Consolidated Kansas

Hawkeye, I am going to mail those grant forms to you. I called the Bernita, and she is mailing me an entry form for Sedialia.
Cool, thanks! YAY for getting the catalog mailed to you!


hi guys milomac from Wichita retired postal, I've evesdropped on yall for several months, finally ready to join in. I keep 6 LF of different breeds to make a pretty egg carton. I also have have 5 banty amaracauna pullets just laying first eggs and there rumpless rooster. After a while I've been able to figure the main players on this forum and how yoy work. Really I got nuthin letting you know there are more people out here than you realize
WELCOME!! There are several of us in the Wichita area! :)


Not to disagree with Danz, but.,...
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I would say if you are worried, pick everything you can find up. You can get a big magnet on a pole or even on wheels from a home improvement store and go around hunting for metal treasures. I did this after construction on our horse run in and you wouldn't believe all the screws and nails I found! I wouldn't think a bird would be dumb enough to eat a nail but they are. The lady I bought my brahmas from had a friend who lost a very expensive young roo who became ill and died suddenly. She sent him to K State for necropsy and they opened him up and found several nails and screws in his crop that had pierced through and he became septic and died because of it. So freaky things happen.
Lots to do today. Going to pack up the kitchen and haul it down tonight. I have a doctor appt tomorrow for the big jelly bean and then its critter moving weekend!!!

Here are a few pics of the pens/fencing.

This is really phase one of the chicken construction. The big building will be split in half and be two open air coops with runs that will house my layers and orpingtons. Beyond that the tiny coop will have two breeding pens of serama and the last four pens are breeding pens for the sebbies. To the other side of the big coops will eventually be three more smaller pens/open air coops that will house cochins, brahmas and a rooster bachelor pad!!



Looking straight on. There is still a lot of fencing to be hung but it seems to go pretty quickly.


The last section of horse fencing to be put on is just this short area over by the lagoon and their metal run in is in the background.

I saw picture of a necropsy just a couple days ago that was kind of shocking-- they opened up the crop and there were nails and staples and shiny metal pieces in there! I'm assuming that is how the bird died. Your pens are looking great! I also didn't have the full idea when I was out there. I think this looks far better than what I was thinking! VERY nice!!


I have some people scheduled to come get dogs if they show this time for this weekend. I still want to help you move birds. What day do you think you'll be moving them? I could try to work around the people. I have one for Saturday and one for Sunday but maybe I could get them scheduled for the same day. I expected to move 3 dogs last weekend that never showed so I am not too convinced I'm not wasting my time.
I am down to 4 males now and really really tired of taking care of puppies!
I hope you get your pups sold! That is no bueno that people back out. I hate CraigsList for that reason too! If someone calls me and wants to come out and buy a bird, then I expect them to show up when they say they will. I get so angry waiting for someone who is over an hour late (or never shows) when I could have been gone getting errands done or ANYTHING else! I now get pretty firm on the phone and ask people if they are really coming, because I have to get other things done. I've decided if they are late and I need to leave, I'm just going to go ahead and leave. They can just eat that drive out here in gas as far as I'm concerned anymore. I'm sick of inconsiderate people.


Oldest sister gave me some news that kinda upset my apple cart, and I am not in a very good news. WHY, OH WHY, do parents have to be so bull headed!!!
I'm so, so sorry! I sure hope it all gets worked out and smoothed over soon!


So here are some of the pictures, I will start on the outside.

This is the south east corner looking northwest. You can see the windows, and door into my work room. This was left like this so we can park under there if we need to.

Looking west on the east side of the barn.

same spot, just looking southwest.

Looking west thru my east door to the west work room door.

Northwest corner of the barn looking east south east.

West side of barn

South side of barn looking north east.
WOW-- your barn is amazing! I didn't "reply" to the other pictures, but the inside is really neat too! There is a lot of light coming in on that cloudy day! I would be over the moon with happiness if I had that barn! Congrats and can't wait to see how you get it set up!




I spent all afternoon covering the livestock panels on my goat pen with chicken wire & welded wire fence to keep the doelings from getting out of the pen. I took me forever to put all of those cable ties on & I used every single one I had. Hopefully I have it goat proof now, I don't want any escapees. I got the hay & grain feeder put out there & their shelter in place along with some stumps to play on.. All I need to put out there now is something for water. So after we get back from KC next week the new little doelings will be coming here. Then we'll see what my DH thinks of them. I guess he can either like it or lump it at that point because after they're already here there's not much he can do. I can't wait to get them here & get some pics to show you all, they're both cute. Their names are Penny & Patches.
I'm so glad you have the pen ready! The names are adorable too! :)


I took this picture to show the natural light in the barn. All doors are closed. DH plans to haul the dirt in for the floor, there won't be any light coming in below the walls.
I would suggest Stone Screenings instead of dirt! That is what we put on the floor of my horse barn. It holds up better than dirt and eventually packs down really well. It's also cheaper than dirt! The screenings look like crushed rock and it's white. Easy to tamp down and drive over or set things on inside the barn. Just an idea I wanted to pass on! :)



I was tickled today to find 4 midget white turkey eggs instead of just one ...or none. Maybe the girls are finally getting with it. I saw the boys doing the back stand yesterday several times, and HeChicken I do think they breed through their feet!!! Those poor girls were squealing. They weren't at all happy about the whole thing.
Today my Eastern Tom was putting on a show that I had never seen him do before. He was just absolutely beautiful strutting his stuff with his wings down and puffed up to three times his normal size. I just finalized a deal to sell my Easterns today and it almost made me change my mind.
I have almost 2 years vested in this quad of birds and now I am selling them when they are finally ready to breed. It's kind of sad but I love the domestics, so I'd rather use the pen space for them.
My peacocks were really putting on shows today too. It's like all of a sudden all the birds think it is spring.
I tried hatching for Easter the last two years and it was pretty much a let down for me. I realized that most people that buy for Easter only buy one or two chickens or ducks. And they aren't going to drive all the way out here to get them. Now if I lived in town or lived in Wichita or Topeka or someplace I would be hatching tons.
I do need to get started hatching ducks though because I an sell them all spring and summer by the hundreds.
Sounds like Spring is in the air! Hope you get more turkey eggs!



This is the front of my coop showing the new pens. They're not perfect, but I did the best I could with what I had & no help. We never got the plexiglass for the windows, so I just ended up for now putting plastic on the inside of the windows. I may do something different with them later on, I don't know. After we messed up on measuring the openings & the other windows didn't work that just kind of threw me.


Here's the back showing my doors into each room. I forgot to move the wheelbarrow with the windows I was taking to the shed.


This is just a shot of the north side showing my windows we put in. They're going to be nice this summer to get a breeze through the whole coop.
I'll have to take some pics of the inside tomorrow when it's lighter out so you can see how I left the top half all open to get circulation through. The birds can see each other when they're on their roosts, but can't get to each other. The outside will be painted when it's warm enough to paint.
This is just beautiful! I love this! You did a really great job! I would love to have something just like it! I can see what you mean with the cross breeze. On those openings in the front-- can you just get plexi glass or luan cut down to size and get it put in there?



I need some help. A banty hen got ahold of some yarn and started eating it. Started in the middle so there were two ends coming out of her mouth. Reasonable force is not budging it, I cut one end offf thinking it might pull through/out better. It is not budging. I have no idea how much she has swallowed. there is "something" in her crop but it could be food also. What do I do now? She is a bit wild and not easy to handle.
Oh no! I'm so sorry! I have no idea how to help! Hopefully someone will have a better idea.
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I hope you don't have to do crop surgery! I've read about it many times and seems scary!


So I'll try to post pics later, but for now need to run. We went out to a large poultry farm/operation and it was SO much fun!! I brought home 4 little two-week old heritage barred rocks. They look NOTHING like my hatchery barred rocks! I can't hardly believe the difference! The barring on them is not the same at all! And the combs are different! And of course, my birds have grey legs and these are BRIGHT YELLOW! Oh-- and the main difference are that these heritage birds are the size of small dogs! LOL They are HUGE!!!!! My barred rocks are seriously half that size! So my little chicks are going to be monster birds!
 
Hawkeye, you're doing better than me - I still need to download my photos - I bet you took better pics than I did anyway.

Oh, Trish, I meant to say the same as Hawkeye, about getting the plexiglass cut to size. I believe most of the hardware stores will cut it for you in store so if you know the dimensions you need, you can have them cut it and then just bring it home and install it. Some stores do the cuts for free and others charge $1 per cut so either way its not that bad. Plexiglass has come way down in price too - I remember a couple of decades ago it was much pricier than it is today. Another option is to go to a glass store and ask to buy their remnants. I have a friend whose husband has owned his own glass store for all their adult lives and that is their livelihood. We actually became friends because I used to go in there all the time to buy their remnants for home-made picture frames (i.e., I used to make the frames myself so needed small pieces of glass to go in them). They charged me next to nothing because they were remnants left over from larger glass jobs, that they would otherwise never be able to use for anything. Your windows are bigger than a picture frame so they might not have remnants that would be big enough, but it doesn't hurt to ask. Even if you have to buy a whole sheet of glass and have them cut it to the four dimensions you need, it might still be cheaper than plexiglass. If you install it using those things they use to install mirrors in a bathroom, you can just take them down altogether in the warm months and if the openings are covered in hardware cloth, they will be secure but let in the light. Then it will be a snap to put the sheet of glass back up when the weather turns cold again.

Chickies - how is your bantam doing? You are right to be concerned about her. Not to be too gloomy but when I worked as a vet tech, the worst issue we ever had of a dog swallowing a foreign object was one who swallowed some string. His intestines tried to "climb" the string so instead of just being passed through the body and out the other end, it caused him extreme pain as his insides got all knotted up in it. It was a mammoth surgery to try to remove it all too and I'm not sure the dog made it in the end. Chickens are different in that they have the crop for food to go to be initially digested and its possible the stones and grit in there will break up the yarn into shorter, passable lengths, but I would certainly be worried about it trying to pass through the body. On the other hand, you don't want to open her up and do crop surgery if it turns out it wasn't necessary.
 
Checoukan that is so awesome. I found a couple of emoticons. Here is envious!


I was tickled today to find 4 midget white turkey eggs instead of just one ...or none. Maybe the girls are finally getting with it. I saw the boys doing the back stand yesterday several times, and HeChicken I do think they breed through their feet!!! Those poor girls were squealing. They weren't at all happy about the whole thing.
Today my Eastern Tom was putting on a show that I had never seen him do before. He was just absolutely beautiful strutting his stuff with his wings down and puffed up to three times his normal size. I just finalized a deal to sell my Easterns today and it almost made me change my mind.
I have almost 2 years vested in this quad of birds and now I am selling them when they are finally ready to breed. It's kind of sad but I love the domestics, so I'd rather use the pen space for them.
My peacocks were really putting on shows today too. It's like all of a sudden all the birds think it is spring.
I tried hatching for Easter the last two years and it was pretty much a let down for me. I realized that most people that buy for Easter only buy one or two chickens or ducks. And they aren't going to drive all the way out here to get them. Now if I lived in town or lived in Wichita or Topeka or someplace I would be hatching tons.
I do need to get started hatching ducks though because I an sell them all spring and summer by the hundreds.

chicken danz... our hatch is almost complete.. maybe one or two more will hatch.. we will see.. got 10 out of 13 lavendars and 15 out of 18 lemon cuckoos to hatch.. sure made it worth it to drive up to you.. i think it made a huge difference
 
Trish~~ I love the job you have done on you pens. Some times I wish I had something like that for my grow outs, but not gonna happen, yet!
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Chickies~~~ I don't know, how much did she swallow? I would think you should be able to pull the yarn back out, I should only be in her crop right now. Unless she has a whole bunch and it has already moved to the gizzard. If its been awhile, you will not get it out...If she has plenty of grit in her gizzard, I would think the fibers would be ground up, and pass with no problem. Just going to take awhile.
 
have little kids today so will be stuck to the house. I to would cut yarn as close as possible and hope for the best, yarn is hard to break so expect it to make the trip in one piece.. Am selling ducks for a friend so placed ad on craigslist expected phone to be busy but nothing yet
 
As far as selling birds goes, yes you want to get your moneys worth but factoring in everything down to bedding and shelter for your flock is well, kind of much. You pay for what you get and of course you want to make sure you get good product. I spent $7 for some of my heritage breed turkeys last year and $11 for a couple that were about 3 months. They have been healthy and strong ever since.

I am working on those pics for my banty lovers to help me identify my little ones.. I have at least 4 crowers so far eeeekkkkkk!!!!!
 
Okay, I've had a chance to download some pictures from my camera to go along with Hawkeye's. Here is the inside of the same barn of which she posted an outside picture. What was fascinating to us is that the people door on each poultry barn was wide open but very few birds chose to go outside, even when the inside was crowded with birds. We compared notes on the way home and with our own small flocks we find that they prefer to be outside in all but REALLY inclement weather. My birds go in and out all day to eat and lay their eggs but I would guess each one spends about 90% of the day on average, outside. In addition to the ones who had access to the outdoors via the people door, the internal pens had pop doors leading out to a run. We didn't walk around the back to see the runs but based on the number of birds inside, I would guess that there weren't that many in their outdoor runs at any given time.



Here is the barred rock pen, showing the roosts in the corner. You can also see part of the automated feeder system in the lower right corner. I think there is a better pic of it later, and Hawkeye took a really good one of it that she can post later, I hope.


Here is looking from the barred rock pen to the Jersey Giants. You can see the feeder system a little better in this pic. We could hear the motor click on about every 5-10 minutes delivering feed down the entire length of the barn. I took this photo to try to see the head rooster for this pen. Unfortunately the automatic focus on this lens quit working a month ago and I haven't had a chance to replace it yet. However hopefully you can get an idea of what Hawkeye was talking about on the size of these birds - they are huge. I got a BR cockerel and pullet who are 16-17 weeks of age, and although they are not quite done growing yet, they are already the largest birds I currently have in my flock.


Here is a hen on her own, showing the clean barring the Good Shepherd birds are known for. As Frank explained it, a good barred rock should look like someone held a white bird and drew black rings around it. In other words, the barring on each feather should line up with the barring on the next feather to create a "line", versus each feather being independently barred. I looked closely at my new cockerel this morning and I am very pleased with his barring.


Here I was trying to get a picture of the JG rooster for this pen but he proved quite elusive and made for the pop door when I pointed the camera at him.


This was another attempt at the rooster...without other birds in the pic for comparison, these don't look as big as they did in "real life".



And now for something different. My EE hen, Suzette, has been renamed "Poor Suzette" after laying the biggest egg I've ever seen a couple of days ago. I've had double yolkers before, but this egg is in a class all its own. I know pictures of eggs rarely show their size as well as when you are holding it in your hand, but I did my best. I weighed this egg and it is 106g, or 3 3/4 oz. I haven't cracked it open yet as DD and DS both said they want to be there when I do. I've also considered hard-boiling it (for about 30 minutes LOL) - it would make a meal all on its own. To my amazement, not only did Poor Suzette not seem to suffer any ill effects after this, but by 9am the following morning she was back on the nest and laid a - thankfully normal sized - egg. I expected her to take a day or two or three off after this mammoth effort. I put the egg in a circle with some other eggs collected that same day. Note that the Marans egg is an extra large egg.

 
Trish~~ I love the job you have done on you pens. Some times I wish I had something like that for my grow outs, but not gonna happen, yet!
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Chickies~~~ I don't know, how much did she swallow? I would think you should be able to pull the yarn back out, I should only be in her crop right now. Unless she has a whole bunch and it has already moved to the gizzard. If its been awhile, you will not get it out...If she has plenty of grit in her gizzard, I would think the fibers would be ground up, and pass with no problem. Just going to take awhile.
It feels like there could be a far sized wad in her crop along with some food. I have pulled on it several times with what I think is reasonable force. It will come out a couple of inches and them go back. She does not like to be handled, so fights everything. I am thinking I may not have a choice but to cut it and hope for the best. Once I cut it off, there is no chance at all to pull it out.
 

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