Consolidated Kansas

[HEChicken]

Maybe it's the angle, but I don't see a chick-sized lump. Maybe your little chick just hid itself somewhere reeeeeeaaaaal good. I hope so!

Oh no! Sorry, I know my story was too long and involved.....I did find the second chick on another roost so it is all good. Normally those two little BR chicks stick together (they were raised by separate broody moms but each turned loose about the same time so they teamed up and hang out together). Finding the one only inches from the snake and the other nowhere in sight, I assumed the worst but later saw the second one tucked in safely on a roost between two adult birds.

 

[chicken danz]

Well HEchicken I caught that the chick was still there. Your stories are never too long. Like stated before you should be a writer.
TaraBellBirds, welcome to BYC. We are kind of all spread around but I don't know off hand of anyone near Dodge City. It doesn't matter.. jump in a join the group. We love hearing from anyone in Kansas or even near by.
My condolences to your niece Cherwill. Perhaps they'll keep in touch and get together again in future years.
Yeah Josie I thought that was a very good price and they are very quick. I can't wait to get my test kits and get this done. I wish I had done this before I sold the other 5. DH is on vacation next week so with his help I should be able to get the samples collected and mailed. I have learned my lesson though. Next year the goosies are getting sexed at a couple weeks old. It was very easy to do Trudi's geese ... I just let my own get too old cause I didn't want to hurt them.
I hope you have a great time with your sister and mother this weekend. I am sure Ms. Amelia is going to get some good spoiling!!!
I have some purple peachicks which I am not sure have the feather pattern like a India blue does. I want to get them sexed too. I would really like to keep a trio of them. So those will probably be the next to get DNA sexed. I have a couple of whites as well. I am undecided about whether to sex them or just sell them as is.
Late night last night. We made a trip to Topeka and got several things done. So I was late getting up this morning. The first thing I did was check the birds this AM and thank goodness there are no more possum casualties. I had a bunch of chicks that insist on sleeping outside and they were soaking wet. I swear I have no idea why these chicks don't want to go in the houses. I even put night lights in them to attract them but they'd rather huddle in a corner.
We actually got a little rain during the night! Yay! Looks like maybe about .3 of an inch. Every bit counts.
I need to get busy today. I have to make a trip to town and I want to work on getting more of this metal gathered up to be salvaged. I also have lots of construction scraps that need picked up and put on the burn pile. I hate to burn any wood that I can use for something else. I guess I will probably hang on to most of it unless I see no potential for it at all.

 

[maidenwolfx80]

It sounds like everyone is in good spirits and that is great. We got some rain and my sunflowers are super happy about that. The birds love to take shelter from the sun under them. I think next year I will grow a thicker grove of them. They are easy and cheap to grow. I hope everyone got rain, we really needed it.
Does anyone have any tips one housing for guinea? I am building on a shelter for them this weekend. I want to incorporate them with the chickens so they sleep all together but right now they are 5 weeks and under so I want something ready for them when its time for them to go out.

 

[Trish44]

It sounds like everyone is in good spirits and that is great. We got some rain and my sunflowers are super happy about that. The birds love to take shelter from the sun under them. I think next year I will grow a thicker grove of them. They are easy and cheap to grow. I hope everyone got rain, we really needed it.
Does anyone have any tips one housing for guinea? I am building on a shelter for them this weekend. I want to incorporate them with the chickens so they sleep all together but right now they are 5 weeks and under so I want something ready for them when its time for them to go out.

I have mine housed with my peafowl in a hoop coop. If they don't come in at night you tend to lose them. I started out this year with about 16 I think & I'm down to 10 adults left. I try to get them all in every night, but they're not the smartest birds around. It takes me awhile every night to get them to go in. I have 4 more young ones in the growout pen I haven't put in there yet for some replacements. I just wanted them to get a little size before I put them in there so they don't get picked on so much. Guineas are pretty mean birds when there is something smaller to pick on. Anyway, they seem to like being in with the peafowl rather than chickens & roost on the same roost with them. I think the peafowl are kind of happy though when they go out during the day since they're so noisy, they get some quiet time without them for a few hours.

I have two big sunflowers that were volunteers that I have just left grow where they are. I figured eventually they would flower & produce some seed for my birds. I should try to grow some more next year too, my chickens love them.

I spent about an hour out working in the mud trying to get my turkey pen emptied of water again & cinch up the top of the pen & put the support pole back up. We had quite a bit of rain again last night & it's just a mess out there. I think I got it fixed for now, but I plan to see about making some arched supports for it this weekend out of plastic pipe. I have to figure out something to keep the water from pooling up on top of that. The span is too much for the things I have on the other pens. I'm thinking of moving my turkeys anyway when I get this other hoop coop built into that & use their pen after I get it fixed for my growout pen. I need the other hoop coop for my Orps I'm growing out.

We have a flood watch out for today here, we have had a lot of rain in the last week. The Cowley Country fair is this weekend, so I hope the river doesn't come out of the banks or it will flood the fairgrounds. We often have flooding here in Sept. & Oct. but it's strange to have it in July.

 

[HEChicken]

Thanks Danz for the compliment. For what its worth, I always enjoy your posts too

Trish, I was wondering how you did in the storms last night - did your rock wall hold up?

We got about 1.5" - a good amount to soak in and make everything green but not enough to flood - yay! I know there is wide variation around the state though. The night Trish got 4.5", we only got two!

I mowed half of my yard last night - all of the rain is making it grow so fast. I ran out of light and by this morning it was too wet to mow the other half. I don't know when I will get to it now. I have chicks hatching and invited a friend over because he has three little girls who will be thrilled to watch them hatch. They can't get here until this evening and I hope it won't be too late. I had one hatch around noon, then got busy with lunch and an hour or so later went to check and there were 4 fully hatched chicks. The 3 hadn't even been zipping when I noticed the first had hatched, so they really burst out! Now I'm afraid it will all be over before they even get here. Oh well - what can you do? At least all four so far are New Hampshire chicks and not the mixes that I got a couple of weeks ago - yay!

Speaking of which, I processed a cockerel this morning that I've been wanting to do for a LONG time. That means I am down to only two roosters and tonight I plan to switch them out. It is time my New Hamp roo got a chance at freedom and to live in the main coop and time my BR rooster got to experience life in the hoop coop. I'll give him a trio of BR hens and then I can start collecting their eggs to incubate. It feels good to be on the path to achieving my goals.

 

[tweetybaby2005]

Ugh, I hate snakes! People sure are seeing a lot of them this year, I wonder why that is? I'm glad it didn't get your BR chick though. I'm afraid that snake would have been dead meat if it was found in my coop. I know they're harmless to us, but I just don't want them in my coop eating my eggs or chicks. I never would have thought a snake would stink, weird. I hope it doesn't come right back again.

tweetybaby, yes that turkey hen does have a mind of her own, she was gone all night again & showed up this morning when I went out to let birds out & feed chicks so she got put back in the pen. Those kidney infections do take a lot out of you, I have had them myself & they're not fun. Give yourself some time to get your strength back.

I also have 12x12 nest boxes, a bank of 6 of them & have over 20 hens using them. There is one box in the middle bottom that they don't use for some reason, but they spread eggs out in the other 5 boxes. They do have their favorites & sometimes I hear them squawking & arguing over another hen being in their box. I have walked in & there will be hens in some of them & one standing out on the roost yelling at them like hurry up & get out of there!

checoukan, that's good news about IVY getting a job, now hopefully they can get their house sold soon. The pics of their new place are just beautiful, it looks so peaceful there.

We have more rain coming tonight or tomorrow & thus a flood watch for our area since we have had quite a lot of rain lately. The ground is pretty saturated from the last two rains already. I'm hoping that our rock walls help some to divert the water away from my pens & coops, we'll find out. At least I have given the chicks more things to get up on & they seem to be learning too that when it rains they need to seek something higher to roost on. I'm hoping that main wall will divert the water around the coop they're in & away from them this time. I about killed myself yesterday moving some hefty rocks over there to make the wall higher. There is an area where we park our old truck that is over beside my breeder coop that is just full of rocks of all kinds. The rains have uncovered some of them but I dug just under the top yesterday & found some nice flat rocks to add to my wall. You don't have to dig far around here to find rocks, in fact if you dig at all you're more than likely to run into some kind of rock or a nest of them. The farther down the hill you go away from the ridge the less rocks you encounter, but up where our house is it's mostly rock. When we were planting a tree that the city had to buy is after they cut down some I asked them not to my DH was out there digging in the backyard & dug up some huge boulder type of rocks. He had quite an adventure planting that tree.

Hey, I meant to ask if anyone has found any good deals on hardware cloth lately? I need to get some for the other hoop coop I'm getting ready to build.

Trish - Not sure how much it costs to get the hardware cloth lately. When I got mine a few months ago, I got it with free shipping (I'm sure it was factored into the cost some how) from Wayfair. Check it out. http://www.wayfair.com/Mat-0.5-Mesh-Galvanized-Hardware-Cloth-308243B-308246B-BFJ1003.html

Danz- Your DNA sexing company is a LOT cheaper than the ones I found. The one I looked at was $25 a bird. I will definitely be using the one you listed.

Tweety-Glad you are on the mend. Kidney infections are nasty, take it easy and feel better soon!
I have to second that. DH took one about two miles down the road and a day and a half later it was back, eating eggs, again. They really stink when they get scared or threatened, don't know what it is but it does smell kinda like a skunk!

It just rained here for a bit, I am loving this summer. My kind of Kansas!

My mom and sister are coming this weekend for a visit. So excited to have them. It will be the first time my youngest sister has met Amelia and I am so glad she is able to come out. This is her first time on a plane!

Josie - Glad to see your mom and sister are coming to see little Amelia! I'm sure they will love to play with little miss cutie.

My sister and her 2 sons are coming in a week. I can't wait.

Great news about Ivy. Sad news about their house. I do hope it sells for them soon. Glad the Q tip did well. Have you raised many chicks since he finally learned what to do?
Well I only have a minute and have to get off of here. I am VERY unhappy. I was out feeding and watering and found that a predator had made it to my pen of my most expensive half grown chicks. And of course it got my favorite chick of all. A beautiful fluffy English orpington that was all white with a lavender head spot. I believe it was a possum because the head was gone and the insides were eaten leaving the rib cage. I don't know where my stupid dogs were when this was going on. Those chicks kept sleeping outside and I would put them in the shelter and they would come back out. So instead of getting my stuff I planned done I spent the afternoon putting up a row of chicken wire on the pen. It is chain link and 10X 20 feet. I am surprised the predator got the bird out but all the feathers were at one corner where two panels joined together. I hope the chicken wire works and the dogs work too!! They've been so busy lately I suppose they were off after something else at the time.

{Gasp!!} Possum! That reminds me of the one I caught back in May. Those are nasty critters. I was telling DH that I think we have lost some birds but he doesn't think so. I really need to do a head count tonight. If I do lose birds, I'm not losing them fast. I will need to do some investigative work to see what's taking them.

My niece has been hosting a Northern Irish teen from The Ulster Project http://www.ulsterproject.org/index.html and they had their variety show tonight. It was a lot of fun and those kids are pretty talented. The teen staying with my niece's family is such a sweet girl. My niece is going to be lost when the girl goes home, which is Monday.

Maybe it's the angle, but I don't see a chick-sized lump. Maybe your little chick just hid itself somewhere reeeeeeaaaaal good. I hope so!


Kidney infections are no fun. I'm glad you're home from the hospital and feeling better.


Good news about the job. I'll keep my fingers crossed that the house sells soon; too bad about the contract.

Cherwill - Awwww... Such bitter sweet... I'm sure you niece will miss the girl a lot...

Is anyone in S.W. Kansas, Dodge City area?

TaraBellaBirds - Welcome to BYC and the Kansas board. I think we have a few out in Western KS but not sure if they are near or from Dodge City or not. Like Danz said, please jump in and if you have questions, we have a bunch of knowledgeable ones who will answer them. Tell us more about your birds.

Oh no! Sorry, I know my story was too long and involved.....I did find the second chick on another roost so it is all good. Normally those two little BR chicks stick together (they were raised by separate broody moms but each turned loose about the same time so they teamed up and hang out together). Finding the one only inches from the snake and the other nowhere in sight, I assumed the worst but later saw the second one tucked in safely on a roost between two adult birds.

HeChicken - I did get that your baby chick was fine. Just glad she was OK. If they make Snake-B-gone like they do with Bugs-B-gone, I am sure I will be stocking them up.

Well HEchicken I caught that the chick was still there. Your stories are never too long. Like stated before you should be a writer.
TaraBellBirds, welcome to BYC. We are kind of all spread around but I don't know off hand of anyone near Dodge City. It doesn't matter.. jump in a join the group. We love hearing from anyone in Kansas or even near by.
My condolences to your niece Cherwill. Perhaps they'll keep in touch and get together again in future years.
Yeah Josie I thought that was a very good price and they are very quick. I can't wait to get my test kits and get this done. I wish I had done this before I sold the other 5. DH is on vacation next week so with his help I should be able to get the samples collected and mailed. I have learned my lesson though. Next year the goosies are getting sexed at a couple weeks old. It was very easy to do Trudi's geese ... I just let my own get too old cause I didn't want to hurt them.
I hope you have a great time with your sister and mother this weekend. I am sure Ms. Amelia is going to get some good spoiling!!!
I have some purple peachicks which I am not sure have the feather pattern like a India blue does. I want to get them sexed too. I would really like to keep a trio of them. So those will probably be the next to get DNA sexed. I have a couple of whites as well. I am undecided about whether to sex them or just sell them as is.
Late night last night. We made a trip to Topeka and got several things done. So I was late getting up this morning. The first thing I did was check the birds this AM and thank goodness there are no more possum casualties. I had a bunch of chicks that insist on sleeping outside and they were soaking wet. I swear I have no idea why these chicks don't want to go in the houses. I even put night lights in them to attract them but they'd rather huddle in a corner.
We actually got a little rain during the night! Yay! Looks like maybe about .3 of an inch. Every bit counts.
I need to get busy today. I have to make a trip to town and I want to work on getting more of this metal gathered up to be salvaged. I also have lots of construction scraps that need picked up and put on the burn pile. I hate to burn any wood that I can use for something else. I guess I will probably hang on to most of it unless I see no potential for it at all.

Danz - Are you doing the DNA sexing so you know how to price the birds - female vs. male? I'm just curious. You are always on the move and it makes me tired just reading how much you do everyday!

It sounds like everyone is in good spirits and that is great. We got some rain and my sunflowers are super happy about that. The birds love to take shelter from the sun under them. I think next year I will grow a thicker grove of them. They are easy and cheap to grow. I hope everyone got rain, we really needed it.
Does anyone have any tips one housing for guinea? I am building on a shelter for them this weekend. I want to incorporate them with the chickens so they sleep all together but right now they are 5 weeks and under so I want something ready for them when its time for them to go out.

Maidenwolf - Funny you mentioned sunflowers. DH tossed a cumbled up piece of chicken wire on the ground and ignored it. There are some wild sunflowers growing up through it. The juvenile chicks and the 2 little babies love to go under them when it is really hot out there. They know they could get some shade under the plants. I really need to plant some shade trees this fall for them. It serves 2 purposes; shade and protection.

I have mine housed with my peafowl in a hoop coop. If they don't come in at night you tend to lose them. I started out this year with about 16 I think & I'm down to 10 adults left. I try to get them all in every night, but they're not the smartest birds around. It takes me awhile every night to get them to go in. I have 4 more young ones in the growout pen I haven't put in there yet for some replacements. I just wanted them to get a little size before I put them in there so they don't get picked on so much. Guineas are pretty mean birds when there is something smaller to pick on. Anyway, they seem to like being in with the peafowl rather than chickens & roost on the same roost with them. I think the peafowl are kind of happy though when they go out during the day since they're so noisy, they get some quiet time without them for a few hours.

I have two big sunflowers that were volunteers that I have just left grow where they are. I figured eventually they would flower & produce some seed for my birds. I should try to grow some more next year too, my chickens love them.

I spent about an hour out working in the mud trying to get my turkey pen emptied of water again & cinch up the top of the pen & put the support pole back up. We had quite a bit of rain again last night & it's just a mess out there. I think I got it fixed for now, but I plan to see about making some arched supports for it this weekend out of plastic pipe. I have to figure out something to keep the water from pooling up on top of that. The span is too much for the things I have on the other pens. I'm thinking of moving my turkeys anyway when I get this other hoop coop built into that & use their pen after I get it fixed for my growout pen. I need the other hoop coop for my Orps I'm growing out.

We have a flood watch out for today here, we have had a lot of rain in the last week. The Cowley Country fair is this weekend, so I hope the river doesn't come out of the banks or it will flood the fairgrounds. We often have flooding here in Sept. & Oct. but it's strange to have it in July.

Trish - Hope you don't have the flood water issue any more... hate to see birds being killed due to too much rain water. We only had about 2" of rain or so in the last 2 days but I did see that you guys got pounded by 4"+ of rain overnight a couple of nights ago. I'm hoping we get a short break from the rain to dry things out. Everything just turned to mud.

The weather seems nice outside. I very much enjoy this milder weather instead of the scorching heat that we had over a week ago. I'm wondering if Fall will be here early... I'm sure it is just my wishful thinking... I do love Winter.

This summer seems to go by pretty fast. I need to prep my kids and get them ready to go back to school in a couple of weeks. I really dread getting school supplies, stay in line to get them enrolled (this is next week and apparently the school district is upgrading their system so parents are asked to enroll their kids in school and not online.

).

Enjoy the lovely weather... Hopefully for those who didn't get much rain will get some today... but those who has too much rain already get a chance to dry out before the next round of storm shows up.

 

[cherwill]

Oh no! Sorry, I know my story was too long and involved.....I did find the second chick on another roost so it is all good. Normally those two little BR chicks stick together (they were raised by separate broody moms but each turned loose about the same time so they teamed up and hang out together). Finding the one only inches from the snake and the other nowhere in sight, I assumed the worst but later saw the second one tucked in safely on a roost between two adult birds.

Doh! I try not to skim when I'm reading. I caught the part about you moving the turkeys in and I guess I just didn't properly process it when you mentioned that chick!

It feels good to be on the path to achieving my goals.

HeChicken - I did get that your baby chick was fine. Just glad she was OK. If they make Snake-B-gone like they do with Bugs-B-gone, I am sure I will be stocking them up.

Maidenwolf - Funny you mentioned sunflowers. DH tossed a cumbled up piece of chicken wire on the ground and ignored it. There are some wild sunflowers growing up through it. The juvenile chicks and the 2 little babies love to go under them when it is really hot out there. They know they could get some shade under the plants. I really need to plant some shade trees this fall for them. It serves 2 purposes; shade and protection.

You should invent Snake-B-gone; you'd make a fortune on it!

You're right about the plants serving a dual purpose. The lilacs in my chicken yard guarantee that no predator birds will be able to swoop in and grab up a chicken. One less thing to worry about.

We got quite a bit of rain last night again. It's a good thing we've mulched the garden paths with various things as we get it (wood chips, grass, whatever we have at the time) because my aunt and I went out to harvest green beans and didn't even get mud on ourselves!

 

[chicken danz]

Kuan, I am having the DNA sexing done so I know which ones to sell and can hopefully make trios of birds to breed. I got some nice colors this year...unfortunately due to being desperately broke I sold several of them too cheap without knowing what sex they were. Same goes with the peafowl. It takes a long time to raise a peafowl to breeding age so I want to keep what I really think I need. (Notice I put THINK I NEED in there. I really don't need any more.)
Anyway I plan to take my extra boys and maybe a couple girls to auction. When you are dealing with birds that bring a higher price it sure helps to be able to sex them without pouring months of feed and care into them.
I do have a pretty good idea so far about some of the peafowl. I have one with really messed up feet and legs and I was so hoping it was a girl. Cause it could stay here and still lay eggs and be safe as long as it was penned. But it is marked as a male and it will never be able to roost. I have tried repeatedly to fix the legs but they keep getting worse. Only surgery might correct them at all and it is out of the question. I should just cull it but that is not something I can do. I have no idea what to do with him. It should be a gorgeous birds because it is from a purple pied male and a white hen. I might let someone just have him if they could guarantee he would be kept safe and not in with other male peafowl.
Cherwill I skim read a lot. It's cause I am always in a hurry...And then when I post I forget half of what I read.
I have sunflowers growing around some of my pens and they give wonderful shade. Nature put them there. I tried planting some Jerusalem artichokes behind my biggest chicken pen but the girls found that shoveled out dirt and decided to make it a new dust bath.Not much hope for them. I need to get some more starts from my late mother's home.
I am exhausted today after out trip last evening. I just have no energy. All I have really done is let chickens out, hand feed a group of them some peanuts for my own entertainment, and gather some eggs. I need to dump and refill water and feed bowls.
I need to put up the stuff from Walmart yesterday and do a million and one other things. The day is going way too fast!!

 

[HEChicken]

Tweety, I concur with Cherwill - snake-be-gone would be a great product. I don't want them dead - just not in my coop!

Cherwill, that is wonderful you can go harvest without getting muddy. I am still working on paths in my garden - making progress slowly but surely. I am having a huge problem with chiggers this year though, that almost make me not want to go out there. A month or so ago I got 30-40 bites - all around my waist area - front and back. It was ugly and itchy and uncomfortable and they took weeks to heal. I had just reached the point where they were barely visible pink spots, when I got attacked again and I am back to feeling uncomfortably itchy all the time. I don't understand how these little bugs can crawl on me, all the way up to that level without me ever feeling a thing. Someone recommended covering the bites with clear nail polish to stop the itch and that does seem to work but only temporarily - in a few days the site with the polish on it starts to itch again. I don't know if anyone has any recommendations? I have a ton of work to do in my veggie garden and now is a great time to do it after the all the rain so I don't like that I keep putting it off for fear of being attacked again.

 

[chicken danz]

Chiggers don't burrow into the skin like most people believe. They are a juvenile form of a mite. They are like 1/152th of an inch long. That is why you never see them. They inject an enzyme into the skin which starts decomposing that area of skin, then they feed off that dead tissue. They are easily knocked off or removed by showering or whatever. But the enzyme is there in the skin and that is what causes the itching and such.
The best remedy to eliminate the itch is to use something like hydrocortisone cream for the itch or use some antihistamine like benadryl.