Consolidated Kansas

[chicken danz]

My dh has been working on the brooder room and I think it's coming out all messy looking and it doesn't make me happy. He looks like he just wants to get it done now and his work looks hurried and I keep biting my tongue and telling myself if it's functional and keeps the chicks safe and warm it will be fine. The big thing I keep insisting on is that I have to be able to reach to clean it and I would prefer to not have to climb inside. I'm only 5 feet tall and my reach is limited and he always forgets about that.

Either we have DHs that take forever to get something done or those that hurry too much and don't take the time to do it right! I often wonder why we just didn't automatically match up with spouses that think like we think! Maybe the diversity is what keeps us from becoming bored with each other.
We are still having issues with the furnace but I'm pretty sure it's figured out and we will tackle that tomorrow with fresh energy. We got out the new furnace we had been storing, and we were going to just switch them until we realized we have to have someone drain the freon(sp) from the AC before switching them, so we can't do that on the weekend. We were able to get it running by bypassing the pressure switch, we tested the pressure switch and we know that it works, so that just means that we have lost the seal somewhere. We sealed everything with silicone as it was but it took us so long and so much wrigging to get it all fit back together the silicone was starting to get gummy so this seems logical. I will make registration marks for all of the parts before taking them off this time so I will know exactly where it all lines up beforehand.
I hope you get that furnace in soon. I think it is supposed to cool back down.
We had another electrical issue today that we still haven't figured out, I had to call my dad on this one. I was ironing, my 6 yo dd was doing a headstand against my bed and the outlet directly beside her went POP and smoked a little and I got her out of the way and it was where my laptop was plugged in and I about died for fear that my laptop was surely gone forever. The outlet was all black around it and my laptop seems unharmed, and it charges fine. What on earth was that about? We have been going around checking that all of the outlets are 120 and we haven't found anything out of line.

Not being there, I would think that you probably just had a short in that particular outlet. If I were you I would shut off the power and remove that outlet. Check the electrical line that goes to it to make sure that it is not melted or burnt. If it is then you will probably need to pull new line between that outlet and the one before. If the wire is fine, test the voltage and if it is okay, simply install a new outlet. If the screws on the sides that hold the wires are not tight it can cause a short in the outlet. Can be dangerous in that it does have a potential to cause a problem. Another thing that often occurs is people use the little push in holes in the back of the outlet. They have springs and those springs can grow weak. Using them is definitely not recommended. However many builders use them because it is easier. It is against code in many areas but is still done.

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Lime makes the soil uninhabitable for the protozoa that causes blackhead.



Oh come on, HEChicken, just a nice little Sunday drive away! Snicker, snicker. I would be tempted to go for those turkeys myself, except I just bought a bunch of ducks! This is a case of Danzizing for sure, but more of a classic case rather than a "finest"?

Denial, denial, denial. I've had people asking me to raise some ducks, so now I am but the beauty of it is that they have already been raised 2 weeks worth out of the 6! That, plus the buy one, get one free, was my rationalization. We'll see. Khaki Campbells are really good layers and Pekins are great meat ducks so it's a good mix. That is, if you really enjoy ducks and I really do. They are so easy to take care of compared to the chickens and so much healthier. They have been great at the pond because they eat those thousands of tiny snails and keep it mosquito larvae free. They truly eat far less than the chickens because they are foraging so much. I haven't had to Oxine the pond at all since the heat has left. It seems to have reached a healthy balance. The water is even clear in the shallow areas, which is awesome! Of course, we are still keeping it filled so it's getting lots of oxygenated water every few days.

Tookie is just not doing well and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that she'll make it overnight. Her symptoms are kind of all over the place. I first noticed she wasn't quite so active, day before yesterday but decided it was just my paranoia talking. But today, she was laying on the ground sleeping and sleeping. So that's what caught my attention. Then I noticed her coloring wasn't right. Her head was looking more gray and white. I had to go to her and she usually comes to me. Then when she did get up she seemed lethargic. I started her on antibiotics because her nose was running on one side. Then I noticed she had yellow diarrhea. That's when I tried the cayenne pepper in some egg for her. She perked right up and began eating her regular food and drinking her antibiotic water. The kids and I stayed with her and she learned quickly that all she had to do was point her beak in the direction of food or water and we would hold it up for her so she didn't have to bend over. We got her filled up for overnight and I'm hoping she'll be okay in the morning. I can get Fish Zole at the pet store, which is the same specific antibiotic used to treat Blackhead, but I'll continue with the other antibiotic also since she has a runny nose too. She seemed much weaker than normal which worries me terribly. I wish I had kept some of that fish zole on hand for just in case. I wish I had run to the pet store the minute I saw she wasn't feeling well but I didn't really know what to think at first. I don't know that's what's wrong with her but it may be and I don't want to leave any stones unturned. Of course, if she's feeling much better with just the other antibiotic, then maybe it has nothing to do with Blackhead. I'm still going to get some of that stuff so I'll have it here.

Her symptoms sound like a liver related problem or infection of the liver. That would really worry me since it does sound like it could be blackhead. . I wrote the gal in Topeka and it looks like she has a lot of interest in the turkeys. However if she hasn't sold them I told her I would come get them this afternoon. If there is any chance that would happen the bourbon red is yours and I'll keep the blue slate for my crew. As long as they are healthy.I know it wouldn't be Tookie but still it's the right kind. I just hope this isn't the case for Tookie. You would have to keep your turkeys in a pen away from the other birds where they couldn't get reinfected.
I do hope she gets better.
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Josie-- Thanks, I am not sure about what is the disease they are suffering from and am afraid of it being something that will spread or pop back up later. I am hoping someone helps I posted symptoms. If it is coryza or crd I need to suggest he cull them. Our properties join and we are close enough that our flock mingle thru the day so this is very concerning to me. He has asked for my help and if culling will be the only solution than I need to plan my attack because he paid money for these birds unfortunately.. For now I will treat with sulmet and give electrolytes and stress that everyone practice safe hygiene... Hope someone has some further info for me..

Coryza is more common in tropical or warmer areas. It rarely survives our cooler temps so it isn't common in this part of the country. I suppose it could be brought in by migratory birds. Tath would be the worst case scenario because all the birds would need to be killed and burnt. I can't help but wonder why he bought sick birds to begin with. Or did they become sick after he bought them. If they did it could have been caused by the stress of moving them. I'd certainly try medicating and see if they respond. I hope he is keeping them confined so they won't spread the illness.

Trish, I forgot to respond to this last night. I do use heated dog bowls, mainly because I was given about 4 for free when someone at our barn moved out and left them behind, and the manager wanted us all to take anything we could use. They work great as far as I am concerned. Of course, in past years I only had chickens drinking out of them. This year with the ducks it might get interesting.
I forgot to respond as well. I have gobs of heated water bowls. One thing I found I like even better are some little utility deicers. They are slightly higher but a lot more versatile. I have used them in the big water tubs for the ducks and such and they do a great job. They can also be used in plastic or anything so they are safe. You could even drop one in a hanging water bucket with the nipples on it. Here is an example:
http://www.jefferslivestock.com/premium-utility-de-icer/camid/liv/cp/5F-U1/
They are slightly higher but a lot more handy for some applications.
Also I have two kinds of heated water bowls. One is the green kind like they sell at orchlens and the other is a slightly larger blue kind I have found other places. I like the blue ones because you can pop the heating unit off of the bottom and use the bowl year round. I remove mine in summer and then put them back on in the fall.

In other countries I think they do it more often with larger animals - kind of a whole village celebration type of thing.
Actually this is done in the US quite often with a whole hog. They often build a pit in the ground for the fire or coals and the rod runs between two stantions above it.


Oh dear, that does sound similar to how Ned has been acting the past couple of days, minus any runny nose. I don't know what the Fish Zole is - I guess I need to go and google that....
The drug to treat blackhead is dimetridazole which I assume that fishzole contains.

I woke up about 5:00 am and couldn't get back to sleep. DH wasn't in bed and I got worried so I finally got up to go check on him. He was fine but I am a person who once awake is totally awake so I got up. I need to get ready for church soon anyway.

 

[chicken danz]

HeChicken, that is so cute!! I lvoe those teenage boy sounds.
Speaking of which, my Olansk cockerel is crowing right now. First day he has been able to do it in about 3 of them. He also bred the pullet at least twice yesterday. I am going to continue to dope his little feathery rear end with all those drugs and oxine and hope he gets well. His lady friends are still doing fine. When and if they are all in the clear I am going to put the Swedish flower hen that was sent in error with the olansk in with the other flower hens. That leaves me with only one pair of olansk until I can somehow manage to get more of them. I'm just glad he seems to be recovering. When the seller gets back home from a trip I am going to try to buy at least one more pair.

 

[HEChicken]

Speaking of which, my Olansk cockerel is crowing right now. First day he has been able to do it in about 3 of them. He also bred the pullet at least twice yesterday. I am going to continue to dope his little feathery rear end with all those drugs and oxine and hope he gets well. His lady friends are still doing fine. When and if they are all in the clear I am going to put the Swedish flower hen that was sent in error with the olansk in with the other flower hens. That leaves me with only one pair of olansk until I can somehow manage to get more of them. I'm just glad he seems to be recovering. When the seller gets back home from a trip I am going to try to buy at least one more pair.

That is good news about your cockerel. I guess they are older than I realized though if he is breeding the pullets - I thought these were chicks that were only a few weeks old when you got them.

 

[sharol]

that is hilarious. Thanks for sharing it.

Okay, you remember me telling you the other day about my little month-old chick trying to crow? Well, every morning since then I've carried the video camera down to the coop but got there too late to catch him in the act. This morning I had to go down while it was still dark enough the auto door hadn't opened yet. (I needed to separate the turkeys into a coop so I can give them probiotics and put them back on gamebird feed since they've been eating the lower protein food with the rest of the flock for a past couple of weeks. In order to separate them since they still are not handleable, I had to grab them off the roost before the door opened). Anyway, luckily the camera was still in my jacket pocket. Cyrus started crowing when I entered the coop, and the little chick responded. It was a full-on one-for-one, so I flipped out the camera, hit the record button as soon as Cyrus got done with his latest crow and caught this. There is no picture because it was so dark the camera couldn't pick up anything. But listen anyway:

 

[chicken danz]

They were young, about 6 weeks when I got them. This breed lays as early as 17 weeks. The girl isn't laying yet but he certainly is breeding. He was crowing already at maybe 8-10 weeks. I just wish time would pass quickly and she would start laying before anything else happens!!! I I just checked and they are 16 weeks old now. It hasn't seemed that long, cause I got them the first part of August. I purchased 4 girls and 2 boys. One of the boys arrived dead. Then one of the girls just died a couple weeks ago from the same congestion thing. The other girl turned out to be a Swedish flower hen so that only leaves me with the pair.
I am trying to get a replacement for the one pullet that was a mistake. And if I do I will buy a couple more if available.

 

[HEChicken]

Oh wow, that IS young to be breeding already. I am so glad he is feeling up to it again. That is some really bad luck to end up with one pair out of 6 ordered birds. Hopefully the next shipment will be more successful.

 

[HEChicken]

that is hilarious. Thanks for sharing it.

I really should take some pictures in the daylight of the chick doing it - it seems very precocious for him to be trying it already, and on such a regular basis! I have some cockerels twice his age who haven't even considered joining in yet....

 

[maidenwolfx80]

Danz- yes I had him confine them. They were sick when he bought them, I dont get why he bought them either. If it is CRD wont they have to be destroyed also? I read that they remain a carrier for life. These turkey are meant to join the flock.

 

[lizzyGSR]

The chipmonks are so cute and funny. Very active. I said I would never have a rodent of any kind. I hate rodents. However these guys are just too cute. I imagine I will at some point decide to sell them and get something else. I like the fact that they don't require much care and that they aren't over prolific like mice,rats,gerbils and hampsters.

Back in grade school, my sister and I had albino rats (both males). My 4th grade teacher raised them, and subsequently had way too many.

The only time I've ever seen a chipmunk (or maybe it was a ground squirrel???) was when we visited Yellowstone a couple years ago. It was adorable and quite entertaining to watch. I got a couple decent pictures of it before it scampered away:

 

[Hawkeye95]

Well, I had an interesting evening. I had a pretty bad car wreck around 5pm yesterday. I was driving down the highway after taking the kids to the pumpkin patch and we were headed home. I was on 103rd St (highway). My brother in law was driving behind me with his family (we went to the pumpkin patch together). I was behind a big truck (I was driving my 2008 minivan). Well, the truck in front of me slows down and using NO turn signals starts to turn off the highway to our right onto a dirt road. I had slowed down because I was behind him and when he got onto the dirt road, I was about to speed up again to go on, and all of a sudden, he wheels around and flips a U turn and shoots across right in front of me! I T-boned his truck, I had no time to stop, and then did a "Dukes of Hazzard" fly into a ditch on the opposite side nearly hitting a telephone pole, but I was stretched over the air bags trying to see out my window so I could swing the car back down into the ditch as it was trying to pop up out of the ditch. I can't even believe I had the sense to do that!! I'm a little in awe of my own reflexes on driving and trying to steer around an inflated airbag.

I got the van stopped, I had to kick my door out, and then pulled all 3 of my kids out. I thought my car was on fire, because the smoke was so bad and I was choking and coughing. Got the kids out and then started to pull out the carseats when my Brother in law ran up and started helping me get everything out of the van. I kept telling him the car was on fire, and kept telling me "no it's not--it's the airbags". Lots more to the story-- especially about the idiot I hit trying to lie to the Sherrif that he didnt make a U turn-- he said he was going straight and I was trying to pass him on the highway??, but anyway EMS got there and took me to the hospital, I thought i had broke my wrist and my legs and neck hurt, and I have burns on my arms. A few x-rays later, nothing is broken, but they did wrap up my wrist since the bruising goes all the way around and told me not to lift anything. My spine is fine, but I got whiplash. Of course. I got a cut on my right thigh, I don't even know how. I hit my left knee and it's bruised and sore, and the burns on my forearms from the airbags. I'm kind of a mess, but alive and the kids were fine!

The van... oh, the poor van. The airbags broke the windshield-- looks like two heads went thru it on the passenger and the drivers side, but it was just the airbags that caused the perfect spiral "head" shape breaks on either side. The van doors-- none of them want to open. I must have been on an adrenaline high because I was able to rip them open just fine and get the kids out. I had shut the doors and when the Fire got there-- they couldn't open the doors again! It took them a while to get the sliders open again so they could lay me down flat in the back for a while until EMS got there. I probably could have lift the entire van at that point! LOL It was so odd, things just went flying in the van-- I think I got hit with something flying from the back. But the upside is that the kids were all in their harnesses and they fared MUCH better than I did. They didn't go to the hospital, but EMS did check them out. I didn't see any of it, they had me all strapped down by then.

Anyway, I'm really tired and they have me kind of drugged up. I'm home now again, so I'm fine, but I'll be walking a bit slower for a couple of days, I think. I didn't mean to ignore everyone, but just can't remember everything I read.

HE-- I sure hope your turkey will be okay, and same goes for Karen. I sure do like Tookey and hope she'll pull thru. Danz, really enjoyed the pictures of the chipmunks. So far, no one here is sick, and I sure hope it stays that way. Better knock on wood.