Consolidated Kansas

[chicken danz]

My dogs love deer hide and they will chew on one all winter and lay on it. I found another skull and antlers yesterday they brought home. Wish they'd bring me some big ones. At least I put these little ones in the chipmonks pen for them to chew on for calcium.
I've got to go get in the shower and get ready to go to Emporia. I just would rather be working. It is the first day it is semi decent outside and I have so much I want to do.
DH had the tractor out drilling a hole for Biggy's grave. He has him hidden some place right now. I really want to get him in the ground but you just can't rush getting things done around here. I just have to bite my tongue. I do wish I could handle getting those implements on the tractor myself. I would have tons more things done around here.
I think I am going to reinforce the inside of that little camper trailer. Then when the ground dries up from the snow I'll just use a grinder and cut it off of the trailer it sits on. I'll have to somehow get some runners on the ground to sit it on, but it shouldn't take that much effort to set up for a growout building. I can use some more dog kennel panels for a pen. It should be pretty easy to put up some roosts in there. I tried pressure washing it a while back to get this god awful paint off, but only part of it came off. If I could get it back to plain silver or get it down to a solid layer I could paint it so it didn't look so awful. I guess the chickens don't car but I hate a cobbled up mess.
After that I should be able to get the brooder really cleaned out and ready for spring chicks.
I gathered 6 eggs out of my lavender orpington and lemon cuckoo orp pen today. They have started laying fairly well for a young group. I may do a test hatch, then once I have fertility, separate the two colors and start hatching chicks. Maybe finally I can start making some money off these birds.

 

[HEChicken]

Danz, sorry about the eggs not being as viable as you first thought. The car accident that keeps on taking.....

What is it with car troubles anyway? My car broke down three weeks ago in whoop-whoop Kansas. This car has never once let me down in 8 years of driving but when it did, it couldn't be in my garage or driveway - it had to be hours away and on a Sunday so I couldn't contact anyone to fix it. I had to get a ride home, then contact them next day and mail them my key. Well, between holidays and supposedly the mechanic got the flu bad enough to be put in the hospital, and here I am, three weeks later, no closer to getting my car back. In the meantime, DD, DH and I have all been sharing one vehicle and that has led to much inconvenience if two or more of us need to be in different places at the same time. Grrr.

Well, I saw Ned mating Madge the other day so I guess I can look forward to turkey poults in the spring. That is, the reproductive organs on turkeys are in the feet, right? Because I was alerted to the activity by Madge making sounds I'd never heard before and when I went to investigate, Ned was standing on her back. Just standing there. She continued to make these whimpering sounds and he periodically adjusted his position until it got uncomfortable for her and she wriggled out from under him. He immediately gave a command "Take your position, woman!" and she squatted down again, and he climbed back up to stand on her back some more. Since there was 8-12" clearance the whole time from his body to hers, I can only surmise that the reproductive organs are in the feet and transmit through to her back. Correct? (In case anyone thinks I'm serious, that was very tongue-in-cheek. Nevertheless.....those with turkeys, have you seen them mate where things seem to connect up a little better? Is Ned just inexperienced and will figure it out eventually?)

 

[Trish44]

HEChicken, you made me laugh! I have not seen mine mating, but I imagine they have since my tom is older than yours. I'm sure Ned will figure it out before long.

I'm up early today due to a guy coming from Derby on his way back to Dallas to buy all of my extra eggs. I will get up early to get my refrigerator cleaned out of eggs. He contacted me from my ad on Craigslist. I know he won't most likely be back, but I'll take what I can get.

I went into the coup just for a minute last evening to check for eggs after the chickens had gone to roost since I hadn't had time to do it earlier & saw my three new little pullets all huddled together on the lower roost, it was so cute to see them making friends like that. These were the three from Eileen, the two barred rocks & the SFH pullets. My chickens have been going through some serious feed lately, especially those days there was snow on the ground & they didn't want to go out. I hope my feed will hold out until payday, that is always my concern, that I will run out.

We're supposed to have some 50 plus degree days coming up this week, I told my DH we need to get as much done on the coop as possible this week because next weekend is supposed to be cold again. He has 4 doors to make, that will take him awhile to get them all cut & screwed together so he can hang them. My goal for today is to get all the doors at least cut out & maybe screwed together. We'll see how he does, he isn't the fastest worker when it comes to construction. I would like to get the doors on this week & the two end windows & then try to find the plexiglass for the front windows. That will at least close the building in & then we can work on the walls in there.

Well you all have a good day, I hope things start getting better for everyone.

 

[chicken danz]

HeChicken I had to laugh out loud. You are so funny!
I haven't seen any of my turkeys breed. Even the wild ones that are 2 years old. My midget boys are sure fighting though. I need to butcher some. I really hate to! I love those guys.
So HeChicken, Trish, do you plan to let your hen hatch for you or are you going to incubate your eggs? I'm trying to decide what to do with mine. I really wish I had better facilities for the hens but I guess they will find a place to lay anyway. I need to do some reading on building nest boxes for them. I can't wait to start producing poults. I have some people who have shown interest in all three of the breeds.
I got totally exhausted last night. My little granddaughter got tired after a couple hours and was a bit of a hellion then. But I enjoyed being around her and watching her open her gifts. I had bought her an outfit and I swear I stuck it in the box with a baby doll and shopping cart gift for her birthday. It wasn't there. Where on earth could I have put the thing? I know it isn't in the house or I would have run across it at some time.
Anyway I took her parents shopping and my DIL couldn't decide what she wanted. I hadn't purchased anything for the parents cause I had no idea what to get. I didn't want to give them a gift card because I figured it would go to cigarettes or something. So I set a dollar limit and let them shop. At any rate I think they were all happy and of course my granddaughter ended up with a few more things. Now my Christmas shopping is officially over!!! Woot!
Trish my birds are eating like fiends too. I think they have doubled the amount of feed per day since it snowed.
I may end up going to Topeka today to buy some big plastic food grade barrels. I need one for my water system for the trailer. But I was thinking of trying to ferment feed in a couple others. If I could figure a way to stir it, I could ferment enough in one of those to feed all the birds FF. Not sure where I would store it but I do think I save some feed on the birds I have used FF on.
I bought 6 new plastic feed trays last night to use in the brooder with the fermented feed just to be safe although the metal trays haven't created a problem yet.
The one thing I haven't noticed yet though is the poop smelling better. These olandsk who have been eating it for at least a week still stink to high heavens.

 

[HEChicken]

I'm glad your Christmas with your granddaughter went well, and hope you find the missing outfit!

Trish and I were talking about the turkey brooding question and she did some research and learned that in the wild, turkey hens build a nest on the ground. Right now my turkeys are in with my main flock but I have fears that if I leave them to brood on their own, Madge will go off in the tree line and I won't be able to find her, and she will be vulnerable to predators, so my plan is to build a hoop house and move them into it in the spring when I don't have to worry so much about water freezing. She won't be happy to be contained but at least she'll be safe. I have this, that I moved from the old house:



The dimensions are about right, I think, to be a turkey nest. So I'll put that in the back of the hoop house with some bedding and see if Madge agrees.

As for whether to let her brood or brood myself, I may do a little of each. The way I see it, there are pros and cons to both. If I incubate them myself, the cons are that I understand incubating turkeys is more challenging than chickens so it might be harder to successfully hatch them, plus newly-hatched poults are fragile until they're established, as Trish and Karen found out last year. However the pro is that they will be friendly and handleable, which my current two are really not. They are friendly and come running but stay just out of arms' reach and cannot be easily picked up to handle. Which brings me to the pros and cons of letting Madge do it. The pros there are that she will likely do a much better job of incubating and raising them than I could but of course the con is that they will be even more difficult to handle than their parents. Since the reason I will be raising them is either to sell or for meat (I don't need 2 dozen turkeys around here!!!), the ability to handle them will be a bonus. I suppose if I just raise them in the hoop house I will always be able to catch them when I need to. And, of course, the brooder raised, friendly poults will be that much harder to eat. So my conclusion is that I have qualms and reservations about either option, so will try to do a little of each.

 

[Trish44]

Danz, I read that turkeys nest on the ground, so I think what I'm going to do is to build two triangular nests in the back corners of my pen they're in with some scrap wood I have & then fill them with cattails for nesting material. They naturally nest on the ground & use leaves & such to make their nest, so I think the nests need to be fairly low & put as natural materials as you can in them. I may collect some leaves too & add them. I haven't gotten them made yet, I probably need to soon. Whether they will use them or not, well that's another story & we'll see. I'm going to try to let the hens hatch their own if I can because turkeys are so hard to incubate in an incubator, they're just so fragile for awhile, so I figure if I let them hatch them maybe they will do better. I hope you have lots of Midget Whites hatch, I know I would like to have a couple of those to process & Sunflowerparrot & probably her friend too will want some. I'm hoping to raise a few Royal Palms to sell this year to get back my investment in these. Speaking of nests, Danz what kind of nests do peacocks need? I will need to make a nest for my female peafowl too. I hope I can get another female hatched to replace the one I lost & then maybe sell any extras later on.

HEChicken, the hoop house should work great, my peafowl do very well in theirs. I'm hoping come spring to get the guineas all out of there for the most part so I can get some new peafowl too. I'm still wanting a different color if I can find them & afford them. Anyway, I had planned to build another hoop house & use it for my turkeys, but now it seems the plans have changed & I will be using the hoop house for my broiler chickens & turkeys I plan to process & then use it for rabbits in the winter. I think it will make a good multi-purpose building.

 

[maidenwolfx80]

this morning at 8am the first chick pipped and at 9am it was out. It was one of the EE eggs I had in there. The others are slightly rocking but no pips in them yet. Im excited this is my first hatch.

 

[Chickies-duckies-etc]

Turkey nests ~ One summer, my royal palm turkey hen made a nest in some really tall grass on the house side of the pasture fence. I only found it by following her when she went to the back yard to eat. Even knowing where it was, I could barely see a bit of white when she was on the nest. I waited too long to try to move her to safety and one morning found the nest distroyed, the remains of the eggs strung out into the pasture, and she was in the pasture trying to get back to the rest of the flock. I don't know what could have gotten eggs through/over the fence. I did get some poults by hatching eggs in an incubator. From that one time experience, I would guess they want to be hidden from view.

 

[Trish44]

I found this article & thought it had some good info in it, so I decided to share the link: http://persephonefarm.com/farming-info/natural-nesting-of-heritage-turkeys/

It sounds like I will have to figure out somewhere else to house my ton when the hens are nesting because they will destroy the nest & the eggs. I have read this before also.

 

[michelleml]

I've been letting the 2 surviving chicks out to free range will our older flock is out but they just chase them around. How long will it take before they will let them be. The younger two pullets stay together while to other go off and look for food. I hope everyone had a good day it was a beautiful day here so we got a few things done after church. All the snow is finally gone.

What seed company do you all use this will be our first garden and we have no idea what we are doing so if anyone has any info to share it would be greatly appreciated. I also plan on trying my hand at canning so any help things about which veggies work better would be good.

Thanks