and lettuce have been a bust, but Red Russian Kale has done well, and so have a few of the dozen or so sorts of Bok Choi/Pac Choi that I've planted. My father in law is having huge problems with cabbage moth caterpillars right...
  19. echosrevenge

    Mumsy's Romantic Garden Advice

    Ah! Now I wish I'd gone in to work with my husband today and taken the car...there are several businesses and parks near his work with lovely shrubs I'd love to have cuttings of... My dad tells stories about his moms garden, she used to keep a little jar of willow water (I think a sort of tea...
  20. echosrevenge

    The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

    Shan30, that's awful! I'll second what aoxa said about processing them for meat - MG is not transmissible to people and doesn't taint the meat unless its REALLY BAD and the bird has died on its own. Even old egg-machine hybrid hens can be pressure-canned easily for delicious, tender soup and...
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