Consolidated Kansas

[Hawkeye95]

The word "kibble" in it sure makes it sound like its for dogs but it is actually made for poultry. Here is a link to some information about it:
http://www.wildbirdsuets.com/foragecakes/kibble.htm

Holy Crow-- this stuff has 32.25% protein in it! I will probably check it out... but right now when she's super fat and I might have over done her on the BOSS, I think she might need to just stick with the layer feed for a while. But I'll keep that in mind if I ever need to get a bird in shape! It does say it firms up the poop, I like that!

 

[cherwill]

Chooks, thanks for the info. As far as people driving like maniacs, it's stupid for so many reasons. My parents lost a 2 yo child to a speeding motorcycle driver. To take that kind of risk is incredible, and they don't save nearly as much time as they think. Unless you're driving a hundred miles or so, you're only going to shave, what, a minute or two from your time? NOT WORTH THE RISK. I say give them a talking to every chance you get.

Queenbigears and Chris, welcome. Queen, your flock sounds like a nice mix of birds. As someone said earlier, we love pictures!

Lizzy, the duck stories and pictures are great. It's so fun to see the different personalities. DH and I are still getting a kick out of having watched young Blanche let the new girls know just who's in charge.

Tweety, the new jewels are cuties!

Pikeman, I hope tomorrow's a better day. Take it easy and let your body heal itself.

 

[sapphireblu76]

Last night we had foxes running all over and screaching. They're weird sounding creatures. I don't know what is with so many of these beasts lately. Creeps me out.

I used to have foxes (pet cast-offs). They are such neat creatures. Their "whooooop...whoooop" cracks me up. Sometimes I will call out here and get a reply from a wild fox nearby. I can certainly understand why some people don't want all these varmints around, but I sure do enjoy them when they're not causing trouble.

 

[JosieChick]

KarenS/Sapphireblu- Is that what that loud whooping sound is at night!?!? Foxes??!!!!??? We have tons of them, they are out late, late, late at night when I go out to turn off the last of the outside lights and the garage light. I always wondered what on earth that racket was, they are sooooo loud!

queenbigears/cityhick- Welcome to the kansas thread!!!!

Pikeman- Take it easy and hope you feel better tomorrow.

Chooks- After you are done giving that lady the two four you could come to my house and roll balls into the gravel road. We have a couple highschoolers that come by on four wheelers going like 80 and I am so scared they are going to crest a hill and get creamed by a car going 70 from the other direction.

Tweety-Super cute silkie babies. I am sure Renee told you but be extra careful with the waterer with a spraddle leg chick, they can lose their balance and fall in face first and drown, even in a regular chick waterer. I use the plastic quail waterer base for ailing chicks. I know it is unlikely but I have lost one chick that fell into a shallow chick waterer bottom and drowned. It was tragic.

Hawkeye- If you sell that cute little splash silkie you let me know!!! I love that hen of yours, she is just gorgeous. I just have bbs silkies for pets and fun. I have always had a soft spot for the splash silkies since my favorite hen Uno. I lost her last summer to heat exhaustion.

Sorry if I missed anyone!!! Have a good night everyone!

 

[Deerfield Acres]

Just caught up with everyone but it's late and I'm beat. DH got the electric fence going and the kids and I moved all the keeper birds to the coop. I have 22 birds out there right now but will be checking to make sure I didn't leave any essential birds out or keep the non-essentials. I stayed out there with them while they acclimated just watching to see that everything was all good. It took them forever to venture a toe out on the concrete patio, but some of them finally made it to the grass. It was great to see. They are 12 weeks old now and getting so big. I loved watching them get used to their new place.

DD did take the pics for me but I didn't remember to ask her where she put the camera card b4 she went to bed. Sorry guys, it'll have to wait till tomorrow. It sure feels good to have them finally in their coop with access to grass. Nest boxes and a little paint and then I'm going to decide whether I must have a covered run. The birds are getting big enough I don't think the hawks will bother them? Do hawks go for LF?

Of course, now I'm planning my breeder pens for the Alohas.

Welcome cityhick! Can't wait to see your pics tomorrow. I love pics.

Pikeman, get well soon!

Who mentioned Chicken Annie's? My great grandfather (now deceased) used to live in Girard and we loved to visit and eat at Chicken Annie's! Are they still open?

I forgot to say how darling your new additions are Tweety! Too cute!

Sapphireblu, foxes are really adorable creatures, they just are challenged in the singing voice department!

Okay, gotta crash and burn.

 

[Deerfield Acres]

Good night JosieChick!

 

[sapphireblu76]

Bottom line: all white carbs are horrible. Complex foods are best. Corn syrup is used by researchers to CREATE diabetic animals to study: give an animal corn syrup for a few days to weeks and it becomes diabetic. I had friends who worked at Bayer and Iams and they did it all the time. Avoid at all costs!! No refined sugars if you can help it- Stevia soda, stevia in coffee, stevia to cook. NO FAKE SWEETENERS: splenda, equal, etc. are very unhealthy for a plethora of reasons. Agave and honey are good.

Grains, in general, are fine, if whole. Quinoa instead of rice. Whole grain breads, or avoid, if possible. COMPLEX carbs are best.

The rule of the plate: protein the size of your palm in 1/3 of the plate. This can be meat, beans, etc. WHOLE, COMPLEX CARBS, preferably vegetables with low or no sugar content in the other 2/3 of the plate. Lots of leafy greens.

Makes a huge difference.

PRIMARY RULE: Eat some sort of combo food, containing protein, every 2-2 1/2 hours. Our favorite is a hard-boiled egg with the yolk popped out and filled with hummus. Roasted red pepper hummus is my fave. This is an energy bomb and gives you a great pick-me-up in the afternoon with lasting energy from the protein. Stops cravings. Cheap and portable! This keeps your blood sugar on an even keel so you don't have swings. If you eat refined sugars or white foods (rice, potatoes, breads) your body has a hard time pinpointing how much insulin to release to manage the sugars. It releases too much with those foods and you end up with extra insulin in the blood which makes you crave food, even if you're full, then your liver has to release its own sugar to clean up the mess (glycogen) and you have a vicious circle. Insulin is an aging hormone. It does damage when you have too much in the bloodstream. Having swings increases your lifetime risk of strokes and cardiovascular disease, and it's no coincidence these are the 2 main causes of death of diabetics.

Bottom line: if we all ate like the food comes from nature, we'd be far better off. I have learned to avoid things with more than 5 ingredients on the label and try to eat fresh and from my own production, my friends' production, or from the produce department! We also eat gluten-free, and that makes a huge difference. It's difficult, but being sick is pretty difficult, too!

I had one of those moments last week. A car drove down the road outside where I have my breeding facility REALLY fast, like 70, on gravel. Just ridiculous for so many reasons, but there are kids in the area, dogs, guineas, and a HUGE stable with tons of horses whose riders often walk that road, and they could have been just over a crest of one of the hills. I was HOT!!

So I waited for them to come back, as it's a dead end, and I stood out there waving my arms like I'd escaped a rapist. It took the lady a LONG time to stop, skidding as she did (I was shocked to find it was a 50-something normal-looking lady!) and I said, "Did you see how long it took you to stop??" and she immediately knew she was busted and yelled, "Do you CARE??" and hit the gas, nearly running over my foot. Of course on gravel, hitting the gas leaves you sitting still, so I had the opportunity to yell, "There are CHILDREN!!" with my arms up in the air, like a madwoman...a bit like a John Brown moment. Not a thoughtful thing to shout, but pertinent.

I'm going to get a couple of toys and a trike or something to leave in the area so folks are more thoughtful about the way they drive.

Thanks for sharing on the topic of Diabetes. I'm diabetic, too. Right now I'm on Victoza and was on Metformin, too. Just recently doc said I've been doing really well (lost 70lbs in the last year and sugars are great) so she took me off the Metformin. The Victoza has really helped a lot, but the whole foods and portion control approach to diet is key; exercise has had a hand in it, too, although haven't been doing as much since my Achille's tendon almost detached last summer.

As far as the A-holes burnin' down dirt roads...geeze Louise, I hope they never kill anyone! That's just NUTS driving like that!

How about putting a card board box in the middle of the road? If they ran over it, it wouldn't hurt the car, or themselves, but it would might make them more cautious going over a blind hill. Maybe that's too terrible, though, I don't know. But soooo tempting!!

A friend of mine was a young teen just learning to drive. He and his older brother were out tearin' around town and there was a cardboard box in the road. His older brother told him to run it over, but he just didn't want to chance it. Good thing he didn't...as they passed by, a little girl climbed out of the box! Can you imagine? I mean, the kid should not have been in the road like that, but little kids don't always think or realize what the consequences could be...ugh. He told me that story and I almost threw up thinking about "what if".

Hi all I am also from SE Kansas. Just getting started raising chicks in our backyard. In the city limits we can have mixed flocks of up to 15 birds. We are in the process of building the ladies and gentleman a mansion of a coop lol.

We have 1 - jersey giant roo, 2 - Ameracauna pullets, 2- barred rock pullets, 3- silver laced wyandotte pullets, 2- polish crested 1- white crested black / 1- golden, and 1 little bantam that I have no clue on type. He/she is a greyish color with furry feet and a peach colored feather coming in so maybe we will get lucky and have a porcelain. So right now we are at 11 chicks of various ages from 4weeks to 1.5 weeks. I have enjoyed reading about everyone's flocks and can't wait till our girlies start laying. : )

Welcome, Queenbigears!!!

I thought I'd share a funny duck story.

So, my two Pekin ducklings turned 6 weeks old this past Monday. I started letting them outside during the day last week. I had given them water in one of the 1+ gallon ice cream containers. They'd been outside for a while and went to go get a drink. The lead duck walked around to the opposite side of the dish as the "follower" duck. The follower duck moved closer to the lead duck, and the lead duck moved a little farther away. This continued until they were running around the water bowl at full speed!


Another story:
Wal-Mart FINALLY decided to stock kiddie pools, so I was finally able to bring a kiddie pool home for my ducks. The first day they were in it, they got out of it when I was trying to catch them but hadn't gotten out of it otherwise, despite the fact that I had a couple bricks in there to assist. The one duck decided s/he was hungry and so reached over the side for some grass. However, his/her neck just wasn't QUITE long enough. Needless to say, when I saw this, I went out and helped them out. However, I thought it was funny and worthy of being shared:


And, finally, a cute picture just because:

That is a great duck story ^_^ Love the pics! I need to get a pool for my Pekins, too. Love those ducks!

Im Chris From Topeka.

Welcome, Chris From Topeka!!!



Still waiting for my poor eggs to hatch...*SIGH*
Clipped wings yesterday, chicks kept getting out of the pen. I have GOT to get that new pen up THIS weekend!!!

And the coop needs to get done...and the garden...and...well...EVERYTHING needs to get done this weekend!

 

[sapphireblu76]

KarenS/Sapphireblu- Is that what that loud whooping sound is at night!?!? Foxes??!!!!??? We have tons of them, they are out late, late, late at night when I go out to turn off the last of the outside lights and the garage light. I always wondered what on earth that racket was, they are sooooo loud!

Yep, they also trill, yip, bark, and growl like an angry mongoose, lol. They really are hilarious to watch and hear. Look up Kevie the fox on YouTube. Not mine, but covers a lot of the sounds they make.

Just caught up with everyone but it's late and I'm beat. DH got the electric fence going and the kids and I moved all the keeper birds to the coop. I have 22 birds out there right now but will be checking to make sure I didn't leave any essential birds out or keep the non-essentials. I stayed out there with them while they acclimated just watching to see that everything was all good. It took them forever to venture a toe out on the concrete patio, but some of them finally made it to the grass. It was great to see. They are 12 weeks old now and getting so big. I loved watching them get used to their new place.

DD did take the pics for me but I didn't remember to ask her where she put the camera card b4 she went to bed. Sorry guys, it'll have to wait till tomorrow. It sure feels good to have them finally in their coop with access to grass. Nest boxes and a little paint and then I'm going to decide whether I must have a covered run. The birds are getting big enough I don't think the hawks will bother them? Do hawks go for LF?


Sapphireblu, foxes are really adorable creatures, they just are challenged in the singing voice department!

Awesome that that's all done! Yes, Hawks will go after large fowl. I lost 11 chickens last year to hawks
Have an awesome LGD now, no longer a problem!
Yes, foxes are not the greatest singers, lol!

 

[Nana2KJS]

The word "kibble" in it sure makes it sound like its for dogs but it is actually made for poultry. Here is a link to some information about it:
http://www.wildbirdsuets.com/foragecakes/kibble.htm

Made for poultry but when I tried it my dogs liked it better than my chickens did! And boy oh boy did it ever firm up their poops! Biiggest you know whats I ever saw! And all nicely rolled in all the grains they couldn't digest! I had to go back to my green pastures mix to get everyone back to normal!

 

[queenbigears]

Just put pics up on my profile. Maybe someone can identify what the heck my furry footed Bantam Nugget is. Most of my babies are on there. I' taking. New pics today.