I just wanted to jump in. I've been reading and I am so tired I have no idea what I just read... it went in and then left about as soon.
ChickieWickies how old is your dog? I know some hunting dogs must reach maturity before they work well. If she is young she may just need more time.
Well yesteday was a day of disaster. DH was very very slow and didn't have cages done. The ones I rigged up with the clothes baskets would have worked fine but because they were so cheap, when I put the Mandarins in them they were cutting their bills on the little strips of plastic on the sides of the basket. So this is 7:30 PM or so. I started scrounging and ended up making four new cages starting from zero. I scrounged around until I found the lumber to do it and worked on them while DH worked the other cages. We were sharing the staple gun and the drills etc and it seemed like one of us kept waiting on the other to get done. Well when we finally got done it was about 2:30 AM. I decided to take a flashlight and go load birds in the dark. So I caught birds and DH fastened the cages with cable ties. I had to fill their feed and water bowls up and get them settled back down. The pheasant and the Mandarins were going insane. So finally all the cages were full and loaded on the truck. It was 3:45 AM. I had to get up at 4:30 AM. I did lay down but about the time I started getting settled down the alarm went off. No sleep whatsoever. I got in the shower, got the rest of the stuff I needed loaded up and headed on the road. I did make it in time for the drawing which decides who goes in what order for sales. It was so totally worth staying up all night for. It will never happen again ...but I got drawn for number one. My birds sell first as soon as the consignment birds are sold. If I didn't want to stick around I could be out of there bright and early tomorrow. Last fall my birds didn't sell until after 6:30 PM. I was so far down on the number list.
So I talked to some friends, fed and watered my birds in the cages, stopped at
Walmart and the gas station on the way home. I was home and laying down by 10:30 AM. I expected not to be home until late afternoon. I woke up about 12:15 with leg cramps. Too much work yesterday and not enough water drinking I guess. I couldn't get back to sleep so I went out and took care of birds. DH left to pick up my feed and run some errands and was back home about 4:00 PM just as I was finishing chores. We ate a little ( we never did have dinner last night!) and we laid back down to nap again but I couldn't sleep. So here I am trying to play catch up.
I still have the load of feed to get shoveled off the truck but all that bending and building yesterday is killing my back.
Lizzy so great to hear you got the rain. I saw how there was even some flooding going on in places. We went without unfortunately. Just a tiny bit of mist yesterday morning. It is much cooler though.
I had another pretty good sized group of chicks hatch this morning and there are more in there to hatch. I also gathered eggs and it looks like some who have been on strike picked back up and some who had been laying, have quit. I only gathered hatching eggs. I only had 2 eating eggs from the girls who aren't used for breeding. That's an all time low for them. I need to get these eggs set cause there is probably a tray full of them. I don't want to hold them and end up with a huge hatch.
I can't remember who mentioned hatching more cockerels. I have noted that for years. In hot weather the balance of cockerels to pullets increases astronomically. It's beginning to show around here as some of these chicks start maturing too. Looks like I am either going to have to feed them out or find someone looking for some birds to raise for meat.
I guess I'd better go remind DH about the chains and locks before it gets much later. I don't want to be looking for them tomorrow morning in the dark. It's going to be another very early morning. I was supposed to go celebrate my youngest granddaughters birthday tomorrow evening but I sure don't know if I'll still have any energy to do so.
ZigZag forgive me because I never think in terms of easy or simple. If I were you I would buy some small clear rigid tubing. Cut a narrow wedge down the side of the water pipe to fit the rigid tubing. Glue the clear tubing in with PVC glue so that it is waterproof. Then you could simply look at the tubing and see the water level through it. The other way I might consider doing it is again using clear tubing. Drill a hole just large enough to insert and glue the tubing in the original PVC pipe down towards the lower end, again using PVC glue to prevent leakage. Make an upright 90 degree turn in the tubing so it is shaped like an L. Use a length going vertically upwards in the L shape along side of the PVC pipe and nearly as tall. Leave the top opening of the L shaped tubing open to prevent a vacuum from forming. Through osmosis this will show you exactly how high your water level is. If you didn't want to leave the top of the clear pipe open you could L it again and insert it back into the top of your pvc pipe so it forms a [ shape.
