➡I accidentally bought Balut eggs: 2 live ducks! Now a Chat Thread!

[littleprairieheartsfarm]

Is college really difficult? More so than High school?

Depends. You have more freedom. Freedom to succeed. Freedom to fail. If you are goal oriented, define your goals and go. If you are easily distracted, save your money.

Also, High School teachers are motivated to get you to pass to make themselves look good, unlike colleges. There are college classes, freshman level usually, that are called "cut courses". Like cutting cows out of the herd, they cut the low performers out. The college wants only the best and brightest to represent their alumni. Not everyone should go to college.

It is really up to YOU whether you succeed or fail in all things. Intelligence is certainly one part. Dedication and ability to understand new concepts is another. Plan on teaching yourself.

Yep, I went to college and graduated. I'm now gainfully employed. Choose your major carefully. Arts, business and psychology are harder to get well paying jobs. Do able, but more difficult. DD#1 is freshly graduated in biology and doing the internship rounds. It pays, but isn't consistent or comfortable. Look at the publications that advertise the highest paying college graduates fresh out of school, if that motivates you.

What is the opposite of gainfully employed?

Absolutely everything Nutty said.
It takes much more studying, and preparedness, even when I was in the advanced courses. As long as you work hard, stay focused, know when to not overwork yourself, and get some sleep, sleep is important no matter what college students tell you, when you sleep you let your brain process what it learned.

 

[littleprairieheartsfarm]

By the way, veterinarians usually get unpaid internships for the first several years while delaying the loan payback. They then either buy a practice or start their own. They are small business owners and are blessed with ALL that entails.

8 years of school. Followed by more years of gaining experience, then landing a job and trying to pay it all back. Not easy for animal doctors or human doctors. Specialists are paid higher, once they have gained experience.

Yes yes yes. I’m luckily starting off school with no debt but that’ll change soon unfortunately.

 

[Morrigan]

What is the opposite of gainfully employed?

or
retired

That's me! Retired from my "real" job that is. Now I'm gainfully employed as a hobby farmer.

 

[RUNuts]

@Tesumph have you gotten eggs yet?

I've got 2 6.5 month old Ideal Easter Eggers laying blue pullet eggs. Amazing the family and friends. A couple more squatting.

I also have 4 molting leghorns and 2 that are looking frazzled but still giving an egg a day between the 2 of them.

 

[littleprairieheartsfarm]

@Tesumph have you gotten eggs yet?

I've got 2 6.5 month old Ideal Easter Eggers laying blue pullet eggs. Amazing the family and friends. A couple more squatting.

I also have 4 molting leghorns and 2 that are looking frazzled but still giving an egg a day between the 2 of them.

I want blue eggs The legbars are only 10 weeks old so I have a long while to wait

 

[Conan]

Absolutely everything Nutty said.
It takes much more studying, and preparedness, even when I was in the advanced courses. As long as you work hard, stay focused, know when to not overwork yourself, and get some sleep, sleep is important no matter what college students tell you, when you sleep you let your brain process what it learned.

OR you could party like animal. Never sleep, learn how to drink like an actual soldier, cover things in cheese whiz, experiment with various other fun substances, half ass your classes and pass anyways, learn the art of bs-ing, and come out the other end with a useless BA in Liberal Arts. Then, to top it all off, end up working with lasers, which has absolutely nothing to do with anything, ever.

 

[littleprairieheartsfarm]

OR you could party like animal. Never sleep, learn how to drink like an actual soldier, cover things in cheese whiz, experiment with various other fun substances, half ass your classes and pass anyways, learn the art of bs-ing, and come out the other end with a useless BA in Liberal Arts. Then, to top it all off, end up working with lasers, which has absolutely nothing to do with anything, ever.

Or you can do that

 

[WVduckchick]

A quick question. I was out sitting with the littles yesterday and the feathers on Elvis' feet are bothering me and I don't know if it's warranted or not. They just look a little frayed? They just don't look full? Complete? I don't know what word I am looking for which is annoying! I also noticed there was a pink spot on his right foot. It's up towards the base of the feather on his foot. Like where it's growing out from? Or close to it anyway. I tried to touch one of his foot feathers close to the spot and he jerked it away and I just didn't pursue it. I didn't want to hurt him. He ended up jumping down off of my lap before I grabbed him to get a better look. Now my question is this. Is it normal feather wear/damage since he's just an outdoor pet? Like not a show/pampered chicken? Maybe from where him and Bowie jump up and spar with each other? So would be normal in those circumstances? And is there anything like vitamins or anything in particular that would help his feathering? Or if I did give him anything, would it not help because he is going to have outdoor wear and tear? I hope I am explaining ok. Anyway, here are a couple pics.
View attachment 1606586
View attachment 1606587
View attachment 1606588
You can't see the pink spot. I'll have to try and get a pic of it maybe tomorrow. I am thinking it's probably from a feather getting tweaked (for lack of a better word) and it caused a little bleeding in the shaft? I'm hoping that is all anyway. I'll get a better look tomorrow. Thoughts? Am I over-reacting?

Beautiful boy! The feathers look a little ragged, but probably just the weather. Has he molted? What’s his normal ground like? It could be the sparring with the other male, or watch and see if he picks at them much himself. Maybe some extra protein or feather fixer might help?
I wouldn’t worry too much about it though. My cochins get that way too.

I did find blood droplets under the BCM roost one evening that turned out to be a broken foot feather. I just rinsed her foot, pinched it to stop the bleeding and she was fine the next day.

You can see the tattered looking feathers on this dude’s feet

 

[h2oratt]

Yeah, exactly. I agree with both of you. We have no way of knowing if those kids will turn out normal or not down the line. I hope so.



That just seems so early to me but I guess it's not that uncommon. There was a kid when I first went to school in like an orientation thing or something that was married already and I remember being like WHAT!? But now it's not that shocking but coming from high school it was aha

And happy early anniversary!

You've been married longer than I've been alive

I'm turning 25 in March.

And you have been on here for 10 years. Wow.

 

[CrazyCrttr75]

Beautiful boy! The feathers look a little ragged, but probably just the weather. Has he molted? What’s his normal ground like? It could be the sparring with the other male, or watch and see if he picks at them much himself. Maybe some extra protein or feather fixer might help?
I wouldn’t worry too much about it though. My cochins get that way too.

I did find blood droplets under the BCM roost one evening that turned out to be a broken foot feather. I just rinsed her foot, pinched it to stop the bleeding and she was fine the next day.

You can see the tattered looking feathers on this dude’s feet
View attachment 1607070

Exactly! Just raggedy looking. Like missing some of the feather strands (I don’t know what they’re called. The strands that make up the actual feather.) and whatnot. His poor feet just look pitiful to me lol. They have sand under the bottom of their coop which is just a prefab one. But I leave the doors open and I have a section fenced off with hardware cloth for them to putz around in so they have room to run and scratch around in the ground. It’s just regular ground and grass. Well, what’s left of the grass anyway. My intention is to eventually have them integrated with the older girls which is a lot larger yard but I just haven’t yet. I’m playing that by ear. They’ve been coexisting for a while now with the fence in between them all. And I figure the hormones will start picking up here before long. He is 13 weeks old at the moment (along with his 3 flock mates.) My older girls are 8 1/2 months old and have their own bigger coop. I’m new at having a male in the flock and it’s actually 2, him and a silkie. Just normal everyday play and I’m the boss/no I’m the boss now type sparring. Seems harmless for now. I’m keeping a close eye on the interactions between them. So far so good. I’ll take a closer look at his feet tomorrow so I can better assess what it was that I saw. As for moulting. I see feathers around where they’ve preened them out or whatever. Nothing too excessive in my opinion? Again, it’s my first time having a male in my flock so I’m learning as I go. Thx!