Consolidated Kansas

[KsKingBee]

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

You are invited to come for guinea and rice!

 

[tazcat70]

It was a pretty nice day, but as the sun started to set that wind was frigid! Brrrrrrr!!!

 

[Ralph Moyer]

I have a large male guinea that I allow to free range with no restrictions. He was a packing peanut that came with some pullets I ordered two years ago. He is one of those larger guinea breeds and is about twice the size of my other guineas. He makes more noise than all the others combined. He doesn't bother me much as I don't hear high pitched sounds well. But he does get on my wife's nerves. I was gone for a few hours today and when I returned she ask me to do something about that guinea. She said he had been at the front of the house making racket even before I had left this morning. He had gotten into a 4'x8' flower garden we have next to the front of the house. The fence is a wrought iron 3' high fence with bars about 4" apart. He was running up and down the fence stopping ever now and then and tried to get though the bars. There is no top! all he hade to do was hop up and he would be free.I reached in and set him free. He took off as fast as he could to the poultry lot. Chattering all the way. Maybe he was warning all the others about the "trap" up by the house.LOL

 

[Trish44]

I have a large male guinea that I allow to free range with no restrictions. He was a packing peanut that came with some pullets I ordered two years ago. He is one of those larger guinea breeds and is about twice the size of my other guineas. He makes more noise than all the others combined. He doesn't bother me much as I don't hear high pitched sounds well. But he does get on my wife's nerves. I was gone for a few hours today and when I returned she ask me to do something about that guinea. She said he had been at the front of the house making racket even before I had left this morning. He had gotten into a 4'x8' flower garden we have next to the front of the house. The fence is a wrought iron 3' high fence with bars about 4" apart. He was running up and down the fence stopping ever now and then and tried to get though the bars. There is no top! all he hade to do was hop up and he would be free.I reached in and set him free. He took off as fast as he could to the poultry lot. Chattering all the way. Maybe he was warning all the others about the "trap" up by the house.LOL

Oh you made me laugh, those guineas are just the dumbest birds there are when it comes to finding a way out of somewhere or back in!

22qzoo that brownie looks yummy!

 

[HEChicken]

Oh my goodness that cold front hit with a vengeance. It was 47 when I last looked last night, but dropped 40 degrees overnight to just 7 degrees right now. I had NO idea we were going to get down to single digits and didn't even have my heated water bowl plugged in since it has been so nice lately. I bet there are a bunch of birds down there who want water and I'm at the house trying to put off going outside in the cold for as long as possible.

 

[sharol]

Oh my goodness that cold front hit with a vengeance. It was 47 when I last looked last night, but dropped 40 degrees overnight to just 7 degrees right now. I had NO idea we were going to get down to single digits and didn't even have my heated water bowl plugged in since it has been so nice lately. I bet there are a bunch of birds down there who want water and I'm at the house trying to put off going outside in the cold for as long as possible.

I hear that. I noticed that my heated waterer in the coop (I only have power in there, not in the run) was getting a little low. This morning it had a skin of ice over it because the water had gotten so low. It is one of those "impossible to handle" plastic ones that you have to invert full. I needed plastic since I use ACV year round in their water, and it was all I could find. hate that thing, but it is better than an open dish that has to be refilled twice a day.

Dang. 2 degrees? I thought the low was supposed to be around 16 or so. I am SO done with this cold. The older I get, the less tolerant I am of extremes of any kind.

My adopted puppies ganged up on my 9 month old kitten on Sunday. When I got to them, she was covered with slobber. She is OK, but it scared me badly. She was completely freaked out and I was afraid for a while she was bleeding internally (there were no external injuries), and she hobbled around for 24 hours. The vet says she seems fine, and this morning she is her usual obnoxious self. I am working with the local rescue to re-home one of them. Each by himself is fine, but get them together and they are a menace to her. I can't have animals I can't trust, and that doesn't even begin to address the chicken interaction (of which there has been NONE off leash since the first day when Lizbeth lost tail feathers). I feel like a quitter, and Blue Bayou is a really nice dog, but he is just not trainable around cats. At least by me. Red Rover gets to stay, and he will miss his brother, but I have to get some peace of mind. I couldn't even write about it yesterday -- I was too upset. The frustrating thing is that we have felt all along they would be better off separated, but we didn't want to do that -- they are really bonded to each other.

 

[ChooksChick]

WHO THE HECK ORDERED THIS WEATHER???!!?!?



Take it back, now. Completely unnecessary.

UGH.


In other news, I'm finally getting eggs from most of my breeds, so Chocolate everything will abound this year. I need to find another peahen, because I don't want to take the one hen from Alison though I've taken my boy... her hen got killed last year and her cock would be alone if I took my hen, but the facility we housed them in for 6 months to get them to set GPS internally as 'Home' is gone, so if I helped her get a new hen, there would be a strong chance of it leaving.

I'll be keeping my fellow penned for at least 6 mos, so I may as well get him a new girl. I'd love to have another Blackshoulder, and it's probably too much to ask to look for a Purple to match him...but I'll probably be up for anything...if anyone has a hen or knows of one, I'd be interested. We're setting up a barn as aviary. It should be wonderful, with a huge outdoor run.

Also, if anyone knows of a Bourbon Red tom available for trade or purchase, I need another. I have a Black tom and a Royal Palm if anyone wants one of those. Sweet & huggable, not delicious.

 

[chicken danz]

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

You are invited to come for guinea and rice!

Let me know how it tastes. I've always been tempted to try one.

It was a pretty nice day, but as the sun started to set that wind was frigid! Brrrrrrr!!!

That wind was insane last night. I'm afraid to go look at where everything ended up. The last big wind we had landed a big limb on my car. luckily it caught on the vent thing above the window and kept it from having major damage.

I have a large male guinea that I allow to free range with no restrictions. He was a packing peanut that came with some pullets I ordered two years ago. He is one of those larger guinea breeds and is about twice the size of my other guineas. He makes more noise than all the others combined. He doesn't bother me much as I don't hear high pitched sounds well. But he does get on my wife's nerves. I was gone for a few hours today and when I returned she ask me to do something about that guinea. She said he had been at the front of the house making racket even before I had left this morning. He had gotten into a 4'x8' flower garden we have next to the front of the house. The fence is a wrought iron 3' high fence with bars about 4" apart. He was running up and down the fence stopping ever now and then and tried to get though the bars. There is no top! all he hade to do was hop up and he would be free.I reached in and set him free. He took off as fast as he could to the poultry lot. Chattering all the way. Maybe he was warning all the others about the "trap" up by the house.LOL

Not sure why they are like that, but it cracks me up. They obviously have no memory at all. Kind of like myself these days

Well my other multis didn't show up. It's insane cold out there HEChicken. I need to go out soon and check on my brooder house. I removed that light so they had a lot less heat to cower under last night. I probably should have rigged up something else but I didn't realize that it was going to be so windy and so cold last night. I'm hoping those chicks have enough age on them they did okay. Worst case scenario is that they smothered each other. Sure wish that bigger Sweeter Heater was here already.
Sharol you've done great with the dogs and you gave them a fair chance. No need to feel guilty. At least Blue is fixed and has had some care so he is a lot more home ready than he was when you got him. He's a beautiful dog so that will help too.
I had one of those waterers like you describe that wasn't a heated unit. I was so happy when the base finally cracked and I could get rid of it. Mine was a 5 gallon unit and turning 5 gallons at once was a task. I usually ended up with maybe three gallons in it and two gallons on me.
I was going to work on my heated FF barrel today but I think it can wait until it's a little warmer. I have some barrels I cut about 6 inches off the bottom for nests for the peafowl and turkeys. Once I get the heat tape secured I am going to split one of those down one side and attempt to put it over the outside of the heated barrel. I think that will give me the insulation I need to keep the heat in. So when this project finally gets done it will probably be spring and I won't need the heat any more.

 

[sharol]

I had one of those waterers like you describe that wasn't a heated unit. I was so happy when the base finally cracked and I could get rid of it. Mine was a 5 gallon unit and turning 5 gallons at once was a task. I usually ended up with maybe three gallons in it and two gallons on me.

Yeah, that's the one. Except mine only holds 3 gallons, so I only end up wearing 1. ;-)

 

[HEChicken]

My adopted puppies ganged up on my 9 month old kitten on Sunday. When I got to them, she was covered with slobber. She is OK, but it scared me badly. She was completely freaked out and I was afraid for a while she was bleeding internally (there were no external injuries), and she hobbled around for 24 hours. The vet says she seems fine, and this morning she is her usual obnoxious self. I am working with the local rescue to re-home one of them. Each by himself is fine, but get them together and they are a menace to her. I can't have animals I can't trust, and that doesn't even begin to address the chicken interaction (of which there has been NONE off leash since the first day when Lizbeth lost tail feathers). I feel like a quitter, and Blue Bayou is a really nice dog, but he is just not trainable around cats. At least by me. Red Rover gets to stay, and he will miss his brother, but I have to get some peace of mind. I couldn't even write about it yesterday -- I was too upset. The frustrating thing is that we have felt all along they would be better off separated, but we didn't want to do that -- they are really bonded to each other.

For what its worth, I think you are making the right choice. Years ago, we had 2 cats when we adopted our first dog. A few weeks later we adopted a second dog as a companion for the first. After getting them settled in, time passed, time during which the dogs and cats all appeared to be getting along fine. We left them all alone together in the house for hours at a time while going out. One time we even left for 3 days, and had a gal come in twice a day to feed and let the dogs out for potty breaks. Then one night, when we had all been one big, happy family for 7 months, we went out and were gone no more than 30 minutes but returned home to find one of the cats dead. It was one of the more devastating experiences we've ever had.

We regrouped and some time later, adopted another cat as we enjoyed having two together. We decided that the cat may have instigated the original incident because she did tend to run past them hissing, and that may have stimulated their prey drive. So when we adopted the new cat, we specifically looked for one who was accustomed to being around dogs. He was very relaxed around the dogs, never hissing and running, but just to be safe, whenever we were leaving, we would crate one of the dogs, figuring that it was a "pack" mentality that had caused the incident. All was well for awhile, but one night we were running late and in the chaos of getting out the door, failed to crate the dog. We returned home to find the new cat dead. At that point we realized we could never trust the one dog around cats again, and did not try to get another cat. Strangely, the other cat who had been there before the dogs, was never targeted and lived with both dogs for several more years. Since then both dogs have passed on and our current two dogs are completely cat-safe.

But based on what you've told us, it sounds like it will only be a matter of time before you have a heart-breaking incident of your own, so I do think you are making the right decision. <<hugs>>

I'll be keeping my fellow penned for at least 6 mos, so I may as well get him a new girl. I'd love to have another Blackshoulder, and it's probably too much to ask to look for a Purple to match him...but I'll probably be up for anything...if anyone has a hen or knows of one, I'd be interested. We're setting up a barn as aviary. It should be wonderful, with a huge outdoor run.

Also, if anyone knows of a Bourbon Red tom available for trade or purchase, I need another. I have a Black tom and a Royal Palm if anyone wants one of those. Sweet & huggable, not delicious.

Sorry, I can't help - I am still hoping to someday obtain a peahen for Percy, our barn Peacock. I have a Blue Slate tom I will need to rehome if you are interested - he just started to display yesterday - but I need to keep my only BR tom.