Consolidated Kansas

[chicken danz]

Maidenwolf, thank you. I do wish it all was set up nicely. I really do need a huge poultry building so I don't have so much to do.

Wow i love your pins they are awesome. are the brooders easy to clean i would only need a small one. i don't plan on having a lot of chicks but would like to hatch one day just so that we can experience it

I use an old dustpan and just scrape up the shavings and dump them in a trash can outside the door. I like to spray each of the areas with oxine before I put chicks back in just to be sure. The only problem I have with them is when the chicks spill water and I don't notice. It seems to get collected along the front panel. If I don't keep it dry there it can cause mold. I guess you have that problem in anything but I really don't have time to check the shavings every day for moisture.
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Maybe mine are young and will get smart with time. I like them, they are funny, and I enjoy listening to all of their communication sounds. They hatched the 3rd week of July and thankfully the chicken we hatched with them helped them find food and water. Mine fly out of the corrals and then run around trying to bull doz their way back in to the pen. They know how to fly out, but then don't know how to get back in and go in panic mode. I have the same routine every day, the chickens know what barn door I'm going to open to get the feed, they know when I get the water bucket I'm going to fill it and bring it back in the pen. These turkeys remind me of that movie 50 first dates, it's like every day everything is new to them, maybe it's because they are young. They are bigger than my chickens so maybe I just expect them to be more mature than they are.

I love my turkeys. I always heard they were stupid but have read recently that they are extremely smart. I totally love the gobbles of the Toms.
My guy just came and shoveled out two houses for me and tried to pay me for the chicken poop. I love it. I said no to the money. I was just glad to get it done. I need more shavings though cause I am out. It will have to wait a day or so until I can get somewhere to buy more.
I am pumping out the duck pond right now. It needed it very badly. It's been a couple weeks since I did it.

 

[Trish44]

Danz, I'm sorry about your Olansk Dwarf pullet, it sounds a lot like how the stuff started out with my Cream Legbars. I still have one pullet & one little roo in the garage in a rabbit cage. I just don't know if the little pullet is going to pull out of this. The roo I think is doing better & may go back into the grow-out pen soon, but I hate to put him in there when it's so wet. When I'm feeling up to it & it's dried out a little I'm going to have to go shovel out that pen & put dry bedding in there, but it's not going to be today or tomorrow. Anyway, I just think these imported birds are a lot more fragile because they're not used to our bacteria & viruses. My birds had not been exposed either to anything & no other birds were sick when they got sick. Then a bunch of the imported ones just started popping up sick. I don't know what it is or where it came from & my free-range laying flock has not gotten it even though they walk all around that pen. I just haven't been able to figure it out & it's super hard to get rid of. The birds I treated I had to treat for a very long time & finally the ones outside looked well enough to stop the antibiotics. I treated the sickest ones with 4 different antibiotics & none have really totally kicked the stuff, especially this one little pullet. I just had to decide even though these are expensive birds that the strongest have to survive & that's how it has to be. I hate to lose any of them, but I did lose a few Swedish Flower Hens. I have just hung onto the Cream Legbars because I spent so much money on them & the eggs that I lost money on. I have two pullets out in the pen that I think are doing OK now, but this one inside is just not getting over it. It has lived with it for a long time & eats & drinks & walks around, she just doesn't get well.

 

[mommahen10]

Danz, I'm so sorry about your pullet. I wish I knew what would help. Is there a way to find out exactly what germ is making her sick?

 

[michelleml]

Dans sorry to hear about your pullet. Could something from shoes or clothes have stransfered a germ? I showed my DH your pictures of the blue turkeys he wanted to know if they taste different from other turkeys

 

[mommahen10]

Here's a pic of my new chicks...


One has something wrong with her eye. Does anyone know what this is or how to treat it?


This is going to become my brooder room...

Minus the cat of course...


My dh and boys have been working all day out here. They've been building wired panels for the front and doors. The shelves will be divided. There is a big floor area that I can use too but I'll save that for some that are bigger. The big incubator we are building will go in here too I hope. There will be lights on the under sides of the shelves, switches and outlets on the front. The entire length is over 12 feet, they are 2 feet deep. They aren't quite divided in half with that board, one side is longer than the other but we are going to divide each side in half. I can move them to the bigger areas as needed. The second shelf down I will only divide where it's already divided. That's the plan anyway. Does anyone have any input to share?


Nugget Headquarters...this is where the 1-2 mo olds go. I moved them a little early because the ones I got from Orcheln's were towering over my hatch and I think that's why a few of them look so much smaller. I moved the bigger ones over here. I would feel better if I saw them go up the rail on their own but I've only seen a few do it today. I will leave a light outside too until I know they can get in and out easily.






The Peep Pen...see how much smaller these look? I was going to give these a little more time to grow and catch up before putting them back together. I'm pretty sure that at least part of my brooder room will be done in time to move the Americauna's out of the house and for my next hatch due next weekend.




The outside pics I took didn't come out well because it was too dark, here is inside of the new coop housing my 3-4 mo olds.


I need to get out and take more pics. I still need a Bachelor Pad for the boys to fatten them up and a Sorority House for the pullets for sale. We have another big shed that will hopefully house Lavender Orpingtons because I day dream about those. It's never ending, I need more, more, more.

I made my first sale to a stranger today, I sold 2 pullets and an old hen for $20. One was from the 3 mo olds and one from the 4 mo olds. I told my dh to think of it as $2 per mo of age and don't go over $10 each. I think it was a very fair deal. They said they may be back for more and were very friendly. YAY!!! She asked a lot of questions and it was fun to share.

 

[chicken danz]

Actually Michelleml, they do. They are a slower growing breed so the meat is much more flavorful. I was going to eat one of my Tom's for Thanksgiving until a guy from out of state who deals with birds of all kinds told me they were the most perfect colored blues he had ever seen. He wrote me two days later with a buyer for one of them, begging me not to eat him. Tell your DH the meat inside isn't blue!

So then I was going to eat one of my Eastern turkeys and a guy bought him yesterday. He has been waiting a month to get him because we live over 3 hours apart. So both of these boys get to be breeders and I have no turkey ready to eat.
I have my midget whites but they are too small yet.
I sure hope my dwarf gets better. I just wrote the guy yesterday wanting to know if he could have possibly gotten a Swedish Flower Hen mixed up with the dwarf babies cause one of the other two girls is so much bigger than the others. If she turns out to be an SFH and this little girl dies that only leaves me one pair for almost $200. That would make me sick. Even her feathering looks Swedish.
I hope not but I guess it could have happened. I have Swedish though and the Orlansk are super rare.

 

[HEChicken]

Been busy and haven't had time to read posts yet. I am really upset. One of my very expensive Orlansk Dwarf pullets is really sick. She is breathing very hard, won't eat or drink, and has a eye swollen shut. I am so confused. These birds are in my basement. I have kept them away from all the others because I was so paranoid about them getting sick. Now I am really worried I will lose them all. I'm not sure how to treat this either. I gave her a tylan shot but I'm afraid it might be too late. I don't know what to give the other birds as a preventative. I just put some probiotics in their water. I am so careful with these birds. I always wash my hands before I go down to care for them. How could she have managed to catch any kind of illness down there?.

Oh no, I'm so sorry. These were the ones that were already well started before they were shipped to you, right?

I love my turkeys. I always heard they were stupid but have read recently that they are extremely smart. I totally love the gobbles of the Toms.

Mine love to play with things and I've always seen curiosity about the world around you as a sign of intelligence. Whatever bowl or cup I take vegie scraps out to them in, if I set it on the ground, the turkeys will go over and start to push or roll it around, pick it up and just play with it. I also love the sound of the gobbling. I will say though, that at night I do sometimes have to wonder. During the day, I watch the turkeys go in and out of the chicken door all day long. But at night, if the people door isn't open, they won't go in to roost. They'll find somewhere else to roost, and I just have more peace of mind knowing they are safe in the coop so I really want them to go in. As soon as I open the people door, they'll head straight in and jump up on the roost so its really like they haven't figured out yet that they can also go in the chicken door at night - not just to eat during the day.

 

[Trish44]

Speaking of turkeys, my young tom was doing this thing today I've never seen him do, he was displaying at the females, but then stomping his feet at them. It was a very distinguishable sound when he did it. Is this a type of mating dance or what? I don't know at what age the RPs are sexually mature, the tom & female who came with him are 6 mo. old, the same as HEChicken's hen & then the other hen I have is 5 mo. old, she is the one I hatched. It was funny to watch anyway whatever he was doing, he seemed very serious about it.

My turkeys are really picky about what they will eat. I have tried giving them various veggies & most of them they have just ignored. My chickens will eat lettuce & cabbage like it's candy, but the turkeys won't touch it. I take greens of all kinds to the peafowl & guineas, they just love the leaves off of trees & fight over them & weeds of all kinds unless they're too strong like sage. I usually take them some greens every day along with their feed & grains.

 

[HEChicken]

Speaking of turkeys, my young tom was doing this thing today I've never seen him do, he was displaying at the females, but then stomping his feet at them. It was a very distinguishable sound when he did it. Is this a type of mating dance or what? I don't know at what age the RPs are sexually mature, the tom & female who came with him are 6 mo. old, the same as HEChicken's hen & then the other hen I have is 5 mo. old, she is the one I hatched. It was funny to watch anyway whatever he was doing, he seemed very serious about it.

My turkeys are really picky about what they will eat. I have tried giving them various veggies & most of them they have just ignored. My chickens will eat lettuce & cabbage like it's candy, but the turkeys won't touch it. I take greens of all kinds to the peafowl & guineas, they just love the leaves off of trees & fight over them & weeds of all kinds unless they're too strong like sage. I usually take them some greens every day along with their feed & grains.

How strange, that's the second time today I've heard about the foot-stomping. I guess it is all part of the mating ritual from what I read in an earlier post on another thread, but mine hasn't done it yet.

As for being picky, mine eat everything the chickens eat. Since they are free-ranging with the flock, they quickly picked up on the chicken's excitement when I throw treats out there and are now there with everyone else, trying to be the first to grab the "good stuff". Yesterday Madge got a section of pepper that contained lots of seeds and ran off with it and this morning she got the biggest apple core and ran all over the yard with NK in hot pursuit trying to steal it from her.

 

[ChicknBaron]

THIS is my picked on EE