Consolidated Kansas

[sunflowerparrot]

Yesterday was a productive and fun day We put the chickens (5 of them.. and 2 months old) into the surplus box coop after we fenced them an area... as the day progressed, we saw they were losing more and more shade. At 4pm, they had a tiny corner of shade and they were laying in that spot with their heads stuck up under the fence (the fence isn't meant for predator proofing, only to keep them in). We went and grabbed 5 skirting panels and attached them to the west side of the fence which gave them a nice area of shade. We had to physically go get them and put them in the shade (chickens just are not very smart!).

Then, around 9:15 pm, they still were not interested to go into their new coop, but I was ready to call it a night. I had to climb into the fence and catch each one and put them in the coop. They huddled into a corner and weren't happy!

I will go out in about an hour and let them all out. I hope they are ok today out in the fenced area. In a few weeks, I plan to start the big coop (about 8 by 12 - will have water and electricity, nest boxes, brooder, etc.) - the big coop will not have a fenced area - they will be free-ranged hens and 1 rooster living in that. The smaller surplus box will be used for broilers/new chicks.

Loving this new life Hope everyone stays cool today and has a lovely Monday!

 

[chicken danz]

Sunflower, congrats on getting your chicks in their new pen. They'll get used to it. It is all new and scary to them.
Hawkeye I'm so sorry about your mare. Is there any way you can load her up with electrolytes. Will she drink? I've honestly never known of a horse to have heat stroke but I'm sure it happens.
My little hen is still flipping and flopping. I will treat her, and I helped her drink and sat her near food this morning but I'm not going to nurse her every second like I did my rooster. She is a tiny thing and probably weighs about 7 ounces. I guess I don't want to get my hopes up for another disappointment. I'm just trying to keep the others alive.
I have to be gone again today and it makes me a nervous wreck. All I can do is try to make sure the birds have water before I leave.
It's so hard to concentrate on all the enjoyment we get out of our animals when now we are expending all our energy just to keep them alive. I keep trying to remind myself that better days will come.
My little turkeys are getting very rambunctious in their bin in here. I really wish I could put them out where they have some room. I'm terribly worried about my original 5 I have outside even though they are under a shade tree and have a fan blowing full blast into their pen. I noticed they hollowed out a small area in front of the fan to play in the dirt. They really aren't a lot different than chickens except they are much more attached to me. They were scared of the veggies I gave them yesterday. I guess it is the first thing they have had with color to it.
The way the birds all seemed to enjoy the cucumbers I am thinking that would be a great chicken crop. I just planted pickling cucumbers so they aren't huge but they produce a lot normally.
I think I'm going to till up my green beans. They haven't produced a single bean. Maybe I would have time to get a fall crop of beans in and if I watered maybe they would produce. Most of these have just withered up and the ones that didn't have done nothing. My field is planted in soy beans. I sure hope they are doing better than the garden is.

 

[Hawkeye95]

Kelly, the blog is really cute! I remember seeing those pictures on BYC-- was it last year??? You had posted them and I was amazed then that there were chickens who could swim. Those are really amazing pictures, you have a good eye and framed them beautifully. I love photography myself, I will use any excuse to run out and take a picture.

Trish, those kittens are adorable!! I'm not a fan of cats, of they are soooooo cute!! Glad they are fitting in with the others well.

Checoukan, glad that your fair went very well. That is a LOT of birds! I don't remember what our count was for birds, but I'm thinking it was in the 60's. Even at that, we still had a lot of birds. If we ever have more, I'm not sure I'll know how to handle that. I think our barn needs more cages anyway, because several of ours are bent and the doors barely go up and down. I think we need more LF cages too, since we were really scrambling to figure out what to do. And we ended up having to double up on a couple of cages. I'll have to look into fundraiser ideas.

Danz, sorry about your rooster. That is a real bummer after you worked so hard. And now you have another one. It is so very frustrating, this heat! I wish there were more I could do about it. But I'm thinking my horse is sick, and there is no way to make her drink unless I take her to the vet and have them put a few bags into her vein. I know what that costs-- she ends up colicking a couple times a year and by the time we're done, we're nearly at $1,000 for a couple days hospital stay-- of course, that includes tubing and drugs, too. Sigh. I'd like to try not to spend a lot of money. Turkeys are just different, aren't they?? They are so fun and friendly! They really do like their 'people'.

Next year I'm going to have to ask you about these pickling cucumbers. I think I want to learn to can. And I definitely want to make pickles! Do you cut yours at all when pickling?

Josie, enjoy your parent and family time. I'm sure you all will have a great time visiting.

Sunflowerparrot, sounds like it's working out well. The chicks will get accustomed to it and it'll all be working out well in a few days. It takes a while for them to adjust. Glad you are enjoying your new country lifestyle. I wouldn't have it any other way, myself.

I think it's going to be another long day here. Another day of trying to keep my mare alive in this unending heat. I am praying for rain and a cool down.

 

[sharol]

My beans were OK a month ago, but since a couple of batches, they aren't producing either. They bloom but don't set anything on. I was on my way out to pull the plants when I read your post. Dang.

I think I'm going to till up my green beans. They haven't produced a single bean. Maybe I would have time to get a fall crop of beans in and if I watered maybe they would produce. Most of these have just withered up and the ones that didn't have done nothing. My field is planted in soy beans. I sure hope they are doing better than the garden is.

 

[Trish44]

After reading about all of your gardens I'm just glad I didn't bother to put one in this year. I put two tomato plants in the herb garden, at least what is left of my herb garden & they dried up & died while I was sick for that 2 weeks. I'm just going to have to go to one of the local farmer's markets & see if anyone has any tomatoes, I'm hungry for some garden tomatoes. We haven't had a garden the last two years. I'm going to take my hubby over to see a friend's garden spaces when we get the chance & it's not 110 in the shade. She lives in town & just has these tiny little spaces she uses that are small raised beds, but boy does she get veggies out of them. She doesn't have to till them ever either. That's what I want to do, just totally re-work our garden & make it into smaller workable spaces that I can handle. My problem is that once it is tilled my DH says there you go & that's the last of the help I get. We have weeds that blow in from the field next door & all so it just gets overwhelming to me to keep up with it. Dragging two 100 ft hoses up the hill isn't fun either. Maybe we should just terrace the front yard & make it into small raised gardens & then I wouldn't have to mow it. It's mostly weeds any more anyway because most of the grass has died last year & this year. Our whole yard around the house is dead, dead, dead. We can't water the lawn here so in years like this it just has to go brown. It would take some blasting here probably to put in a well close enough to the house to be any good for anything. We live on a ridge & it's mostly rock up by the house. Whenever you dig anything you dig up rocks & layers of rock. When my son put in my water garden he & some friends had to use sledge hammers to break rock to get down deep enough to get below the frost level. Now I have pretty much even let the pond go, I can't keep up with it any more & the dogs just use it for their personal wading pool. I had beautiful flower beds before the last two years & the chickens. Now all of my flower beds are all torn up & mostly dead. The chickens have dug up most of my plants & are in the process of unearthing my landscape fabric from underneath the beds, it's a total disaster. I just had to decide on either chickens or flowers & for now I chose the chickens.

Danz, I hope your little Serama gets better. I have hope for you because my SF Hen chick is pretty much all recovered now. He is walking around in the crate, cheeping & eating & drinking on his own. If you had told me he would recover a few days ago I would have said I don't think so. It has taken awhile, but it's pretty amazing now how well he's doing. I'm still not going to put him back outside in that heat for awhile, I'm scared to.

My new little kitties seem to be settling in pretty well. I went out this morning & the little calico came running up to me from in her crate. I think she is sleeping in there because she feels safe. She is the cutest little thing, I sure hope some idiot doesn't do something to her like they did to my other cat or it will break my heart because I'm already smitten with her. The other one isn't quite as friendly as her sister, but she is a tough little one & should fit in pretty well here. I can't get male kittens because the dominant male we have will kill them. We have never had a male cat like that before here. We always had multiple male cats & they got along OK, but not this one he won't let another male cat come anywhere near here now. We call him Bob because he got in my DH's engine in his car when he was a kitten & got his tail cut off. He only has about a 4 inch tail now. Maybe that's why he's so tough I don't know, but he is a fighter, he always has cuts from fighting off other males that try to come here.

Sunflowerparrot, I'm glad your chickies are settling into their new home, they will get used to the routine pretty fast.

Hawkeye, I hope your mare recovers from whatever is wrong with her, it could just be the heat getting to her.

checoukan, I'm glad you got through the fair OK, what a hot year to have to deal with all of that, I salute you for going ahead with doing it all. I wouldn't even make it through one day in one of those barns in that heat, they would have to pick me up off the floor where I melted into a puddle. I just can't take the heat any more at all, I get sick. I go out & do what I need to do for my animals & birds to cool them down & then get back inside where I stay until I have to go do it again.

 

[Hawkeye95]

my strawberries are barely hanging in there. They are wilted by the end of the day. I water them, they pop back up just fine. BUT--- they are not producing. They started to early on. They had little berries on them. But then they never got bigger and they quit all together. I hope next summer will be easier on them. I'm thinking of making another garden and moving them over, too.


Okay, I saw a very sweet moment this morning! My dear old beloved Cassie (the mare that is trying to die on me every day this week) and my big bad boy (the one I ride and is in my Avatar) were rubbing/biting each others backs this morning. What a sweet thing to see. I don't often see them do this very often. Obviously Cassie (grey mare) was feeling pretty good this morning. I had to take a picture! SO beautiful to see them so happy.

Yeah, Cassie is nearly 40 years old!!!! I've worked my BUTT off to keep that weight on. You all don't even want to know what I spend on her a week! LOL!! Most horses her age are terrible looking. She has hardly any teeth left, I just pour the grain down her. Oh, and you can see the chain link dog panels we put around that Silver Maple in their pasture. If it weren't for that beat up dog kennel, they'd have eaten and stripped that tree down to nubbins. Sigh. We planted that tree as a tiny 6 inch sapling!! Silver's grow really fast!

 

[HEChicken]

Wow Hawkeye, she really does look good. Trust me, I know what goes into maintaining an old horse like that. We have a horse at our barn who looks just like her. The lady who owned him was moving overseas and found someone she thought she trusted to take him in. She gave really strict instructions as to how he needed to be cared for and left, thinking he was in a good situation. Her overseas job didn't work out and she returned home. She had only been back a month when she got an email that the new owners were planning on putting him to sleep the next day because he had deteriorated so much. She immediately went to go and see him and was shocked that he was nothing but skin and bone because only four months had passed since she last saw him. She brought him back to our barn and we all cried when we saw him. Those other people basically did nothing for him and he only has one tooth so he couldn't get enough sustenance from just the grass in the pasture. Anyway, she cared for him like you wouldn't believe and we all helped out with feeding beet pulp and alfalfa and senior feed and wetting it down so he could digest it better, and wouldn't you know, within weeks we could all see a difference. Now, a year later, he looks like your mare again! He has so much personality. You should see the faces he makes at feeding time!

That is sweet to see them grooming each other. I hope she is having a better day today.

Trish, I didn't do a garden this year either. With moving, I couldn't start it in the spring and by the time we moved it was too late in the season to get started. With the heat, I think I'm glad I didn't because probably nothing would be producing anyway. I keep seeing ads on Craigslist for people selling tomatoes and wonder how they're doing it. Last year was so hot that although my plants grew like crazy, they didn't start to set fruit until fall and then we had that early frost so all I really got was green tomatoes anyway. I don't know how all these people around me are getting enough tomatoes that they need to sell the excess.

 

[checoukan]

Trish~~~ yes it was very hot, but we have big fans blowing, and then a parent bought and donated misters for the poultry. That brought the temps down to about 100, we never lost anything, but was a close call with the duck.

Hawkeye, glad you were able to get this picture, it will be one you cherish for a long time.

hechicken, we have tomatoes, and our daughter has been buying slicing tomatoes in Pittsburg. I only planted 5 out in the garden. But, I have not done one thing for them. Next year the tomatoes will be outside the house where I can take care of them better. the "Garden" is going back to grass. Its just cheaper to go buy some fresh as to try to raise it anymore.

 

[checoukan]

hawkeye, you can do it. first you need to see how much money the poultry people have. We raffled a grill and raised money this year. We write and apply for grants, which is how we get most of our coops. We are sitting good right now on coops. What is hurting us is space and tables. Coop is going to make 6 more tables for next year So I am going to apply for a grant to buy the coated wire we will need for those new tables. I will also include things like rakes, shovels, paint and small supplies that we need to run our deptment.
Even before the fair was over, we had parents asking about our broiler project for next year, so I know it will be a good class again. So it would not surprize me we go over 200 birds for next year.

 

[tweetysvoice]

Trish, Those kittens are adorable!! I just want to love all over them! I'm glad to hear that the calico is running to you. She's gonna be a sweety!

Hawkeye, at is just an awesome picture! I'm glad to hear that hes feeling better!

Funny to hear you guys say that about your tomatoes. I've got tomatoes out the wazzo! I'm collecting at least 20plus cherry tomatoes a day. I water them about every other day and that's it.

I think I might have another chicken laying. We only got 2 eggs today, but one of them is so light in color it's more ivory than brown at all. Doesn't look anything like the others that i've gotten. Who knows. All four birds will squat for me when i reach for them, so no way to tell that way. Pearl (delaware) did lay another egg last night after I caught her rearranging the nest, so I've figured out one of them! yay!

It's so hot outside that I'm afraid I'm collecting boiled eggs when I get home from work!