Consolidated Kansas

[HEChicken]

Dang-it I guess I have no choice but make some brownies and test out the duck eggs. It's ok....I'll take one for the team .

Well I am a bit unhappy this morning. I bought a hog and my son also got one from a guy who said the hogs were small about 200 pounds but they were fat. I never saw them cause he delivered them to the locker. The locker called this AM and said they are grinders. In other words no fat and not much in the way of meat. Hams and bacon would shrink up to nothing after being smoked. I just told them to cut what they could for roasts cause I sure can't use a ton of ground pork. I also said I would just take them both. My son does smoking and barbecue and they wouldn't work for him. Luckily I had paid for his hog and he was going to just pay me back. So I'm pretty unhappy because that's a lot of money to invest for very little usable product. I can use the ground pork for some things but I really want to have some other meat as well. I guess next time I will have to be sure I see the hog before I buy. If I had known these were that small I would have just brought them home and fed them out myself. Live and learn!!! They were supposed to be 200 pound hogs but I will only get about 60 pounds out of each if I'm lucky. That sure raises the price of the meat per pound.

Oh my goodness, what an awful experience. FWIW, I have a guy I get hogs from who has never disappointed me - I've been buying from him for years. It would be a drive for you to pick up the meat as he processes at Yoder Meats outside of Hutchinson, but if you want the recommendation, PM me.

Well my DH managed to leave the door unlatched to the guinea hoop coop last night & now the guineas are all out today. He'll never get them in, he doesn't have the patience to deal with them, so now they're probably going to be out & I'll end up losing birds, It's really aggravating. I know he didn't do it purposely but he gets so distracted at times & doesn't pay attention to what he's doing. I hope I have some birds left by the time my leg is healed. I already had my Salmon Faverolles out roaming around yesterday due to the coop door being left open. Fortunately they wanted back in & he was able to put them back in, so I made him go out & check that all of the other doors were latched. Those birds in the breeder pens have never been out so it worries me if they get loose.

The weather isn't going to be nice here Thurs. at all, a high of 27, so I'm kind of worried about all of the chicks that have recently been moved to the growout pen. I had my DH move the lavender Orp chicks out there yesterday from the garage. I like to acclimate them out there for at least a week after they have been in the house so they're not shocked by the cold.

I think the chicks in the grow out pen should be fine - you have it nicely wind blocked and they are all fully feathered, yes? I'm glad to hear the lavender orp chicks are out there now too - they looked really big to still be under a heat lamp in the brooder. They are such quiet little things - I had to peek in there to even see that there was anything in there. I am used to chicks in a brooder constantly chirping but it was so silent in there I was sure it was empty and the heat lamp had been left on by accident. I was quite surprised to peek in and have all these little heads turn to look at me

Hopefully the guineas will all come back when it is dinner time next.

Well bad got worse. I just got off the phone with GQF. Trish you are right. Those b**ches at GQF are nasty. My papers say that the unit is guaranteed for 1 year against manufacturing defects and has a three year guarantee. Well they are telling me if you order them from someone else that that is so the merchant can have them on the shelf. I told them they are wrong because they are shipped directly from the manufacturer not from the business. They say it is a used unit if it isn't sold directly from them to the customer. Stupid *** didn't make any sense at all. A power supply from other people made by the same company with almost identical specs is only $14 with free shipping. But I can't be positive the cord would fit. They want $22+ for theirs with an additional $12 for shipping. What a rip! I went ahead and ordered it anyway because I need the incubator. If the operating computer goes out I might as well just call it quits.

When I read this morning about how you don't have the paperwork because you weren't the original purchaser, I was wondering if it is still possible to get the paperwork but now that I think about it, I really think it has been over a year since Deerfield purchased the unit so it probably is out of warranty anyway. So sorry you are having this issue. I must say, between the problems you are having and what Trish had with a month-old unit, I would have to think twice about getting one of these. I don't see myself ever needing to incubate that many eggs at a time but if I did, I'd probably look around to see what else is out there. Customer service is an important part of any purchase - these companies should realize that before they turn off potential future customers like moi.

Okay now it's even worse. I went out to discard the bad eggs. I smelled something burning but couldn't find smoke. So I started checking. I found a light had somehow gotten knocked down in the brooder house It's the only heat lamp I have out there, the rest of it has sweeter heaters. I just had it up due to the extreme cold. somehow it got unwired and was sitting on the floor. It burnt a bunch of shavings and such but thank goodness had just begun scorching the floor. I'e taken every precaution to make sure the heat lamps are secure but obviously nothing is fool proof.

No, Its your Lucky Day! At least you didn't have a fire!

x2. I had multi'ed Danz' post but then saw Bill's and he said just what I was going to say!

 

[Trish44]

HEChicken, yes the lavender Orp chicks are fully feathered. I just don't like to throw birds right outside after them being used to being in the house without acclimating them first. That particular breed & color seems to be a bit more fragile than the others.

Geez Danz I hope the rest of your day is better. Too bad we can't sometimes have do-overs when we have a bad day. Hopefully tomorrow will be better.

Cherwill, my DH has nada patience, he got only 4 of the guineas in so now there are 10 running around with me not able to get them in.

 

[chicken danz]

I love my GQFs. The problem is they changed the fan units to save money by putting in cheaper 12v computer type fans in the Sportsman's model rather than the metal 110 v ones. The last GQF I bought from GQF is a professional unit and it still has the big fan in it. It was purchased about the same time. Just a little nicer unit made for people who hatch separately. I would still swear by them but their customer service is awful. Any other parts I need can be purchased cheaper elsewhere. They outsource all the parts to build them anyway so most are available psot consumer. If I hadn't been in a rush to get this unit operating again I would have just purchased a new metal fan and by passed the whole power supply thing. The power supply was functioning but not putting out enough voltage to run the fans.
I may just buy the parts and make all my own future incubators. I have them down to a science now I think. I hope I never need more. 5 GQFs and two Little Giants should be enough, shouldn't it? However I did run out of room last spring and had to just sell some eggs as eating eggs.
Trish its a shame he won't be home this evening because they'll probably go back in when it gets dark.
I need to get outside and take care of the critters. I may not want to be out there too much the next several days.
I played with a heat tape that wasn't working last night. The thermostat had gone bad on it. I just connected the contacts through the plastic housing with a pair of pliars and got it working. I think I'm going to wrap it around one of my 55 gallon barrels and hook it up to a thermostat so I can heat the barrel for fermented feed. I'm trying to figure out something to use for insulation around it that won't get too hot with the heat tape going. With that I might be able to resume the fermented feed thing.
I had a bunch in a barrel that had gotten frozen. I checked it yesterday cause it had thawed. It smelled great so I fed it. No one dropped dead and the birds ate like pigs. Time to get back to fermenting!!

 

[milomac]

same with my wife, if I never mentioned a chicken again she would,nt notice

 

[chicken danz]

Today was a fix it day for sure. I had one of my long hoses get crimped together from binding over and over and it would certainly break in the future. So I had to cut out about 10 feet of hose and splice the two ends together. It's going to leave me a little short for the far pens now but I'll get by. I worked on the heat tape around the barrel and found a clamp that would engage the contacts on the thermostat. But I couldn't find tape that would hold the heat tape in place. I normally have 5 or 6 rolls of duct tape around here and I couldn't find any at all. The other tape I tried to use wouldn't hold it.
It feels like the cold front is already moving in. The wind came up and it got cooler and cloudier.
I keep wondering what people do who don't know how to fix or cobble things for themselves. I thank God for giving me the knowledge to do things. Granted I learned most of it from necessity and not having the income to pay someone but knowledge is a gift I have to be thankful for.
Now if I just knew everything I need to know!
I went ahead and ordered another sweeter heater. Couldn't afford it but I just can't chance having a fire. I'm kind of worried it is going to get a little too cool in the brooder the next few days but I have to hope for the best.

 

[HEChicken]

same with my wife, if I never mentioned a chicken again she would,nt notice

You're a dude! I don't know why that strikes me as so funny but I always imagined Milomac as female. I guess because so much of the time it is the women who are on here gabbing and we have so few guys….

Today was a fix it day for sure. I had one of my long hoses get crimped together from binding over and over and it would certainly break in the future. So I had to cut out about 10 feet of hose and splice the two ends together. It's going to leave me a little short for the far pens now but I'll get by. I worked on the heat tape around the barrel and found a clamp that would engage the contacts on the thermostat. But I couldn't find tape that would hold the heat tape in place. I normally have 5 or 6 rolls of duct tape around here and I couldn't find any at all. The other tape I tried to use wouldn't hold it.
It feels like the cold front is already moving in. The wind came up and it got cooler and cloudier.
I keep wondering what people do who don't know how to fix or cobble things for themselves. I thank God for giving me the knowledge to do things. Granted I learned most of it from necessity and not having the income to pay someone but knowledge is a gift I have to be thankful for.
Now if I just knew everything I need to know!
I went ahead and ordered another sweeter heater. Couldn't afford it but I just can't chance having a fire. I'm kind of worried it is going to get a little too cool in the brooder the next few days but I have to hope for the best.

I agree Danz. There is a lot of satisfaction in being able to fix something oneself or figure out what is wrong in the first place. I am so thankful my father let his young daughter tag along and was willing to teach her so much that is normally reserved for male offspring.

My Blue Slate turkey displayed this morning for the first time that I've seen. It was way cool to see my three Americas (red, white and blue) all out there strutting and displaying alongside one another. I will try to remember to take a camera with me tomorrow morning in case they do it again.

 

[chicken danz]

HEChicken you'll probably see a lot more of that. I noticed today the boys are all thinking it is spring. The turkeys were displaying and so were the peacocks. My pure white peacock was showing his full fan today. For just a two year old he is amazingly beautiful. I used to get my blue slates fanning by doing a "Woot!" sound. They'd gobble and fan out. They would also fan when they saw a stranger.

 

[KsKingBee]

There is one less guinea in the world! Yay! I had enough of that little rat picking on my turkey! It's going in the crock pot...

 

[HEChicken]

There is one less guinea in the world! Yay! I had enough of that little rat picking on my turkey! It's going in the crock pot...

Do I dare to say "it will taste like chicken"? And yet….I couldn't tell the difference...

 

[22qZoo]

Danz-I'm so glad you didn't have a worse disaster when you smelled smoke earlier today!
Well the brownies with duck eggs turned out great, I think. But there is still more research to be done