Consolidated Kansas

[rvroman]

Lots of new pics of my babies and my 1 month old chicks!!!

These are the 2 I got from Trish44, Midge is my EE and Scarlett is my Ameraucana!
Midge is sleeping, apparently Star Wars blankets make her tired, she almost immediately fell asleep when I brought her in for pictures! (I am not so certain on the she part)


This is Scarlett hanging out with James, all of the girls love his hair, they play with it everytime he goes to get one!


Here is one of Scarlett and Midge together!


Here are the babies I forgot I ordered!!!
This is Chunk being all cute and fluffy


Here is Foghorn being super fun and sociable, she flew from the other side of the blanket to my hand just to hang out with me. I love that she is SO friendly.


Here is Audrey 2 sleeping, she is either always eating or sleeping, she has gotten as big as Chunk!


Here is Jareth KING (hopefully queen) of the GOBLINS!!!!


and here they are all together in black and white!

 

[HEChicken]

Cute pics RVRoman but yeah, I think you're gonna have to find a new name for Midge!

 

[HEChicken]

Karen, thanks for the info on the asparagus. I may have to pay you a visit sometime soon and see all of this in person.

 

[rvroman]

Oh man Karen, If you are giving tours of all your incredible work I would love to come see as well! I am really new to the WHOLE thing, garden and chickens, and love seeing all I can!

 

[medawinks]

Wow! Karen I am so impressed!! I love your little coop. That might work in my run, inside the 2nd privacy fence that hides my chickens I have a huge dresser in my sun porch on specially created shelving for the chickens to come in the window, with a box type entrance, but it won't be big enough soon. Darned things are just like kids all climbing in one bed though, and smoosh themselves into one bottom area of the dresser anyhow right now.

I am worn out with trying to keep up with 5 kids, with 2 not being mine.... 8 is amazing! I would love more, but China won't let me go back as a single for a 4th.. Maybe in a few years. They had banned singles there for a while, but now are not. So... I add to the crew with chickens

Love the gardens too! We tried gardens in a much smaller scale this year. Ours definitely won't feed us, but hopefully will help. The kids are pretty excited about them. I am excited about the new apple tree

My silkies have stayed tiny as have my Belgian d'Uccles. They have feathered at about the same rate as the bigger birds, but are still very tiny They all seem to be healthy. My little lavender d'Uccle is crowing! He is so cute!! Struts all around and almost walks under the bigger ones! Mini super chicken!

In all the reading about trimming nails, it made me wonder.... How do you trim a chickens nails?

 

[WichitaKidd]

David, I agree that BA in the foreground is your culprit. Both the tail and the saddle feathers (the pointy ones in front of the tail) are a give-away. Most of mine have waited to between 16-18 weeks to crow for the first time but I currently have a little 9-10 week old Cochin roo who is crowing and it is the cutest thing. There is a little birdcage in the chick run and every morning around 6:15 he gets up on his birdcage and crows a half dozen times and then he's done for the day. He's such a little guy that its a very little sound and I doubt if anyone in the neighborhood is even aware of it. The silkies join him but usually one do it once or twice and theirs isn't very loud either. Even if my windows are open, it isn't loud enough to wake me up so I only hear it if I'm already awake and in the living room at the time.

I forget - did you get these sexed or straight run?

I bought them out of the straight run bin at Atwoods. I took a shot at trying to feather sex them in the store before an employee came by & told me not to pick them up. If I ended up getting 3 out of 4 correct I feel pretty good. Now that I know the saddle feathers are a tell tale sign I'll take a closer look at my other BA to see what they look like. Thanks everyone for the advice.

 

[averytds]

I just kept picturing someone going after their poor ducklings with a nail file.

There are a lot of lurkers who just skim through stuff. I don't know that the texturing would help any with ducks either. We toss in treats to the caged chickens to encourage scratching and beak swiping on the cage floor. That along with the texturing is what helps. Do ducks do any of that?


Actually Hawkeye, I was thinking you should get certified as a tester yourself. Don't know why they dropped the ball with Ivy, but it's usually a simple and short process. Maybe 20min online. Invaluable when you or your kids show. The only real hassle is the antigen cost. Sharing/splitting resolves that. You could have your license within a week or 2 and with some antigen from Danz and a looper, be done with it for this years fairs.

The video honestly is like an old health video from middle school. Not up close and personal enough with clear directions, unfortunately. I was lucky enough to meet up with some OK testers through BYC who really taught me how to do it after I already had my license.

One of the best things they taught me was while you have to use the looper for the proper blood ratio, you can use a needle to stick. I like it better, the kids like it better and I think the birds like it better too.


medawinks- You can trim the same way you would your dogs nails. Personally I prefer a battery powered Dremel. Those battery powered dog ones work well too. I don't quite trust the kids on beaks with them yet though, so for them it's doggie or nail clippers.

 

[Deerfield Acres]

HEChicken, rvroman, love to have you! PM me when you're going to be in the area, hopefully I'll be here grubbing around in the dirt or staring at chickens!

I'll sure be relieved when all the breeder pens (I mistakenly called them brooder pens) are done. Hopefully, I'll be beyond low gear tomorrow and can at least get some painting on the remaining runs done.

medawinks, I hear you on China's policies. Programs change, close, re-open all the time. I used to keep up with it because people asked me for info a lot but now that the kids are older, not so much. Eight kids isn't really that much different than three! I know it doesn't sound logical but that's really how DH and I see it. Laundry is really the thing. We keep talking about getting an extra set so the machines don't have to run all day everyday! We just don't relish the idea of having to make plumbing changes to accommodate that luxury but we'll break down and get it done one of these days!

 

[rvroman]

Ok, so over on the EE braggers thread, I have heard that Midge is definitely going to end up being a roo. Which means I will have to find a home for him as well, which makes me sad because he /she is just so pretty! I wish I could keep my boys! I do love hearing the crow these days I am going to miss it.

Well you know what that means, if Midge is really a Mitch!!! That means I have room for one more and I can bring back a BCM from texas, I found some that I like in grapevine and we are going next week to visit my parents anyway!

 

[Trish44]

rvroman, awww, sorry your EE turned out to be a roo, it's going to be a really pretty one. I wish there was some way to sex them younger, but I really haven't found any way to do it. I have a bunch of eggs in the hatcher, so I will have some more chicks if you ever want to come get another one. I've got some little Ameraucanas I've been keeping to try to get a roo & a hen to keep for breeding, so there are several I will be keeping for awhile until I can tell what they're going to be.

Well as I told you I haven't been feeling the best the last few days & I was really stressed over going to that high school reunion since I hadn't seen those people in 40 years. It was kind of nerve wracking. I'm friends with a few of them on FaceBook, so I knew them, but other than that there were lots I just didn't recognize. Anyway I got all confused on dates for the 30 eggs I put in the hatcher & I thought they were overdue. Well as it turns out they aren't due to hatch until Friday, so they aren't late after all. I think I'm losing my mind here.

I went out tonight & the little turkey poult I thought would be dead was still alive, not doing well, but alive. I gave them all a dose of vitamin E & the Black Spanish turkey poult actually kicked at me, which is an improvement. It seems to be rallying & getting stronger. Wouldn't you know that the mistake bird would be that one that makes it. I still have two that seem to be doing all right, but I gave them all the vitamin E anyway after what happened to that one. Maybe I should just continue it until I'm absolutely positive they're past the problem. I sure didn't know turkeys were so fragile, but I was told they are for the first 2 weeks, so we have awhile to go yet. Who knew, turkeys sure don't look like a bird that would have so many problems getting started.