Consolidated Kansas

[sharol]

Wow sharol, you can come do mine now, lol. I'm trying to get to my main coop some time this week if I can. Today I was working on adding extra wire to my breeder coop doors to make them more secure because they're covered in 2x4 fencing. I also started on putting up another pen, but I need 2x4s to build a panel with to close it off on the side. I'm planning to make this new pen my growout pen & use the bigger pen for my Silver laced Wyandottes & my NH cockerel when I get him home. I'm thinking about moving my small dog run that is up by the main coop down where there is more shade, but that is only if we can get it in the back of the truck to get if moved. It has been in a really hot sunny spot & it would be much better if it was down under the trees like the rest of the pens.

I'm still pretty tired from the last two days, so I'm kind of being a couch potato tonight. I hope I have more energy tomorrow so I can get some things done.

 

[lizzyGSR]

I had a rather unexpected surprise this evening when I went out... My husband recently fixed the pen after the last snowfall of the year this past winter caused it to collapse partially. He then sewed the top to the sides so there is no longer a way out except for the door. The hawk was trapped and couldn't figure out how to get out. My husband took a hoe in and used the handle to chase the bird out of the pen. Scary!!!! My ducks and geese were in the pen too, in a tight little scared group. Thankfully, everybody looked okay, but I didn't inspect real closely because my birds have been more adamant than usual about me not touching them... I've been giving two of them antibiotics and now they are all freaked out about me touching them.

 

[Trish44]

I had a rather unexpected surprise this evening when I went out... My husband recently fixed the pen after the last snowfall of the year this past winter caused it to collapse partially. He then sewed the top to the sides so there is no longer a way out except for the door. The hawk was trapped and couldn't figure out how to get out. My husband took a hoe in and used the handle to chase the bird out of the pen. Scary!!!! My ducks and geese were in the pen too, in a tight little scared group. Thankfully, everybody looked okay, but I didn't inspect real closely because my birds have been more adamant than usual about me not touching them... I've been giving two of them antibiotics and now they are all freaked out about me touching them.

I'm glad your birds are OK. All of this talk of hawks makes me very glad we have the trees we have down front & places for my chickens to hide.

 

[lizzyGSR]

I'm glad your birds are OK. All of this talk of hawks makes me very glad we have the trees we have down front & places for my chickens to hide.

Thank you! I too am glad my birds are okay. It was quite the surprise finding that hawk trapped in their pen! I've noticed that we seem to have a lot more hawks in the area than we had previously. I wonder why that is... Either way, it is kind of unsettling. This hawk was about the same size as some of my Khaki Campbell ducks, but I've seen others in the area that are bigger than that and could possibly take a duck. Scary!!! I was really wondering how we were gonna get that hawk out of there. I'm really glad it flew out voluntarily with only a little bit of prompting from my husband.

 

[22qZoo]

SHAROL- wow! Your coop looks wonderful ! Just might be the inspiration I need to get some work done on mine.
Danz & Aliaslucyvp- sorry your necks bugging you, wish I could find a good acupuncture / chiro doc but its so hard to find a good one. Seems like some of them really have a gift and know to help you feel better, but for every one of those there are 20 or more quacks out there who give those professions a bad rap. I wonder if we will ever see hyaluronic acid injections here like they have in Europe ? It's done wonders for some horses here for a while now.
LIZZY- you crack me up, the way your posts run . Since I don't really know you personally my imagination goes to work and I am picturing you as a modern day Laura Ingalls out there on prairie, battling snakes and hawks and training horses and everything else PLUS being pregnant! You go ! Way to have a full life. ( just humor us and be careful) ; )
Wow, what a beautiful weekend, DD had a couple friends stay over Sat. We had a bonfire, watched the neighbors fireworks,and then they stayed out in the "new" old camper. What a hoot!
I didn't plant any zucchini this year but last year I used BasicH in a spray bottle with water and a drop or two of cedar oil and citronella oil. After a few hours I went out and checked and the bugs were laying dead at the bottom of the plants, then I removed the eggs with tape. I usually avoid the MLM type of companies like the plague , but I found some online and was able to get it without a big sales pitch. (Makes great fly spray for horses too, and I can send DD out to spray down the horses and not worry about her getting covered in toxic stuff.)

 

[cherwill]

Cherwill: next year I am going to be using lots of tangle-foot - hoping to stick them to the spot where they can't do any/much harm before they die. Same with the cucumber beetles - they fly to bright yellow - squash-blossom color so I am going to try and hang bright-yellow orange traps up covered with tangle foot - worth a try. The cucumber beetles also carry bacterial wilt that kills plants. Tomato hornworms are at least able to be picked off and fed to hungry waiting chickens!

It's definitely worth a try. I hope I'll remember it by next year.

Coop cleaning done! I rearranged the furniture (as Chooks Chick says) for the new babies.

It looks great!

I'm glad your birds are OK. All of this talk of hawks makes me very glad we have the trees we have down front & places for my chickens to hide.

Same here. With the three lilacs in our chicken yard, it would be very hard for a predator bird to swoop in.

 

[sharol]

First night in the big coop for the "orphans" as my DH refers to my brooder chicks. They are about 8 1/2 weeks old. Everybody is fine this morning, so all's well in chickieworld.

 

[tweetybaby2005]

Same here. I don't think it matters - they will kick it out, and it will have to be replaced regularly. Right now I am using dried grass. When I mow, most of it is mulched back onto the lawn but there are always areas like near the driveway, where the mown grass ends up and it sits there until the wind eventually blows it away. I just let it sit long enough to dry and then I sweep it up and use that in my nest boxes. There is a plentiful supply of it for a large part of the year. In the winter I just use a handful of clean straw to replace the bedding in the nest boxes as needed.

I'm going to have to google squash bugs - I don't know that I've ever seen one. Or a cucumber beetle for that matter. Hmmm. The problems I have are typically caterpillars and one year I had aphids pretty badly. We are totally organic and don't use anything on our garden at all, except elbow grease. I.e., I go out everyday with a collection container and pick off every caterpillar I find, and feed those to the birds (feels good to watch them getting the extra protein and know that those are caterpillars who will never bother me again!) For the aphids, I would squash each one I found between thumb and forefinger, and then caught every ladybug I spotted, and transplanted them to my veggie garden. Eventually the ladybugs won and the aphid population went way down.

I have the same issue. The birds just love to kick them out of the box and lay eggs on the bare box. Silly birds. I'm to the point of just grabbing whatever is left on the floor and put them in the box.

Aphids... I hate them. They are all over my precious Adeniums! I use Dawn dish soap and water then spray on the plants. Leave them for an hour or 2 (or over night if cool) then spray the plants down with water. They killed most of the aphids this Spring. I'm not sure if this will work on other bugs or not though but worth a try.

It's a shame you don't live closer to me. I have an ex BIL who is a German doctor. They practice with herbs, acupuncture, etc. He knows what he is doing. I had some problems years ago that I was told would mean drastic surgical measures. He managed to completely cure the problem with acupuncture, herbal concoctions and some other Chinese treatments. He lives in Burlington if you are interested. IF you wear glasses you can eliminate your secretaries neck by using cheap reading glasses on the computer. It keeps you from tilting your head upward.
Unfortunately years ago I had a neck injury and have had multiple surgeries and fusions because of it. It is now to the point There is only one more disk to fuse and if it gets fused it would stop me from turning my neck at all. Not a good option. I am very handicapped when it comes to looking behind me or turning to one side as it is. I have to use my whole upper torso. Since I have also had my back fused that again limits me. No pity party here. I've learned to live with it except when it flares up and the pain gets out of hand.

I can't imagine not being plagued by them. I've never had a garden with any kind of vine that didn't get squash bugs.
Tweety, I got a couple long I believe some kind of squash from my chinese friend yesterday. I was wondering if you could identify them and tell me what to do with them. He said to cook them with eggs and then add water. Not sure what that would be. Maybe a soup of some kind? Can you tell me what they are called and how to prepare them? Also gave me the two melons next to them. He said those are a sweet melon. Do you know what they are as well? His English is very hard to understand.

The long green squash looks like the Vietnamese Luffa, aka Muop Huong. The white flesh inside is very sweet, great for stir fry or soup. Peel the outside green leathery skin off then cut it into a couple of inches long, thinly sliced. Then use minced pork or chicken and stir fry them together. Season it with soy sauce, salt, and pepper to taste. But the most popular use of it is for soup cooking. Brown some minced garlic with salt till brown then add water and boil it on high heat. Cut the squash into edible sizes, normally about 3" long x 1" thick. After the water is boiling, reduce to medium heat and add the squash pieces into the boiling water. Cover and let simmer for at least 10 to 15 minutes or until the squash is soft. Then add some beatened eggs to the boiling water and it is ready to eat. You can season it with fish sauce/soy sauce and white pepper (powder). The soup will look like egg drop soup because of the added eggs. We eat it with steamed rice.

The yellow mellon looks like Oriental Melon. We don't have a specific name for it, just that it is oriental melon. We just eat it the same way as cantelope. They are very sweet and juicy.

organic pest controls

Neem oil--READ DIRECTIONS CAREFULLY

also for squash bug and their eggs already laid on plants--wrap duct tape inside out around your hand and "pat" affected plant parts--takes all the unhatched bug eggs off your plant

Ohh... I will have to try this.

*************************************************************************************************************

I did my first round of Dawn soap+water spray down with the outside plants that need to be brought in for winter. I will repeat it this coming weekend and they will be ready to be brought inside. I hope this kills off any bugs that may hitch hike into house on the plants.

DH set traps and caugh 3 gray mice in the pantry. I think they came in from the garage when we left the door open to carry some stuff in. I hope this is it or we may have to consider putting a good mouser in the garage. Our neighbor is nursiing 4 little barn kitties right now and I'm sure she is more than happy to give us one if we need it. This cat will have to be an outdoor cat though but will have access to the garage.

Well... I think the dogs are gone for good this time. Because they were out the other day, we talked about making sure the dogs are safe with us and that we need to be walking them around the property on leash so they know this is home. So yesterday morning, my son got up bright and early and tried to walk the dogs on leash. No sooner than him opening the door to the garage, the dogs ran past him with lightning speed (his words...) and they were gone. By the time he came back to the house to tell me and for me to get up and put my light jacket on and switched my slippers into a pair of boots, the dogs were no where to be found. He was soooo mad at himself. I knew he meant good and thought he could do it by himself to "train" the dogs but he just didn't know they would just bolt and run. DH and I drove in separate cars looking for them all day to no avail. I hope they would come back by themselves or they will be out there all alone. I left the dog food in the bowls so if they know to come back, they will have food to eat. Sigh... may be it is just not meant to be. I'm exhausted at this point.

Once of my Cayuga ducks has been limping. I picked him up and looked at his feet, no bumblefoot that I could see. So I let him walk around by himself and just keep an eye on him. Hopefully he is getting better. He looks healthy otherwise, eating well and swimming well.

I better get busy. Have a great day.

 

[chicken danz]

Coop cleaning done! I rearranged the furniture (as Chooks Chick says) for the new babies.

It looks great! Mine never look that good even after a thorough cleaning. Glad to hear the Orphans finally get to be with the other birds. I hope that all goes well. I wish I had all my young birds and older ones integrated. My problem is that I think some of my pens are going to be way to small for the new additions.

Yes burning that area or you can pour boiling water over that area and cover with clear plastic to "solar cook" the soil will also eliminate bacterias

Question: If you did that would it sterilize the soil as well and kill out the nutrients? Just wondering.

Thank you! I too am glad my birds are okay. It was quite the surprise finding that hawk trapped in their pen! I've noticed that we seem to have a lot more hawks in the area than we had previously. I wonder why that is... Either way, it is kind of unsettling. This hawk was about the same size as some of my Khaki Campbell ducks, but I've seen others in the area that are bigger than that and could possibly take a duck. Scary!!! I was really wondering how we were gonna get that hawk out of there. I'm really glad it flew out voluntarily with only a little bit of prompting from my husband.

It's that time of year for hawks and owls to go back on the prowl big time and migrating hawks starting to move. We had a hawk trapped inside one of my pens once. It flew in the door and there was netting on top. My dog was jumping up trying to grab it. Good dog!!!

SHAROL- wow! Your coop looks wonderful ! Just might be the inspiration I need to get some work done on mine.
Danz & Aliaslucyvp- sorry your necks bugging you, wish I could find a good acupuncture / chiro doc but its so hard to find a good one. Seems like some of them really have a gift and know to help you feel better, but for every one of those there are 20 or more quacks out there who give those professions a bad rap. I wonder if we will ever see hyaluronic acid injections here like they have in Europe ? It's done wonders for some horses here for a while now.
LIZZY- you crack me up, the way your posts run . Since I don't really know you personally my imagination goes to work and I am picturing you as a modern day Laura Ingalls out there on prairie, battling snakes and hawks and training horses and everything else PLUS being pregnant! You go ! Way to have a full life. ( just humor us and be careful) ; )
Wow, what a beautiful weekend, DD had a couple friends stay over Sat. We had a bonfire, watched the neighbors fireworks,and then they stayed out in the "new" old camper. What a hoot!
I didn't plant any zucchini this year but last year I used BasicH in a spray bottle with water and a drop or two of cedar oil and citronella oil. After a few hours I went out and checked and the bugs were laying dead at the bottom of the plants, then I removed the eggs with tape. I usually avoid the MLM type of companies like the plague , but I found some online and was able to get it without a big sales pitch. (Makes great fly spray for horses too, and I can send DD out to spray down the horses and not worry about her getting covered in toxic stuff.)

So I looked up basic H. Do you know what it is made of? I looked up the label but of course it didn't say. I have to be so careful even using natural products due to allergies. What was toxic? Was it the Cedar oil or the basic H? There again lies a problem cause I am allergic to Cedar. All evergreens for that matter. Needless to say we have an artificial Christmas tree. I think it would be fine as long as it didn't stay on the plant a long time so I got into it when I was picking the veggies. What is your take on that? Does it disseminate in short order?
Cherwill, I like the idea of having lilacs or other bushes in the chicken yards. I plan to order several shrubs this coming spring but how do you get them established with the birds around? I have tried that a few times and the birds end up digging them up or eating all the leaves off. Even with wire around them they managed to wreck new plantings.

 

[tweetybaby2005]

Wow Sharol, you really did clean your coop well. Mine doesn't look even half decent as yours after cleaning.

Hawks... Lizzy - glad your birds are OK. I saw lots of them lately over by the neighbor's farm land (they have about 150 acres just north of us). They swoop down then fly up high again. I am planting more bushes and trees around the fenced in grazing area so hopefully the birds will have some place to hide quickly if being attacked by the hawks. They are too close for my own comfort.

I am wondering if I should burn some of the areas where the previous owners had planted squash and tomatoes. The remnants of the plants look pretty pathetic and looked diseased to me. But I don't know that for sure. Better be safe than sorry since I'm definitely planning to get a nice size garden going next year.