Consolidated Kansas

[chicken danz]

Aw that's great. A light at the end of the tunnel! Maybe you'll end up with more than just one mottled chick, These I am hatching are from imported lines so heaven knows what they will turn out like. DH got the ceiling jacked up and I got the last divider in. I am ready to quit for tonight. Maybe tomorrow afternoon I'll get back in there and get to work. I will have to do some window and pop door work when this part is done but I enjoy that kind of thing so it's no biggy. All of the windows that are in this thing are pretty much crap so I think I'm going to install a couple storm windows to get air flow through there. I have them so I might as well use them.

 

[Trish44]

Well today just got worse for me, I went out to do chores & was feeding & watering rabbits when I found my favorite little Mini Rex buck lying ill. Oh I hope I don't lose him or I'm really going to be upset. He's a baby from my black otter momma rabbit & he's a black otter. They're not that easy to find. I hope I can do something for him to keep him alive, wish me luck.

HeChicken, well we can't go out early & work because of my DH's work schedule. He doesn't get home until midnight from work & then we don't get to bed until 1:30 or 2:00 so there is no getting up early here. I can't function without my sleep, it just makes me feel physically ill when I don't get 8 hours of sleep so I don't do that often. The positive thing about it all is that the place we're building the coop is in deep shade with trees all around, so it's not as bad in there as other places would be. My DH is just not a builder, so when he has to go out & do something like that he gets really grouchy about it because he feels unsure of himself & he's afraid he'll mess something up, which he does sometimes & then it upsets him because he is so OCD about things. When he starts going off about something I usually just walk off & leave him to rant at himself.

Well I need to deal with this rabbit, so I better go figure out what to do.

 

[prairie]

Josie, I am so sorry about all your chickens! We once had a dog that killed several guineas and it is traumatic for the rest of the birds but so much for me too! -- hugs to you!

 

[chicken danz]

Quiet here again this morning. My morning has been a bust so far. My coffee filter thing got stuck and overflowed an entire pot of coffee all over the counter while I was giving my baby turkeys and pheasant chicks fresh food and water. My work in the trailer yesterday is making it close to impossible to walk today. Between my knees and my feet, it hurts to move. I really need to get back out there today and get some more work done. If I don't keep working at it I'll put it back on a back burner again. I would just prefer it rained me out today though. If it doesn't do something I'm going to have to get out and really pour the water to the garden.
I hatched a bunch more guineas and ducks yesterday. I've got to get some of these sold. Some of the older guineas are jumping out of their bin in the brooder and jumping in with other groups of chicks. I really need a place to set up a separate brooder for them. I think I've hatched close to 50 of them this week. My ducks are getting over crowded as well and the littlest ones keep getting trampled. I desperately need to move the duck pens too. It doesn't take long for total destruction where ever they are.
OH I also forgot to mention. KarenS is very busy with all her kiddos with school out. She's not being unsociable, just very busy.

 

[JosieChick]

Danz- I guess everyone is probably busy with their "littles" as Hawkeye calls them. I feel better today, I buried all the boys last night in a giant grave and planted a bunch of wildflower mix and fenced it off as their memorial. In a few weeks lots of wild flowers and sunflowers should start popping up so at least their bodies will provide for something instead of being wasted.

I just finished repairing all the fencing flags to start training the GPs to the invisible fence. Half of them were knocked over or broken by the horses or the puppy chewed on some (little does she know!!) I hope it goes well. More than anything I want Molly to stop chasing cars. I am so afraid she is going to get hit and she goes after big slow moving farm equipment the worst! I ordered some chicks and silkie eggs in my misery. Now I am afraid I went a bit overboard and am going to be swimming in too many chickens!

Well, off to start working the dogs. You are supposed to throw a treat over the boundary line and let them go across and get zapped but I don't think I can do that so I will just let them make the mistake themselves and then pull them back inside the boundary and reward them for not running through it.

 

[chickmama1662]

Josie, I'm glad you are feeling better today. We have an underground fence for our dogs too (we have a car chaser also) and it has worked great. Only twice in 2 years has he felt the zap was worth the prize on the other side of the fence. Then he was afraid to come back so just sat there and whined until we saw what was going on and rescued him. Our instructions were to put the dogs on their leash (one at a time) and just walk them close to the flags. When they got too close and heard the buzzer, then we corrected them and got them back in the safe zone. We did that a few times a day for about a week before they turned on the electrical power. The worse part was that everytime they went outside that week they had to be on a leash. It doesn't take long. The funny part was once they got trained, they thought the whole yard was boobie trapped. I was beginning to think they were never going to get off the porch again. Eventually though they figured it out. What kind of chicks did you order?

 

[JosieChick]

Chickmama- Yeah, I walked them each on a leash and used hotdogs so they wouldn't be scared of walking near the fence. The trainer recommends that you just turn on the fence and let it zap them because it is the quickest way to train and these are our livestock guardian dogs so I want them back out of the pen and to work as quickly as possible. But we are training with the warning beep and then a zap if they go past the flags and once trained we will turn off the warning beep. Smart dogs will sit by the fence and run down the battery by letting the warning beep run continously and I think Molly would do that. It was moderately uneventful. I don't think the puppy yet understands that the boundary flags are defining a safe area and Molly only breached the line once and then she was like, no thank you maam, I will stay on this side of those rotten flags!

Chicks, geesh, what did I order? Well I was upset that my third batch of ameraucanas didn't hatch so I thought darn if I want blue egg layers I will just order some EEs which is what I have now and she lays a lovely blue egg every day, 5 days a week. So I ordered some EEs and then I thought well, I will order some broiler chicks because we were going to do those anyway and might as well combine shipping. Then I thought well maybe I will order a black australorp cockerel because I like my hens so much and then I could hatch chicks, then I thought better get two in case one is a real tool, I can butcher one and keep the good one. Then I thought well maybe I should order a few more pullets since we have been selling out of eggs so I ordered some dominiques and anconas cause they sounded cute. You know, it kinda snowballs.....Then I found a lady with buff laced brahma chicks which I also had in the bator and lost when it overheated so I ordered some chicks from her but she had a minimum of 15 so I got some lavender orps and they had a special extra whatever hatches on your ship date surprise and I thought that would be fun. Sooooo, long story short, I have a TON of chicks coming by my standard....DH is going to die. BUT he is building me a lovely 4 hole brooder so I will just tell him that I want to give it a fair welcome!!!

 

[chicken danz]

Josie, keep it up and you will be just like me.

I actually put up some adds today to try to move some birds. They are just going through too much feed. Maybe I'll get lucky and sell a few. I think it's pretty much a waste of time advertising during the week but I guess it never hurts to try.
I would love to just take a nap with it being this hot but I should get busy. I came in and had a late lunch and need to get in gear.

 

[JosieChick]

Danz- I KNOW!!! I may have to sell some of them off when they get here. After I looked at it I was like, "why did I buy that many chicks?! I don't need all those!" My DH won't be so obliging if I have 900 chickens!

Alright, off to do some stuff!! Need to get the duckies moved today!

 

[Trish44]

Josie, don't feel bad, I really got more chicks than I should have this year myself, but I may sell some of my flock later after I see who are the best layers. I got carried away with wanting all of these different breeds & then I started hatching some eggs just for the fun of it to try out my incubator & once I saw those lavender Orps I fell in love with them. They are such cute little things, little fluffy butts! Then I decided I wanted to try some Welsummers too, so the first hatch didn't do all that well, so I have more eggs in the incubator now of those. I just candled them & I think there are at least 9 of 15 that I feel pretty sure are developing, the rest I'm not sure about, but it's early yet. These are the eggs that got shaken bad enough to break 3, so I'm not expecting a big percentage, I will feel lucky if I get any to hatch at all probably. Oh Danz, I decided to check on my peacock eggs in the incubator, the cabinet that is that have been in 2 weeks & I'm seeing development in all 4 & movement so far, so keep your fingers crossed. These are the india blue ones, the other ones in the Brinsea haven't been in long enough yet to see anything, so we'll wait a bit longer & see what happens. I'm still turning those by hand also. My eggs didn't show up today in the mail, that's not good. I sent a PM to the guy who sent them, they really should have been here today, these are my other 4 Cream Legbar eggs. I don't know if I want to buy more if these don't work out. I may just wait & see if the gal in KS starts getting eggs soon & see if I can get some from her. I'm not having the best luck with shipped eggs to date. Anyway, it's kind of hard when there are so many breeds of pretty chickens out there & new ones coming into the country all the time. You just want to keep trying this one & that one, kind of like a kid in a candy store!