Colorado

[wsmith]

Well, Beth and I were out with the chickens and missed Mayah. Bummer.

I did get a couple of things done though....

 

[coloradogal]

Well, Beth and I were out with the chickens and missed Mayah. Bummer.

I did get a couple of things done though....

Had I not accidentally left my phone at home, I would have called. Then I couldn't even find my phone when I got home until I remembered that I was rounding up chickens earlier. It was in the coop.

 

[coloradochick]

Corbin!!! Handsome! Handsome!!!


So I have the same thing going on in the barn with mice. When I go out to shut them up at night there are little fury things scurrying EVERYWHERE

and once in a GREAT while and I'm talking GREAT, they catch one and play keep away with it. But they could easily just live off the mice population if need be. The cats hang out there at night unless I can get them in the house for the night so the coyotes don't grab them but they only get the ones that come out of tunnels under the barn so they wait for quite awhile sometimes. Bunnies are easier prey for my male and of course I don't want him to get the bunnies.

 

[Minchi]

Corbin!!! Handsome! Handsome!!!

That he is but it will take all my restraint not to call him Corbin Dallas or repeat Mul-ti-pass around him. (5th element)

 

[dennarahl]

That he is but it will take all my restraint not to call him Corbin Dallas or repeat Mul-ti-pass around him. (5th element)

I'd be screwed, I don't think I have that much restraint...

 

[coloradogal]

Been a busy couple of days so haven't been on much. My kiddo was sick on Sunday so most of that day was spent with him. Then the normal work things. The puppies are now a little over 4 weeks old and potty training has officially begun. Think 1 puppy is hard when their older, imagine how tough it is with 8 puppies. I am excited though...I had one little guy go potty in the potty section today. It is just lots of hard work though. It's almost constant supervision and cleaning up and trying to catch them in the act. They are still working on going into their beginning kennel for sleep but that's doing ok. Momma Lilly is just so sore right now with puppyy teeth and nails. I have clipped their nails already once but they are just big puppies.

Dad is a mastador and mom is an american bulldog. 3 puppies look characteristic for american bulldog and the other 5 look like daddy. So far, their dispositions are calm. For that, I'm glad. Lukah is the calmest big dog you could ever imagine, although he does slobber, snore and loves to give kisses.

But its hard work. It's constant supervision now for the next couple of days and then, hopefully, most of them will have the potty thing down. Then I can relax a little bit and switch to a smaller potty area.

Anyways, I know that isn't chicken related. I'll introduce them to chickens next week after they get potty down.

 

[wsmith]

Some friends came over yesterday evening and brought their DR Power brush mower! It took over an hour, but we got all the tall skunkweed cut down! Now my yard doesn't look so much like a jungle...

 

[coloradogal]

Some friends came over yesterday evening and brought their DR Power brush mower! It took over an hour, but we got all the tall skunkweed cut down! Now my yard doesn't look so much like a jungle...

I'm amazed at the skunkweed... for as dry as its been, it still manages to grown and grow and grow. I wish grass was as drought resistant.

 

[wsmith]

Here's another interesting weed observation....

Recently with the 44 remaining chickens, we noticed that consumption had gone up. This was to be expected, as they are growing and thus eating more. Last week each pen was going through one full feeder (fed on demand, as much as they want) every two days. That equates to about 50 lbs per week give or take. They had been eating the grower ration(16% crumbles) purchased at Sweeny's in Pueblo.
Monday I bought Flock Raiser (18% pellets) and filled up the feeders. At the same time, I gave them the last piles of pulled weeds that I piled up on Saturday. By yesterday afternoon, Tuesday, they had eated up all the leaves from the weeds, and all that was left was stems trampled on the ground. (this is in both pens) I also found that only about 25% of the feed was consumed. That's a drop of about 50% over one full day. Foraging and eating weeds at this rate, if it were sustainable, would cut my feed bill/usage by half.
While at Sweeny's 3 weeks ago I also bought a 50# bag of cracked corn. It was actually cheaper than "scratch" mix sold at either Big R or Sweeny's. I noticed that my chickens do not readily eat the small round seeds in the scratch, eating the corn instead andleaving everything else. The pens were covered in the other small seeds. I went through a bag of scratch in about a month. So far with the cracked corn, we have barley used 5 lbs so far, and they don't get any more until what was scattered on the ground is gone. We put a handfull into each pile of weeds and they were occupied with that for hours.
Just observations.

 

[Rock Home Isle]

Here's another interesting weed observation....

Recently with the 44 remaining chickens, we noticed that consumption had gone up. This was to be expected, as they are growing and thus eating more. Last week each pen was going through one full feeder (fed on demand, as much as they want) every two days. That equates to about 50 lbs per week give or take. They had been eating the grower ration(16% crumbles) purchased at Sweeny's in Pueblo.
.........
Just observations.

How many weeks old are the pullets?