Consolidated Kansas

[pikeman94]

Rob, I don't really have any that have black combs other than maybe one of the black cochins. Did that one mixed chick I gave you from the brooder end up with a black comb?
I've got to get another bin set up for my new chicks.
I have family coming in a week or so and really didn't want to have birds in the house. I guess they will just have to understand this is who I am now.
Daren are you and Duck going to be at Gardner next month?

Danz, yup this little guy has a comb that is as black as night. I need to get updated pics, but I think he is a he and if so is one the four guys. He has long tail feathers that are pointy. I will get pics later today.

 

[cherwill]

Man I am So proud of my corgie dog. she is now hearding my birds back to their pen when I ask here to "Round em Up!". she is doing awesome. good job girl!

She's so pretty, and she's smiling for her photo!

Daren That's great. She looks very clean and pretty in the picture by the way.
Pikeman, I'm so sorry about having to put your dog down. I have these very very old cats and I am afraid I will be forced to do that all too soon. I just hope they will just lie down and die in their sleep peacefully when the time comes.
Trish I would buy some Hog 40% if you are planning to continue to use that feed. A little goes a long long ways. You don't have to add too much to beef up the percentage. I just figured it up, if I did it right. It would be only 2.6 pounds of 40% hog protein supplement for 100 pounds to beef it up to 22%. So a 50 pound back would last you months. It's very pricy too. The reason I would avoid soy meal is that if it isn't used quickly enough it goes rancid. You could also use fish meal but it is really really high.
I wouldn't buy anything though until you figure out if they are going to eat it or not. I have my own mix as well but a lot of the fine stuff just gets spread around. Unfortunately the finest stuff in mine is the protein and vitamin additive. Try mixing some of it with a little water. (Not much cause it will sour if they don't eat it in a shallow pan or something) They will eat at it if it is wet which might get them eating the dry stuff.
We had quite the adventure last night after we got home. DH came in and said he'd seen the one and only surviving baby duck the girls hatched in the yard with the Mom's, and then it just disappeared. He was out looking with a flashlight for it. I came out and looked and looked with another flashlight and didn't find it it anywhere. I finally went back in because I just assumed that somehow it managed to wander off. We never found hide nor hair of the other three that disappeared but now I think I know what happened to them.
Any way DH continued to look because it just bugged him that he knew he had seen it just minutes before. He came back in and said he had found it. I went out to help. This poor baby duck had fallen down one of our humongous cracks and was way down, at least 2.5 feet. We started trying to retrieve him with everything we could find but he kept crawling deeper. We literally ran out of anything that was long enough to reach down far enough. We used a plumbers drain cleaning tool, Bent wire, pieces of rebar, a set of mechanical fingers, you name it and it just kept getting worse. Finally we got the shop vac and put the skinny hose on but we worked and worked trying to get it back to him. He kept crawling and dirt kept falling on him. At this point he was at least 3 feet deep and in a crevice that we couldn't even get access to except by an angle.
I went and got a shovel and started digging into the crack where it continued beyond his head. The only way to dig was to stick the shovel in the crack and pry up a little bit of dirt at a time. Of course more and more dirt kept falling and we eventually pretty much lost site of the duck in the dirt all together. We could no longer see him or hear him. I started digging clumps of dirt out with my hands with my arms stuck down in the crack. And each time we'd get a space wide enough we'd stick the vac hose in to suck up what ever dirt we could get. We are working with flash lights in the dark mind you. It was like a total scramble working as fast as we could before he suffocated. Finally we could see him again but my arms weren't long enough and they were too big to get down to where he was. DH and I worked to get the hole big enough and he finally worked the vacuum hose down in the hole. I turned the vac on and as soon as I heard the clunk I shut it off. There he was in the vacuum.
This is the cut and dry version. We started about 10:30 or so and worked until 2:00 AM to retrieve that duck! Now I understand what an effort it is to recover a child out of a well or something!
The duck was very traumatized. I took it in and forcefully washed out his beak. He was breathing very hard, his beak was bruised, and I wasn't sure he was going to make it. After washing him out I gave him a dose of vitamins. We couldn't get him to eat or drink. (He still hasn't.) He started sneezing and coughing and I finally felt safe to go to bed. He is breathing normal this morning and is very active. He doesn't like us cause he has been raised his 10 days or so of his life by his mother. I'm hoping he will start eating and drinking soon. I had a duck hatch yesterday so I took it out of the hatcher and put it in with him it would calm him.
I told DH that that duck better be a female because it wasn't going any where. I didn't spend 3 and half hours trying to recover it for it to go for someones dinner for a couple of bucks. I do hope it starts eating and drinking soon. I know it is traumatized but maybe it will decide it wants to live. There's no way I'm sending it back out to get buried in some crack out there. I was so angry that we had to get to the point where there is no bottom to the giant cracks in the yard, and they are big enough to loose a bird in. At least that crack is gone. DH took the tractor and hauled dirt and filled the crack. But that doesn't solve the problem of the 1000s others out there just as big.
My arms are torn up. I came back in with trails of dried blood down my arms. I apparently cut them on rocks or something in the dirt in the crevice. I didn't even notice them until DH pointed them out. I don't remember hurting myself while we were out there.

Oh my! I'm so glad you got the duck out; I hope it's OK.

I think we're going to be in double digits today! 99 is NOT a triple digit

Boyfriend is coming over later (have a pork roast in the crock pot!) after he picks up the materials for the coop at Lowes. We're going to start the floor SO EXCITED! The plan is an 8x12 coop with a slanted roof.. We're going to kind of plan it as we build it Hoping to have it done by the end of the month..

Going to start loading up the dried/mowed cattails stalks so I can use it through winter for dog/cats/chickens. This week looks to be a great week weather wise to get some stuff done outside.

Enjoy the 90s everyone

It's supposed to be 101 here. Not fair!

 

[Hawkeye95]

Man I am So proud of my corgie dog. she is now hearding my birds back to their pen when I ask here to "Round em Up!". she is doing awesome. good job girl!

Daren, she's pretty! Sounds like she's pretty good with the birds! Does she just herd by barking, or does she try to mouth them, too? You should pop in more often!

Danz, that is a CRAZY story with the duck falling into the crack in the yard! We have one that is soooo deep too! I fell in it the other night and nearly twisted my ankle. As it was, I was hopping around a bit hurting over that one. Made me MAD.

Sunflowerparrot-- pork roast sounds GREAT!!! Don't over do it out there picking all that stuff up even though it's supposed to be a bit cooler.

Busy morning, and we're back home again. Took the dogs to the groomers and did some grocery shopping. I'll need to run and pick up the dogs later, but for now, enjoying the down time.

 

[chicken danz]

That's weird Rob. Can't wait to see the pics. I guess I'll check out a few roos while I'm out there. Of course the silkies had black combs but they were kept in a separate tractor so that couldn't have been the source. I also have one Serama roo with a black comb but he is confined to the Serama pen.
Well I got on the turkey thread to ask about my albino turkey. Several people said to cull her. That just doesn't make sense to me. Just because she is albino doesn't mean she has to die. I can always eat her later or just eat her eggs. It doesn't mean she'll necessarily be breeding stock.
I did figure out that because of the albinism she must have trouble seeing and that is why she is so much smaller than the other turkeys. Midget whites are a very tame breed that just seem to like humans. She is flighty and nervous. Makes me think that all of that is due to being near blind. Anyway I think I've decided to leave her in the brooder house until the weather cools and the sun isn't so intense.

 

[Trish44]

Daren, that's a nice looking dog & happy too! I'm glad she's doing so well for you.

Danz, I put out feed for everyone this morning using the new feed, so we'll see how it goes. I noticed the chicks hadn't touched what I put in there last night & usually the feeder would have been pretty empty this morning & same thing in the turkey pen. The little peafowl however were eating it & the guineas started eating it when I put some in their pen this morning, so maybe the game birds will like it at least. I had just filled my PVC feeders in the main coop with the last of my pelleted layer feed, so I won't have to fill it for a couple days at least yet. Yeah, I think I will do some checking today on the phone with the CO-OP in Arkansas City & see what their feed content is & protein & all of the & what the cost of the supplemental protein stuff is. I need to cut my feed costs, but I also want my birds to get what they need to keep them healthy & something they will eat. It doesn't do much good to go buy feed that they won't even eat no matter how cheap it is. The next couple days will tell whether they start eating it or not.Sunflowerparrot, thanks for offering that, I'm not going to give up just yet on the feed, we'll give it a day or two & see what happens. Danz, Wow that was quite an adventure you had with that little duckling! I don't blame you for wanting to keep it after all of that, I hope it turns out to be a hen for you. This drought is the worst I can remember in my lifetime, I sure hope all the doom & gloom doesn't come to pass that I keep hearing for all of our sakes. We all need to be doing the rain dance over & over. Maybe if we all go wash our cars it would help. That's usually what happens to us just after we wash it & then we have to drive through mud.

Well so much for all of the weeks I had that darned brown leghorn pullet in the cage trying to get her healed & all, it was for nothing. I couldn't find her last night to put her in the coop. I went out this morning to find her dead & half eaten, so something got her last night & the dogs evidently found her & brought her back up to the front yard. I don't think they were the ones who killed her, it looked like the work of a possum to me. We have those darned ugly creatures all over the place here. I'm kind of surprised the dogs haven't gotten one yet. Anyway, Lily was lying beside her body when I went out there like she was guarding her.

Sunflowerparrot, have fun starting on your coop & be careful out there in the sun. That heat can sneak up on you even in the 90s.

 

[OzawkieBantams]

Loralee,
She does bark at them , but she nipz at them too especially the turkeys.

 

[OzawkieBantams]

Loralee,
Duck an I here at Slippery Hill Farm haven't had but 1.25" of rain since MAY, ut yet Perry Lake cotinuez to let water out, that's wher our water comes from. We are about to be in a water usage ban which means we can't fill our duck ponds

 

[sunflowerparrot]

Sunflowerparrot, have fun starting on your coop & be careful out there in the sun. That heat can sneak up on you even in the 90s.

My GP is going to let something sneak up on me!??? lol Bad puppy!!!

 

[checoukan]

Oh, my, am totally bored!!! don't have anything I want to do, better go take a nap.

 

[Trish44]

Danz, I just checked with the CO-OP in Arkansas City & their layer feed that they mix contains corn, milo, & soy & is 16% protein. Their price has gone up since I had checked on it last so now it is $10.10 a bag, which comes out to 20 cents a pound. They recommended the soybean meal as an additive to bump up the protein, & it's $15.70 for a 50# bag. I'm thinking Melinda told me 2 pounds in 25 pounds of feed to make it the 22%, but I don't remember for sure, so I've sent her a PM on FB to find out what the ratio was. I forgot to ask about the hog protein because I had to be transferred 4 times to get the right people for all of the information I was asking for, first to get to the store, then one guy who knew the content of the feed & protein, one guy for the layer feed mix price, & one guy for the soybean meal price. Geez, I didn't know it would be so complicated to get a little information! Anyway, if I'm figuring right by buying the bulk feed even with adding the soy protein, (which one bag would last me 3 months if I could keep it from going rancid) would save me about $20 a month for feed from what I was paying. I looked up prices for feed now on the TSC web site & some of the feed also has gone up as well as the feed at Orschelyn's. So now the layer feed is at 36 cents a pound at TSC & 37 cents a pound at Orschelyn's, that is up from 33 & 34 cents a pound the last time I bought feed.

checoukan, a nap doesn't sound too bad. I have the whole day free since my DH went to OKC early this morning, so I don't have to cook.