Colorado

[ONSTAD1]

I agree on the get together idea. Actually threw that out a week or so ago. Thought we could meet at a coffee shop ar at someones coop who wants to show off their handi-work.
I'm available Friday afternoons and weekends. In a month or so, when I actually have a coop, I'll host....
oorrrr we can have a BYOL (bring your own lumber) party at my house and build my new coop ; )

mo

 

[wsmith]

Wow lacra83!

I think a get together would be fun. If my stuff was done I could host, but its a long ways out and a horrible road.

 

[Rock Home Isle]

We're looking at a huge storm that is forcast to pass between Windsor and Greeley...heading south.

That's the Johnstown/Milliken Area.

 

[ONSTAD1]

I'll host a get together. No coop yet, but hope to get a good start this weekend. I'm in central Colorado Springs (near Penrose Hospital ). We could do an afternoon light snack potluck. If you are interested PM me your email/phone and I'll start getting a list together...what if we did "barn raisings" for new coopies?

Mo

 

[dennarahl]

I don't know if it will help you feel any better, but yesterdays storm was a really bad one for Colorado. We don't tend to have storms that bad very often.

Glad everyone is okay. We had an awful storm here (I'm between Parker and Elizabeth). I watched a couple clouds rotate and turn into funnels, then suddenly everything was gone, ZERO visibility. I couldn't see my front porch, couldn't see out of any window on any side of my house. Then the hail started, worst hail I've ever heard and I'm from the midwest! Husband and I took cover in the basement with our dog, cat and the five chicks for a while. I am SO glad my girls are still too little to be outside! I would have lost my mind if they were out in that storm.

We had a "drift" of hail on our deck about a foot tall. We tried to go out around 10pm when it was all over, to let our dog out, but the hail against the back door was too heavy and we couldn't open it. Our house is pretty damaged. The garden is completely destroyed, along with all of my rose bushes and plants. The coop that we just finished building actually looks pretty good! It fared much better than our house, which is missing a lot of paint and chunks of wood. It looks like a termite the size of a horse came along and chewed on my house. I'm pretty sad about that since we've only lived here for about two months, but it could have been much worse, and I'm grateful everyone's okay. Poor little chicks were pretty scared!!

Here's a photo of our front yard that I took yesterday when the visibility came back:

 

[CountryFriedChicken]

WOW - that sounds scary... I am sorry about the house, but that picture is beautiful. I keep hearing Colorado is beautiful... and the weather is better than Georgia! Maybe one day I will be lucky enough to see.

Glad everyone is okay. We had an awful storm here (I'm between Parker and Elizabeth). I watched a couple clouds rotate and turn into funnels, then suddenly everything was gone, ZERO visibility. I couldn't see my front porch, couldn't see out of any window on any side of my house. Then the hail started, worst hail I've ever heard and I'm from the midwest! Husband and I took cover in the basement with our dog, cat and the five chicks for a while. I am SO glad my girls are still too little to be outside! I would have lost my mind if they were out in that storm.

We had a "drift" of hail on our deck about a foot tall. We tried to go out around 10pm when it was all over, to let our dog out, but the hail against the back door was too heavy and we couldn't open it. Our house is pretty damaged. The garden is completely destroyed, along with all of my rose bushes and plants. The coop that we just finished building actually looks pretty good! It fared much better than our house, which is missing a lot of paint and chunks of wood. It looks like a termite the size of a horse came along and chewed on my house. I'm pretty sad about that since we've only lived here for about two months, but it could have been much worse, and I'm grateful everyone's okay. Poor little chicks were pretty scared!!

Here's a photo of our front yard that I took yesterday when the visibility came back:

 

[gardendufus]

Well, I've been gone awhile, so let me catch up.

WSmith, I would LOVE to get hold of a Dominique pullet or two. When you know if you have any extras, PM me.

All of you in CS or nearby areas. I am retired, with nothing but chickens and a garden as obligations, so if you need help while on short vacations for 'chicken sitting' also PM me....I work free as the gov't would only tax me to death on chicken sitting fees. Would have to pay all those stupid self employment taxes and all.........LOL.

Wednesday it hailed here for pretty much an hour or an hour and a half straight. Ground was solid white (altho didn't look quite as solid as larca's). Was sure glad I put bird netting over my whole garden. It kept everything from getting beaten up, but even with it I had some damage. Garden is about 200 feet square, so took a bit. But I'm gonna have to put in more support. I kept watching it and the weight of the hail on it brought it down about 2 feet. Had lotsa heavy rain for even longer than that. YAY, that means I don't have to pay for water for the next coupla days. I live right next to Fountain Creek. Sure wish I could pipe up some of that free water to my garden. Filtered of all the contamination of course!

When it started heating up a couple of weeks ago, I started freezing 1 pt bottles of water. I have mostly nipple waterers in my coop and run. Made them out of old plastic water pitchers. Every morning when I fill them up, I also stick in a frozen water bottle. Keeps their water cool through the heat of the day. But I have one of the regular plastic waterers, and it's also large enough to stick a frozen water bottle into. That might work to keep the chickens cool. Wow a mister.....my birds would think they were in heaven. Or maybe not. I planted flowers around the outside of the run and when I water the plants, my birds don't want to be anywhere near that spraying water. Maybe it will become more attractive when it gets hotter?

My oldest birds are now 14 weeks old. I noticed the Barred Rocks are getting very wide butts and their faces have reddened in the last few weeks. Do I see eggs in my future? I told myself I would NOT fret about when they started laying, but would just patiently await the discovery of a first egg. But I have to admit, I'm hoping they start laying sooner rather than later. Trying not to put too much pressure on the girls for an early lay. Don't want them to start feeling inadequate.

 

[wsmith]

Sounds good Dufus! I'll let you know and you can pick yours out of the available pullets. Mind you, these will be ones that I don't want for my breeding program, but will still be 100% Dominique.

Wow! what a night! Worked hard yesterday afternoon and was sore and tired. so I went to bed by 9 PM. Got woke up a little after 10 with a call from our school (Hanover, the building itself is about 20 miles away) telling us that the school is open for whoever needs shelter........
I got up and fired up the computer and logged in to our work website, which has great radar weather stuff. We watched out our windows at the storms that passed to the east of us. The one up north looked very bad as well, hope all up there are OK. Apparently several tornados touched down in Eastern el Paso county and in Elbert County, with some damage. We got back to bed at about 11:30 PM after seeing that we weren't in any danger.

Again, I hope all those in Eastern CO and northeastern CO are all OK.

 

[Rock Home Isle]

We had a great light show at about 10:00 pm last night...huge amounts of rain....then all was quiet for the rest of the night.

 

[wsmith]

I was watching the radar images of the storm as it passed near Johnstown. Looked crazy! A very big cell, all dark red on the screen.Didn't see much rotation, like we had down here.