Consolidated Kansas

[chicken danz]

Yeah well, that already happened earlier this spring when my guineas got stolen. I am more and more cautious about giving people my address even if I need the sale. But now word is getting around what I have and I guess I'm close enough to town and to the nuclear plant that they just drop in. I've been wanting to put up a fence with a gate for over a year now but can't find anyone that doesn't want to charge a half year's income to do it. I also have lots of equipment I would hate to see disappear. Unfortunately to insure it by insuring the place as a farm would cost me over an additional $1000 a year.
But I do love my peace and quiet above all else. And I'm afraid if I did feed the birds naked, people would never leave because they'd be on the ground laughing hysterically!

I don't dress for company. I dress for comfort out in the heat. Sometimes that leaves me a bit more revealing than I would like anyone to see.
I would love to go back to the era of wearing dresses, but can you imagine the site of me bending over or crawling under the nest boxes to get eggs in a dress??? I don't think so!

 

[Trish44]

Danz, I think GPs can have different personalities just like other breeds of dogs. I happen to have one that is more hard-headed than some, but she is coming around now that she is getting older. She had a stubborn streak a mile long earlier in her little puppy stage. She is finally starting to get it, but you have to be firm with her even now & as I said her sister does tend to correct her when she thinks she needs it, which just cracks me up. I have been told that some of her mannerisms she got from her daddy, so I don't know if he is more hard-headed like her, but she does have this silly GP grin that she inherited from him that she uses when she knows she is in trouble & she is trying to look innocent. It has never worked on me because I knew what she was trying to do & I didn't fall for it.

Well I lost the black spanish turkey today that was supposed to go to Candace to the heat. I'm really sad about it because it struggled so hard to make it in the beginning & it has done really well until today. It got in behind the dog house I have in the pen & I didn't see that it was in trouble until it came up missing. If it had not gone back there I could have seen that it was in trouble & maybe saved it, but I didn't find it in time. I try to go out at intervals all through the day & check on everyone & cool them down, but I missed this one.

 

[sharol]

I don't know you, personally, but the thought of what I would look like in that position has me ROFLOL.

I would love to go back to the era of wearing dresses, but can you imagine the site of me bending over or crawling under the nest boxes to get eggs in a dress??? I don't think so!

 

[Hawkeye95]

Cherwill, no idea on the eggs! BUT, I agree with HeChicken that they can lay a couple of eggs in the same day. I didn't mention it, but 2 or 3 days ago, I counted up 6 white eggs. (Polish) The others are all brown. I collect every night. And the two "extra" eggs both had wavy shells on them. They were hard, but it was definitely an odd deal.

HeChicken, so sorry about Tory. I think you are doing the best thing for yourself and Tory. Sounds like she's not a good fit. If she were roaming like that around here, I'm afraid to say she would have been shot already. We have a trigger happy person on the other side of the 80. The more I hear about these dogs, they sound great, but not for a small 10 acres like what I have. The drought you described sounds terrible! Wow, I certainly hope we never have anything like that happen. We did have something like that happen a few decades ago in the 30's here. We called it the Dust Bowl. It was every bit as bad as you say yours was, maybe worse, because there were bad dust storms that actually changed the face of the land because of it. I don't want to see a repeat.

Danz, so glad you are having good sales! Not sure I'd be loving all the people driving up either. I'm like you, I like my peace and quiet out here. It's one thing to invite friends over... it's another to just have strangers show up.

Josie, so neat about the aviary! I can't wait to see pictures of it!! I'm sorry about Lucie, I hope the collar will shape her up. I don't know what I'd do either.

I'm in Texas now but originally from Southeast Kansas. Still have family ties there. Was born and raised in Columbus. I have 7 hens in my flock. Have lost a few chickens along the way, but none to predators. They are free-range .We have two Border Collies that are good protectors. I put a heat reflecting tarp over the top of a 10' x 15' pen to help with the heat problem. Also keep pans of water they can step into, which seems to be something they like. You are having the heat problem there now.

Welcome! Hope you aren't experiencing the heat there like we are here. Yesterday was 109 and today hit 108 out here. No wind. Sigh.

Yeah well, that already happened earlier this spring when my guineas got stolen. I am more and more cautious about giving people my address even if I need the sale. But now word is getting around what I have and I guess I'm close enough to town and to the nuclear plant that they just drop in. I've been wanting to put up a fence with a gate for over a year now but can't find anyone that doesn't want to charge a half year's income to do it. I also have lots of equipment I would hate to see disappear. Unfortunately to insure it by insuring the place as a farm would cost me over an additional $1000 a year.
But I do love my peace and quiet above all else. And I'm afraid if I did feed the birds naked, people would never leave because they'd be on the ground laughing hysterically!

I don't dress for company. I dress for comfort out in the heat. Sometimes that leaves me a bit more revealing than I would like anyone to see.
I would love to go back to the era of wearing dresses, but can you imagine the site of me bending over or crawling under the nest boxes to get eggs in a dress??? I don't think so!

I LOVE dresses!! Wish I could wear them all the time without looking crazy. However, they aren't all that functional when you are running around on your knees or feeding, watering, etc... Maybe why they wore aprons all the time. But the aprons were always so cute, too-- I'd hate to mess them up!

Anyway, funny image you gave me! I'm the same way, I'm not exactly dressed for company out here. In the summers when I'm at home, I wear cami tops, no bra, and short shorts. The less I wear, the better I feel. I change before I leave the house if we go out. No way do I want to be caught dead like that. But I often go out in the mornings in a t-shirt and undies to let the dogs out. I sit on my front porch on a bench and watch them. (or they'll run off if I'm not watching them) and there have been a few times that the neighbor will drive by on his way to work and wave really big and I can hear him giggle. Sigh.

 

[sunflowerparrot]

Can I put 4 guinea keets (little guys) in with my 5 chickens (just a tad over 2 months old) in the coop and fenced area? 1) Will the chickens hurt the keets? 2) will the keets dig under the fence or will they respect the barrier and think that's as far as the world goes?

Right now, the guineas are in a rabbit hutch and I just think it would be easier to put everyone together.

 

[HEChicken]

LOL, you guys make me laugh. Yeah, Hawkeye, when I referred to my "nightgown" earlier, it is actually just an oversized t-shirt. It was given to me at some promotion but was an XL or XXL so rather than have it sit in my drawer gathering moths, I repurposed it to be a nightgown. I don't hear people here say "undies" very often - I think of it as an Aussie expression.

Sunflower, hopefully someone with more experience can answer that question. Overall, guineas tend to be bullies and I've heard of many people getting rid of their guineas because they were bullying the chickens so much. However my experience was that I added small keets to a flock of adult chickens and so far they have respected them and NOT tried to bully them. If they are a little closer in age, I'm not sure.....your experience could go either way. That said, I haven't had any issues having them together (and ducks too). The only potential issue is that chicks only need chick starter or a grower formula while keets really need a gamebird feed. Mine were on gamebird starter while they were in their brooder but when I combined them with the adults, I switched the whole flock to Nutrena All Flock (I prefer that because it is pelleted whereas most grower feeds are crumbles) which is 18% protein, and I put oyster shell out on the side for the layers. I also try to supplement a little extra protein daily to make up for the lower protein of the All Flock as compared to the gamebird feed. So far I'm not seeing any ill-effects and it has been about 7 weeks they've been together.

 

[HEChicken]

Dawna, I meant to say also....

 

[sunflowerparrot]

After Tuesday, I will be joining the retirement world - so, I will move the guineas on Wednesday since I'll be home to keep an eye on things The keets are a lot smaller than the chickens.. the chickens are probably 3 or 4 times the keets' size right now - this might be a good time to move them.. there are 4 keets and 5 chickens. (and the 3 kittens who think they too are poultry!)

I have a little additional comment about wearing large t-shirts for nighties - I threw on an over-sized t-shirt last night and then this morning wanted to run out and get the memory card out of the game cam (have one aimed at the chicken coop to see what takes place at night around it).. anyways.. I first went over to the coop to let everyone into their fenced area - went and took the card out of the cam - plugged it into my computer... the t-shirt isn't as long as I thought.. especially in the back bending over to open a coop door Next time, I will turn the game cam off before bending over in front of it

 

[Trish44]

sunflowerparrot, I'm afraid your chicks would pick on those tiny guineas & they may find a way out of your pen too. I would wait a bit & let them grow. I know it's a hassle because they're aways away, but it's better to have them safe. They will be some good bug eaters later on. If you had a more secure place for them with hardware cloth & all like maybe when you get your big coop done, it would be different, but honestly I wouldn't put them out there yet, they are very good escape artists. Boy I sure could use some right now to get rid of these darned deer ticks we have. Every day I come in & pick ticks off of me. I just don't have any room in any pens to pen any more birds up right now, at least until I get my original grow-out pen cleaned out, then maybe I could. I would really like to have some guineas again for the tick control & let them free-range. Now that I have the dogs I probably could do that. I was just so disgusted with that possum attack that killed half of them earlier on before I had the GPs that I just didn't want to even try to keep them for fear the other half would get eaten. It's so disgusting to go out to the pen & see half-eaten carcasses all over the place.

I have joined this group on FB of Cream Legbar people, mostly in the UK, so that should be interesting to learn from them since that is where we got our birds originally. We don't have standards yet in the US for them, so we have to rely on the UK standards. So far they're saying that the birds Greenfire got are the wrong color, so I wonder if they're the wrong color did Greenfire get taken on buying substandard birds from over there? I know they have imported 3 different lines supposedly now, I'm wondering if they're all the wrong coloring according to the UK standard or just some of them? This should be interesting to learn from them. I took some pics of my chicks today so you can see what they're looking like now, they're still young though. I can't wait to see what they look like when they're grown if they color out properly or not.


There are some Lavender Orpingtons & a Welsummer in there too, but the two barred ones are the Cream Legbar roosters & the 3 brown & salmon ones with crests are the Cream Legbar pullets.

Here is a pic of just one of the pullets, it's not the best, but you can get an idea better:



Here is one of the roos by himself, again not the best pic:




I also tried to take some pics of the older Swedish Flower Hen chicks today. They were picking at my feet while I was trying to take their pic.


I think she is my favorite, this pic doesn't do her coloring justice, the contrast of the oranges & grays are really striking.


This is another one with a lot of color that you would see better if the pic was better. The other two besides these are the one you have already seen that got overheated & another one about like it. I can't wait to have the younger ones all feathered out to see their color, they're just starting to get wing feathers now, so it won't be long.

KarenS, how are you Swedish Flower Hen eggs coming along, aren't they about due to hatch?

I had to giggle about all of you that go outside in nightgowns & t-shirts & not much else. I'm glad we live where we do because we both run around out there in nightgown & my DH in his boxers. I did get caught one time in the coop in my nightgown when the mailman came up the driveway & I had to peek around the door to talk to him, embarrassing!

 

[JosieChick]

Yeah well, that already happened earlier this spring when my guineas got stolen. I am more and more cautious about giving people my address even if I need the sale. But now word is getting around what I have and I guess I'm close enough to town and to the nuclear plant that they just drop in. I've been wanting to put up a fence with a gate for over a year now but can't find anyone that doesn't want to charge a half year's income to do it. I also have lots of equipment I would hate to see disappear. Unfortunately to insure it by insuring the place as a farm would cost me over an additional $1000 a year.
But I do love my peace and quiet above all else. And I'm afraid if I did feed the birds naked, people would never leave because they'd be on the ground laughing hysterically!

I don't dress for company. I dress for comfort out in the heat. Sometimes that leaves me a bit more revealing than I would like anyone to see.
I would love to go back to the era of wearing dresses, but can you imagine the site of me bending over or crawling under the nest boxes to get eggs in a dress??? I don't think so!

Hahahaha! I don't dress for company either when I am working outside and our neighbors are very friendly and often stop by. Last weekend it was over 100 degrees and I was out watering in pj shorts and a tank top with nothing underneath and of course the neighbors stop by! DH commented after on my attire and chuckled. I said if they want to stop by unannounced they will have to pardon my dress because I am not putting on a whole bunch of clothes everytime I go outside!

After Tuesday, I will be joining the retirement world - so, I will move the guineas on Wednesday since I'll be home to keep an eye on things The keets are a lot smaller than the chickens.. the chickens are probably 3 or 4 times the keets' size right now - this might be a good time to move them.. there are 4 keets and 5 chickens. (and the 3 kittens who think they too are poultry!)

Just be careful, those little buggers can squeeze through anything! I have four and they are in with my chickens and they keep getting out and I have no idea where, it is a pretty tight pen with chicken wire etc over cattle panels. Don't know if they are jumping out or squeezing but they are sneaky little buggers.