Consolidated Kansas

[Hawkeye95]

Josie, thanks for the info on the Tylan. I don't need it now, but with winter coming on, I might go buy some to have on hand. Did you use the same syringe over and over and then change the needle, or just clean the needle and reuse? I can't imagine buying 30 needles/syringes.

Michelle, I cloth diapered for 8 years! I own a diaper business, too. Anyway, I know all about line drying as I have been doing it for years. I never did put up a post though, I simply hung up a clothes line to my deck and I put clips on either end and I would hook it onto my deck and then string it back and forth on my drying days (and more often than not, I just left it up) zig zagged it. I could hang 40 diapers or more at a time just with that. How long have you been using cloth? If you're new and need any tips or help, just ask me!

I'm not cloth diapering anymore, but I am still using cloth pull-ups for one of my night time wetters.

Heather, I like that clothes line you have! I had thought about getting one of those, but just never did. My system worked out pretty well, but I don't dry my clothes outside, just my diapers! LOL So sorry about Tory. But geez, if she won't stick around, what good is she? I'd have been done with her long before, so you've really hung in there. I don't know what to tell you. I would hate to see her go to a shelter, but that may be the route you have to take. I don't see how she would be good with any other livestock, either. She isn't really working at all, just running off and playing.

 

[Hawkeye95]

Hechicken sorry to hear about Tory some dogs are just that stubborn. As far as the clothes line you mention i use Birdseye cloth old fashion cloth diapers and they are very large some are 30x30 would that give me enough room to hang at least a 12-20 diaper at once?

My neighbor came over last night to visit and her German shepherd followed and he doesn't like little things he kills cats, squirrels everything and of course he went after my chickens but they stopped him in time. My concern is that he roams our property daily and I've been lucky that he hasn't seen my chickens till yesterday. I really like these people and don't want to cause problems but i also want my chickens to free range so do i take the chance and let them free range or build a safe area for them to roam? she told me to call her and she will put the dog up in the garage but that's not fair to him either that he has to stay in the garage. I would hate for him to kill them my kids would be devastated

oh great. A chicken killing dog that roams the neighborhood. Well, I have that to deal with too-- which is why I can't let my chickens free range, they would all be chicken snacks during the day. I HATE the two dogs that come over here daily making sure that my chickens are locked up. It annoys the heck out of me. I've threatened to shoot the dogs and talked to the neighbor and he tells me to just go ahead. I can't do it now that I've talked to him. About half of my neighbors have chickens too, and I keep hoping one of them will shoot his dogs so I won't have to. But no such luck. The thing is, that we all like this guy! He contributes payment for our road, and he helps with anything our little community might need. So how can you shoot his dogs when he's nice? But he refuses to fence his dogs. Now, if I actually caught his dog killing one of my chickens, then yeah, I'd shoot the dog. But since I'm keeping my birds fenced in and protected, so far, there is no need. I think you're going to have to fence your birds. Not only that, but I have two little dogs-- a Shih Tzu and a Pom and I KNOW they would go chase chickens and kill them if given the chance. My dogs are family-- I would never get rid of them, so it's safest for everyone (in my situation) to keep my birds fenced. Ideally, I'd like to fence in my backyard and let the birds have a bigger area to roam. But it's cost prohibitive right now.

 

[HEChicken]

As far as the clothes line you mention i use Birdseye cloth old fashion cloth diapers and they are very large some are 30x30 would that give me enough room to hang at least a 12-20 diaper at once?

My neighbor came over last night to visit and her German shepherd followed and he doesn't like little things he kills cats, squirrels everything and of course he went after my chickens but they stopped him in time. My concern is that he roams our property daily and I've been lucky that he hasn't seen my chickens till yesterday. I really like these people and don't want to cause problems but i also want my chickens to free range so do i take the chance and let them free range or build a safe area for them to roam? she told me to call her and she will put the dog up in the garage but that's not fair to him either that he has to stay in the garage. I would hate for him to kill them my kids would be devastated

Oh yes, I do believe it would fit that many and then some. I haven't counted how many lines are on it but it is a LOT. I have a large front-loader and I can do a full load, hang it out and there is still room left for about 3 more loads.

At my old house, my birds free-ranged within the confines of my whole backyard, which was well fenced, and I didn't have a problem. However that also gave them freedom to come up on the back deck and while I didn't mind (even enjoyed their visits), DH and the kids got tired of the poop on the back deck all the time, so I agreed to fence them at the new place. However I had a hard time going from full freedom to being penned in a limited space, so I compromised and built them a chicken "yard". It is 240x60 and is fenced with 5' high 2x4 welded wire fence. It is NOT predator proof the way a pen might be, in that there is no wire apron buried, and nothing across the top. For a yard that size, it wasn't practical to try to put any kind of netting over the top. My idea was that if the coop itself was Fort Knox and they were securely locked in it at night, I could get away with a little less security during the day, since predators are mostly nocturnal. The fox attack surprised me by being in the middle of the day and put a crimp in my thinking (which was why we got Tory in the first place).

Well, I digress. Where this has been successful is that it does keep the chickens contained while giving them a very large area to roam, so they have the feeling of being free-range. I actually think they have more space here than they did at the old place! It also keeps out passing dogs - and we have a lot of them here, it seems. A really determined dog would climb the fence or dig under but the presence of our other dogs on the property seems to deter them - I haven't had an issue with that so far at all.

What we are doing now to try to keep the birds a little more secure, is at night our other two dogs, who are great with poultry, are confined in the chicken yard. We have their Dogloo in there so they have shelter from the elements. My thinking is that by keeping them there at night, their scent is left there. At night I think most things would think twice about climbing INTO a yard with two dogs on the other side of the fence but my hope is that if their odor is there, it will also make a predator think twice about climbing in during the day. After all, if the scent is there, just because they can't SEE the dog, doesn't mean its not there and ready to pounce on them the second they land inside the yard, right? So we're sort of trying to cover our bases in several ways.

Anyway, is building some kind of yard for them an option for you, where it is so big they can't graze it all down to mud but they are less vulnerable to a dog roaming into your yard?

I agree these are tough situations. I mentioned last night that our neighbor's dog had taken two years to learn how to beat the invisible fence, but now she does it every day. They are really nice people and were so patient with us when Tory kept roaming into their yard that I would never be able to make an issue of it with them. So far she stays off our property, but does visit the neighbor who is in between our house and hers. I don't know if they even know she is breaking through. They go off to work and then she gets out. I wouldn't put it past her to break back in before they get home, so they never know she was out LOL.

 

[chicken danz]

michelleml if you want a permanent clothes line find a welder and have him make you a couple from recycled heavy pipe. You can buy the clothesline wire (not ropes) and use turn buckles on the ends to tighten it if you need to. If I had a place to put one I would so have at least a shorter 4 line clothesline here. Those have so much more versatility for large items. I am always washing towels or blankets or something I have used for something animal related that I would love to dry outside, or rugs or something that I want to dry flat. I also like to dry blankets and quilts and such outside. We have enough wind that things dry quickly and softly. However with gravel roads it's not an ideal situation for me if it hasn't rained recently. For diapers I think the rotating lines would be great.
I thank my stars I don't have the problems many of you do with your dogs. My dogs will leave my yard if they are chasing a predator but I have no neighbors close so it isn't a problem. The only thing that concerns me is the guy that farms the property across the road hunts back there and my dogs will chase a deer if they see one. He hasn't complained though..... to me anyway.
My buyers who were supposed to be here at 1:30 didn't make it until 6:30. Needless to say I was pretty unhappy with them. It wasted my entire day. And then they were here late so my evening was gone as well. I guess the best thing was that they took every hen, pullet, and chick I would sell them. They also bought a pair of melanistic mutant pheasants from me. However I had pheasant for dinner. The female I sold them jumped up in the cage and broke her neck. I had never eaten pheasant before. It was a little on the tough side but very tasty. She was young and it breaks my heart to see a female die. That makes 3 I have lost over the last couple years when people were here buying. And of course all three were female. I think I need to warn any buyers from now on once I remove them from their pen they buy them. One guy last year, let his female get out and didn't offer to pay for it. That was the worst one because ultimately I found her body a week later. I didn't charge them but if people are going to keep pheasant they need to learn how to safely transport them first. After that, they paid me for two of them and are coming back next week to get them. They also want to buy my beautiful Lady Amhurst roo. I really need to sell him because I have a second one but hate to. He is so pretty. He was interested in buying my eastern turkey male but I don't think he wanted to pay my asking price.
They wanted to buy my albino turkey as well but I didn't ever say yes or no. I feel very protective of her. This gal says she wants to buy some of every breed I have out here. They could be good customers but they will have to do better being on time.
Now that I've sold all these girls I have got to start moving roosters. If I want them to be eaten I can sell them without a second thought. But most are pure bred breeders and I don't want good blood to be in a pot. I have no way of controlling that other than just advertising and hoping for the best. I just don't want all the girls to be bare backed and broken down. I hate this part. Some of my roosters are awesome and they are all easy going.
So Hechicken how bad was the greese on the poles for that closeline? That seemed to be the major complaint.

 

[HEChicken]

Danz, there wasn't any grease on our poles so I don't know if its something they corrected based on the complaints? I did read the reviews on it and saw that being a repeated one, but we didn't have any issue with it. It was really pretty easy to install. Even digging out the hole wasn't as bad as I expected it to be. We already had some concrete mix lying around so once the hole was dug it was just a case of filling it with concrete (they said to leave small stones in the bottom 4" or so for drainage, but that wasn't a problem. As I dug, I just saved out the small rocks I pulled out, then once the hole was dug, put the rocks back in filled it with concrete, put the pole the clothesline sits in through the middle of the concrete (need a level to make sure its standing upright), then waited for it to dry. I gave it a good 2-3 days to cure, then added the clothesline pole and away I went.

So sorry about your pheasant. Yeah, sounds like you almost need one of those signs they put in stores "You break it, you buy it". But I guess its a little harder to enforce because if they refuse and just drive off, there isn't much you can do, unless you get payment up front. I've never kept pheasant but it sounds like they are pretty flighty.

Sounds like you are really in major downsizing mode.

As far as hoping to find homes for your breeder roosters other than the stewpot, perhaps put a high enough price on them that no one would want to pay that much for chicken dinner? You may not get as many people contact you about them but at least the ones who do are likely to be serious about adding some good genetics to their flock?

 

[JosieChick]

Only on for a minute! Sorry HEchicken for all your Tory trouble. They can be stubborn, bull headed dogs. I am really sorry she has gotten your birds. I can text the people with the goats but I think they got a puppy from the lady that was on the facebook farm animal swap. I forwarded her info to them the other day and now she only has one pup left. Have you checked back in with that guy you gave me the info for? I don't think he wanted to pay a rehoming fee so he never got back to me? Also, I had several people call and text the other day so an ad on craigslist would probably get her moved pretty quickly. I also got a text from someone in Rose Hill. If you want to PM me your phone number I can pass Tory's info on to them as well.

 

[chicken danz]

That is the problem. No one will pay that much for a rooster if it isn't something very rare. And the Asian people in the city area will pay at least $8 for a roo to eat. I would be lucky to get $5 and most people won't drive here for a breeder rooster unless they are needing that particular one and can't find one.
I had a group of beautiful Pheonix roosters that I needed to sell. I advertised over and over and no one responded. I also had some fancy polish roos that were show quality and no one seemed interested. I finally advertised them for $3 a piece and had a guy come down and buy them under the pretense that he just wanted to watch them. He called me a few months later wanting more roosters but made the error of saying how delicious they were. It didn't matter to me although it was a shame, but I wish he would have been truthful to begin with. I have had people here begging to buy the pheonix roo or some of the polish once they came for other things but it was because they were here to begin with. Most of what I need to sell right now are LF Cochins and one each gold laced and silver laced polish. I also have a few others like a silver laced Wyandotte etc etc that I need to sell before I divide my breeds. I've got some big brahmas but I don't know if I will sell any of those or not.
I do have one awesome big cochin roo that doesn't have good feet feathering. He is a very good attentive rooster though. He is kind of a special one because he was sick when he was young and we nursed him back to health. It took weeks but when he pulled out of it he did wonderful. I would love to just give him to someone here that just needs a big gentle rooster to look over their hens. He stays right with his ladies but he isn't mean or aggressive. I wouldn't sell him as a breeder because of his lack of feet feathering but I wouldn't sell him as dinner either. I'd rather just see him go to a good home.
Yep the downsizing has taken a major swing. I sold well over 100 birds this week. Didn't make as much as I should have but I cut prices when people are buying lots at a time. I just keep reminding myself that is less mouths to feed. I do wish I had more red star hens to lay eggs now but I should have some more laying in 6 months or so. I still have a lot more to eliminate and a group of wild young chickens that I can't even consider getting close to. I guess they don't hurt anything. They come in and eat and drink and run back out to the weeds. I did have one hen that raised some chicks, recently bring them in to sleep in the old garage. I wish they'd all do that because once they are in with the tame chickens they calm down,

 

[Hawkeye95]

Danz, that is a bummer you have such nice roosters and have a hard time selling them. I guess you could try? I sold my silkie cockerel for $10 and the lady who came to get him never even asked me down in price. Just thought he was great. So it just takes the right buyer to appreciate a bird. I'd list them as whatever kind of breed they are, and if they have any special lines they are imported from, and then say he is a Breeder-- not a pet, and not food.

HeChicken, sure hope you find someone to take Tory off your hands! That electric fence didn't really work out if they are willing to cross it. And definitely NOT good that she has trained your other dogs to roam. Darn.

Michelle-- you are using Flats??? WOW, you are one dedicated mama! No way would I ever use flats to diaper with. I own Prairie Tales, and this is what a blogger wrote about my diapers last year or the year before: http://www.justmommies.com/blog/201...s-cloth-diapers-review-and-giveaway-ends-820/ Even if you don't want my diapers-- check out BumGenius, Fuzzi Buns, and Kawaii-- they are all great! One of my "sinful" diapers are the Blueberry minki side snaps.
--wow, I had posted a picture of one of my diapers and the photo was HUGE!! nevermind! LOL





Okay--- so hey, I have a question about what you all think! This is about one of my 3 month old silkie chicks. I don't think you need to be a silkie expert to have an opinion on what happened to my bird. But a few days ago, I just noticed one of my chicks had a big bump on her back (like a bone???) and it's sticking out and now her hip seems sort of "out". She is throwing out her leg to the side and even her tail is stuck to the side. Do you all think this is an injury or could this just be a genetic back curvature that suddenly just showed up?? She also has poop stuck to her rear (that's new) and seems a little frantic when I pick her up.... is she hurting?? Or just doesn't like to be picked up?? I've got no clue, I'd love some input. I took a video of her this morning and posted it to Youtube. I hope you all can look at it and let me know what you think is going on with her back/legs.

 

[HEChicken]

I do see what you mean about the way she is walking but sorry, I have no clue. If it started suddenly, I'd suspect an injury, and hope that it resolves with time. I don't know if there are any anti-inflammatories that are safe for chickens to take. I know you're not supposed to give Ibuprofen to dogs so I suspect the same would be true of birds, but JosieChick might know more about that?

 

[michelleml]

Danz, that is a bummer you have such nice roosters and have a hard time selling them. I guess you could try? I sold my silkie cockerel for $10 and the lady who came to get him never even asked me down in price. Just thought he was great. So it just takes the right buyer to appreciate a bird. I'd list them as whatever kind of breed they are, and if they have any special lines they are imported from, and then say he is a Breeder-- not a pet, and not food.

HeChicken, sure hope you find someone to take Tory off your hands! That electric fence didn't really work out if they are willing to cross it. And definitely NOT good that she has trained your other dogs to roam. Darn.

Michelle-- you are using Flats??? WOW, you are one dedicated mama! No way would I ever use flats to diaper with. I own Prairie Tales, and this is what a blogger wrote about my diapers last year or the year before: http://www.justmommies.com/blog/201...s-cloth-diapers-review-and-giveaway-ends-820/ Even if you don't want my diapers-- check out BumGenius, Fuzzi Buns, and Kawaii-- they are all great! One of my "sinful" diapers are the Blueberry minki side snaps.
--wow, I had posted a picture of one of my diapers and the photo was HUGE!! nevermind! LOL





Okay--- so hey, I have a question about what you all think! This is about one of my 3 month old silkie chicks. I don't think you need to be a silkie expert to have an opinion on what happened to my bird. But a few days ago, I just noticed one of my chicks had a big bump on her back (like a bone???) and it's sticking out and now her hip seems sort of "out". She is throwing out her leg to the side and even her tail is stuck to the side. Do you all think this is an injury or could this just be a genetic back curvature that suddenly just showed up?? She also has poop stuck to her rear (that's new) and seems a little frantic when I pick her up.... is she hurting?? Or just doesn't like to be picked up?? I've got no clue, I'd love some input. I took a video of her this morning and posted it to Youtube. I hope you all can look at it and let me know what you think is going on with her back/legs.

I do use the flip cover and i have a few older bumgenius that i stuff with flats and at night i use kawaii snazzy at night stuffed with a bamboo and hemp insert . I've been cloth diapering for about 15mons and love it I also cloth diapered my dd. But Danz has a point i didn't think of the dirt road the dust covers everything so I'm not sure if the clothes thing is a good idea. I might try something and see if it cover our clothes/diapers.

We may have to look into fencing in an area for our birds i just have safe up enough money fencing is not cheap