Consolidated Kansas

[lizzyGSR]

I would leave your little ducks, too, I think after this. I think no matter how good you think your ducks are boxed up, the second you leave the car, they will be dinner for your dogs. Case in point-- we had put left overs in the car after eating, and I had my mom's chihuahua (which is TINY!!-- 4 lbs) and he was able to get the zipper unzipped on my insulated grocery bag we'd put the left overs in and drug out the food and ate it!! They find a way. We were only gone like 5 minutes going into Quick trip to get a drink and use the bathroom. You don't to hate your dog if he eats your ducks. I think they'd be fine if they have plenty of water. My chicken coop stays pretty cool during the day. It's nice and breezy-- with the windows open. So long as there are windows, and plenty of water, they should be fine at your friends house. I was leaning more on taking them-- but NOT with a dog!

Yeah, I understand your worries. So far, I've had people that can come feed, water etc while I'm gone. We're rarely gone, though. I NEVER travel with my dogs-- too many things can go wrong and what a PITA if you want to go out to eat or go do something and you can't leave them in your hotel room, etc. Or if you have to get back to walk them. We have traveled once with our dog (pomeranian) and even though she was small, it was a mess. We just did a quick trip to KC, and drove all over and had to keep stopping to get her water and food, and then she ended up peeing on us, even though we had just let her out not long before. All the water, I guess. Anyway-- UGH! Never, ever again. Now I board my dogs at a doggie day care or have my parents watch them if they are home. It works out much better and less stress on all of us.
Are you coming down into Wichita? Who has your horse or are you boarding them here at a stable? I am familiar with a lot of the stables around here, since a lot of them do clinics and fun things on occasion. Are you going to be building a horse barn? That was the first thing we did when we built our house. But we couldn't afford to board our horses when I moved out. I had 7 horses at the time--- yeah, that wasn't happening. Much cheaper to get the barn built and move them in. Anyway, hope you have a fun time!

I am going to Wichita with my sister for her work trip. On her way home, she will drop me off at my parents' house where my husband will meet me. My horses are at my parents' house (North of Salina). I currently have 2 horses. I had wanted to move them out to my house by the end of June, but with as dry as it has been, we have very little in the way of anything for them to eat. It's been so dry that even our weeds are dying. Central KS is a lot better off than we are, so my parents agreed to keep my horses a little longer. Yes, we are building a shelter for the horses. It is more along the lines of a loafing shed, though. I was planning on bringing the horses out here despite not having the barn done because we have a nice, established tree line that they could get out of the weather in. However, since it's been so try the pasture looks more like it would in the middle of winter than in early summer. We get .12" of rain total last night and this morning, so that will help, but we could really use quite a bit more.

 

[chicken danz]

What an afternoon. I got nothing done. I had eggs to move from the incubators to the hatchers today. Lots of them. Had to candle them all and get them moved. I went to the newest incubator. It is built to have more tilt which helps the eggs hatch better. It is simply an incubator not a hatcher too so it tilts really far. I've had a few eggs roll out of the trays before which is really disgusting. But today topped the cake. I had two peacock eggs roll out that were broken. Made me sick. That was about $30 laying in the bottom of the bator. So I took some old EMU trays and wired dividers into them only to realize once they got in the incubator there was no room to turn. I cut all those out and wired them into a hatching tray. This wasn't an easy job. Then when I tried to put it in there it wouldn't fit. The turning trays are just smaller enough that it wouldn't go in. It would have worked in my other incubators but not this newer one because it is made a little different. I wanted to be sure to use this incubator because I can keep the humidity up higher. So I took the last 4 of my eggs and used some plastic bird netting and strapped them down in the tray with that. It's a royal pain for sure. I hope none of these others go bad because I will have to take the thing apart to get the eggs out. I just hope I get something out of those last 4 eggs to offset the cost!!!
I have Wellsummers hatching. Out of two dozen eggs I had two that weren't fertile. Looks like most of them will hatch today. I think that would be awesome to get 100% hatch minus the two that weren't good. These were purchased eggs. I had sold all but one of my Wellsummers I had so maybe I can get some breeders out of these with luck. Knowing my luck I'll have all roos! I also have guineas and ducks hatching. I need to make a separate brooder for my guineas. They are taking up all of my space in the brooder.

 

[Trish44]

Danz, sorry about your peacock eggs, I would be upset about that too, those aren't cheap. I can't wait to see how many of mine make it to hatch. The first set all show growth & movement so far.

Well my DH made it through buying the bike, but that kid can twist him around her little finger. She ended up with a $100 bike instead of a $60 one. I hope she takes better care of this one.

I have been in bed all the rest of the afternoon, trying to fend off this junk. I will have to try to recruit some help in a bit for chores. That probably will be a joke, but we'll see.

 

[prairie]

HeChicken,
I have been reading for about an hour after searching posts and I think I am going to go with the Pullet-door too with the solar option. We have to check out the chicken house to make sure there isn't a problem -- it is an old shed/barn-- but we put new siding on this spring so it should be fine.

I remember when I first heard of these automatic doors--- I thought it was a joke -- really hilarious that someone would need a little door to open automatically but then didn't really think it through until the last couple of weeks.

Have you gotten yours yet??
Kare

That's sort of where I was at too, Prairie. I have power almost to my coop - it is at the shelter right next door. For coop-building, I ran an extension cord next door and had no problem with enough power. But on a semi-permanent basis, I didn't really want the door plugged into an extension cord. So I got that solar option and that way I don't need it plugged in. The way I understand it, the solar panel charges a battery so that even if the sun doesn't come out for a week, the battery will still have enough juice to power the door.

 

[Hawkeye95]

Next I picked 4 ice cream buckets full of apples!! Couldn't believe they were ready! It is a June apple- an heirloom variety and the tree is about 24 yrs old. It's called Summer Pippin and they are a smallish apple with creamy white flesh and so delicious. So happy to have fresh apples!

But now I am bushed! Sweat running off me so I quit for the day! Back to hitting the trees again another day!

WOW! I want one of those apple trees! Never heard of that before! I only have one apple tree really going crazy-- the others barely have an apple. But last year was their big year. Seems like they have on and off years, I've noticed.

I am going to Wichita with my sister for her work trip. On her way home, she will drop me off at my parents' house where my husband will meet me. My horses are at my parents' house (North of Salina). I currently have 2 horses. I had wanted to move them out to my house by the end of June, but with as dry as it has been, we have very little in the way of anything for them to eat. It's been so dry that even our weeds are dying. Central KS is a lot better off than we are, so my parents agreed to keep my horses a little longer. Yes, we are building a shelter for the horses. It is more along the lines of a loafing shed, though. I was planning on bringing the horses out here despite not having the barn done because we have a nice, established tree line that they could get out of the weather in. However, since it's been so try the pasture looks more like it would in the middle of winter than in early summer. We get .12" of rain total last night and this morning, so that will help, but we could really use quite a bit more.

Ahhh, okay, so I was thinking your sister lived her and your horses were here. Never mind! I was planning outings! LOL We have nothing to speak of in our pasture either. I am down to 3 horses and they are on about 7 acres of land out there. All weeds and dirt. But I throw out a nice big round hay bale and I feed them once a day with 12% sweet feed. Every single day, regardless of season. They would be skin and bones if they didn't get their sweet feed each day. It doesn't matter if your pasture has nothing in it, go get you a nice big round bale of Brome hay, and I think Atwoods is cheaper than the CoOp for sweet feed. Their bags are always changing prices-- it's up to $8.89 right now, but the CoOp has it for $11+ for the same thing. Depending on the season, Atwoods will drop that price to around $7.49! Which is sooo dirt cheap! Even at that, I only spend about $50 a week feeding them, but I buy them supplements too, and my oldest mare is on a weight gainer. The vet and I gave up last year -- I took her to the vet 3 times last year to figure out her weight issues. It came down to the vet saying that all we had left was to check her thyroid and get her on an injectible, and I don't want to go there. So long as her ribs aren't showing, I'm okay with it now. She is nearly 40yrs. I've had her teeth floated twice in the last two years. Usually my horses don't need to be floated but like every 5 or 6 years. But she was really grinding the edges up sharp. She nearly died on me last year-- she colicked over the winter and the Equine Surgery Center had her for 2 days on IV's and tubing her. It was bad, they told me when she first came in, that by looking at her, they didn't think she was going to make it. She is a fighter. She doesn't drink enough in the winter. So to work around her, I started tossing table salt on her grain after that, and she started drinking better. Sigh. It's always something.

What an afternoon. I got nothing done. I had eggs to move from the incubators to the hatchers today. Lots of them. Had to candle them all and get them moved. I went to the newest incubator. It is built to have more tilt which helps the eggs hatch better. It is simply an incubator not a hatcher too so it tilts really far. I've had a few eggs roll out of the trays before which is really disgusting. But today topped the cake. I had two peacock eggs roll out that were broken. Made me sick. That was about $30 laying in the bottom of the bator.

Oh no!! So sorry about your peacock eggs!! That is terrible! Can you stick them down with duct tape rolled into a circle in the bottom of the tray and stick the egg down into it??

Danz, sorry about your peacock eggs, I would be upset about that too, those aren't cheap. I can't wait to see how many of mine make it to hatch. The first set all show growth & movement so far.
Well my DH made it through buying the bike, but that kid can twist him around her little finger. She ended up with a $100 bike instead of a $60 one. I hope she takes better care of this one.
I have been in bed all the rest of the afternoon, trying to fend off this junk. I will have to try to recruit some help in a bit for chores. That probably will be a joke, but we'll see.

We got our oldest a new bike in March, and I bought the $69.99 one. Yeah, I wasn't about to spend $100 on a bike I know he isn't even going to use the kick stand on. I keep telling him over and over to take better care of his bike and not drop it on the ground. I make him put it in the barn at night, but he still forgets when I forget to tell him. Kids!! Sheesh. No fun you are still sick. Bummer.

 

[prairie]

We had a late freeze last year and had no fruit at all. With the mild winter and no late freezes our trees are loaded-- peaches, apples and pears. I love home grown fruit-- tastes so much better than fruit at the store!! We thin the apples so they don't have on years and off years-- that is what keeps them bearing each year-- unless we have a late freeze!!

WOW! I want one of those apple trees! Never heard of that before! I only have one apple tree really going crazy-- the others barely have an apple. But last year was their big year. Seems like they have on and off years, I've noticed.

 

[Hawkeye95]

We had a late freeze last year and had no fruit at all. With the mild winter and no late freezes our trees are loaded-- peaches, apples and pears. I love home grown fruit-- tastes so much better than fruit at the store!! We thin the apples so they don't have on years and off years-- that is what keeps them bearing each year-- unless we have a late freeze!!

OH you're kidding!!!? GOOD to know! So I should be out there taking some of those apples off, then? This is something I was not aware of. I am a newbie fruit tree enthusiast! I planted my first apple tree about 8 years ago. Well alrighty then, I wonder if my horses would go for green apples.. I hate to waste them. What do you all do with them??

 

[HEChicken]

HeChicken,
I have been reading for about an hour after searching posts and I think I am going to go with the Pullet-door too with the solar option. We have to check out the chicken house to make sure there isn't a problem -- it is an old shed/barn-- but we put new siding on this spring so it should be fine.

I remember when I first heard of these automatic doors--- I thought it was a joke -- really hilarious that someone would need a little door to open automatically but then didn't really think it through until the last couple of weeks.

Have you gotten yours yet??
Kare

Oh no, I just ordered it yesterday. I'm impressed that they already sent me a FedEx tracking number but I haven't gone out to the FedEx site yet to look and see where it is. I anticipate it will get here Tue/Wed of next week but we'll see. Haha - I know about thinking it was a huge expense to save opening a door manually. But back at my old house, we had a pretty secure backyard so I felt confident leaving the door to the coop open all the time and they just let themselves in and out morning and night. In fact, my layers are still there taking care of themselves pretty independently (until tomorrow when we round them up and bring them here, but that's another story). Anyways....while building the new coop and realizing how much I need to take into account predators that we didn't need to worry about at the old place, it suddenly occurred to me. "Hang on a minute...if they're locked up in Fort Knox at night....that means I have to be up at the crack of dawn every morning YEAR ROUND to let them out. That means going outside on a freezing winter's morning and walking the 150 yards to the coop just to open the door. That means making sure I remember to lock the coop up again every night just after they've all gone in but not so late that a raccoon beat me to it". And after a day of these types of thoughts, researching auto doors was pretty much the next step. It will be nice if we want to go away for a few days, as we won't have to have someone come over here morning and night to let them in and out, but more than that, it will make everyday life a little easier.

OH you're kidding!!!? GOOD to know! So I should be out there taking some of those apples off, then? This is something I was not aware of. I am a newbie fruit tree enthusiast! I planted my first apple tree about 8 years ago. Well alrighty then, I wonder if my horses would go for green apples.. I hate to waste them. What do you all do with them??

I worked in an orchard for awhile when I was younger and that was one of the tasks I worked on - thinning the apples and peaches. They tend to grow in clusters but the tree is no able to provide all of the nutrition they will need for every apple in the cluster to grow to a decent size. So by thinning them out to one (or at the most two fruit per cluster if the branch size supported it) we assured that the fruit that was left on the tree would be able to grow large enough for market. I'm not sure of the options on using the fruit you thin. I used to collect the apples and take them home to make jam. They have a lot of pectin in them when young, and set very nicely. But we had way more than I could have used for that. A pig in the orchard seems like the ticket - they'd probably love to eat all the fruit you pull when you thin.

 

[HEChicken]

Danz, I'm so sorry about your peacock eggs - what a bummer since I know those aren't cheap. I hope your jerry-rigging works to let the rest of them hatch out okay.

 

[cherwill]

Hawkeye, the silkie babies are sooo cute!

Trish, I hope you're finally feeling better.

I'm going to confess my ignorance here. I've heard of rutabagas but have NO idea what it is - what it looks like, what it tastes like, whether you eat it raw or cooked and if cooked HOW you cook it. I guess I should google image it so I have a clue. Congratulations on all the stuff you've harvested this year - I'm envious and will be glad to get my garden in this fall and start planting again next spring.

Yay!!!

I've only recently discovered rutabagas, or as my grandma calls them, rutabeggars. They're a lot like a turnip except they're twice as big and have a milder flavor. Mainly I've cut them up and roasted them in the oven with other vegetables. I think they'd be good mashed, too.

Cherwill I used to can all the time. I plan to do a bunch this year. I have two pressure canners, lots of jars, pickle crocks etc. I used to make sweet pickles but my DH doesn't like pickles. So I paln to make some bread and butter and dill pickles anyway. I planted lots of pickling cucumbers and some dill. The darn dill is just coming up. It was really slow to germinate. I'm afraid I'll have cucumbers much earlier than I'll have dill heads. I also plan to make some bread and butter jalapenos. Love those things. Unless the unforeseen happens I should have lots of beans to can. I love home grown canned green beans.

I'm coming to you with all my canning questions, then. I tried canning tomatoes years ago but barely had enough tomatoes to know what I was doing. I didn't get around to canning anything last year, but did can a few things the year before. It was all water bath canning. This year I've still done mostly water bath canning, but did can 4 pints of beets with my pressure cooker. I think I tried making pickles years ago but they were soft. I let my MIL make her fabulous refrigerator pickles (which are half cucumber and half onion) and she keeps us well supplied all summer. I have the Ball Blue Book and two books that are for small batch water bath canning. There are no bread and butter jalapeno recipes in there, but I bought a jar last year in Yoder and loved them. If you have a recipe, I'd be happy to use it!

DH is going to Manhattan in the morning and I know he'd like me to go with him. I just don't want to go anywhere and he is getting disgusted. He just doesn't understand how I really need to be available to sell birds on the weekends. I guess we need a date night!
Oh geez! That means I'd have to comb my hair!!!

I agree on the bunny. My daughter wants one so much. If we ever get one, it will definitely be a pet. I can't imagine eating our chickens yet! I know that will come, but.... I cling to being a newbie!!

I didn't think I'd ever be interested in eating our chickens, but now I'm not so sure ... the darn things barely lay eggs any more. This week I got 4 eggs from my 6 layers, and one was broken. Old Sophia is, in DH's words, our big fat fatty and she lays the odd shaped eggs. The shells have become so thin, and she's so heavy, they're nearly always broken. The dogs are enjoying it, but I'm not. We've put some oyster shell out for them, but so far it hasn't made much of a difference.

Next I picked 4 ice cream buckets full of apples!! Couldn't believe they were ready! It is a June apple- an heirloom variety and the tree is about 24 yrs old. It's called Summer Pippin and they are a smallish apple with creamy white flesh and so delicious. So happy to have fresh apples!

I'm so envious of your fruit trees!

What an afternoon. I got nothing done. I had eggs to move from the incubators to the hatchers today. Lots of them. Had to candle them all and get them moved. I went to the newest incubator. It is built to have more tilt which helps the eggs hatch better. It is simply an incubator not a hatcher too so it tilts really far. I've had a few eggs roll out of the trays before which is really disgusting. But today topped the cake. I had two peacock eggs roll out that were broken. Made me sick. That was about $30 laying in the bottom of the bator. So I took some old EMU trays and wired dividers into them only to realize once they got in the incubator there was no room to turn. I cut all those out and wired them into a hatching tray. This wasn't an easy job. Then when I tried to put it in there it wouldn't fit. The turning trays are just smaller enough that it wouldn't go in. It would have worked in my other incubators but not this newer one because it is made a little different. I wanted to be sure to use this incubator because I can keep the humidity up higher. So I took the last 4 of my eggs and used some plastic bird netting and strapped them down in the tray with that. It's a royal pain for sure. I hope none of these others go bad because I will have to take the thing apart to get the eggs out. I just hope I get something out of those last 4 eggs to offset the cost!!!
I have Wellsummers hatching. Out of two dozen eggs I had two that weren't fertile. Looks like most of them will hatch today. I think that would be awesome to get 100% hatch minus the two that weren't good. These were purchased eggs. I had sold all but one of my Wellsummers I had so maybe I can get some breeders out of these with luck. Knowing my luck I'll have all roos! I also have guineas and ducks hatching. I need to make a separate brooder for my guineas. They are taking up all of my space in the brooder.

That sucks, especially losing the peacock eggs.

My niece's ducks are cuties. She called tonight to see how they are. We've had them here since Wednesday night and they've already grown a bit and parts of them are beginning to turn white. She's upset that she's missing out on it.





Remember the strawberry pallet fiasco? I replanted them in my washtubs. $20 worth of strawberries and not one made it, but I do have these volunteers: