I have a relatively young flock of ducks ranging in age from 2 months to 6 months. It's a relatively good ratio of ducks to drakes - there are currently 3 mature females, 1 mature drake and 6 immature ducklings (4 female, 2 male). The problem is that the drake more or less ignores the mature...
I bought some four-week-old poults this past weekend and they are extremely skittish and stressed. I walk up to their pen and they try to run through the fence to get away and don't settle down again until I leave. I've tried treats (mealworms, overripe melon), but they won't touch it even...
Hi all, I currently have a batch of duck eggs in the incubator (d26). When I locked down the incubator yesterday, I noticed that about half had already pipped, and yet no one has hatched yet, 30+ hours later. They're still alive, the eggs are rocking and they're peeping in their shells, but...
Hi all,
I haven't been on in a while, but I have five horses which are needing to find new homes. They have spent the last year to 18 months being research mares in our herd. They are all mares. Unlike the mares we rehomed last time, these still have their ovaries. Please let me know if...
I know there is a lot of fear about eating raw eggs from the grocery store because of salmonella and other bacterial contamination, so I was just wondering who eats raw eggs from their personal chickens (in cookie dough/cake batter if nothing else)? They should theoretically be safer because we...
Does anyone know anything about it? My 5 yo DD has had a few episodes of tachycardia recently and finally got in to see the pediatric cardiologist this morning. He said he wasn't 100% sure, but he thought she had Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome. It is apparently the most common cause of...
Just wanted to vent! we lost 11 (out of 13 total) meat birds last night to some kind of predator They got pulled through the fence and that was the end of them. We do have a dog which keeps the predators away well from most of our chickens, but our meat birds were way across the yard from the...
We were at TSC today and my daughter asked the worker "why do chicks need heat lamps?"
To which he replied "Because they're cold blooded"
Huh... cold blooded? I didn't know a cold blooded animal could regulate their body temperature at 103 degrees. And I wonder why the adults don't need...
So my DH and I are in the middle of a kitchen remodel! We're replacing the floor in the kitchen, dining room, pantry, mudroom and laundry room with tile and we're going to paint the cabinets and replace the counter tops. We're doing the work ourselves to avoid going broke!
The floor which...
I thought this would be an interesting interview for the people on here. It's from a fairly new website www.thesociocapitalist.com which was founded by a Master's student in Sustainability and discusses a lot of sustainability type issues. A long, but VERY interesting interview...
My daughter's school is doing a 100 day party with a theme of birds and one of her teachers asked me if I would let them borrow my incubator and some eggs to hatch. So I set her up with everything she needed and instructions for humidity and temperature during incubation and showed her how to...
I am sick.
Had a headache yesterday morning, which morphed into a migraine. My head feels better today, but I still haven't been able to keep anything down since yesterday morning. I've tried saltines and ginger ale, canned peaches and chicken noodle soup.
Anyone have any suggestions...
Ok... here's my story! (I'm not sadistic, promise!!)
My daughter and her friend are playing at the house, and they decide they want to gather eggs. Ok, sure, no problem - I do warn them not to take the egg from under the broody hen.
They come running back in with the eggs and say that they...
Today is National Coming Out Day!
Let's give a round of applause to all our LGBT friends and loved ones, and recognize them for the amazing people they are.
Did you know...
Almost 90% of LGBT youth are harassed in some form at school.
In 29 states, you can be fired for being gay or...
Wish me luck!!
Our neighbors have had 5 chickens killed in the last five nights, so we're setting the live trap tonight. I'm setting one trap at each of our neighbors. I would set one in our yard too, but our dogs do a good job keeping out "varmits".
Someone suggested baiting the trap...
My daughter was handing out feathers from our rooster yesterday at school. One of the other moms asked her where the feathers came from.
DD: From George
Other mom: Who's George?
DD (Very matter of fact): Our rooster who we ate.
Other mom (shocked look of horror on her face): ...
This is NOT spraddle leg.
Her right leg is twisted ~90 at the elbow so when you look at her side you see the bottom of her foot and her toes are permanently curled, she can't uncurl them by herself (that I can tell). Her left leg looks normal.
Is this something that I can splint? She's under...
We have pips!!!
3+ weeks ago, I got a dozen eggs from GumpsGirl. Even though she did an AMAZING job packing the eggs, the PO still managed to break 5 of 13 on the way here so I expected that few, if any, of the remaining 8 would even develop.
We actually had 7/8 begin development...
Ok, my DH and I have an amazing four-year-old daughter. She is incredible and we love her to death! I am currently in school for my PhD, but I am very ready to have another baby. Unfortunately, my husband things we should wait until we move back to California (not a guaranteed thing at...