Consolidated Kansas

[ChickieWickies]

Oooohh, not the scary plate, Sharol?!?!?!?! Why do our chickens always act like we're trying to harm them?!?!? Mine are afraid of strawberries and the dreaded cantaloupe!!! They act like, "Why, oh, why is THAT here?????"

With that said, I love watching our Lacey momma her chicks. She grabs the treat (wheat bread) and gives it to her babies without eating any of it first. It's a challenge to get the bread to the other ladies. Lacey runs all over catching the bread to stock it up for her babies. And she chases off any of the others who try to "sneak" a piece. I don't want the babies to have very much bread, so we usually have to intervene and move Lacey to another area. She has definitely become the top hen and the best momma. I've even caught her "pretend" eating out of their feeder to show them what to do. She dips her head--but not quite far enough to actually get feed--and then looks at them and clucks. I guess they know what that means, because they come over and eat.

 

[ChickieWickies]

Danz, I forgot to ask you, how much are the sexing kits, and how hard is it to do it yourself?

 

[Trish44]

So. Last night it's about 9 p.m., it was lightning and thundering (as it turned out, we got no rain), and my DH says to me, "You know, I hate to rain on your parade, but you have the hoop in a FEMA zone A flood zone." (joke -- he is a surveyor and sometimes marks flood zones for people). That part of the yard routinely gets a couple of inches of water when we have heavy rain, and it will stand there until it drains on down toward the pasture. Dang. And me with babies on the floor of a coop with only a slightly raised floor.

This morning I overcame my fear of the table saw and made a platform that raises the part of the floor where she is keeping them about 3" (2x4 on its side supporting plywood). It will effectively get everyone up out of any water that gets in the coop if we get a heavy rain. It isn't a permanent fix for our water issues (we are working on that), but it will keep everyone dry for a while.

I gave Marlena some chopped hardboiled egg this morning, and it was really cute the way she would drop bits of it to the chicks and encourage them to come over the the plate (new scary plate) and eat. Chicken TV at its best. I'm going to go out and sit in the run with Marlena and her 3 chicks for a little while in hopes that they will get used to me and not freak out completely every time I come around.

I can empathize with you sharol on the water problems. We live in the Flint Hills & our house is built into the hill. For those who haven't been to my house, the driveway up to the house is an adventure in itself. you make a 90 degree turn coming in off the road & go up at the same time. It curves around the hill & up & then comes back down to the front of the house, so it's downhill at both ends. It's pretty steep on the house side & we get quite a stream coming down that when it rains really hard. Now that the yard doesn't have that much grass past the driveway the rain has just been moving mud down the hill & piling it in front of my two pens that you come to first. We have put some rocks in front of there to try to slow it down some & it did seem to help last night. It will take awhile for the rocks to get seated in & help more. Then we have a rock wall going from the end of the two pens there all the way across in front of my two hoop coops. I could see where the water had followed the wall for the most part last night, which is an improvement. If we can get it so the water will go to the other side of the big tree there then it will go around the hoop coops & down beside there where there is greenery & groundcover to help keep it from washing so bad & maybe won't flood the hoop coops every time. We didn't have such a bad problem with any of this until the grass all died out over half the yard down there from the drought. I did notice there is some bermuda grass starting to crawl back that way. I hate that stuff, but if it will grow back in that area I won't mind it. I just hate that it crawls into my flower beds.

 

[cherwill]

I am sorry to hear about all your flooding troubles. We need rain but it sure would be nice if it came down a little slower.
Awww, such a sweet turkey.

Rantoul!!! Hahaha! Welcome, we just moved from Rantoul and nobody ever knew where it was.

What a sweet baby picture.

Heck, I'd probably eat it myself, but I wouldn't feed it to a small child. Anyone else?

Same here. If you're really concerned and have a dog, you could always feed it to the dog.

I am glad that you guys missed the HAIL last night! It was HUGE here in Hutchinson! The husband of one of my friends had to run out into the hail to one of their chicken from certain death! The photo is so cute! Here is it! There are others on that link that shows how big the hail was!
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?...612857.1073741845.343875272856&type=3&theater

My SIL and her family live between Inman and Hutch and they got that same hail. They didn't say anything about damage to their house, but all the cars are damaged. What a mess! I take it everything's OK at your place?

Rain every night here, it seems like. I'm feel so bad for those of you still suffering from a lack of it.

 

[chicken danz]

ChickieWickies, the kits are free. The DNA testing is only $10 a bird plus taxes etc. But if you do 10 or more at a time you don't have to pay the taxes and stuff. I just ordered 10 kits. I only have 9 Sebbies to do so I might include one peachick so I can get the discount. I am pretty sure on the sexes of 2 of the sebbies but I might as well confirm it. There are places that charge more but this place does all kinds of testing both human and animal.
The process seems simple as far as gathering blood or feathers. I imagine most people would do the feathers but I think it will be easier for me to do blood since I draw blood all the time from birds for testing. They suggest nicking a toenail for blood. I plan to call them once the kit is here and see if I can use blood from elsewhere. Then I can do their NPIP test at the same time. The birds I need to sell will all be ready to go that way.
Here's a link in you want to check it out.
http://accu-metrics.com/avian.php
We are still waiting on rain. I went out and pumped out and cleaned the mandarin pond today. It was sure a nasty stinking mess. At least it was a little water for the garden. It needs a lot more. I've got to sell some of those birds in the next couple months as well.

 

[ashncarson]

My SIL and her family live between Inman and Hutch and they got that same hail. They didn't say anything about damage to their house, but all the cars are damaged. What a mess! I take it everything's OK at your place?

I am glad that her house was ok, it was super crazy! Our cars where damaged as well. Both vechiles have front windsheilds that need to be replaced and dents all over! Our back porch has plastic awning that has a lot of holes in it now and the roof will be checked tomorrow!

Here is the photo I took on the way to my mom's house!

 

[tweetybaby2005]

Hi guys, haven't been on for a while. Been really sick and finally feeling better. I'm still trying to catch up on posts. My chickens seem to enjoy the cooler weather and few inches of rain sure greened things up lately. I'll have to take some time to look @ the pictures, especially those baby chicks.

Take care and enjoy the cooler weather.

 

[chicken danz]

Tweety, sorry to hear you've been sick. I hope you are on the mend. Been missing your posts. Please send rain my way!!

 

[Trish44]

Hi guys, haven't been on for a while. Been really sick and finally feeling better. I'm still trying to catch up on posts. My chickens seem to enjoy the cooler weather and few inches of rain sure greened things up lately. I'll have to take some time to look @ the pictures, especially those baby chicks.

Take care and enjoy the cooler weather.

I'm glad you're feeling better, we've missed you on here. My birds are really enjoying the weather too, except for the flooding we had. We're expected to have more rain Friday & may have some flooding since we've had so much rain lately. We're under a flood watch in this area. The river often floods & comes out over the fairgrounds here, not a good thing because it makes such a mess of the grounds & then they have to get it all cleaned up & repaired in time for the bluegrass festival.

My little turkeys sure were having a blast running around the yard today, but now my naughty hen is missing again. She took off again this afternoon. I don't know what gets into her. She'll be here for awhile & then she gets it in her head to take off again. I even made them stay in the pen for over a week to see if she would get it out of her head, but I guess it didn't work.

I have some young pullets that I just moved from the growout pen to the big coop & am trying to teach them where they're supposed to go at night. I have had quite a time with these two little silver laced wyandottes, I have had to go find them on top of things every night at roost time & carry them to the coop. Tonight for the first time they all made it in where they were supposed to be. We'll see if that continues tomorrow.

 

[Polishpal]

My hen stopped sitting o. Her broody eggs after 2 of them hatched. Anybody know why she did that and what I should do?