Consolidated Kansas

[mommahen10]

I don't know how to do the salt test.

Danz, I need to get a girl turkey for Colt. What kind is he again Maidenwolf? I'm sorry about your chick, I hope it makes it. I know how badly you wanted these to do well. Keep us updated. I understand what you are saying about all the cooking and hooplah. I'm tired, and too busy and I don't feel like doing it all. I feel so far behind already and time is clicking. I would rather be outside playing with the birds. Who needs to eat anyway? Food is over-rated. Oh, I'm just kidding. I'm not in the mood. The house is a mess and the kids have eye dr. appts tomorrow and I'm not sure what I should be doing first. Probably not sitting on here.

Cool idea to keep them cool PrairieChickens. They certainly look happy under there.

Hawkeye, you should try to 'decorate' a chicken first.

 

[chicken danz]

Danz, When I saw this I thought of your beautiful peacock! Will be interesting to see how much this goes for on eBay.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/BEAUTIFUL-I...-/221154228055?ssPageName=ADME:B:FSEL:US:1123

I can't imagine anyone actually killing a peacock in full feather for a mount, but it would be beautiful. I think mounting one with his tail expanded would be a lot more awesome. When Pete who is also an India Blue, opens his tail it is 6 foot tall and 8.5 feet wide. It would take a huge space to display him as taxidermy!!
I can't wait until my white boys get mature and can display.
Hawkeye don't you think the blue slate Turkeys are beautiful? If I were going to show something I might do that. I've been told I have the best pure blues any where around here. The guy I got my eggs from shows his. I'm hoping to have some babies next spring.
Mammahen I was thinking one of the turkeys was a Narragansett and the other was a Royal Palm /chocolate cross. I'm not sure which one you are keeping. I'd keep my eyes on craigslist if I were you. In the spring it will be impossible to find a girl. Everyone will be intent on eggs then. Even if you got a cross bred female you could still hatch eggs. They'd be more utility birds.
I am so disgusted. My days just aren't long enough. I am sick of Thanksgiving already. I gathered eggs this morning and fed the chicks in the brooder and in the house. Then I washed eggs and packaged them. Then went to town and delivered them, spent an hour with my Dad, then went to the grocery store and Dollar General and bought some groceries to fix TG dinner with. There were a few things I didn't get because they didn't have them but I'll get by I guess.
Then I came home and got busy shoveling feed. I had a load of 1200 pounds on the truck I had to get shoveled into the barrels. Once that was done I started feeding and watering. I made it back in the house far after dark. I am never going to find the time or energy to get this stupid house cleaned and get my other projects done. I can only blame myself. Why on earth do I think I have to have so many birds any way?
Normally I am so happy and love all their pretty colors, their personalities and watching their silly antics. But today is one of those days where I just worked myself to a frazzle and still am behind.
It's one of those days I wish I'd stuck to having a hand full of hens to lay enough eggs for me and my family.
I'll wake up tomorrow feeling lucky I have so many beautiful birds.

 

[PrairieChickens]

The breezeway on the side almost always had a hen in it, and they loved to drink the water that dripped off. It's definitely something I'm going to do again next year--preferably construct it BEFORE it's 110 F out!

Have I mentioned that I am a small person, and bricks are heavy?

 

[chicken danz]

That is an awesome idea. I've been trying to figure out how to build a recycling drinking water system for my peacock/turkey building. They all love to drink from the hose when I am watering. And I could make individual fountains for them copying the cat drinking fountain I have, but I don't know how I could keep it from freezing. I think it would be awesome to be able to plumb one in, that recirculated through a filter and kept water flowing for all of them. I can figure out the pump and the fountain parts but the rest is a blur.
Hawkeye and Checoukan I understand the fun of the poultry shows. That is the way the swaps I used to attend were, and the Gardner auction is. So much fun just being around other chicken people. I only went to one swap all summer because I sold plenty right here and the prep and the gas to get there reduced my profit to nothing. It's a lot easier to sell from the farm but I don't get that exposure to other chicken people. Maybe if Emporia allows chickens there will be some swaps there some day.

 

[sunflowerparrot]

Fern and Sam Fern gets a little overly excited (which I expected), but they did fine with their first meeting. I already see Sam following Fern around wherever she goes - it's really cute. I can't wait till tomorrow when I take them out into the fields.

 

[JosieChick]

Oh thanks! I was wondering today where I might find some. I understand about the turkey. I am going to have to get over that with mine. The day will come I will actually have to butcher some rather than sell them, cause that is why I wanted them in the first place. My boys will be happy to have Flo come join them. I'll bet the girls get jealous though. Sometimes they bicker when I go out to feed them. They act like kids fighting over who gets to be the closest to me and the feed bucket. It doesn't matter how many pounds of feed they already have left either. It's all about being first.
They're almost as silly as the geese.

Oh I know, the turkeys are ridiculous sometimes. She really likes to be the boss so she may have a harsh adjustment period!

I would love to get cochins and my husband is really interested in them too, but I read they aren't very heat tolerant... How do you guys deal with your cochins in the Kansas summers? Do they handle it ok, or do they require extra care?

I have bantam cochins that are giant fluff balls and they have done very well during the summer. I haven't had any issues with them. My cochins are my favorite chickens.

Oh, my Danz, that reminded me one time Ivy's DH told her to put 2 pats of butter under the skin on top of the breast meat, said would keep the breast meat moist. Poor Ivy, when she pulled the tin foil off the bird, where the pats of butter had been, under the breast skin, but on top of the meat where these 2 square area's of white skin. Where the butter had been the skin did not brown!!!

Ivy just about dropped the turkey!!

Could not figure out what happened, and then it dawned on her! It was so funny, we all had a good laugh, but that turkey looked like it had a bra on, and Boobies! I will have her send me apicture she took. Was a great dinner anyway, lots of laughter and good times with family!!!

Hahahahaha! I read this to DH it was so funny!!

I hatch at 70-75%. The more wet their inner membrane, the easier it is for them to "slip" out and not get stuck. I've had my own problems with sticky chicks that results in my humidity being in the 60's. It was awful and I'll never, ever do that again. I wonder if you had temp flux with your eggs-- that might explain why some of the inners were clean. Too high of a temp can speed them up a bit and give you troubles (same with too slow/low). It's a balancing act for sure. I've had some that zip and then die. It's nothing to do with humidity usually-- it's just a defect within the chick. Silkies get that a lot-- they will make it to pip and die, or they will actually start to zip and then die!! They are just tough! The higher the humidity, the better the chances of them getting out. But you will still have your "defects" depending on what kind of chicks you are hatching.
I was telling her that I hatch my own large fowl eggs at 50-60% and have even accidentally hatched some bantam chicks over the summer at 15-20% in the turner by accident. Sometimes I am not convinced high humidity actually helps certain breeds hatch. I have had so many chicks that were struggling to hatch and I cranked the humidity up and they died!!! I can't hatch silkies at all though!!

I think the styro bators are just murder to hatch in one way or another. In my experience fighting with them I had so many fluctuations it was amazing anything made it out alive!


Quote:

OKay-- going to make these so you can click on them and enlarge them if you want to see them up-close.

Checoukan and I below! She with her Rosecomb and me with my Silkie:




My son won Reserve Grand Champion Featherleg with his Splash pullet:



Showmanship:





Our winning bird!

So cute! Congrats to both of you, looks like you had tons of fun! Wish I could have gone with my geese! Next year! I almost wish there was one in December because they would be more feathered in by then. It takes them a while to feather back in after molting in the summer and then breeding starts in January and they trash each other!! Did you guys take Miss Josie to the show??

Fern and Sam Fern gets a little overly excited (which I expected), but they did fine with their first meeting. I already see Sam following Fern around wherever she goes - it's really cute. I can't wait till tomorrow when I take them out into the fields.

Congrats on the new pup. Looks like a fun new friend for Fern.



I need to go out and lock up birds and feed Molly. Then I am off to bed, I worked today and I am just wiped right out. I don't have the energy to fight with rich peoples naughty dogs all day. I will be so glad to get moved down and start working at my old work again and have dogs that are used to being groomed and aren't a matted mess!

So this is kind of funny. My little flame point kitty is on top of the dog kennel and Lucie is sitting up sniffing her feet. SO Dede keeps reaching through and swatting the dogs nose! You can imagine how amusing a dog that has been stuck in a wire crate for almost six weeks finds this activity. Poor dog is flat losing her mind. Danz-You think Cloud is out of control!! You should see what happens when you crate that energy long term. Ugh!

 

[PrairieChickens]

So you guys remember me posting that mug I designed for myself with all the photos of my chickens? Well, someone just bought one. I'm waiting to see if they cancel the order because I just can't seem to accept the fact that anyone else finds a collage of my chickens as interesting as I do! lol

 

[mommahen10]

Danz, I know you posted your feed mix and ratios and at the time I never considered I would even be thinking about such a thing but if we can save money I can't keep voluntarily throwing our money away. If you have it handy, could you post that again please? If not, I will start going back through. I promise to keep it handy so I don't have to ask again. Even in the warmer months I'm only getting 15 tops eggs per day with about 30 older hens. I know I sold a few, but it shouldn't have dropped me this much. I only got 5 eggs today. I agree about the time of year but it wasn't so good at the good time of year either. People are asking for eggs, I got 3 new contacts in the last 2 days and I'm turning people away because I don't have them. I think we all reached an agreement here to find a mate for Colt, the Narragansett and hopefully find a home for Casper. It's hard, they like us. I'd rather find a home for him than eat them. Are all turkeys this tame? I feel like just keeping both and finding mates for both, but I'm diving in too deep way too fast with all of this. I don't know what I'm doing and I don't want to do anything to take away from our family. I'm scared of screwing up and spending a bunch of money I can't get back. Are you buying egg cartons? I was looking at them online today. I can't seem to keep enough of them around. I know why you have to have so many birds, it's because that's your passion. I was sitting there looking at hatching eggs for sale on eBay and thinking that's pretty, not those are beautiful, ooooo, look at those and I kept on going. Then I wondered if I could spend 2 years with different types of chickens just to see for myself how beautiful they are and then sell them and try different ones. I had a break down moment today, I think it just hits that there is so much to do and it's overwhelming to have to cook so much on top of it. It's not that I don't want to cook the big meal for everyone, but it is a lot of work on top of usual chores and wanting the house to be extra clean too. Just start somewhere, doesn't necessarily matter where. When I finally stopped walking in circles, I got the macaroni done, the stuffing started, the sweet potatoes done, and the dough is rising for the bread crumbs. That's a decent start for only a couple of hours. Why was I having such a cow? Tomorrow I will have some time again in the afternoon but I may not even try to work on the extras until after dinner because my kids like to eat again and again. The boys and I were brainstorming things we could use to work on the watering system and came up maybe seeing what's inside of a coffee pot. Do they pump water to the top to run it through the coffee? Also, the heating pad on the bottom may be useful to heat water. Maybe it wouldn't get too hot if it was a larger amount of water or set on a thermostat.

Sunflowerparrot, your dogs looks os sweet. Looks like they are friends already.

PrairieChickens, I think concrete blocks are heavy too and I'm not small anymore. I was admiring that pan, it looks like one of those huge ones, they are hard to find.

lol, Josie likes to rock her baby chicks in the turner. I'm still thinking I had better hatch rates doing it haphazarly than trying my best. It's really rattling. Toby and his girls were together all day, I noticed him peck them away from the food but he was still gentle. When I went out to check he was sleeping inside and they were sleeping outside so moved the girls back to their baby pen where they ran in their little house. I will put them together again tomorrow. We can keep this up until they figure it out. I really think that when they are older it won't be an issue at all. Poor little guy, he's been through a lot of changes here recently. I hope his permanent pen/coop will be finished tomorrow or Wednesday, but I won't want to leave him in that big pen all alone either.

PrairieChickens, that's great that you sold a mug. I wondered how that worked. So you can design them and they can sell them? I'm guessing you get a kick back from that? Is it hard to do?

 

[PrairieChickens]

The way the selling-on-zazzle thing works is: they offer a variety of products that are blank, and I can add my own graphics and text to them, then post them for sale. Anything that sells, I get a royalty on. It's not hard for me, but then again, I've been doing it for a while. I honestly couldn't say what the learning curve would be like after this long. x_x

I have over 13,000 products on Zazzle alone. It's the bulk source of my income and has been for three years now. :3

 

[cherwill]

OKay-- going to make these so you can click on them and enlarge them if you want to see them up-close.

Checoukan and I below! She with her Rosecomb and me with my Silkie:




My son won Reserve Grand Champion Featherleg with his Splash pullet:



Showmanship:





Our winning bird!

Congratulations! He looks so happy, and proud of his win.

The breezeway on the side almost always had a hen in it, and they loved to drink the water that dripped off. It's definitely something I'm going to do again next year--preferably construct it BEFORE it's 110 F out!

Have I mentioned that I am a small person, and bricks are heavy?

I love that first picture. Your little cool house is great idea.

Fern and Sam Fern gets a little overly excited (which I expected), but they did fine with their first meeting. I already see Sam following Fern around wherever she goes - it's really cute. I can't wait till tomorrow when I take them out into the fields.

They look like they're getting along well. I'm sure they'll be great companions.


I have an attitude today. DH did the yard cleanup thing at one of our bigger houses while I stayed home and cleaned house. I'm aggravated because we should have been done with yards last week but of course things don't work right and the leaf sucker has to be worked on and ... one thing after another. We've been using the fireplace which makes our dirty house dirtier faster. I know I'm always behind during mowing/leaf season, but I couldn't stand it. Papers were strung out all over the office, which is also full of chairs so that there's no moving around without moving chairs around. I just felt like everywhere I looked there was too much stuff and I had to move and clean around it all, and it's all covered in dirt. My rational mind was nowhere in sight today!