Consolidated Kansas

[Trish44]

Josie, I was thinking of doing something like that for my turkeys for when they get bigger. I have the livestock panels that we were originally going to make a pen for our goats that never came about, so I was thinking I might as well do something with them. I plan to let my turkeys free-range, but maybe try to get them in at night, I don't know. I could always use the pen for something I'm sure. I'm feeling the same way you do about my Black Spanish turkey. I feel like it fought so hard with all the flipping problems & all to live that it's not fair for it to become dinner. It has done so well since I finally got the flipping problem resolved, it's growing & is in with all of the Royal Palms, so now it knows it's a turkey instead of a chick.

IVY, you make me tired with all of your energy, can you bottle some of that & send it to me, I sure could use some extra. You almost sound like Danz with your expansion plans, kind of the opposite of cutting back I think. But then who am I to talk, here I am with double the chickens I had & now have turkeys & hopefully peacocks soon. My DH still doesn't know how many turkey poults I have, he only thinks I have 2, that is until I put them out in their new pen & he walks by it all the time to go into & out of the garage. Then he will notice for sure & say something to me, I'm just waiting. I'm not planning to keep that many after I figure out which sexes I have. I only want a trio of them, I think that's enough for me.

Well my DH says he's going out to move a whole wall out there for the new coop, he's not happy with where it is & it's out of square, so I guess I'll have to try to go out & help him. My foot is kind of sore today. I think I need to soak it again this afternoon when I get a chance. It was doing pretty well, but I noticed last night that it was a little sore & today when I had to put a shoe on to go outside it was worse again, darn.

 

[chicken danz]

I need a blaring alarm that says "STAY AWAY FROM THE KITCHEN!" I swear, I used to be an excellent cook but I have totally lost my organizational skills. Someone needed to be here video taping me making my Cherry jelly. I got my jars and lids ready and measured everything out nicely, only to discover I was supposed to put the sugar in AFTER I brought the juice pectin to a full boil. Too late... so I went ahead with it anyway. I was stirring it and watching it nicely. It seemed well under control and I realized I didn't have my jar funnel out. Couldn't find it, so I pulled a chair up to the cabinets to look further up.
It was just seconds. I turned around when I heard a sound and the jelly was boiling out and over the top of the pot like a volcano.

I ran over and moved the pot off the burner and let it set a minute. Then I put it on another burner to finish. There was a huge mess everywhere but I went ahead and got the jelly in the jars and got them sealed up. According to the recipe I was using I had it figured I would have about 10 pints or so. When I was done I only had 7.

So then I went to cleaning up my mess. I used a big measuring cup and rung out a dishcloth into it to clean up the cherry mess under the stove top. When the worst was up I had over 2 cups of jelly in that measuring cup! No wonder I was so short on jelly!!!! You can imagine the mess. If I were a cleaner tidier person I could have just made up a pile of toast and dipped it on the stove and had a grand ole' breakfast!!!

Got my mess cleaned up while I called myself many choice names. Then I was washing up my dishes. There was quite a bit of stuff left in the pan so I decided after all that work and mess, I should at least taste the stuff. I took my paddle I was stirring with, scraped up a nice glob and promptly dropped the whole mess on my shirt while I was aiming for my mouth. After using my nice cherry stained pink dishcloth to wipe off my shirt, I did manage to hit my mouth using a spoon instead of the paddle. It was quite tasty I must say. Now if it will jell up I'll be fine other than wounded pride.
I still have the rest of the juice with lots of pulp left. I was going to make my cherry sauce with it but I'm almost afraid to walk back into the kitchen.

 

[pikeman94]

Pikeman that is my problem as well. And since all my gold goes to feed that makes it even harder to pay someone. I often think those that use illegal immigrant labor are quite resourceful. I don't approve, but I could use a group of them for a few days. A group of doers instead of procrastinators would helps loads!!! Remind me when the date gets closer. I am normally at home or can be if I don't have a doctor appointment or something. I would love to show your little blue eyed cherubs around. And maybe even send them home with some new chicks. Would you like me to throw some Maran eggs in the incubator? They would hatch about the same time as you would be here. I can tell if they are pure when they hatch. Or I do have a few that are well started here.
I just spent all the money I made this week on birds. Not my plan. DH asked me for cash to go get the mower motor. Sure hope he intends to repay part of that! I just spent a chunk of change on eggs to hatch. Just when I think I'm getting ahead there's always a wrench in the plans. I do need that mower though. It looks like a jungle here!

Super tempting...do your Marans lay the dark brown eggs?

 

[pikeman94]

I turned around when I heard a sound and the jelly was boiling out and over the top of the pot like a volcano.

Don't feel bad. I had that happen to a pot of "campfire" coffee I was making on the stove. I was out of filters so the Eagle Scout in me kicked in. I turned away for not even a second and heard/smelled the boil-over.....sigh. At least I got a few good cups of coffee out of the pot so it wasn't a complete loss.

 

[chicken danz]

Yep they lay very nice dark brown eggs. I think my camera battery is dead again or I'd take a pic. I guess I could put it on the charger!

 

[chicken danz]

Rob here is a pic I just took. Just borrowed some eggs from the ladies. My flash was too bright. The one in the middle is a normal brown egg. I darkened the picture cause it made the middle egg look like a lightbulb, but the color on the marans eggs is about right now. At least on my monitor.

 

[chickmama1662]

Wow Danz! You have had an exciting week; with the vet visit and now the kitchen fiasco! I'm going to make cherry jelly this weekend. I'll have to make sure I don't follow in your shoes. I made some fruit leather with the cherry pulp that I had left over after I strained out the juice. It tastes good, but I'm not sure if we will really eat it or not. I wish I had remembered to give some to the grandkids when they were over last night. If I decide not to mess with that again, will the chickens eat the pulp?

 

[Trish44]

chickmama, I'll bet your chickens would eat the cherry pulp, mine eat about anything I want to throw out to them. When we have apples that get too old & pithy I cut them up into little squares & throw them out & they eat that like candy. They especially like leftover spaghetti, I usually cook too much just so I can throw some out to them, they're fun to watch.

Well I have to make a run to Arkansas City for some supplies for my turkey pen & I'm having to push myself to get up & get ready to go, I just have no energy today. I kind of felt like earlier that I had a little bit of fever & was kind of chilling when I went outside. I don't think I'm over this spider bite yet.

 

[WichitaKidd]

Question on integrating chicks. I've moved most of my "little" chicks (8 weeks) out to the coop with my 2 "bigs" (15 weeks). So far the behaviors I've seen I somewhat expected. The 2 bigs have essentially "bullied" the 5 littles for the past 2 weeks. It's slowly getting better, but the littles are pretty much scared of the bigs. Every time one of the bigs gets close to a little the little scampers off, or the big pecks it in the head. When I first moved the littles out to the coop, the bigs kept them cornered in the coop for nearly 2 days. I had to chase the bigs out of the coop so the littles could at least eat. I understand the whole pecking order structure & all, but how long does this process normally take? I feel like I'm raising 2 separate flocks.

My one little, Buffy, just isn't getting any better. I tried leaving her out in the coop with the rest of the chicks overnight, but that didn't go so well. I heard a ruckus in the coop this morning & went out to see what it was. One of the bigs was on top of her & had her pinned down while it was pecking her in the head. Her head has been pretty well pecked. I can see a couple of spots where they've drawn blood on her at some point. Decided to just bring her back into the house for now. It's almost like the bigs know she has something wrong with her so they intentionally pick on her. Any advice on what to do here? I hate to keep Buffy separated from the flock for "social" reasons, but I also don't want her pecked to death either. Is this going to cause more problems down the road?

 

[HEChicken]

Hechicken I noticed in your pictures you have a little lean to close to the chicken house. That could be converted to an excellent chicken pen. You would have a shaded area and you have posts to build from. You could close in one corner and easily have a coop under there without much construction. I would be all over that and seeing an opportunity to add more birds.

You know what's funny? That NEVER occurred to me. We also have a pole barn that is a lot bigger than that little shelter, on the other side of the property, and I have entertained thoughts of building a coop in the pole barn and a run that extends out into the pasture, but never thought to do it in the shelter itself. We have thought about running some type of livestock in the pasture, so need to leave them some shelter, whether it is the little shelter or the larger pole barn. Thanks for making me think outside the box for another option.

Danz- I have thought about that, but then my Scottish heritage kicks in and I "likes me gold". So, I end up building/doing.

Question on integrating chicks. I've moved most of my "little" chicks (8 weeks) out to the coop with my 2 "bigs" (15 weeks). So far the behaviors I've seen I somewhat expected. The 2 bigs have essentially "bullied" the 5 littles for the past 2 weeks. It's slowly getting better, but the littles are pretty much scared of the bigs. Every time one of the bigs gets close to a little the little scampers off, or the big pecks it in the head. When I first moved the littles out to the coop, the bigs kept them cornered in the coop for nearly 2 days. I had to chase the bigs out of the coop so the littles could at least eat. I understand the whole pecking order structure & all, but how long does this process normally take? I feel like I'm raising 2 separate flocks.

My one little, Buffy, just isn't getting any better. I tried leaving her out in the coop with the rest of the chicks overnight, but that didn't go so well. I heard a ruckus in the coop this morning & went out to see what it was. One of the bigs was on top of her & had her pinned down while it was pecking her in the head. Her head has been pretty well pecked. I can see a couple of spots where they've drawn blood on her at some point. Decided to just bring her back into the house for now. It's almost like the bigs know she has something wrong with her so they intentionally pick on her. Any advice on what to do here? I hate to keep Buffy separated from the flock for "social" reasons, but I also don't want her pecked to death either. Is this going to cause more problems down the road?

I wish I had some good answers for you. It does sound like the bigs recognize that Buffy is disabled - in the animal world disabilities are not tolerated very well because a herd member who is slow and weak is more likely to draw the attention of predators, putting the whole herd/flock in danger.

Over the years I have certainly found that each new batch of chicks I raise, tends to be its own separate flock that very slowly integrates into the larger flock as they all become the same size. However even when they are years old, IME, the members of the original "mini flocks" remain more closely bonded than any of them are bonded to members of the big flock. If I see two away together grazing, I can just bet you every time, it will be two who were raised together as chicks. They seem to retain some memory of these bonds, even from chickhood.

That is a long way of saying that your bigs and littles WILL integrate but it will be slow and gradual and will not really happen until they are all the same size. The bigs will probably remain the head of the flock and second-in-command, with the third-in-command being the "head" chick of the littles flock. If any of that makes any sense at all. I am treating myself to an uncharacteristic glass of wine, after a hard week's work.