Consolidated Kansas

[JosieChick]

AARGHHHHH!!

That puppy has done it now!!!! She is on pen probation until further notice!!!! I was moving our new fruit trees to the backyard tonight and when I came around the corner the GP puppy had one of my bronze turkeys and was pulling his feathers out!! So I jumped off the mower and raced over yelling no at her and she ran away. The poor turkey was just scared half to death and his tail and half his side is missing all the feathers and his poor wing is hanging down but I think just got pulled hard and doesn't appear to be broken.

So I start to head back to the coop to put him inside the pen and let everyone cool down and catch the puppy. She has ANOTHER turkey and is tearing its feathers out. I could have killed her!!! So she is in the pen and isn't going to be allowed out unless I can strictly supervise her and will put her on a drag to keep her from mauling my poor birds. GEEZ!! Somedays I wish I had gotten another adult dog.....Molly would never dream of chewing on my turkeys!! Such a naughty, naughty puppy...

 

[Trish44]

Josie, I'm sorry your pup got to your turkeys! Mine haven't bothered any of my chickens or other birds, but I think they would if they could get to the little chicks. Mine have killed quite a few kittens though, which I just can't figure out because they seem to like the adult cats, that is as long as they don't run from them. If they run they kind of see it as a challenge & the chase is on. We have lost quite a few cats lately & it's weird because it's mostly all the males that have disappeared. There is only about one male cat left here, all the rest are females, I think even the kittens. I'm waiting to see what the dogs do once I put the turkeys out in the outside pen. I'm going to make it as secure as I can, but it will be something new to check out for them. They barked at the young chicks when they first came out into the run in their new pen until I made it clear to them they weren't to be messed with. My pups know what the words "Leave It" mean. We taught the same command to our inside dogs, it's a good one to teach in case you drop something you don't want them to have. At any rate, you have to use it in a very stern voice so they know what they're doing is bad.

We got lucky tonight & our granddaughter has decided she wants to spend the night & mom let her, we were kind of surprised. We have had a pretty good day & it's nice to spend some time with her for once. She was going to help me gather eggs this evening, but she has decided she is afraid of the chickens, we will have to work on that.

Oh & thanks tnt for the pen, it will be put to good use when I get my breeder coop done. It was nice meeting you finally in person today!

 

[pikeman94]

First of all, Tweety - Hang in there having a pet that is near the end of his/her life is the pits. I am sure you will do the right thing - whatever that may be.

Josie - Yeah, super bad puppy! Like a child, it is timeout on the step -- at least that is how we roll around here.

Coop v2.0 update - I was able to get a lot of work done on the coop this weekend. I got the roof installed, nesting box built and installed, chicken access door built and installed, people access doors built, and I have one of the people access door sides trimmed out. Now all I have left is get the other people door trimmed out and both people doors installed. Then, I will have to get the nesting box trimmed out and the lid installed. Next, I will have to get the shingles on the roof and the nesting box lid. Finally, I am going to give the entire outside a good coating of stain. I am getting so close! Here is the updated photo album:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/gallery/album/view/id/6215133/user_id/66378


I am whooped! Time to go take some ibuprofen and hit the sheets. See you all virtually tomorrow.

 

[Kansaseq]

Coop looks great, Pikeman! Nice job!

 

[HEChicken]

Pikeman - its coming along great. I noticed the chicken access door opens horizontally, instead of sliding up and down. I'm not good at thinking outside the box so it never occurred to me to do mine that way. Is there a specific reason you chose that over up/down? Will you have a latch to keep it closed and a way to hold it open too?

Trish - so glad you got to have this time with your granddaughter. She will have some great memories of time with you.

Josie - so sorry about the puppy and turkeys. I really hope the time out teaches her she has to leave them alone.

 

[sharol]

Josie,

When I got my miniature Doxy a little over a year ago, she grabbed my EE about the second time she got out in the yard. Pulled out some feathers and shook her up quite a bit. Lily had squwaked and run when she approached her, and the rest was history. Lily was OK, but I hadn't trusted the dog since. At the time I pinned her and yelled at her BAD DOG!!!

Last week she sneaked out, and she was fine with the chickens. Walked right through them with no problems. I'm still keeping an eye on her when they are out, but she seems to have developed a respect for them during all our supervised outings during the last year. Hang in there. Puppies are puppies.

Trish, the dominant male cat may be running off all the other males or killing them. Cats are pretty territorial. I've always thought of them as just a little less domesticated than dogs -- just a little closer to the jungle, so to speak.

 

[chickmama1662]

Congratulations to Hawkeye95! In case you haven't seen the announcement yet, she won a Spirit Award on BYC last month! Hope to see her back online soon. I enjoy reading her entries.

 

[pikeman94]

Pikeman - its coming along great. I noticed the chicken access door opens horizontally, instead of sliding up and down. I'm not good at thinking outside the box so it never occurred to me to do mine that way. Is there a specific reason you chose that over up/down? Will you have a latch to keep it closed and a way to hold it open too?

Trish - so glad you got to have this time with your granddaughter. She will have some great memories of time with you.

Josie - so sorry about the puppy and turkeys. I really hope the time out teaches her she has to leave them alone.

HEChicken - I will secure it with an eye-hook. The hook will be on the door and then there will be two eyelets; one near the door to secure and one where the door will be fully open. I have seen the sliding designs. I am just not that fancy.

 

[chicken danz]

Well shows how much I get around the site. I almost always post here. I didn't even know there was a Spirit award! Congrats Hawkeye!
Pikeman your coop is looking great! I am impressed! Trish ,glad you got to spend some quality time with your granddaughter. Josie, I am sure the pup was wanting to play. A good scolding and a quarantine should help a lot. I am sure she just got over exicited. My pup has never grabbed a chicken but the last few days she has discovered it is fun to run into a middle of a group of them and watch them scatter. I am sure she discovered this by accident. She is at that dingy age when you have to nearly club them to get their attention. Then when you do she comes over to you and smiles at you and wants to be petted. Ugh! I keep telling myself she'll calm down soon. She has started going out with her parents when they are pursuing an animal. That will mature her up. Of course she is supposed to stay here. You can tell Marshmallow always tells her to stay. Cause she waits until they are 1/8th of a mile away and then takes off after them.
I have such a busy week ahead. I am so dreading it.
I started late yesterday building a stand for my button quail to be outside. I have some modular type breeding cages I was going to connect and use inside of it. I measured carefully at least three times and started cutting and building. I got the thing done complete with the roof, only to discover it wasn't wide enough and the cages won't go in the ends. I was baffled. I finally realized that I had measured the tops of the cages, not the base. It is just slightly larger. So now I don't know what to do. I don't want to tear this apart and start all over. It was too much work and I used good lumber. I am thinking about grinding the inside of the posts just enough to get the cages in. Not sure if I will ruin what little strength it has or not if I do that. They other option would be to forget the cage parts and just make pens but that would be a ton of work and make the whole thing terribly heavy. Here I thought I was doing a great job!!! What a ditz I can be.It would have been so easy to make it just slightly larger, had I realized what I had done, without using any more lumber. I pride myself in being able to build but I sure wasn't thinking it out there.
Between building that and hoeing my garden yesterday I woke up in the middle of the night with a severe leg cramp. I had to get up and stand on it to change the pressure and it seems like it took forever to go away. These old bodies just don't work like they are supposed to.

 

[Hawkeye95]

HOly Moly, I WON something?!??! LOL!! I just got on for the first time since last week. I have to go back and check out all the posts I missed... or at least the last few days.

Pikeman-- wow, your coop is really looking great!!!
Josie-- bad puppy! I bet you can break her of that by keeping a good eye on her with the turkeys. Hopefully!!

We've been in Disney World and got back late, late. I'm tired and need a vacation from our vacation. Okay-- off to read!

(I'm wondering what a Spirit award is... so I'm going to go check that out too!)