Consolidated Kansas

[Trish44]

I got my have to's done yesterday but not much more. I got to feeling really lousy when I got home after my final trip, and ended up sick in the evening. I figured it out this morning. I am dehydrated. I have done that before. For some reason when I get to a certain point of dehydration I don't feel like drinking and yesterday was one of those days. I'm going to have to make myself guzzle water today. I've ended up in the hospital on IV fluids more than once for dehydration. I guess I wasn't out working when I was on the road so I wasn't drinking like normal.
I think I had panicked about the dog. I thought she had hot spots, but she just had a few spots where she had scratch that weren't infected. He gave her a steroid shot to help the itching. I had left her Seresto collar off of her because of her puppies and I think she has a flea allergy.
However he couldn't find any fleas, ticks, or anything on her in the exam. And he also said I was doing a great job on her with my worming because she had no worms of any kind in her fecal. I had wormed her while she was was pregnant on the regular schedule with every one else.
I had postponed her rabies booster because of the pups so he went ahead and gave her that while she was there.
The poor chickens didn't get much attention yesterday. By the time I got home I was feeling sick and all I did was water them. No one was completely out of food anyway. It's supposed to be cooler the rest of the week so I'm hoping to get caught up on some of this work around here with the birds and sorting and moving them.

I hope things settle down for you soon, I know the feeling when you just go in circles trying to get things done. It's been really busy here for me lately too. I'm trying to wind down on hatching for the year & then had someone ask me to hatch eggs for them. I hope if I'm going to do it that it happens soon because I really wanted to shut down my incubator for the year. I'm trying to sell down all extra chicks I have as well so I just have to feed & care for my own I'm growing out. I have a few pullets that are old enough that soon I can start integrating them into the main coop. That will help with the room in the growout pen. I have some Jubilee Orpington chicks in there I'm growing out till I can tell sexes & then I'll pick out a couple of pullets & sell the rest. I know I still have a few extra chicks of other kinds in there as well & of course extra roosters.

We got more rain so everything is muddy again. We have several more days of rain in the forecast. I wish it would just spread out more rather than raining all at once like it has been. It just makes a mess of my pens & everywhere around them. I can't get to the sheep pen to clean anything out till it totally dries out & so far it hasn't had a chance to.

 

[sharol]

I got my have to's done yesterday but not much more. I got to feeling really lousy when I got home after my final trip, and ended up sick in the evening. I figured it out this morning. I am dehydrated. I have done that before. For some reason when I get to a certain point of dehydration I don't feel like drinking and yesterday was one of those days. I'm going to have to make myself guzzle water today. I've ended up in the hospital on IV fluids more than once for dehydration. I guess I wasn't out working when I was on the road so I wasn't drinking like normal.
I think I had panicked about the dog. I thought she had hot spots, but she just had a few spots where she had scratch that weren't infected. He gave her a steroid shot to help the itching. I had left her Seresto collar off of her because of her puppies and I think she has a flea allergy.
However he couldn't find any fleas, ticks, or anything on her in the exam. And he also said I was doing a great job on her with my worming because she had no worms of any kind in her fecal. I had wormed her while she was was pregnant on the regular schedule with every one else.
I had postponed her rabies booster because of the pups so he went ahead and gave her that while she was there.
The poor chickens didn't get much attention yesterday. By the time I got home I was feeling sick and all I did was water them. No one was completely out of food anyway. It's supposed to be cooler the rest of the week so I'm hoping to get caught up on some of this work around here with the birds and sorting and moving them.

I got dehydrated Saturday, and I'm still feeling the effects. Take care of yourself. Glad your mama dog is ok.

I need to get with you on those chicks we talked about, too. You've been so busy I didn't want to bug you about them last weekend.

 

[chicken danz]

I wish we'd get some rain. It was supposed to happen this morning and it rained nearby but nothing at all here. I've got to get that fruit garden soaked down so I can pull the rest of the weeds out there. And I need to get the mulch in both gardens. I feel like I'm going backwards.
I'm hoping with supposedly cooler weather on it's way this week that I can get caught up on things, @sharol . DH is working night shift so I won't have any muscle if I need it but sometimes I can get a lot more done if he isn't here to help.

Yeah I never really completely stop hatching because of seasonal layers and birds I need to replace, but I'm pretty close to that right now. Peafowl are about done for the season until the India Blues do their second lay. I've had a totally bad peafowl season. Turkeys are laying but have wanted to brood all year so I haven't had all that many turkeys either.
I still have plenty to sell though.
I've got a few Breeders to replenish with some younger birds and maybe a few to replace all together cause their laying has gotten pretty poor. But I have a lot of those already grown enough to go into the breeder pens. Just need time to get pop doors installed and temporary pens set up outside. It's more a matter of organizing at this point. I also need to sell some layers soon.

 

[HEChicken]

Oh dear Danz, yes, you need to keep your fluids up in hot weather like this - you can go downhill pretty quickly.

We didn't get any rain here yet either, however there is some in the forecast and the interval between rainfalls has been perfect this year, for growing hay and veggies.

I am cutting down on birds. I've felt a bit overwhelmed this year between chickens, turkeys, sheep, goats and cows, plus dealing with the surpluses they produce, so I decided I need to find ways to cut out the amount of work. It makes going away very stressful when I have so much that I do and have to find someone else to do it while I'm gone. So to that end, I decided to sell my turkeys. It was a hard decision because I really have enjoyed having them. But - they are a large bird that eats a lot year-round while only laying for a short period of that time. And, they are dominant so they get to the feed first and the chickens only get what is left over. My turkey tom has been a really good boy - never a sick day in his life, good fertility, non-aggressive and slept in the coop on the roosts year-round, which kept him safe. However....I learned recently that he was making bedtime stressful as he would be the last to go into the coop and then he'd get on the roost and peck mercilessly at any bird he could reach from where he was sitting, until they moved. So - between the three things - needing to downsize, reduce my feed bill and reduce overall stress level - the turkeys seemed like the first thing to cut out.

The tom left for his new home last week and the hens are pre-sold but I told their new owners since they are currently brooding or raising poults, they can't leave for a few weeks. They both said they're fine with that.

I got the dog run dismantled and set around the turkey who is brooding in the lagoon. Then I took a piece of shade cloth and draped it in such a way it gives her shade until the hedge casts shade on the pen. Then, feeling satisfied with a job well done, I sat back to watch my other turkey who I suspected of being pre-broody, to see where she is laying her eggs and wouldn't you know? Her nest is also in the lagoon, in an unshaded area. So now I have to figure out a way to protect her as well. It never ends. These silly girls, building nests where they don't have shade in heat like this!

My NH rooster that I talked about a few weeks ago, was never able to get re-integrated to the flock. The turkey tom really had it in for him and would beat him up any time he tried to get close and then the other roosters joined in and the poor thing was really losing confidence. He moved up to sleep on my back porch and I was feeding him there out of pity. However once the tom left, I decided it was time he reintegrated as I don't need the extra work of having to feed one bird one place while all the others are eating somewhere else. I told him he had a week to reintegrate or that was it. At night I would carry him down and lock him in the chicken yard, hoping he'd eventually decide to stand up to those other roosters and be a chicken again. However every morning he would find a way back up to the house. He was becoming my constant companion, following me out to the mailbox to check the mail, to the veggie garden and anywhere else I went. So, this morning I decided it was time to cull him. Since I stopped feeding him at the back door (to encourage him to move back home) but he didn't have the confidence to go down to the chicken yard to eat, I was afraid he was going to slowly starve to death. Since he followed me to the veggie garden every evening, he was getting all the grasshoppers and caterpillars I could catch there and all the stuff he could forage for himself during the day but that was about it. It was one of the harder birds I've had to butcher, but in the end I felt it was the best thing for him. I have one of his sons that I'm growing out who is looking good so far, so I guess I'll give him a chance to be the replacement for this guy. RIP.

Yesterday I milked our 5-month pregnant cow for the last time. We've been drying her up over the last month so she can concentrate on growing her calf and we decided we're done milking her now so that will help with the workload too, to only have to milk one cow and the two goats. Even that is a lot of milk so I continue to have to make a wheel of cheese about every other day. Now that I've been doing this awhile though, some of the aged cheeses that don't age as long are coming ready. Last night we cut into a Goat Milk Ibores that had aged for two months, and ate it with crackers and some freshly picked vine-ripened tomatoes. I have to say, it was pretty darn good

 

[sharol]

Yesterday I milked our 5-month pregnant cow for the last time. We've been drying her up over the last month so she can concentrate on growing her calf and we decided we're done milking her now so that will help with the workload too, to only have to milk one cow and the two goats. Even that is a lot of milk so I continue to have to make a wheel of cheese about every other day. Now that I've been doing this awhile though, some of the aged cheeses that don't age as long are coming ready. Last night we cut into a Goat Milk Ibores that had aged for two months, and ate it with crackers and some freshly picked vine-ripened tomatoes. I have to say, it was pretty darn good

As a person allergic to cows milk (and the good stuff you make from it) I am SOOOOOO jealous of that goat cheese. It looks WONDERFUL. Have you considered selling it?

 

[HEChicken]

As a person allergic to cows milk (and the good stuff you make from it) I am SOOOOOO jealous of that goat cheese. It looks WONDERFUL. Have you considered selling it?

I'm still pretty new to cheese-making and since I get bored doing the same thing over and over, every batch I make is a different variety. Consequently, I never know how any of them are going to turn out until the "moment of truth" when we cut into them. For that reason it is hard to think about selling them. However if you're down my way for any reason, feel free to stop in and we'll do a cheese tasting!

 

[Trish44]

I'm still pretty new to cheese-making and since I get bored doing the same thing over and over, every batch I make is a different variety. Consequently, I never know how any of them are going to turn out until the "moment of truth" when we cut into them. For that reason it is hard to think about selling them. However if you're down my way for any reason, feel free to stop in and we'll do a cheese tasting!

Well maybe you'll get so good at it you'll have a market for it when you decide to sell some. I think you may have to get a bigger fridge for your "cheese cave" though, lol.

 

[chicken danz]

As a person allergic to cows milk (and the good stuff you make from it) I am SOOOOOO jealous of that goat cheese. It looks WONDERFUL. Have you considered selling it?

I thought I was the only one allergic to cows milk! People always say, "Oh, lactose intolerant." No I am allergic to milk. But because I love love love cheese, I still eat it and suffer the consequnces but just try to do it in moderation. I have actually become more tolerant to it than I used to be. I can also eat cottage cheese without a lot of problems so I think perhaps its a specific thing in milk I am allergic to. I just know I was tested in the 70's and found to be allergic to it.
I still cannot drink milk at all. I can do ice cream but it has the same effect that cheese does. I can't breath well at all after eating it and often get sick to my stomach and always end up paying later in the bathroom. Some things are just worth the pain as long as I don't over do it.

 

[chicklover56]

Hello everybody.

I have a hen that hasn't laid in the nesting box for two weeks. I thought she may have just been laying somewhere else, but the past few days she has been sitting in the nesting boxes, and no egg. She is acting fine. I took her out and examined her and her crop is soft and her vent looks pretty pink, maybe a little inflamed.

 

[HEChicken]

@sharol and @chicken danz , what you are probably intolerant of is the A1 enzyme that is in most commercial milk. In fact, the majority of people who believe they are lactose intolerant are actually A1 intolerant and can drink milk just fine if it does not contain A1.

In a nutshell.....there is an enzyme in milk that is known as A2. About 50 years ago, a mutation was discovered that they called A1 (why those numbers aren't in reverse I can't tell you!) And unfortunately, many people cannot tolerate the A1 enzyme. The breed that was most affected by the mutation is the Holstein. And guess which breed produces the majority of milk sold commercially? Yup - the Holstein (since they can milk out up to 8 gallons per day).

Most of the older breeds still produce the A2 enzyme. However there is also a simple test that can be done on a cow to ascertain which enzyme she produces. We have Jersey cows, which we chose largely because there have been very few instances of the mutation found in Jerseys. Just to be sure, we had them tested prior to purchase and were able to confirm that they do produce the A2 enzyme.

As you know the cows are a joint endeavor between two families and one of the driving forces behind getting them was that each of us had a family member who was "lactose intolerant". We had high hopes that they would turn out to in fact be intolerant of A1. So, after we started milking, we served milk to those family members with bated breath to see if they would react. They didn't. So here we are - a year and a half in - and they are drinking and eating milk products without ANY issue at all. In my case it was my DH. For about 8 years he had been unable to have milk without having major intestinal issues afterward. I even spent a small fortune over the years on OTC products like Lactaid, just so that he could have the occasional bowl of cereal. A year and a half later, I have some outdated Lactaid to throw away because he hasn't touched one since. He has several bowls of cereal daily, yogurt, ice cream and cheese. Some type of dairy is part of every meal of his day and he hasn't had a single intestinal issue. My neighbor has a similar story to tell about her afflicted family member.

So - my guess is that if you were to try some of my cow milk cheese, you would not have any issues with it at all.