Consolidated Kansas

[HEChicken]

Ivy, the mud room on our new house was a major selling point for me. In our old house, we had the laundry room in the basement. Since I prefer to hang my clothes out to dry, I had to haul the wet clothes up the basement stairs, through the house, out on the deck, down the deck stairs and out to the backyard to hang them out. At our new house, the mud room is the room you walk into from the garage and you step up from there to the house. It has hardwood floors, french doors and a built in space for front loading washer and dryer. We did buy a washer/dryer set to put in there (since my old washer was a top loader) but plan to only use the dryer in the winter months when its too wet/icy/cold for clothes to dry well outdoors. We installed a rotary clothesline out back, and bought a little laundry cart on wheels. It sits right under the washer door so you can just roll the clothes out of the washer into the cart, then wheel it out the french doors and to the clothes line. Love it!!! We haven't had to deal with mud too much since we moved here, but when winter is coming on, I will get some boot trays so we can unload muddy boots there on the way in and keep the rest of the house nice.

Well, Prairie, I finally found the camera cable and got the pics downloaded. Keep in mind the chunnel still needs to be painted so it will look better when it is done, but for now, here it is. Also, ignore the pile of rocks. I plan to build a nicer looking set of stairs for the ducks (the chickens and guineas have no problem getting in jumping directly from the ground) but haven't got to it yet. The to-do list is so long and for now this is working for them.

 

[Hawkeye95]

I'm from Topeka I have Ameraucana's, Welsummers and Jumbo brown Cot Quail...... soon to get Lemon Cuckoo Orpingtons Love to get more of the Jumbo Cots

Angelbells ---

Well, my Cuckoo Marans that I was sure was a goner after her fox attack, is hanging in there.
I am also moving in the direction of a LGD.

So glad your marans is doing okay! I hope she really pulls through for you! Can't wait to hear more about the dog you are going to try out!

I was shocked she was in such a state! I don't know why she won't get in the darn pool and cool off. It is so hot and she keeps getting up and wandering around. The neighbors beagle was here earlier so that has thrown her napping schedule off for the day I think! I put ice in their water bistro and refilled the kiddie pool with cold water. She is napping under the walnut tree now and seems much more comfortable and normal. Thank heavens, scared me half to death.

This heat has been awful! And without any wind, it's just brutal. WHY is it that we suffer from the worst wind about 99% percent of the time and the second things heat up around here, not a breeze in sight!?!?

My granddaughter has been sleeping most of the afternoon and is still out. She was exhausted. Guess I should get her up for dinner.

You have had so many losses, so terrible! I'm so sorry for you! Sounds like your granddaughter is going to die in this heat! LOL I hope this weather does indeed cool off so she can enjoy spending time outside.

Speaking of the turkeys I got tickled today when the people came to get that little rooster, they were gobbling & raising a racket because they were strangers, how funny!

Oh Seymore used to do that!! If anyone drove in, she would sound the alarm and pace back and forth calling loudly so we'd know someone was out there. I LOVED it!! Turkeys are fantastic!

I am so glad this horrible day in hades is over! (Referring only to the heat, thankfully)

Had friends over tonight for a swim and I am beat.

Glad you all survived the heat over there. So far, knock on wood, I've been okay. But I've got the misters set up and I'm out there checking often. Not only that, I just don't have that many birds, and it's easier on me, I think. I can tell the silkies don't do as well in the heat as the big birds. I think their fluff must hold in more heat.

Cherokee county fair starts the 17, so we are working hard getting everything ready. Almost there, one more work day, and should be ready to go.

Our fair starts on the 11th! Sounds like you are a week behind us. I am hoping the forecast holds out and we stay a bit cooler this coming week since we'll have birds out there. I'm worried about them being too hot since I've had them on misters since the heat began and they are dependent on the ice and misters I've been providing them. Have fun judging! I'm sure you'll do a great job.

Wuz up fellow flockers!
Y'all beatin this heat?

Hey Darren! Not loving the heat, for sure! How are your little beauties doing up there? Hope they are all holding up.

Yes, did get the contract on the house at Oswego. We are very happy and excited to move. I just wish we were getting things fixed up around here a little faster. I posted a pic of the little chicken house at the place we are buying. Here is a picture of the house. It is a really unique home.



DH has agreed to put his shop in one of the barns at the north side of the property. They are nice buildings with 220 wiring, pipe corrals, cement floors and auto waterers. That means I get the shop that is closest to the house! It has a covered area attached to it with a cement floor, and that is where I am going to put my bantams. I think it is going to work great. All of my large birds will go in the layer coop. I have cut down on my numbers, so I will only have a few layers. Here's a picture of the shop with the covered area that I will use for my woodworking and my bantams. We will have to enclose the overhang, but we want to make it so that we can open it up on the south for ventillation.


I better go move the hose. I've got the timer on so I can deep water all the trees.

IVY--- Congratulations!!!

What a gorgeous looking property! I'm sooooo excited for you!! It just looks like it's going to be the perfect place to live in! Love all the big mature trees. So neat, I think you are just going to enjoy living out there.

Well we woke up to a small problem this morning! The darn naughty stud pony (who isn't a stud anymore but don't tell him that!) broke out of his pen and was wreaking havoc in the pasture with the other horses. Ugh!! Had to shut the big horses in the goose pen which the geese were none too happy about to catch him! He is so bad. I wish he would chill out so he could go out with them but all he wants to do is fight.

Off to water and cool everyone off. I sure hope it rains today, it is so muggy out!

What a bad boy!! They are so sneaky, aren't they? I've had TWO horse escapes this month!! Isn't that crazy? I can go a whole year and never have one escape. One of them literally used her lips/teeth to undo the gate lock at 3am while I was sleeping. Got out that way. The other one-- well, dumb me, I left the gate open while I was walking in to feed. He pushed me to the side and ran out. It didn't last long. Once he realized I was in there feeding, he came trotting back in, like-- oops, never mind!! He went right into his stall. Sigh. I think the heat has them tired and bored and miserable, so they are just getting up to no good.

Oh - and a few days ago I saw a pair of wild turkeys just down the road from here when I was driving home. I had the camera in the car and stopped to snap a pic. See them? One is to the far left of the pic and is easy to pick up but it is following its mate who is closer to the center of the pic and is a little harder to see.

Oh, that is so neat!!! I love seeing them!

Well, Prairie, I finally found the camera cable and got the pics downloaded. Keep in mind the chunnel still needs to be painted so it will look better when it is done, but for now, here it is. Also, ignore the pile of rocks. I plan to build a nicer looking set of stairs for the ducks (the chickens and guineas have no problem getting in jumping directly from the ground) but haven't got to it yet. The to-do list is so long and for now this is working for them.

The chunnel looks great!!!

 

[Hawkeye95]

WOW, I am soooo far behind!! My DH and I took the kids rolling skating yesterday, we had SO MUCH FUN! LOL We agreed, we're going to have to take the kids back soon. Spent the morning at church and I'm ready for a break.

Chooks, I don't have any partridge silkies, but that is so tempting! I bet they are gorgeous! But just sticking to the BBS colors is keeping me busy and buried in birds! ha! So sorry about the well being dry, what do you suppose you'll have to do? I sure hope it will rain and fill it up again. I'd hate to see you have to dig another. All of that hauling sounds awful. You're going to be awfully tired of doing that in no time flat. Maybe selling a lot of your birds will help ease up your chores. I hope you see some relief up there in the way of rain and water SOON.

Cherwill, that is very dangerous that you got so hot. Take care of yourself. I know you all are outside a lot, but be careful!

Well, here we go! This week starts my week of chaos! I have swim lessons every day for the kids, fitting in a good 2-3 hours at the Fair every day, and getting our projects ready to go. (we'll have to skip lessons once this week for the judging that is at the same time) Washing chickens and baking his yeast bread. My son did really well baking the bread the last time with almost NO help! I'm hoping this time he can do it pretty much on his own. I end up having to help him get it shaped, but otherwise, he is doing everything. So proud of him.

BTW, I found a wild bird outside that has an injured leg. Looks like something partially chewed it's leg off. I picked it up and looked it over and it seems healthy enough and I think it's still a baby. I hope it wasn't my dog, because that's how I found the bird. She was mauling the bird over. It just wasn't fast enough with one leg. I set it out there under the honeysuckle bush and it's eating on it's own, because I saw it go after and grab a beetle. I don't know what to do for it. Sad.

 

[chicken danz]

Ivy that place looks wonderful. Yes I am envious as well. I have come to appreciate trees and water more than ever at this point. So glad you are back on. I missed you. Checoukan I'm sorry you've been away as well. I hope you'll be dropping back in more often.
Hawkeye keep us posted on fair affairs this week. I want to know how things go. I'm very excited for you.
I'm waiting for a friend to show up with an injured goose. I'm going to see what I can do to treat it. I feel rather special. She took it to the vet but wants my input as well.
Went to church and got back home earlier today than normal. I just got finished feeding and watering. I do hope this is the end of the carnage around here for a while. I hate loosing birds. It was so nice to go to the brooder house and not find any dead babies this morning. All the birds seem to be acting so much better today.
I want to get some ivermectin on a pen of birds yet today but had to take a "sweat stop" break for a while. I still haven't found any mites but I still have bare rear ends so I want to make sure.
Better get my skates on and get back to it.

 

[checoukan]

Wow, just came back in, the temp out side is 95 but the heat index is 105. Not nice out as all.

Hawkeye What day is your show? Ours is the 17 starting with showmanship. Then we go into the broilers, waterfowl, bantams, and starndards. I counted 120 just in open class. I didn''t have the 4H paperwork so not sure on those numbers.
This is the first year in 3 or 4 years that I have entered any of my personal birds. Usually have birds there that were purchased from me. The bird in my avatar was raised by me and sold. That hen won the entire show last year.
How many birds are you taking? Make sure you have plenty of frozen water bottles on hand to put in the pen if it does get hot. Have chopped grapes, melons, tomatoes on hand for moist treats. You can start them now so they now what they are if you have not been doing so.
We have 3 high speed fans that blow across the pens, and 3 or 4 of the turbin things on top of the barn, to help pull the heat out. It still get hotter than blazes thou.
I hope to get lots of pictures and will post them as things slow down. I have 3 people under me so we take turns in being at the fair during the heat so everyone can take a break from the heat.
Hope everyone doing ok.
Thanks danz, I plan too be back often.
Ivy, hope you get your water hose turned off.

 

[sharol]

Our temp has dropped to 80 in the last hour. 25 degrees below yesterday at this time. The chickens are spread out all over the yard. Still no rain.

 

[Hawkeye95]

Ivy that place looks wonderful. Yes I am envious as well. I have come to appreciate trees and water more than ever at this point. So glad you are back on. I missed you. Checoukan I'm sorry you've been away as well. I hope you'll be dropping back in more often.
Hawkeye keep us posted on fair affairs this week. I want to know how things go. I'm very excited for you.
I'm waiting for a friend to show up with an injured goose. I'm going to see what I can do to treat it. I feel rather special. She took it to the vet but wants my input as well.
Went to church and got back home earlier today than normal. I just got finished feeding and watering. I do hope this is the end of the carnage around here for a while. I hate loosing birds. It was so nice to go to the brooder house and not find any dead babies this morning. All the birds seem to be acting so much better today.
I want to get some ivermectin on a pen of birds yet today but had to take a "sweat stop" break for a while. I still haven't found any mites but I still have bare rear ends so I want to make sure.
Better get my skates on and get back to it.

I will keep you all updated on the fair! I'm soooo excited! It was an extra long day at church today for us! I am starting up a new "small groups". And here I promised not to get involved in any more things... ah well. Hey-- GUESS WHAT!?! I just noticed that 3 of my polish hens have bare butts!!! I actually noticed this last week and meant to mention it, and forgot. I dusted everyone down really good with Sevin dust and we'll see. I went out there twice with a flash light late at night to see if there were mites-- but nothing! What the heck is going on with them? Do you think the two roosters over bred them and that is why? Anyway, my black polish were white for a while, I dusted them GOOD.

Wow, just came back in, the temp out side is 95 but the heat index is 105. Not nice out as all.

Hawkeye What day is your show? Ours is the 17 starting with showmanship. Then we go into the broilers, waterfowl, bantams, and starndards. I counted 120 just in open class. I didn''t have the 4H paperwork so not sure on those numbers.
This is the first year in 3 or 4 years that I have entered any of my personal birds. Usually have birds there that were purchased from me. The bird in my avatar was raised by me and sold. That hen won the entire show last year.
How many birds are you taking? Make sure you have plenty of frozen water bottles on hand to put in the pen if it does get hot. Have chopped grapes, melons, tomatoes on hand for moist treats. You can start them now so they now what they are if you have not been doing so.
We have 3 high speed fans that blow across the pens, and 3 or 4 of the turbin things on top of the barn, to help pull the heat out. It still get hotter than blazes thou.
I hope to get lots of pictures and will post them as things slow down. I have 3 people under me so we take turns in being at the fair during the heat so everyone can take a break from the heat.
Hope everyone doing ok.
Thanks danz, I plan too be back often.
Ivy, hope you get your water hose turned off.

We're taking only 3 birds this year. I hope we can take at least 5 next year. But I only have 3 ready. And unfortunately, it's been so hot, I have put my rooster out in the pen and he has messed up the back of my best hen. I had a "DUH!" moment a couple days ago and put the fancy apron on her that I bought a few months back. Why didn't I think of that earlier? Probably because he hasn't been in there with her for weeks and it didn't occur to me to worry about him breaking feathers. Live and learn. And boy, was that a hard lesson. I'm not holding out hope that she will do well. It's too bad. But my other pullet-- I'm excited to see how she does! And of course my cockerel.

July 12, Thursday is when our Poultry judging will be -- at 9am. They are going to start with Large Fowl and then Bantams, production pullets (3), dual, meat birds, turkey, ducks, geese and exotic. Should be interesting! My son is also doing Showmanship and that is the same day and it starts at 11am. So I'm hoping since his class will be the second to be judged, we'll be done with that long before his Showmanship starts. I don't know how many birds were entered. We showed up for the testing day, and I didn't see a whole lot of chickens there. But I know they had other testing dates and water fowl, etc don't have to be tested. We may not have too stiff competition. And I saw people bring in a whole bunch of production reds and they were calling them Rhode Island Reds! I'm no judge, but even I could tell that isn't what they were. They are going to be pretty sad when the judge tells them. Showmanship is starting off with Juniors first-- I think the Seniors should go first so the little kids can watch quietly and see how it's done to refresh them. Sigh. We're practicing with flash cards, and we talk about how to hold the birds and practice it almost every night. I hope he does good!

Thank you for the advice on the treats! I'll have to get some! I haven't done that. They do come up to the cage for sunflower seeds, though. So I do have them trained to get all showy and happy about those treats. I do that nightly. I have TONS of tomatoes in my garden. I'll have to cut them up and see if I can get them started on them. They are cherry, so they should be less messy, i hope. I can't wait to hear about your fair! Be sure to post some pics! I saw our barn has a mister set up high in the roof area, but it's only on one side, and I think it's above the rabbit side of the barn. Sigh. I hope some of that will blow over on the birds. They had it turned on and were checking it out when we were there for the clean up/ testing date last week.

 

[tweetysvoice]

Hi all! Had a very busy weekend here. I'm so sorry to hear about all the heat losses. Breaks my heart! I wish the birds were smart enough to cool themselves off in the places provided!

I hear thunder!! I really hope it rains, it's so horrible outside - actually it's a bit better today because of the cloud cover - if you can call 95degrees better. LOL

We pulled up the stock tank pool and created the misting patio that I mentioned before. Everywhere was out of kiddie pools, so we've improvised for the time being. Anyways, the ducks and chickens now have a corner that's at least 20 degrees cooler than the rest of the run. Ducks and silkies are using it, just haven't seen the bigger birds use it yet. They will - i'm sure.

 

[cherwill]

Well, we got a little bit of rain. Enough to wet the top layer of sand out here. But, I'll take what I can get. Thankfully, it's cooler today. Sarge has a "secret" spot he goes when it gets too hot. He goes down under the trees at the back of the property where the water leaves the house from the heat pump system. It's like a little creek down there. He's all muddy on one side and from the knees down, lol. He also hates the water hose!
Love my GP LGD ^_^

We got a few sprinkles last night, nothing that added up to anything. It's sunny as can be today; no rain clouds.

Like Checoukan said, my internet got FRIED a little over two weeks ago. We just got it running last night. I skimmed through the pages I missed, but honestly, I didn't read everything.

Yesterday was a BEAST! I lost a few birds. All the ones I lost were black chickens and the ones that died were in corner pens. That should tell me something. Not enough ventilation in those corner pens. There were a couple chicks that looked kind of lethargic this morning. Hopefully it will be cooler today and maybe they will make it. They didn't seem interested in eating or drinking this morning.

I had a little BBRed OE hen that hatched 7 chicks. One of the other hens was still sitting on the nest, and WOW did they get upset when I reached in the pen. Very protective mamas. I love watching the broodies raise their babies.

I'm watering trees and plants like crazy right now. We've had storm wind and lightening damage, but VERY LITTLE RAIN! The rain predicted for today looks like it's going to miss us, too.

Yes, did get the contract on the house at Oswego. We are very happy and excited to move. I just wish we were getting things fixed up around here a little faster. I posted a pic of the little chicken house at the place we are buying. Here is a picture of the house. It is a really unique home.



DH has agreed to put his shop in one of the barns at the north side of the property. They are nice buildings with 220 wiring, pipe corrals, cement floors and auto waterers. That means I get the shop that is closest to the house! It has a covered area attached to it with a cement floor, and that is where I am going to put my bantams. I think it is going to work great. All of my large birds will go in the layer coop. I have cut down on my numbers, so I will only have a few layers. Here's a picture of the shop with the covered area that I will use for my woodworking and my bantams. We will have to enclose the overhang, but we want to make it so that we can open it up on the south for ventillation.


I better go move the hose. I've got the timer on so I can deep water all the trees.

I feel terrible for everyone who's losing birds to this heat.

Your new place looks beautiful!

Ok, that's just weird. I guess I closed my laptop too fast last night after hitting 'send' and it's posted it again this morning when I opened the lid again! Bizarre.

I never got out to the farm. I had a friend lock up for me because I got a panic call.

A girlfriend's ex lives out in the boonies and he had the kids yesterday. Their dog ran over to the neighbor's fence because the cows were up along it and the kids were over there trying to get the dog back when the drunk neighbor came out and shot the dog, right in front of the kids. I'm not sure the dog was even off the kids' property, but the sheriff in that area is a buddy of the drunk...so we'll see what happens. Anyway, she called me because she wanted a cool head in the situation to help out, so I went. Those kids are unconsolable.

I feel terrible, because I get it, but I think this one was unjustifiable. The dog wasn't a chronic problem, just curious...and I don't think the neighbor owns the cows, either. It's very confusing and sad. The kids were right there!! Just imagine if one got in the way!

How horrifying for those poor kids. The idiot could have ended up shooting one of them. I don't see how the sheriff can let that go; I sure hope he doesn't, even if the guy is his friend.

 

[ChooksChick]

Praise God! We got a few sprinkles in the past hour, and I have birds who were shocked because they've never seen rain in their lives!!

It doesn't make a real difference in these poor plants' needs, so I never even turned the hose off, but the dust is knocked off the leaves, the air temps dropped, and it smells like something good happened, so I'll go with it as a good thing.

I hope it goes ALLLLLLLLL over and soaks everyone all night. Wouldn't that be something!??!