Consolidated Kansas

[cherwill]

Chicken feet!!

Things have been rough here this week. Realized Sunday morning I have cocci in one coop. With all the rain we were getting I couldn't keep things dry inside even though we were changing the bedding more often than we ever have before. I have already had a fox get two of my SFH this year and so haven't been letting the chickens out as much but decided to let them out this evening when I got home. I asked my daughter to go lock them up around 8 but I guess they were still outside so she didn't get them locked up and then I started hearing the chickens squacking and I look out my bedroom window to see a fox about 10 feet away in my driveway with a BR in its mouth! I start yelling and waving my arms and it dropped it and ran to the edge of the corn field to the north and stood there and watched me while I'm shouting at my husband to GET THE GUN!!! IT WAS STILL LIGHT, MY KIDS WERE RUNNING IN AND OUT OF THE HOUSE! That is one brave fox. We think she had a den in my neighbors barn. And besides all that, I lost a cochin chick yesterday. I think it's a calgon kinda day.

What a horrible day. I hope tomorrow's better, and I hope the cocci can be cleared up quickly.

 

[TheDownyChick]

I hate thistles. Grr. They are taking over! I cut them down, but how do I get rid of them? Ugh.

I injured myself yet again while working on the hoop coop. The cattle panel just jumped up and stabbed me in the ankle, out of the blue! Ok, I was flipping it, and it attacked me! It hit my ankle that I broke several years ago, right in the spot where there is a metal pin. Gosh, I am talented! Lol! Anyway, it is swollen and sore. Anything for my beloved chickies, man!!

 

[TheDownyChick]

Ivyrash, I am not much help in the advice department, but I sure hope it passes quickly without long term harm, and that all your chickens fully recover!

We have a neighbor who feeds a couple of foxes who have gotten quite brave. Several times I have seen a fox stalking our yard from the road, or running from the yard into the woods or the field. It is like they know I am going to have chickens and are waiting for the buffet! That is why I am building my hoop coop to be an electrified Fort Knox of chickendom! I hope it works and the foxes give up!

 

[ivyrash]

Ivyrash, I am not much help in the advice department, but I sure hope it passes quickly without long term harm, and that all your chickens fully recover!

We have a neighbor who feeds a couple of foxes who have gotten quite brave. Several times I have seen a fox stalking our yard from the road, or running from the yard into the woods or the field. It is like they know I am going to have chickens and are waiting for the buffet! That is why I am building my hoop coop to be an electrified Fort Knox of chickendom! I hope it works and the foxes give up!

I hope it works for you, they are sneaky little devils. I feel like I can't free range my chickens without sitting out there with a gun, that's just sad.

 

[HEChicken]

Things have been rough here this week. Realized Sunday morning I have cocci in one coop. With all the rain we were getting I couldn't keep things dry inside even though we were changing the bedding more often than we ever have before. I have already had a fox get two of my SFH this year and so haven't been letting the chickens out as much but decided to let them out this evening when I got home. I asked my daughter to go lock them up around 8 but I guess they were still outside so she didn't get them locked up and then I started hearing the chickens squacking and I look out my bedroom window to see a fox about 10 feet away in my driveway with a BR in its mouth! I start yelling and waving my arms and it dropped it and ran to the edge of the corn field to the north and stood there and watched me while I'm shouting at my husband to GET THE GUN!!! IT WAS STILL LIGHT, MY KIDS WERE RUNNING IN AND OUT OF THE HOUSE! That is one brave fox. We think she had a den in my neighbors barn. And besides all that, I lost a cochin chick yesterday. I think it's a calgon kinda day.

So the chickens have been on corid since Sunday but one rooster has still got bloody stools, any suggestions on what else to do? He is still eating and drinking and looks ok overall but I'm sure he feels rough. Also, how long after treatment do we need to throw the eggs away?

Sorry about your rough week. So did your DH get the fox? I don't know the answer on the Corrid treatment, but with most medications it is 10 days to 2 weeks after you stop treatment, so I would wait 2 weeks if I were you, just to be safe.

We have a neighbor who feeds a couple of foxes who have gotten quite brave. Several times I have seen a fox stalking our yard from the road, or running from the yard into the woods or the field. It is like they know I am going to have chickens and are waiting for the buffet! That is why I am building my hoop coop to be an electrified Fort Knox of chickendom! I hope it works and the foxes give up!

Doesn't that make you mad? After I shot my fox last year, we went over to talk to the neighbors and they were kind of like "Ohhhh.....you killed our fox?" like I'd done a bad thing. I guess that is something that I can't get used to in America, that people think of foxes as "cute". Where I grew up, they were our only lethal predator - we don't have raccoons or coyotes or anything else, so as a poultry keeper, foxes were the only animal we had to fear. I grew up thinking about them the way most people here think of raccoons and could not imagine trying to make a pet out of one.

I have the cutest little family going down in the hoop coop. The Mama duck has her 4 ducklings, but I also had a chicken hen go broody and had put her in the hoop coop but didn't give her any eggs. She is a very young pullet - only hatched mid-October last year, so when she went broody at the end of April, I thought she was much too young and wouldn't take it seriously, so I didn't even give her eggs. I should have known she'd be a good broody as her biological mother brooded well last spring and is now broody again. But, at the time I figured she'd sit for a week or two and then get sick of it, so no eggs for her. Well, without eggs of her own, she joined the duck in the dog house and stole about half of her eggs and sat on them really faithfully, even though all told she probably sat about a month. Well, now that the ducklings have hatched, the two of them are co-parenting. It is really cute to watch. The ducklings really prefer to be under Mama Chicken, since she will patiently sit as long as they want to snuggle under her. But they look to Mama Duck to show them the food and water. There don't seem to be any issues between the two Mamas - the Mama Duck is even grooming Mama Hen while she sits and warms the babies. The only issue I've seen was last night Mama Duck was content to sit down and sleep where she happened to be standing at the time. Meanwhile, Mama Chicken was pretty sure you're supposed to return to the "coop" to sleep at night, so wanted to go back to the dog house. She kept going to the doghouse and calling the ducklings and they weren't sure which Mama to listen to, so just stayed with the duck. I left them to it and in the end I guess they got it figured out. I need to get out there and take some pictures of them all.

Okay all, I am looking for some advice. I've had multiple roosters here at the same time with no issues, but mostly they were either raised together, or in one instance I had a mature male join the flock while all others were still young cockerels, so didn't challenge him. Now I have a different situation.

I have my Reese BR cockerel who is now about 7 months old, a decent size, and doing a great job as a flock leader. My plan had always been to add a German New Hamp rooster, fully mature, in the fall. Well, the NH came available a little early so I got him on Friday. I started out with him in a separate pen, but over the weekend, I decided to let him out, and that's when the trouble started. The two of them got into it, and at first I let them go at it, figuring that is the only way they will figure out the pecking order. I.e., one has to be beaten into submission in order to accept the other as "alpha", and then they will get along. Unfortunately, it ended up not feeling like a fair fight. The NH is big but the BR is bigger, plus it is the BR's turf and the NH is the new kid on the block. So he was being beaten up pretty badly and I could tell he was starting to get exhausted, so I grabbed him and put him back in his pen. I left him there for a few days to recover and hoped that interacting through the fence would help to calm things down the next time I tried putting them together.

Yesterday I tried letting him out again and nothing has changed. I really, REALLY want both of these guys and I'd rather not have to always have one segregated, as in winter I like to have one coop of birds so that they all keep each other warm, and I only have one feeder and waterer to worry about on those bitterly cold days when it hurts to be outside. But now I'm concerned I'm never going to get these guys integrated successfully. Does anyone have experience with bringing in a new mature male and having him accepted by the original?

 

[chicken danz]

Have I ever told you guys that I really don't like snakes?!?

Well, my possibly fertile eggs are in the incubator (thanks Danz) and the turner is keeping them moving.

The great experiment is off and running. Butch is a little better today (not much better, but he got up on the roost to sleep by himself tonight), but I'm hoping for a Lil' Butch out of this hatch. If very many actually are fertile and hatch, I'll be in trouble for space, but oh, well. That's chicken math for you. My DH says either they will all (18) hatch, or none of them will hatch, and I suspect he is right (to a degree).

Wish me luck.

I wish you at least 18 healthy big robust chicks!!! Maybe your DH needs to get started on a new coop!!!
Quote:

Things have been rough here this week. Realized Sunday morning I have cocci in one coop. With all the rain we were getting I couldn't keep things dry inside even though we were changing the bedding more often than we ever have before. I have already had a fox get two of my SFH this year and so haven't been letting the chickens out as much but decided to let them out this evening when I got home. I asked my daughter to go lock them up around 8 but I guess they were still outside so she didn't get them locked up and then I started hearing the chickens squacking and I look out my bedroom window to see a fox about 10 feet away in my driveway with a BR in its mouth! I start yelling and waving my arms and it dropped it and ran to the edge of the corn field to the north and stood there and watched me while I'm shouting at my husband to GET THE GUN!!! IT WAS STILL LIGHT, MY KIDS WERE RUNNING IN AND OUT OF THE HOUSE! That is one brave fox. We think she had a den in my neighbors barn. And besides all that, I lost a cochin chick yesterday. I think it's a calgon kinda day.

So the chickens have been on corid since Sunday but one rooster has still got bloody stools, any suggestions on what else to do? He is still eating and drinking and looks ok overall but I'm sure he feels rough. Also, how long after treatment do we need to throw the eggs away?

So sorry about your week! Corid is a 5 day treatment program so keep treating. If your rooster doesn't improve you might want to separate him and treat him alone with a slightly stronger solution. There is only a 24 hour waiting period on meat so I would think a couple days would be sufficient on eggs. Just my assumption.

I hate thistles. Grr. They are taking over! I cut them down, but how do I get rid of them? Ugh.

I injured myself yet again while working on the hoop coop. The cattle panel just jumped up and stabbed me in the ankle, out of the blue! Ok, I was flipping it, and it attacked me! It hit my ankle that I broke several years ago, right in the spot where there is a metal pin. Gosh, I am talented! Lol! Anyway, it is swollen and sore. Anything for my beloved chickies, man!!

My son worked for the extension service for a while. Spray them with a high percentage roundup (for perennials) . If they are big thistles from previous years you have to cut the root itself and drench it in roundup.

Doesn't that make you mad? After I shot my fox last year, we went over to talk to the neighbors and they were kind of like "Ohhhh.....you killed our fox?" like I'd done a bad thing. I guess that is something that I can't get used to in America, that people think of foxes as "cute". Where I grew up, they were our only lethal predator - we don't have raccoons or coyotes or anything else, so as a poultry keeper, foxes were the only animal we had to fear. I grew up thinking about them the way most people here think of raccoons and could not imagine trying to make a pet out of one.
I had one I used to feed in town. She was sweet and played with my cats. She came in every spring to have her kits. I didn't have birds then though. Now I would shoot one on sight. Perspectives change as our life styles do. However when the fox was around we never had any issues with mice, or squirrels or rabbits eating our vegetation or getting in our homes in the neighborhood.
I have the cutest little family going down in the hoop coop.
How sweet! Take those pictures!

Okay all, I am looking for some advice. I've had multiple roosters here at the same time with no issues, but mostly they were either raised together, or in one instance I had a mature male join the flock while all others were still young cockerels, so didn't challenge him. Now I have a different situation.

Heather I had the same situation here when I brought in my Orpingtons, Reese BR rooster, and my Reese and Deerfield Hamp roos. I had always had rooster that coexisted. I ordered a hundred pinless peepers. I haven't used them yet but I figure I need back up roosters for my breeders and they need to coexist. I hope to be able to pen them together at some point. That is what I am going to try first. Since I brought in outside roosters now some of the ones that have been around each other for years peacefully have started bickering. I am hoping the peepers work. I found it comical since I ordered peepers for roosters and pheasant boys that they sent me all hot pink ones!!!

Yesterday I completed putting the floor in the double hoop coop. Never again. Using those big old heavy boards from the old barn wood wore me out. They are so heavy and I have multiple splinters now from handling them. Wish I had a planer so I could have smoother the outsides. Anyway the floor will stay whether the rest of the hoop blows away or not!! It weighs a ton. I drug a roll of wire out of the barn to use for the ends and the divider in the middle but ran out of time to start cutting and installing it. It is raining here today so I'm not rushing out there to get back to work on it.
I got my new 100% English Orp chicks this morning picked up at the post office. They arrived in wonderful health. Much better than the last bunch. I am thrilled. I even have a couple of barred chicks so my breeding plan is in place....assuming they all survive. They are in my kitchen filling their fluffy little tummies right now before they get exiled out to the brooder house.
I put a brisket in yesterday afternoon to slow cook. It's been in there about 20 hours now. That stuff better be tender. I don't have a smoker but DH loves brisket so I am just slow roasting it. I made my own rub and it does smell really good. I guess we'll see how it turns out.

 

[JosieChick]

Sorry about the fox, that is quite brazen!!

Things have been rough here this week. Realized Sunday morning I have cocci in one coop. With all the rain we were getting I couldn't keep things dry inside even though we were changing the bedding more often than we ever have before. I have already had a fox get two of my SFH this year and so haven't been letting the chickens out as much but decided to let them out this evening when I got home. I asked my daughter to go lock them up around 8 but I guess they were still outside so she didn't get them locked up and then I started hearing the chickens squacking and I look out my bedroom window to see a fox about 10 feet away in my driveway with a BR in its mouth! I start yelling and waving my arms and it dropped it and ran to the edge of the corn field to the north and stood there and watched me while I'm shouting at my husband to GET THE GUN!!! IT WAS STILL LIGHT, MY KIDS WERE RUNNING IN AND OUT OF THE HOUSE! That is one brave fox. We think she had a den in my neighbors barn. And besides all that, I lost a cochin chick yesterday. I think it's a calgon kinda day.

I hate thistles. Grr. They are taking over! I cut them down, but how do I get rid of them? Ugh.

I injured myself yet again while working on the hoop coop. The cattle panel just jumped up and stabbed me in the ankle, out of the blue! Ok, I was flipping it, and it attacked me! It hit my ankle that I broke several years ago, right in the spot where there is a metal pin. Gosh, I am talented! Lol! Anyway, it is swollen and sore. Anything for my beloved chickies, man!!

Cute!! Can't wait to see pics!!! I was thinking about letting some of my orp girls set some call duck eggs and DH laughed and said if they hatched those poor hens would just be beside themselves when the ducklings jump into the water!

I have not had good luck introducing adult roos to each other. If they grow up together they seem to get along ok most of the time. In my experience if they fight like that to begin with they will never get along. I had two cochins who got into it and almost killed each other (it was a accident that one managed to get into the others pen. The only thing I can think to try might be to separate them both from the flock (out of sight if possible) and try penning them together with no girls around to "protect" and then reintroduce them to both at the same time to the flock? Some boys are just too stupid for their own good and will pick a fight with a much larger roo and get themselves really torn up or worse. I had a serama roo that got into the cochin pen and picked a fight with my mille fleur roo (not a guy you want to mess with) and really got the tar kicked out of himself. Sometimes I hate roos....

I have the cutest little family going down in the hoop coop. The Mama duck has her 4 ducklings, but I also had a chicken hen go broody and had put her in the hoop coop but didn't give her any eggs. She is a very young pullet - only hatched mid-October last year, so when she went broody at the end of April, I thought she was much too young and wouldn't take it seriously, so I didn't even give her eggs. I should have known she'd be a good broody as her biological mother brooded well last spring and is now broody again. But, at the time I figured she'd sit for a week or two and then get sick of it, so no eggs for her. Well, without eggs of her own, she joined the duck in the dog house and stole about half of her eggs and sat on them really faithfully, even though all told she probably sat about a month. Well, now that the ducklings have hatched, the two of them are co-parenting. It is really cute to watch. The ducklings really prefer to be under Mama Chicken, since she will patiently sit as long as they want to snuggle under her. But they look to Mama Duck to show them the food and water. There don't seem to be any issues between the two Mamas - the Mama Duck is even grooming Mama Hen while she sits and warms the babies. The only issue I've seen was last night Mama Duck was content to sit down and sleep where she happened to be standing at the time. Meanwhile, Mama Chicken was pretty sure you're supposed to return to the "coop" to sleep at night, so wanted to go back to the dog house. She kept going to the doghouse and calling the ducklings and they weren't sure which Mama to listen to, so just stayed with the duck. I left them to it and in the end I guess they got it figured out. I need to get out there and take some pictures of them all.

Okay all, I am looking for some advice. I've had multiple roosters here at the same time with no issues, but mostly they were either raised together, or in one instance I had a mature male join the flock while all others were still young cockerels, so didn't challenge him. Now I have a different situation.

I have my Reese BR cockerel who is now about 7 months old, a decent size, and doing a great job as a flock leader. My plan had always been to add a German New Hamp rooster, fully mature, in the fall. Well, the NH came available a little early so I got him on Friday. I started out with him in a separate pen, but over the weekend, I decided to let him out, and that's when the trouble started. The two of them got into it, and at first I let them go at it, figuring that is the only way they will figure out the pecking order. I.e., one has to be beaten into submission in order to accept the other as "alpha", and then they will get along. Unfortunately, it ended up not feeling like a fair fight. The NH is big but the BR is bigger, plus it is the BR's turf and the NH is the new kid on the block. So he was being beaten up pretty badly and I could tell he was starting to get exhausted, so I grabbed him and put him back in his pen. I left him there for a few days to recover and hoped that interacting through the fence would help to calm things down the next time I tried putting them together.

Yesterday I tried letting him out again and nothing has changed. I really, REALLY want both of these guys and I'd rather not have to always have one segregated, as in winter I like to have one coop of birds so that they all keep each other warm, and I only have one feeder and waterer to worry about on those bitterly cold days when it hurts to be outside. But now I'm concerned I'm never going to get these guys integrated successfully. Does anyone have experience with bringing in a new mature male and having him accepted by the original?

Glad your babies made it!

Yesterday I completed putting the floor in the double hoop coop. Never again. Using those big old heavy boards from the old barn wood wore me out. They are so heavy and I have multiple splinters now from handling them. Wish I had a planer so I could have smoother the outsides. Anyway the floor will stay whether the rest of the hoop blows away or not!! It weighs a ton. I drug a roll of wire out of the barn to use for the ends and the divider in the middle but ran out of time to start cutting and installing it. It is raining here today so I'm not rushing out there to get back to work on it.
I got my new 100% English Orp chicks this morning picked up at the post office. They arrived in wonderful health. Much better than the last bunch. I am thrilled. I even have a couple of barred chicks so my breeding plan is in place....assuming they all survive. They are in my kitchen filling their fluffy little tummies right now before they get exiled out to the brooder house.
I put a brisket in yesterday afternoon to slow cook. It's been in there about 20 hours now. That stuff better be tender. I don't have a smoker but DH loves brisket so I am just slow roasting it. I made my own rub and it does smell really good. I guess we'll see how it turns out.

So I had to take the baby geese away from their parents. I hated to do it but they kept squeezing under the fence and I was terrified something would get them. One of them got stuck between the fence and the water tub and it's poor little leg was all twisted. It is ok now but I think it would have struggled to get out until it died behind the tub. They are not happy that I have abducted them and poor momma goose has been hollering for them. I let the geese out to free range thinking it would take their minds off the babies but she just came up to the porch door and hollered to the babies all yesterday afternoon.

 

[maidenwolfx80]

I have more roosters that need to go to new homes. I have way too many. I guess I should learn to vent sex I don't want to butcher ones I have played with and named and spent time being momma hen to. Now when I have birds specifically for butcher its no problem, but I cant butcher one that comes and lays on my lap and cuddles me. Oh the joy of raising chickens lol. I need to get a pic of my turkey poult up. hoping for a girl she is so sweet and just wants nothing more than to be in your company. I m looking to buy a couple guinea, never have raised guinea before, what can you all tell me about them?

 

[lizzyGSR]

I hate thistles. Grr. They are taking over! I cut them down, but how do I get rid of them? Ugh.

My parents used to have a bad problem with thistles. They'd make us girls go out for an hour a day to cut thistles. If they had flowers on them, we'd pull the flowers off and put them in an empty dog food bag. When the bag was full, my dad would burn it.

Lizzy you crack me up!! I have an acquaintance that is so scared of snakes he turns white in the face and trembles just seeing a picture of one. I could picture you doing the same thing! LOL

I'm not quite that bad... However, the thing that scares me most about snakes is that we've got poisonous ones out here. I'm especially scared this year since I'm pregnant and the doctors have warned me of the dangers of encountering an ill-tempered rattlesnake. It also doesn't help that we seem to be in "snake alley" - all the snakes seem to congregate in our little valley.

 

[cubbysan]

Hi Everybody!

I wish it would stop raining. My duck house and coop were finally all cleaned up, dry and smelling as nice as a duck pen could smell, and the rain has come back!

Last Friday morning I experienced flash flooding for the first time. I had to drive my kids to class and every road I took was flooded. Finally I found a road that was passable. When I got to the highway, all the cars were driving in the wrong direction. They all had to turn around.

A friend of mine lost her car in it. She drove through the puddle and her car stalled, next thing she knew the water was coming into her car up to the dashboard. She and her daughter had to climb out the windows.

My husband just finished helping my neighbors build a coop. They took their old wooden swingset that the kids had outgrown and turned it into a duplex. Where the slide and fort were, the bottom become a duck coop with attached pen, and the top became a chicken coop with its own attached pen. If people have any abandoned swing sets in their backyard, I just wanted to throw out that idea. Not sure if it is a common thing or not.

My babies are all growing up, I really need to get them outside, but I need to get rid of another rooster first. Out of the babies, I have a at least five crowing. Hoping because they are all bantam breeds, they will keep their sweet temperment.