Consolidated Kansas

[sunflowerparrot]

Hawkeye, I'm with Josie, I'll bet if you put an ad on Craigslist for free chickens you will have some takers. At the Mulvane Swap meet when I went there were a lot of Vietnamese people there looking for birds for eating & they were looking at the Silkies too.

We got rain twice during the night here with thunder & lightening & all. My yard is actually greened up & there is a little bit of grass growing back, even some new grass in spots coming up, it's strange. After the last two summers we just don't have much grass in some places, the heat & drought did it in. We don't have a well here, so whatever happens does & we lost about all the grass in the backyard, it's just weeds now. We need to re-seed, but it's just not a priority right now with working on the coop & all & trying to get things done before winter hits.

We went this morning to see our attorney to update our wills, we hadn't done anything with it for 10 years & there were some changes we needed to make, so we got that done today. He told us we need to think about having a medical power of attorney & I told my DH we are getting the age where we probably need to think about doing that. I'm glad to get it all taken care of, it's something we have put off & now we just had to bite the bullet & go do it. Not to be gruesome of anything, but it's just a good thing to do for your family to have things in order.

My dad is an attorney and I already have everything set up! It does give a peace of mind knowing that is all take care of.. Stephen and I need to do some stuff too though... since we're just BF/GF, there could be some sticky situations should one of us die - we really get some things he and I have discussed put into writing.

 

[sunflowerparrot]

Quote:
if you have birds and breeding stock you should make provisions for what you want done with the stock if you should pass away. It suggested marking the pens and leaving records to indicate the type and value of each of the birds. That way your spouse or family would know what to do with them.

I have my parrots in my will actually and my wishes for what to do with them after I pass - chances are, my African Gray will outlive me - while my other little girl (Mustache Parrot) will probably not outlive me as she is fairly old already.

 

[medawinks]

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Quote: <
I must have sounded pretty ratty in my reply about the chicks. Sorry! I meant to explain that poor quality chicks were just not something you would expect from where I got Medawinks birds. And it had me curious so I did contact her. Since she is in school, she explained her parents don't always do a good job of knowing one kind of chick from another. She immediately knew what the problem was. She said she actually was surprised that there were still any of those chicks left, thinking they had been culled. Josie, on the traps I forgot to mention that I just drop the trap in the bottom of a bin, grab the hose and fill it up above the top of the trap and walk away. If you come back in a few minutes they are all dead. I suppose there would be other ways but that works for me. I have no desire to save their lives. I despise rodents and associate them with filth and disease. So I have no heart when it comes to them. Raccoons and opossums fall in that same category for me. It's starting to look like owls and hawks could be joining those ranks, however I have always loved owls. I just wish they'd go eat mice and leave my birds alone. I sure hope they never take one of my ducks. The war would be on. The poor ducks couldn't run fast enough to get away
BTW Medawinks she has offered a replacement with a blue Maran but I told her you seemed happy with the chick regardless and it wouldn't be bred. If you want a replacement bird I will let her know.
I really should learn to read over what I post so it doesn't come out sounding wrong!
Sorry! I was horrified that I had missed crooked feet in the first place.
Danz, don't stress at all about not seeing the curly toes I sure hadn't noticed them! I was too busy looking at their alert light colored eyes! Andy sees every detail in everything around him. He would have told me earlier if he knew it meant something. I swear that boy can walk into a totally cluttered room for 5 min, walk out and have one item moved and he can come back in and tell you exactly what moved! He is a master at hidden pictures games. We are hoping that this chick is a pullet. I am hesitant in feeling that it might be though.... It is so sweet AND it's comb is awfully pink! :-(. I would happily buy a blue Marans though.... I really love the blue and splash coloring.

 

[Trish44]

Hawkeye, that's a good point about leaving provisions in your will about your birds, however I know that nobody will want mine when I'm gone if I still have them at that time. My son thinks I'm just crazy having all of these birds & animals here even though he grew up on a mini farm & we had chickens, ducks, geese, sheep, steers, goats, pigs, you name it at one time or the other when he was young. He seems to have no desire now to live outside the city & have any kind of animals besides a dog & cats. I do worry about my dogs though about what would happen to all of them since I now have two GPs & two little house dogs. The two little dogs are very spoiled & my son doesn't really like little dogs, so I worry what would happen to them if something happened to me. Hawkeye, you're still young yet, but you're never too young to make provisions for who is to take care of your children should something happen to you. I know it's a loaded subject, but something that really needs to be discussed & decided. Heaven forbid anything like that would happen, but it would give you peace of mind knowing you had a plan in place. I agree with HEChicken also that it's a good idea to have a living will & medical power of attorney so there is a directive should you not be able to tell anyone your wishes. We already had done the living will giving our directions about how things are to be handled, but now are going to look into the medical power of attorney. I told my DH today that we're getting to the age where we need to have one of those, but really anybody can have one. If your spouse is living it usually isn't a problem unless they're not able to make decisions either or if you're single then you need to appoint someone to make decisions for you should you not be able to. It's best to do those things when you're fully capable of deciding what you do or don't want & who you would want to appoint. Sunflowerparrot, in your situation you really need to be talking about things & get things in writing because yes it could be very sticky should something happen to Stephen, it could put you in a very bad place.

Well I'm excited about our road trip tomorrow, Sunflowerparrot, R, & I are going to be picking up some cute little chicks & a cute little rabbit in our travels, so it should be fun! I don't get to get away too much without my DH, so I'm going to enjoy it. Just the girls, yay! When I told my DH I was going he kind of frowned at me, but didn't say much. Then when I reminded him that I'm going to be gone next Monday also I got another frown. He's such a big baby, he thinks I have to be here every day to cook his lunch. Well I'm putting food in the crockpot tonight so the poor thing won't starve tomorrow, as if he would anyway. He's so spoiled.

 

[JosieChick]

Josie, Danz and Trish-- thank you for the advice on my silkie culls. I think I will just go ahead and offer them for free on CraigsList and be sure to list them as pet quality. Should I mention they could be eaten.. or just leave it as it is and let people infer what they want? I just don't want anyone feeling weird about getting them to eat. Go right ahead!! LOL I mean, they are sweet and cute... but they should NEVER be bred, and it would almost be best for them, really. Like you all said, they ARE chickens.

I would just list them for free. Most likely they will go for food. Most of my free birds are dinner and I know it. The difference is people won't offer you any info about their housing or other birds.

Josie, that is crazy about the no upper beak!! Wow, I wonder how that happened-- I guess got into a scuffle with the broody? Poor thing. And how embarrassing -- that would TOTALLY happen to me!!! I'm starting to worry less about the procaine in the Penicillin. The more I use it, it just seems to help and so far, no adverse effects. I guess worse case would be that it might kill an already dying bird? Ah well. Good luck on selling your Jeep! I'm very excited for you getting a new car and all!
It was bizarre and I was mortified. I am sure the broody did it to him. She scalped another chick that died later on due to the injuries and that is when I kicked her out. She was just trying to protect the babies by keeping them away from the chicks in the next brooder but that was a bit much. We are going to try selling the jeep privately because I think we can get more than if we try to trade it in.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This day has gone by insanely FAST! I made my motel reservations for when I travel up to ASBC Eastern Nationals!! Eeeeks!! So excited!! It will be *my* first show. So far, all of the birds have been shown under my oldest son! He is still going to go-- we're going to split up the birds--we'll be bringing grow-outs that should be ready to show by then. I'm going to do the Double Open and he's going to do the Single Junior and Showmanship. Today, I did some errand running and had lunch down in Clearwater with my mom at Walts. Love that place! My oldest has church choir practice tonight and my middle child has soccer practice tonight... so we'll be splitting up, i guess. We're going to pull a "Karen". hehe! I also have a volunteer/donation project I need to get started on today for Wesley Medical Center thru our church. We are sewing up little dolls with hospital gowns so that when children go to the hospital for a big surgery or something, they get a doll that they can draw on a face, and practice giving shots to, and the nurse can show them on the doll what will happen and draw on it what they will be doing. So we make up dolls sewn out of muslin fabric (a nice creamy color) that is light enough to draw on with no faces or hair and then come up with cute wild fabrics for their hospital gowns. I'll take a pic when I get some finished. So far, we've had some really cute ones already donated from our church. It's such a wonderful volunteer opportunity. Ciao!

I am so excited for you going to YOUR first show! I live vicariously through your show excitement. I hope this little girl I am bringing you makes the cut to go, she is lovely! I love the dolls for the hospital, what a wonderful idea.

everyone - I've been here but haven't posted too much this week - just a lot on my mind. I've been reading but by the time I go to answer a question, someone has beat me to it LOL

I'm pretty excited. My case of mouse traps came today. It will take a while to get them all baited and set where I want them but my goal for tonight is to catch at least 100 mice. I really think I can do it!! Well at least half that many! I can't wait to check them tomorrow.
It took me forever to feed and water today. It was such a muddy mess and of course I had to dump, wash, and refill every feed and water pan around. I really do need to get things organized or I will freeze to death this winter doing chores.
Hahaha! You are OBSESSED! You are on some mouse hunting frenzy, you should come to my house next.

Well I didn't get the jeep cleaned today. Sigh. I did get my brooders cleaned today which was long overdue. We have this little feral cat running around that I was going to trap and get fixed but it is fighting with my barn cat, Lily. Lily is the queen of the yard and this is her place. I don't want her to feel threatened by this new cat so now I don't know if trapping it is a good idea. I was thinking if I get it fixed it would maybe calm the territorial behavior.

Also, on a side note, there is something I just need to tell everyone because I realize I haven't really made the announcement. I have left the audiology program at KU. It was not for me and I felt like I didn't fit in. They have a fabulous program it just wasn't a good fit for me. I really enjoyed the therapy sessions in undergrad so I think I am going to re apply to speech language pathology programs in a year. The other side of this is that we have been trying to find Lucie a home and it has not gone well. I have had a ton of interest but nobody that follows through. So the other night I was driving home from Wichita and thought a lot about why Lucie was still around. I have talked in the past about working with a therapy dog with DH and he loves the idea. We really don't have a house dog that fits the bill so I figured when we were closer to that time we would look for a retriever type pup to start training. Then a light went off in my head, LUCIE! She loves kids, is very gentle and quiet and has a high drive which makes her very trainable. She LOVES obedience work. What little I have done with her she has picked up super fast so I think she will do very well. I also really like her ability to be such a big dog and yet soooo gentle with children. She doesn't bounce and waggle and jump around little kids so I think she may be it and she has been sitting in front of me all along. I just didn't see it. So she is coming back and we will start training and getting ready for taking a canine good citizen test to work in therapy!

 

[HEChicken]

Josie, that is a great idea about letting Lucie be a therapy dog. So will she become and indoor dog for you so you don't have to worry about her around the chickens?

 

[medawinks]

Josie!!!! Love the idea of Lucie being a therapy dog!!!!! I had a standard white poodle in my classroom with me for 8 years. He is still my heart dog! He passed about 5 years ago and I still look for him.... He was amazing with my students! The fact that he was light colored really eased fears for folks who were afraid of big dogs. I have a papipoo who is certified through Love on a leash. He is an amazing little dog which also has its perks with kids.... But I really do miss my old Jeeves . Therapy dogs really do make a difference for so many people! Yes, things really do work out the way they should if we are patient

 

[Trish44]

Josie, I think that's great about Lucie, I'm sure she will do great with that.</p>

 

[sunflowerparrot]

Hawkeye, that's a good point about leaving provisions in your will about your birds, however I know that nobody will want mine when I'm gone if I still have them at that time. My son thinks I'm just crazy having all of these birds & animals here even though he grew up on a mini farm & we had chickens, ducks, geese, sheep, steers, goats, pigs, you name it at one time or the other when he was young. He seems to have no desire now to live outside the city & have any kind of animals besides a dog & cats. I do worry about my dogs though about what would happen to all of them since I now have two GPs & two little house dogs. The two little dogs are very spoiled & my son doesn't really like little dogs, so I worry what would happen to them if something happened to me. Hawkeye, you're still young yet, but you're never too young to make provisions for who is to take care of your children should something happen to you. I know it's a loaded subject, but something that really needs to be discussed & decided. Heaven forbid anything like that would happen, but it would give you peace of mind knowing you had a plan in place. I agree with HEChicken also that it's a good idea to have a living will & medical power of attorney so there is a directive should you not be able to tell anyone your wishes. We already had done the living will giving our directions about how things are to be handled, but now are going to look into the medical power of attorney. I told my DH today that we're getting to the age where we need to have one of those, but really anybody can have one. If your spouse is living it usually isn't a problem unless they're not able to make decisions either or if you're single then you need to appoint someone to make decisions for you should you not be able to. It's best to do those things when you're fully capable of deciding what you do or don't want & who you would want to appoint. Sunflowerparrot, in your situation you really need to be talking about things & get things in writing because yes it could be very sticky should something happen to Stephen, it could put you in a very bad place.

Well I'm excited about our road trip tomorrow, Sunflowerparrot, R, & I are going to be picking up some cute little chicks & a cute little rabbit in our travels, so it should be fun! I don't get to get away too much without my DH, so I'm going to enjoy it. Just the girls, yay! When I told my DH I was going he kind of frowned at me, but didn't say much. Then when I reminded him that I'm going to be gone next Monday also I got another frown. He's such a big baby, he thinks I have to be here every day to cook his lunch. Well I'm putting food in the crockpot tonight so the poor thing won't starve tomorrow, as if he would anyway. He's so spoiled.

I would have no problems at all taking Jasmine and Lilly! They would have tons of room to run here and be with their sister As far as all the poultry - again, I'd happily take that as well and give them a fabulous home. Please don't worry about your farm animals. I think between everyone here, they'd find good homes! (Just don't give me the cats! lol)

ROAD TRIP!!!! 5 1/2 more hours Can you tell I'm excited!!

 

[sunflowerparrot]

My 2 hens are getting really close to laying soon! I bought a little wicker basket at Goodwill the other day for when I start collecting eggs I would love to see pictures of your baskets - I'll take one of mine too and post later..

I bought 3 ceramic eggs on ebay and they shipped yesterday. I just put one in each nest box? Do I pick up my hens and put them in the nest box to show them the box? (To the best of my knowledge, neither have gone into the box yet.. )

I think I have been letting my chickens out of the coop too early (7am) - I'm going to slowly change the time I let them out. I am going to let them out at 8:00 for the next week... then 8:30 for a week... etc. I really want them to start laying and thinking they don't have much time in their coop to even learn the nest boxes are there. They leave from their roost early in the morning and don't usually return until dusk and then just get back on their roost. What time do you let your chickens out of their coop?