Consolidated Kansas

[mommahen10]

Harvester's link....
http://www.harvesters.org/GetHelp/Index.asp?Reference=Individual&~=

 

[mommahen10]

I'm sorry my big post, I don't know why it took out my spaces between paragraphs. I tried to fix it and it says it can't retreive my post to edit it. I can only post now by going to full page thingy. I'm sorry.

 

[chicken danz]

Thanks Mammahen for the link. I can't find a schedule. And I couldn't go if it were tomorrow anyway because I have to be in Yates Center to deliver a tom turkey. So that reminds me. Friday is my delivery day. But I have to get a cage ready for one of my wild turkeys to take to his new owner. That will be a trip loading him. Those things will beat you to death if they get spooked.

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LOL - Don't think twice about it! I'd actually had a great couple weeks before that, so If i can find out what I did wrong this time, then maybe I can have another great couple weeks again. I'm thinking that I caught a head cold and it messed up my tummy that began this whole icky cycle again. I can't wait till Nov 2nd. I'm going to KU Med to do a treatment that will inject botox into my stomach and hopefully that till fix my problem for a good 6 months. Keep your fingers crossed that it works!

So on my way to picking up meds from the pharmacy, I stopped by Ace Hardware and got a live trap. Any suggestions as to what I should put in there? I'm going to set it right outside the coop door where we saw it leaving. I'm hoping that it was a solitary animal that we can relocate that that will be that. At least it's not the spring when it could have been a momma and her babies. We have a large wooded area right across the street, so i'm sure that's where it's living during the day.

I would use canned cat food. Just don't put the trap up until your chickens are closed up. I hate possums!!

Okay get ready for picture heavy. I have two cameras I use and the batteries went dead in both. So I got my underwater camera out. I've never used it out of the water proof case before and I had everything set for under water photos. It's been 2 years since I used it and I didn't want to take time to read the instructions. But I guess they turned out okay.

First pictures of the inside of my brooder. Excuse the mess. It was totally double insulated but I had guineas who decided to devour a lot of insulation which I haven't gotten replaced yet. Click for larger pictures.
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My peachick and his buddy a lemon cuckoo orpington pullet. First day outside. They saw me taking pictures and came to see me.
My new seed. Can you believe this stuff. It is clean with no junk. It is this consistency all the way through. I will so be buying more some day.

This is the pens within the pen I built yesterday.


The pen on the left is ready for a gate. As you can see my white peachick and his buddy pullet are together and the cameo peachick is on the other side. They haven't decided to be buddies yet. I need to move the pullet soon and put her with her own kind. I feel guilty cause these two birds are inseparable.
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This is my Mama India blue with her two babies. Sweet!

 

[chicken danz]

Okay and here are a few more. Some of my midget white turkeys. I love these guys!



This is the outside of my brooder house. Nothing fancy.
o

These are my blue slate turkeys. The Tom always displays for me.


This is my newest building and the peafowl pens. It looked much better before I put the metal on the bottom. But when the peachicks hatched I needed it to keep them in.

 

[HEChicken]

You have a gorgeous set up Danz! Your brooder house is bigger than most people's main coop!

 

[Kansas Prairie]

I'm sorry my big post, I don't know why it took out my spaces between paragraphs. I tried to fix it and it says it can't retreive my post to edit it. I can only post now by going to full page thingy. I'm sorry.

The site was having trouble, Nifty the site owner suggested doing this to clean your memory so the site will operate for us. Mine worked properly I followed the instructions on this site:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Delete-files-using-Disk-Cleanup

 

[mommahen10]

Mobile food pantry, I've never done this one.
http://www.harvesters.org/_FileLibrary/FileImage/MFP_Ks_July 10 12.pdf


This link shows distribution sites, I put in Paola's zip code. You could call whichever is closer to you to see what their schedule is.
http://www.harvesters.org/GetHelp/Agency.asp

Is anyone else having trouble with this site today? I keep losing my posts, it can't retrieve my posts to edit, and even clicking on Full Page Editor it just doesn't come up.

Danz, your set up looks amazing and beautiful. It looks very neat and organized. I need to learn to use powertools, they scare me. I'm going to take pics today, I promise. It doesn't matter if mine doesn't look as pretty, I keep telling myself that but I'm not sure that I believe it. What will be my brooder room is still emptyish so now would be a good time to make changes to our plans.

 

[checoukan]

I had not done this for a while, after clicking the start button, I just type in disk cleanup, when it came up, I clicked it, and then, it went to work. Had some stuff that needed to go. Some of the simplest thing we forget to do!

 

[Kansas Prairie]

Quote:

 

[cherwill]

That last line of this did kind of make me chuckle but the sentiment expressed in the whole paragraph....I know just what you mean. I really have a hard time saying "no" too. My extended family do not place too many demands on me but just in general, if someone asks me for help, I find myself saying "yes" before I've even thought through how it will impact my immediate family, and then later find myself feeling aggravated or resentful that I was talked into something yet again. But after reading the conversation on this topic I'm starting to realize the resentment has no place because its me agreeing to it in the first place that is the problem - not the person doing the asking. I think the problem for us "yes" people is finding a way to graciously say "no". I do the same thing -- "sure I'll help" without even thinking about whether or not I actually have the time or desire to do so. Was it you, Mommahen, who posted about setting boundaries and sticking to them, or setting limits on the number of times we say "yes" each week? That might work if I weren't such a gutless wonder!

Thanks for the tips on vinegar and baking soda. I go through a boatload of those things too, so I'll have to check out the pricing at Sam's next time I'm there. Around here Walmart isn't always the cheapest, but our Walmart and Dillons are in the same parking lot (park once, visit both), so I think Dillons is super aware of the need to be competitive and prices accordingly. There are a few things I will get at Walmart but for most stuff Dillons is cheaper. The produce at Dillons is generally fresher, and their wholewheat pasta is 100% wholewheat, whereas the Walmart wholewheat pasta is only 51%. Plus, at Dillons I get the points towards fuel that I don't get at Walmart AND I have a credit card that gives me 3x points at grocery stores, and it doesn't recognize Walmart as a grocery store even when I buy only groceries there, so if I use the same card I only get 1 point per dollar spent. So all in all it works out better for me to go to Dillons. I'm always interested in how different the stores are in different towns. Before we had a Wal-Mart, Dillons was even more expensive. DH knows a guy who works at Dillons and he told us why. There are 10 different pricing tiers for the stores. Which one you get in your town depends on the amount of competition. Where there is no competition, prices are at the highest tier. In cities with lots of competition, prices are lowest, with some items even losing money. Dillons and Wal-Mart are across town (even though that's only a couple of miles) from each other so there isn't as much worry that someone will just be able to go next door and find the item cheaper. Before we had a Wal-Mart, it was actually cheaper to go 30 miles to Salina, buy groceries at their Wal-Mart with cheaper prices and lower tax rate, and buy the gas that was usually about 10 cents a gallon cheaper. I think part of the reason things got better in McPherson is that many other people were doing the same thing and taking their money out of town. As with your pasta example, reading labels is also important. The cheapest thing isn't always the best thing for you. I still buy apples at Dillons because Wal-Mart stopped carrying organic apples. It costs me a couple of dollars more and a trip out of the way, but it's worth it to me. It's funny, because of my shopping is also based on a credit card. We have a Sam's card that pays cash back at the end of the year. We charge everything we possibly can on that card and pay it off every month. What we get back more than makes up for the membership fee, otherwise I'm not sure we even buy enough at Sam's to make the membership fee worth it.

So the reason you will get a kick out of this? She is playing at being broody! She lays eggs a little larger than a Coturnix Quail egg, and honestly, although the eggs are tiny, when I look at them proportionately to her body size, they look pretty darn big to me. I noticed yesterday she was in the nest mid-afternoon and figured she was laying her egg. Later I saw her at the feeder but shortly after that I went to collect the eggs and there she was back in the nest. I didn't think anything of that, figuring she hadn't finished the job the first time and had been taking a break before going back to lay her egg. But when I closed everyone up for the night last night, there she was still in the nest. I didn't check to see where she slept last night but first thing this morning....yup....still in the nest. She's so tiny she couldn't cover more than 2-3 eggs. I don't particularly want to hatch her own eggs as I really don't need more pigeon sized chickens around this place. So I guess if she's still serious throughout the day today and night, I'll put a couple of other eggs under her. Didn't need more chicks but I can't bear to tell her "no" either. Aloha eggs. That's what I'm gonna do. Put a couple of my Aloha eggs under her!

Anyway, I had to laugh at the thought of her raising chicks. By the time they're 6 weeks old they'll be the same size she is. It will be interesting to see....

See how sweet you are, not wanting to disappoint her in her desire to hatch eggs!

Tweety, my multi didn't quote you for some reason. I'm sorry for your relapse. I hope things are straightened out quickly.

Those are way too big for the spaces I have, unless I replace a window with one of them... I went ahead and bought the soffit vents. I think I'll try them on the East and West sides and look into possibly putting some on the back (North) side.
I change the straw every couple of weeks, as needed. I just changed it yesterday morning. No, I do not do the deep bedding method. I'm not sure that that would work very well with straw (and ducks who don't turn things over as well as chickens do).

This morning, I noticed that there was less smell than there had been recently. I'm not sure if it was because I changed the bedding or if it was because of the breeze we had last night.

I know it is time to change the bedding by the amount of poo as well.

I keep forgetting how much different ducks are from chickens in the amount and kind of mess they make in a coop! My SIL started out trying the deep bedding but the ducks soaked it every day anyway, so she quit. I forgot about that when I asked you about it.

The other day, I inadvertently found something that seems to be working better than any of the recommended methods I had previously tried. I was standing in the yard on Wednesday morning and, as usual, he was keeping himself between me and the hens. I was lost in thought and just kind of standing, enjoying the nice day, and that lasted quite a few minutes - maybe 5-7 where I wasn't moving and neither was he. Then he just walked away from me. After that, the feeling around the coop was very relaxed - he was off foraging with the hens and I went about my business cleaning water bowls and what not. Since then, although he still approaches me every time I go out there, now I just stand still and face him until HE walks away. I think the thing before was that in his mind, if I walked away, he had won, even though I was only walking away to continue my chores - not because he had intimidated me. He didn't know that and got quite "cocky" (pardon the pun), thinking I was afraid of him. Now that I am refusing to turn my back on him and walk away - and waiting until he turns and walks away from me, it seems to have shifted the balance of power. Originally I thought this could get very time-consuming, if I have to stand still for 5-7 minutes at a time, but over the few days I've been doing this, the amount of time we stand and look at one another has decreased. This morning it was only 20-30 seconds before he turned and walked off. It has been quite some time now since he physically challenged me. The second or third time we had the stand off, I noticed he was cocking his head this way and that eyeing me, probably trying to figure out what I was doing.

Anyway, since this seems to be working, I'm going to play it through to see how far we can take it.

I'm glad you found a way to keep Cyrus in line. I miss seeing a roo do his job taking care of his flock.

Danz, I'm so envious of your brooder and pen set ups. Maybe if we move out of town someday, I can do something similar. We just end up cobbling together whatever tub is handy for a brooder, and it ends up being not nearly as handy as we though!