Consolidated Kansas

[22qZoo]

Ralph Moyer- now you can just smoke a chicken.
I did some snooping on the internets and saw several of the 2 liter bottle recipes . I think I'm gonna hang the vanilla trees in the coop and put the bottle traps outside. I am thinking that the chicken area already has a lot of "stuff"in there to attract the flies maybe this can cut down the population.
Sounds like one more day of hot stuff and then back to more reasonable temps ,hang in there &stay cool.

 

[Trish44]

Eggggzactly!

The world needs more toads....lol

Yep Rooster, I agree, I love toads & frogs. I haven't seen but a couple here lately but I think my dogs get them. I wish they would leave them alone, but I have seen my GP "playing" with them & she plays too rough. I have seen the cats catching frogs too, we have them in the lagoon & in my pond. I hate seeing them catch those frogs! I put up those sticky fly strips in the coop & in my garage because I have a lot of flies in those places. They get stuck on there & can't get off then you just take them down & put up a new one. You just have to make sure you hang them where you don't get stuck on it yourself.

Wow today was a really hot one & tomorrow is going to be even worse. I had to break out the frozen bottles of water for the rabbits today & spray down the chicks in the pens to cool them off, they were really suffering. They seemed to feel better after their shower. I do that with the rabbits too in the hottest part of the day, I just spray them down & give them a shower. They're all in the shade, but when it's so darned hot & there is no breeze at all like today it's just miserable for anything living out there. I'm going to have to bring my chicks in the brooder back in the house, it's just too darned hot in that garage. Even the little guineas in there were panting today with the fan on. It's either been too cold this year or now too hot for them to stay in the garage. There has been only a short time when it was really optimal for them out there.

 

[sunflowerparrot]

Skinned a few chickens yesterday just to see what that is all about versus the chicken plucker - it was really simple! Cleanup is a breeze too.. I think I'm going to start skinning 1/2 of my birds from now on - they'll be great in the crock pot. I also did my first kill yesterday. I've never actually been the person to kill the birds.. I killed about 4 of them. (We put them in a cone and slit their arteries in the neck and let them bleed out). I was surprised that it was really easy and didn't bother me at all. I know these birds are raised for eggs or meat and that is their only purpose here. I think that made it a little easier to complete their life cycle.

Hope everyone is staying cool out there.. I put up a sprinkler and my little turkeys love to sit under the spray - they are so cute and run around the yard (the ducks and geese are afraid of them!)

 

[jhammett]

Havent been on in awhile... Teaching Summer school is more demanding than the regular session believe it or not. Barely had time to feed the chickens. Of course I have also added 6 pigs to the little farm. Any how My girls hatched out of February 24th and so I feel that I may be getting close to EGGS. I have placed ceramic eggs in the nesting boxes to hopefully encourage them as to where to lay. They are free range during the day but are faithful to return to their coop every night. And( knock on wood) I HAVE NOT LOST ONE BIRD. Hope things are going well for you all also. I am feeding layer feed in the evenings but just once a day all day they are on their own i fill one 3 foot feeder with layer each evening about 3 to 5 pounds of feed for 20 birds (is that enough)?

 

[chicken danz]

Yesterday was awful. I was outside working all day in that heat and it was overpowering. I spent most of my day trying to get birds cooled down. I still lost at least three of them. I lost my lemon cuckoo rooster and another one of the big hens. That house sits where there is no shade and it just gets entirely too hot even with a fan going for those big fluffy bodied birds. And I lost a white rock hen. She was sitting in a nest box in the hen house. I had gotten a screen door on the Swedish Flower house but not one on the orpington house yet. It was nearly made.. just not hung. When I found them they were all in trouble so I took a bag of ice and put it in a trash can lid full of water and sat the birds in it. Luckily the others recovered. Later in the evening we got the screen door in so the air flow will be better on those still and hot days. I also hung hinges on my make shift door to the brooder house and so it now has better air flow as well.
I took down half of one pen and used two panels plus a couple more and a gate panel I took from the Swedish Flower hens pen (I had it divided) and built a pen for my older chicks so I could slim down those in the brooder. I got DH to move over the camper topper shelter with the tractor so now they have a shelter. I only had one hen sleeping in there these days so it was good timing to move it. They don't have a floor but it is at least shelter for now. I was out until 9:30 putting netting on the top and then I moved them right before dark. I need to get some larger feed bowls and waterers for in there today. Where I set it up there is some shade off and on throughout the day so I think they'll be okay temp wise.
I started cutting 55 gallon plastic barrels and made some pans for the birds to stand in to cool themselves. So far no one has used them but I am sure they will when they figure out they can cool down in them. I need to cut several more. It's cheaper than buying smaller black pans and they stay cooler. I hate to use the barrels but it's better than loosing even more birds.
I need to pull out my misting kits and see what I can rig up to stretch a distance. I had 2 liter pop bottles I kept in the freezer last year and put them in their water but DH has started buying the 6 pack or whatever of smaller containers now. I don't drink pop at all so I can't contribute to the bottle collection. I just threw out all of my old ones a while back cause they were taking space in the freezer.

 

[michelleml]

I haven't been on in a while and need to catch up on post 427 pages behind. I've been very busy and stressed out

. DH last day in active duty is tomorrow he will be medically retired which is good but they told us that it could take 90-120 days before he gets retirement pay which has stressed us both out. So started a night job and walmart but he can't keep doing it it's just taken too much out of him. I've started looking for work but with daycare cost i think my whole paycheck will go to daycare price i got for 2 kids was 1000 a month. He finished his chemo and radiation last friday but will have to start chemo up again next month. He is doing so good this time around very tired and has been in pain so im taking him back in today to see whats going on. I sorry that im writing this here i just don't have family close and my friend here in Kansas is 2 hrs away which they have helped us so much already. I just needed to vent. Please keep us in your prayers
Thank you.

I almost for got i have a 12 wk pullet that has sour crop any one have any cures for me?

 

[ivyrash]

The temps are staying pretty reasonable here this morning. I guess we are getting some off the cooler winds from the storms up towards Nebraska. Went out this morning and cleaned out the coop and moved the furnature in there around. There are too many birds in there right now with the chicks we just moved out but the adults are all free ranging during the day so that helps. I've got chicks pipping in the incubator downstairs which is always fun. I would go hang clothes on the line but I can't tell if it's going to rain or not. One sure way to make it rain is to hang the clothes up! Taking a break now trying to decide what to do next.

 

[Trish44]

I haven't been on in a while and need to catch up on post 427 pages behind. I've been very busy and stressed out

. DH last day in active duty is tomorrow he will be medically retired which is good but they told us that it could take 90-120 days before he gets retirement pay which has stressed us both out. So started a night job and walmart but he can't keep doing it it's just taken too much out of him. I've started looking for work but with daycare cost i think my whole paycheck will go to daycare price i got for 2 kids was 1000 a month. He finished his chemo and radiation last friday but will have to start chemo up again next month. He is doing so good this time around very tired and has been in pain so im taking him back in today to see whats going on. I sorry that im writing this here i just don't have family close and my friend here in Kansas is 2 hrs away which they have helped us so much already. I just needed to vent. Please keep us in your prayers
Thank you.

I almost for got i have a 12 wk pullet that has sour crop any one have any cures for me?

Prayers coming your way, that's got to be really hard to handle. I have not had the sour crop issue, maybe someone else can chime in & help.

I have two new peachick additions today, I had one hatch during the night last night & one while I was gone today. I'm really excited about hatching them, they're my first peachicks I've hatched, both black shoulder India Blues.

 

[milomac]

guys need an opinion. Have duck eggs in styrofoam incubator, the last time when it came time to hatch they pipped one small hole but never got any farther, I eventually helped them out but lost 4 out of 6. These eggs were pipping and sounding pretty loud at 7 this morning. I see no zipper just the origanal little hole in shell How long do I wait before I help these little guyspot? thanks

 

[ChickieWickies]

So here is the most obvious question. Do the traps draw in more flies or do they simply catch the ones that are there already? I wish the plastic bag idea worked because that is a deterrent. It seems like almost all other methods are attractants. If they would stay outside it would be bad but somehow they always know when I a m going to open the door!!!

My guess is that they caught the ones that were already there. We were getting eaten alive by biting flies when we were working on the new coop in the driveway, so I put two out by us on the ground. The flies went there and NOT one me--which was just fine with me! The two in the old coop run kept the flies down for several days. There were more in there today, so I added another one. Oh, and as a bonus, I noticed a couple of the ladies figured out there was an easy snack at the bottles. Whenever a fly landed on the rim, a lady would quickly eat it!

They haven't knocked the traps down even though they are on the ground. But with sugar and water and flies in them, no one would get sick even if the ladies attacked the bottles.

Frogs would be great, but between the boys and the dog, we don't get many to stick around or grow very large!!

Today is worse than yesterday--there is NO wind to help out. The poor ladies are panting pretty hard. We're freezing shredded carrots in thin ice for a treat. They are always so scared of new treats. Hopefully they'll figure they are yummy before they melt!!