Chicken (Poultry) Addiction Anonymous *Chat Thread*

[Muggsmagee]

Quote:
You sound like me!

Gardening has taken front seat to my days...flowers and veggies and planning our raised beds, etc....plus our summers are so short that we need to take advantage of every nice day that comes around.

This past weekend we planted a 35 x 80 garden using the 3-sister's method. So in went the sunflowers and corn (blue ornamental, mini and regular indian), edible strawberry popcorn, and lots of sweet corn; all sorts of fun pumpkins and gourds...one of the pumpkins is called red warty thing...the flesh of the thing is BRIGHT intense red with lots of little bumps! Plus our winter squashes. Beans go in next week. This garden is giving me the only reason to look forward to the fall. And I know the kids will love to decorate all the gourds and pumpkins that come from this crop.

In the upper plot we have a 45 x 35 garden that we planted everything you can imagine. An old timer told my DH's aunt (it's her land we use for our big gardens) that he's never seen the soil look so good. Our secret...drumroll please....chicken poo! (Of course!) Let's see if it pays off!

Check out this link...we are going to build a few of these and see if they work. The space around our home is limited, so we need to think vertically!
http://www.pvcplans.com/pipe-garden.htm

I hope everyone is doing well! I miss chatting with you all.

You are alive!
Starting to wonder were everyone went. My lovely wife does most of the Gardening, though I like to help plan it out. Lets see we have Heirloom Tomatoes, Sweet Corn, Snow Peas, Watermellon, Carrots, Cherry Tomatoes, Lettuce and Spinach (on Raised bed), Stawberries and Broccolli.
Plus we have a couple Apple Trees, a Pear Tree and some Blueberry bushes.

I have the WORST luck growing melons...what's your secret?

 

[featherz]

Quote:
Me too! DH really wants melons and all I can grow are sad little things. Had HUGE pumpkins and nuclear looking cucumbers, but no luck with melons. That reminds me, I need to plant more. Was going to do it this weekend, but my fencing is keeping out adults, but not the chicks. Not sure if I can fix that but need to get more fence poles tomorrow and maybe more plants.

I got my first olive egg today! I already get cool minty green eggs but my three NYD hatch 'mystery' chickens just started laying. Getting one pink, one dark brown and one olive. Five more olive eggers are about 16 weeks old so maybe more soon!

 

[Cass]

Quote:
Me too! DH really wants melons and all I can grow are sad little things. Had HUGE pumpkins and nuclear looking cucumbers, but no luck with melons. That reminds me, I need to plant more. Was going to do it this weekend, but my fencing is keeping out adults, but not the chicks. Not sure if I can fix that but need to get more fence poles tomorrow and maybe more plants.

I got my first olive egg today! I already get cool minty green eggs but my three NYD hatch 'mystery' chickens just started laying. Getting one pink, one dark brown and one olive. Five more olive eggers are about 16 weeks old so maybe more soon!

http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/fuzzyslipperz/P1010714.jpg

Melons require manure UNDER the seeds to grow best. My father grew the most AWESOME melons. He would get a load of cow/horse manure from somewhere and dig a hole about 8 inches deep, put in 6 inches of manure and cover it with 2 inches of soil....then lay the seeds on top of the soil and sprinkle soft soil on top of the seeds...tap down to keep soil in place. Because he buried the manure he didn't get a lot of extra weeds. The melons were the best melons I ever tasted in my life and were big and juicy. I would imagine chicken manure would work too, aged anyway. He also was a compulive weed puller. Said weeds took the nutrients that the plants needed to grow so he pulled them out immediately upon seeing them until the plants set flowers, then he left them alone and only pulled the ones that got big enough to be seen over the plants leaves.

Congrats on your Olive eggs. You planning a green eggs and ham supper soon?

 

[gryeyes]

Quote:
I'm in and out of it, because I don't have any water or propane yet. I spent last night there.

Carl and Carl Jr have agreed to let the well drilling company use their road / driveway for access to my well, and that will probably get accomplished before the end of the month. In the interim, Carl Jr told me to hook up a hose to his closest spigot so I can get water for - in five bucket jaunts - to flush my toilet.

I met the neighbor on the other side and HE confirmed I own the "whole gully between us." And he spent some time catching me up on the other neighbors on the road. (The guy Carl Jr told me "thinks he's a bad-"rear"" and shoots off his guns now and then has been confirmed as somebody I should stay away from....) But that's the only bad egg amongst the neighbors.

It will be about a month from now before I can move the flock, so I will only spend the occasional weekend night there, taking up some things that will fit in my car. I took tomorrow off for delivery of my large appliances, but those have been pushed back a couple of weeks. So I will just move some more stuff, instead.

 

[PartridgeRooster]

Quote:

You are alive!
Starting to wonder were everyone went. My lovely wife does most of the Gardening, though I like to help plan it out. Lets see we have Heirloom Tomatoes, Sweet Corn, Snow Peas, Watermellon, Carrots, Cherry Tomatoes, Lettuce and Spinach (on Raised bed), Stawberries and Broccolli.
Plus we have a couple Apple Trees, a Pear Tree and some Blueberry bushes.

I have the WORST luck growing melons...what's your secret?

This is what the wife suggested watching on UTube.

 

[PartridgeRooster]

Quote:
Me too! DH really wants melons and all I can grow are sad little things. Had HUGE pumpkins and nuclear looking cucumbers, but no luck with melons. That reminds me, I need to plant more. Was going to do it this weekend, but my fencing is keeping out adults, but not the chicks. Not sure if I can fix that but need to get more fence poles tomorrow and maybe more plants.

I got my first olive egg today! I already get cool minty green eggs but my three NYD hatch 'mystery' chickens just started laying. Getting one pink, one dark brown and one olive. Five more olive eggers are about 16 weeks old so maybe more soon!

http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/fuzzyslipperz/P1010714.jpg

Melons require manure UNDER the seeds to grow best. My father grew the most AWESOME melons. He would get a load of cow/horse manure from somewhere and dig a hole about 8 inches deep, put in 6 inches of manure and cover it with 2 inches of soil....then lay the seeds on top of the soil and sprinkle soft soil on top of the seeds...tap down to keep soil in place. Because he buried the manure he didn't get a lot of extra weeds. The melons were the best melons I ever tasted in my life and were big and juicy. I would imagine chicken manure would work too, aged anyway. He also was a compulive weed puller. Said weeds took the nutrients that the plants needed to grow so he pulled them out immediately upon seeing them until the plants set flowers, then he left them alone and only pulled the ones that got big enough to be seen over the plants leaves.

Congrats on your Olive eggs. You planning a green eggs and ham supper soon?

Yes, we use cow manure in the beginning with all our garden which seems to really help, Once the garden gets big enough we let the poultry do some weeding unless they start doing damage, usually its just the Geese.

 

[Mrs. Fluffy Puffy]

Quote:
Melons require manure UNDER the seeds to grow best. My father grew the most AWESOME melons. He would get a load of cow/horse manure from somewhere and dig a hole about 8 inches deep, put in 6 inches of manure and cover it with 2 inches of soil....then lay the seeds on top of the soil and sprinkle soft soil on top of the seeds...tap down to keep soil in place. Because he buried the manure he didn't get a lot of extra weeds. The melons were the best melons I ever tasted in my life and were big and juicy. I would imagine chicken manure would work too, aged anyway. He also was a compulive weed puller. Said weeds took the nutrients that the plants needed to grow so he pulled them out immediately upon seeing them until the plants set flowers, then he left them alone and only pulled the ones that got big enough to be seen over the plants leaves.

Congrats on your Olive eggs. You planning a green eggs and ham supper soon?

Yes, we use cow manure in the beginning with all our garden which seems to really help, Once the garden gets big enough we let the poultry do some weeding unless they start doing damage, usually its just the Geese.

In our garden we got a bunch of dirt/sand from the cow pens. It has cow/chicken/horse poo, hay and all sorts of things in it. The soil is turning a dark dark black color. That is some awesome soil right there!

We put veggie scraps in the garden and I put all my shavings/hay etc in the garden when I clean brooders etc.

~ Aspen

 

[Muggsmagee]

Mrs. Fluffy Puffy :

Quote:
Yes, we use cow manure in the beginning with all our garden which seems to really help, Once the garden gets big enough we let the poultry do some weeding unless they start doing damage, usually its just the Geese.

In our garden we got a bunch of dirt/sand from the cow pens. It has cow/chicken/horse poo, hay and all sorts of things in it. The soil is turning a dark dark black color. That is some awesome soil right there!

We put veggie scraps in the garden and I put all my shavings/hay etc in the garden when I clean brooders etc.

~ Aspen​

I love having critters for this reason!! We have been piling the alpaca poo in a corner and just brought some to put in the gardens. (The wonderful thing about paca poo is it doesn't have to age or rest...it can be used cold or green). As we have been adding buckets full, I noticed a BOATLOAD of red and tiger earthworms...and tons of earthworm egg sacs in the paca poo mix. It all helps in the end. The upper garden plot we use has been depleted of most nutrients over the last 50 years...we added cow manure last year and this year added a ton of chicken poo. We really hope to get it back to a better condition, but can see a huge difference this year alone.

 

[PartridgeRooster]

Ok, Aspen but your avatar picture of that black little chick is ADORABLE. Had to finally say that.

Got my wifes crazy order of chicks today. The poor Postmaster was happy to see them go. I purchased proper brooders for chicks this time around as I was using a more old fashioned technique. Those brooders can be a bit pricey. I do like how they stack so nicely and are really efficient. The chicks are finally sleeping but my wifes Pointer is facinated with them and kept licking them when I opened the first boxes. I also got two rare breed chicks so I'll be interested in the coming weeks of what they are assuming they survive.

All the other animals are great. All my cow's have had their calves, sold my ponies for an actual profit in this economy and I'm sure you'll all enjoy this, one of my Pilgrim's had six little Goslings follow her out of the barn this morning. I keep my Geese in a large old shed of sorts. I store straw in it but don't look in on them every day as they don't always lay every day. I sell all my Goose eggs to a little old lady who make's all sorts of baked goods for sale, lol I think she just enjoys baking.

 

[Mrs. Fluffy Puffy]

Quote:
Thank you
That is one of my Black Ameraucana Bantams as a chick.

Oh, baby Goslings! How fun is that?!

Glad you finally got your chicks!

Pictures...

~ Aspen