California - Northern

[Meg2000000]

Not chicken related but puppy pics.

Alice will be 10 weeks old on Tuesday. She is now crate trained. Woot! It's where she takes her naps during the day and no whining. At night she still has pee accidents (not sure what's normal at this age) but she goes to bed at 10/11 or so and around 3/4am I hear the potty whine and I take her out. She was having issues (crazy bad diarrhea with Purina puppy chow) with grain I think - so we put her on a pricy no grain pup food. Diarrhea all gone. And she is gaining weight after the worming woohoo!
Excuse my typos. Sent from my iPhone.

Ahhhhhh so cute!! Keep the pictures coming. She looks like a fun dog!

and this photo shows the location of my coop -- on the edge of being underneath several huge oaks (great for hiding from hawks!), but with a LARGE empty meadow beyond:
but they don't get "lost" from home, and even though they unquestionably LOVE being out & about, this is home to them, and they all return to it automatically.

I'm obsessed with your coop location. So pretty!

My BC Marans pullets...I feel so mean saying this...not very attractive at all. All the looks went to the roosters. LOL I know they will fill out some and they are going through the ugly feather phase but e-gah man poor things. One of biiiiig BO pullets (20 weeks) has a dark red comb and wattle now. I don't recall them being so dark before? I hope it's not a rooster in hiding!

LOL Hopefully she'll get prettier when she lays that first egg. Getting close!

 

[Meg2000000]

I was down with a headache today. i am just going outside to do evening chores that in the day. I was hoping for more then 5 eggs today. after all the cleaning i did yesterday i was hoping for more today. i know still a little warm but out of 20+ laying hens I only got 5 eggs. Better then nothing.

I have about 25 chickens. I go through about 50# feed every 2 weeks. Does that sound about right? Too much, too little? I cannot gauge by how much they 'don't eat' because the only way they don't eat it all is if I fill their feed bucket clean full. (10 pounds of feed fits into it) I do not put that much in their but I tried and what ended up happening is that although they didn't finish it all- I went through feed lightening fast. I have heritage dual purpose breeds so I know they consume more than the hatchery egg layer strains. I also go through the same amount of feed every 2 weeks with duck food as well (14 ducks and 2 geese). My food bill for them is about $120 a month. I honestly never realized how much it cost to feed birds for eggs. Definitely not a cost effective endeavor. LOL I hope they lay well so I can sell extras off and try to help off set the feed costs a bit. I know to some of you that's nothing- but it is a lot to us (like I had to skip groceries last week so I could buy the feed this week lol. good thing I keep a stocked pantry!). I hope I am not going through feed to fast and shooting myself in the foot but neither do I want to be underfeeding them.

Free ranging- does that help off-set the costs a bit?

Yes, 100 pounds a month sounds right for 25 birds. What do you mean that if you don't fill up their feeder all the way they don't go through the food as fast? Do they eat what they spilled and don't waste as much food when they do that? My baby chicks are going through food soooo fast and I think they're just spilling it all.

Hi Everyone,
Our family is moments away from leaving on a long overdue vacation. We will be going to South Dakota (Mt Rushmore,etc) and Wyoming (Yellowstone). I have a chicken sitter here and just handed him over a long list of instructions...........

I hope everything goes OK while we're away. By the way, my house sitter is from Lincoln and has grown up with chickens and other animals.

I am SO looking forward to sleeping in past 6:30.

What have all of you done with your chickens while you go away? Or, do you just never get a vacation?

Have a greeeeaaat vacation! I left mine alone last week for about 6 days and they were fine. I just added an extra waterer and made sure they had a big thing of food. We came back and they were happy and still had food left. I'm pretty new with chickens but they seem to be an animal that can take good care of itself!

Prunes are a special variety of plum that is ripe with 30% Sugar, so a Purne is a type of plum that is deyhderated. You cannot dehydrate a regular plum and get a prune. It would be a dehydrated plum. It is easier to call them Prunes since most people do not care. To be completely correct, ours were French Plums. I do not remember the scientific name any more. Prunes are littler than plums too.

Sunsweet is trying to call prunes plums as a marketing ploy but trust me, they taste very different. I like prunes when they are still on the tree and are about 20% sugar(yes, we had to measure the sugar content before we harvested them).

If you can get the farmers to give you some dried prunes, you will be amazed at how different they are from the ones they sell at the store.

Ron

I didn't know any of this! Thanks for the information.. it's super interesting!

 

[ronott1]

Hi Everyone,
Our family is moments away from leaving on a long overdue vacation. We will be going to South Dakota (Mt Rushmore,etc) and Wyoming (Yellowstone). I have a chicken sitter here and just handed him over a long list of instructions...........

I hope everything goes OK while we're away. By the way, my house sitter is from Lincoln and has grown up with chickens and other animals.

I am SO looking forward to sleeping in past 6:30.

What have all of you done with your chickens while you go away? Or, do you just never get a vacation?

Have a great time!

I have been taking day trips this year but will work on getting better automatic water and feed systems for next year. My oldest daughter lives close, so I will have her take care of them when I am gone.

It sounds like you have a great chicken sitter!

Ron

 

[debs_flock]

Or, do you just never get a vacation?

Let me see, 200+ chickens, 15 turkeys, 40 sheep, 6 alpaca, 1 llama, 60 vivariums of dart frogs, 2 crested geckos, 4 dogs, 7 cages of finches.............when we go on vacation I make my son come and live here while we're gone. Then I call & email him every day.

Have fun on your trip, it sounds great.

Deb

 

[egg-lady]

Prunes are a special variety of plum that is ripe with 30% Sugar, so a Purne is a type of plum that is deyhderated. You cannot dehydrate a regular plum and get a prune. It would be a dehydrated plum. It is easier to call them Prunes since most people do not care. To be completely correct, ours were French Plums. I do not remember the scientific name any more. Prunes are littler than plums too.

Sunsweet is trying to call prunes plums as a marketing ploy but trust me, they taste very different. I like prunes when they are still on the tree and are about 20% sugar(yes, we had to measure the sugar content before we harvested them).

If you can get the farmers to give you some dried prunes, you will be amazed at how different they are from the ones they sell at the store.

Ron

Yes it is a marketing ploy. Sunswwet started chaging it a few yrs ago. They want more people to eat prunes. and those flavored prunes YUCK!!! we have plum tree and prune trees totally different fruits with different flavors. and being a 3 generation prune farmer i will always call them prunes. no matter what sunsweet wants to call them to make more money. sunsweet should have plenty of $$ we sold to Valley View up until they went out of busniess.

 

[JerseyGiantfolk]

How often do you hear a man singing about cigarettes in a parking lot? Well, around here... I've been told some people also eat cats and dogs.
Meat's meat... right?

 

[HighNDryFarm]

I have about 25 chickens. I go through about 50# feed every 2 weeks. Does that sound about right? Too much, too little? I cannot gauge by how much they 'don't eat' because the only way they don't eat it all is if I fill their feed bucket clean full. (10 pounds of feed fits into it) I do not put that much in their but I tried and what ended up happening is that although they didn't finish it all- I went through feed lightening fast. I have heritage dual purpose breeds so I know they consume more than the hatchery egg layer strains. I also go through the same amount of feed every 2 weeks with duck food as well (14 ducks and 2 geese). My food bill for them is about $120 a month. I honestly never realized how much it cost to feed birds for eggs. Definitely not a cost effective endeavor. LOL I hope they lay well so I can sell extras off and try to help off set the feed costs a bit. I know to some of you that's nothing- but it is a lot to us (like I had to skip groceries last week so I could buy the feed this week lol. good thing I keep a stocked pantry!). I hope I am not going through feed to fast and shooting myself in the foot but neither do I want to be underfeeding them.

Free ranging- does that help off-set the costs a bit?

I have (before the last hatch and the current hatching) about 28 chickens. 8 are Polish and penned and the rest free range all day, everyday. I go through about 50lbs of chicken feed about every 3-4 weeks. It'll help a lot.

 

[Miss Molly]

Not chicken related but puppy pics. Alice will be 10 weeks old on Tuesday. She is now crate trained. Woot! It's where she takes her naps during the day and no whining. At night she still has pee accidents (not sure what's normal at this age) but she goes to bed at 10/11 or so and around 3/4am I hear the potty whine and I take her out. She was having issues (crazy bad diarrhea with Purina puppy chow) with grain I think - so we put her on a pricy no grain pup food. Diarrhea all gone. And she is gaining weight after the worming woohoo!

Excuse my typos. Sent from my iPhone.

Do you have chickens for sale?

Your Puppy is so cute.... Lots of work, but sooooo Cute

 

[Miss Molly]

Oh gosh shew! I was like oh snap - a confused rooster! haha! That is very interesting about the combs/wattles! Thank you!

Ok...so maybe I will feel snazzy and let them out of the coop this week. I'd love for them to free range soon. And honestly- I'd rather lose chickens now before all the excess roos go to freezer camp while they figure out the outside thing. 

I checked on Copper's incision from the crop cleaning and I cannot find it. That must be a good thing right? Gosh he is every so handsome. Copper around the neck and has his fancy tail coming in with this teal-ish looking tint. 

No more talking about Cream Legbars. I mean it! I will be adding on only one breed next year and it's the Basques. I cannot get chicken fever. I can't! 

It's only a matter of time before you end up with one Girl!

 

[debs_flock]

You know you want some........................lovely sky blue eggs.....................

I just kicked mine out of the growout pen into a coop today. Here is my white girl (8 wks old), she's got some serious crest going on!



Deb