Consolidated Kansas

[HEChicken]

Danz, I hope he gives you a reasonable quote. Sometimes there are just too many projects and it is nice to pay to have someone take care of a big one for you so it doesn't drag on forever.

I've spent about 8 hours on the mower in the last 24 hours, trying to get it all done before the rain. I just came in from mowing the last little section. Normally it doesn't take me that long because to just mow the house and surrounds is only 4-5 hours work. But this time I mowed a pretty big section of the pasture as well. We are not currently grazing it and it was popping up with too many of the grasses that are putting up long seed stems and the sheep and goats won't eat those stems anyway, so I decided I'd better get it cut. It was a lot of work but it sure is nice to look out there now and see it all looking neat and tidy and know that I don't have to wade through it now to get out to the current rotational paddock. Of course, the rain will probably trigger a bunch more growth and I'll have to do it again in a month but oh well.

Of course, all that time on the mower means I am now behind on everything else - that's just the way life goes.

I've hardly seen my birds lately except to throw them some feed once a day and collect eggs. I get a big kick out of my baby turkey who is about 6 weeks old. I still don't know if its male or female but it sure is a mama's baby. In order to get it the game bird feed a developing turkey needs, every day I take it into the hoop coop and give it access to its own feeder while the other birds are eating chicken feed. It knows the routine now and follows me in there eagerly, then I wait while it eats as if I don't stay there, some of the juvenile chickens will break in and steal the game bird feed. I've noticed that Baby wants Mama Turkey to hang out near the hoop coop while it eats and it won't settle down to eat unless Mama is nearby. The other day she tried to go off and get something to eat herself and Baby panicked and stopped eating, pacing and calling loudly for Mama to come back. She did and Baby was happy and went back to eating. I am amazed often at how good Mama Animals can be, to give up on the opportunity to eat herself, just because Baby needed the security of having her close by.

 

[zimfam]

@chickendanz & @trish44

Thank you for the welcome and the info, appreciate it!

 

[chicken danz]

@chickendanz & @trish44

Thank you for the welcome and the info, appreciate it!

Hope you have luck selling him. If you can't sell him you can always give him away. Which to get a good home is sometimes worthwhile if you really like him.
Met with the fence builder and he's expensive for sure. We ended up changing plans a couple times then after checking out fence lines and stuff we changed our plan again after the builder left. It's going to be expensive. But the way I plan to do it now will serve a two fold purpose. Instead of fencing in the whole property we'll run the fence line down the property and divide the field and the pasture plus do a jog so the loafing shed and such is fenced in as well. It's those jogs that get expensive but it's necessary. That will still give the dogs about 10 acres to run. We'll have to put in one gate for the farmer to get to the field but not sure where it will be for sure. Still working on that one. It's going to be very expensive but peace of mind will be worth it I think, and especially since that gives me an option to raise a beef or something some day.

 

[Trish44]

Hope you have luck selling him. If you can't sell him you can always give him away. Which to get a good home is sometimes worthwhile if you really like him.
Met with the fence builder and he's expensive for sure. We ended up changing plans a couple times then after checking out fence lines and stuff we changed our plan again after the builder left. It's going to be expensive. But the way I plan to do it now will serve a two fold purpose. Instead of fencing in the whole property we'll run the fence line down the property and divide the field and the pasture plus do a jog so the loafing shed and such is fenced in as well. It's those jogs that get expensive but it's necessary. That will still give the dogs about 10 acres to run. We'll have to put in one gate for the farmer to get to the field but not sure where it will be for sure. Still working on that one. It's going to be very expensive but peace of mind will be worth it I think, and especially since that gives me an option to raise a beef or something some day.

No fencing is cheap, even if you do it yourself the materials cost a lot. It's good though you can get someone else to do the work for you. I wish I could do that here & just get our place all fenced once & for all but my DH won't go for it.

The work on the breeder coop pens is still ongoing. We have a very busy week going so I don't know when I can get my DH back out there to work on getting posts in for the doors. He has one hole dug but then hasn't had time to get back out & put a post in it. I can't wait to have my gates actually work like they should have from the beginning. I can't cover the tops of the pens again till the posts & gates are on. I feel a little nervous with the tops all open right now.

 

[chicken danz]

I've spent my whole day researching and ordering and making lists. At this point I think if it weren't for the new corner posts I could have probably put this in myself. However time is a big thing that I just don't have. We should start building fence tomorrow. I plan to help as much as I can to cut expense since the guy is charging by the hour at a really stiff rate. I have to keep reminding DH that this fence isn't just for the dogs but also for future livestock if we need it. He has tomorrow off but after that I am going to be the only help around here. I need to do a lot of tree cutting in the meantime as well.
I was out feeding and had to come back in because the humidity is so insanely high out there. It just does me in. Maybe I'll get some more work done when it cools down a little bit.
The poor birds are on a back burner right now with only the minimum being done. I can only put in so many hours in a day.

 

[Ralph Moyer]

Another good mother.
This Barred Blue Egg-layer is taking care of 21 guinea keets. Only eight are of her hatch. She is doing her best to cover them, but they are getting too big for her to cover them all.

 

[sharol]

I'm going to have to butcher Saturday. My Breda cockerels have become a liability. One of them almost killed my oldest pet hen last week by pecking her on the head when she turned him down. They just won't take no for an answer, and I won't have a molester on the place. Lizbeth is still in isolation and healing slowly. The top of her head looked like ground meat, and I wasn't sure she was going to live.

I also have 3 7 month old Orp cockerels that need to be gone. If anyone wants one, let me know by end of business on Friday, and you can have him. Two are blacks and one is a mottle. They are as big as the adult hens now, so they are going to freezer camp, too. I'm beginning to think that the 4th "cockerel" in that group of 7 is a pullet. The comb is much lighter and smaller than her brothers, and her coloration is weird patchy red, black, and white, so I'm hoping for a girl just for the yard art. In a couple of months there will be 3 or maybe 4 more to butcher in the English Orps. I'm just totally out of room.

On a happier note (well, 5 chickens in the freezer is pretty good news I guess, if I didn't have to do it myself), I found a Samsung Galaxy S7 for about 300 under list on EBAY. It came today and it is in great condition. I've been wanting one since March, but almost $700 is just more than I'm willing to pay for the upgrade. The young lady at Verizon was great getting it set up and transferring stuff (and didn't rob me blind doing it). So far I'm loving it. If anyone needs the seller's name message me and I'll send you his username.

Sorry about everyone's weather woes. We got lots of lightning and thunder, but little wind and only 1 3/4 inch of rain.

 

[chicken danz]

Another good mother.
This Barred Blue Egg-layer is taking care of 21 guinea keets. Only eight are of her hatch. She is doing her best to cover them, but they are getting too big for her to cover them all.

That's wild Ralph. I don't think guinea keets are ever tame. Poor chicken!!!

I'm going to have to butcher Saturday. My Breda cockerels have become a liability. One of them almost killed my oldest pet hen last week by pecking her on the head when she turned him down. They just won't take no for an answer, and I won't have a molester on the place. Lizbeth is still in isolation and healing slowly. The top of her head looked like ground meat, and I wasn't sure she was going to live.

I also have 3 7 month old Orp cockerels that need to be gone. If anyone wants one, let me know by end of business on Friday, and you can have him. Two are blacks and one is a mottle. They are as big as the adult hens now, so they are going to freezer camp, too. I'm beginning to think that the 4th "cockerel" in that group of 7 is a pullet. The comb is much lighter and smaller than her brothers, and her coloration is weird patchy red, black, and white, so I'm hoping for a girl just for the yard art. In a couple of months there will be 3 or maybe 4 more to butcher in the English Orps. I'm just totally out of room.

On a happier note (well, 5 chickens in the freezer is pretty good news I guess, if I didn't have to do it myself), I found a Samsung Galaxy S7 for about 300 under list on EBAY. It came today and it is in great condition. I've been wanting one since March, but almost $700 is just more than I'm willing to pay for the upgrade. The young lady at Verizon was great getting it set up and transferring stuff (and didn't rob me blind doing it). So far I'm loving it. If anyone needs the seller's name message me and I'll send you his username.

Sorry about everyone's weather woes. We got lots of lightning and thunder, but little wind and only 1 3/4 inch of rain.

I need to butcher as well. I am getting a few cockerels spoken for that will be going with me to Gardner. No time to butcher right now though with so many things going on.
Yeah weather was a killer. I don't get too worried about whether after being in tornado in the 70s. But last night I was pretty spooked out. sure enough one touched down at my sister's house that is about 5 miles Northwest of me. It not only took out an entire building but spread the contents all over their acreage. They can't do anything until after the adjuster gets there tomorrow so they spent the day today combing the area for all their tools and stuff. They had their garage doors they just replaced from another storm torn up. There are 2x4's shoved into their house roof. Trees uprooted and stuff thrown everywhere.
I sat her and watch a chair and a feed stand fly past my front room window. I had mostly down tree limbs and such and items thrown around. I had a trellis ripped up and the clematis went with the sides. But I was really lucky. I kept hoping it would take the old trailer but it's still standing. Probably just more roof leaks now.
I spent my day with a chain saw cutting trees and brush out of a fenceline. There's still more to do but I hit the end of my energy reserves and just couldn't lift that chain saw one more time.
It was really lousy conditions for building fence for sure. Not much got done. DH has to be back to work tomorrow so I am going to be the only help the fencer has. It'd sure save me money if he were going to be off. My shipment of fiber posts and stuff got delayed because of the storm damage.
We were without power for over 8 hours and I had peachicks in the process of hatching. I never opened the incubator but I think getting cool was hard on them. I have two that are not doing well at all. They hatched during the time the incubator was off.

 

[Trish44]

@chicken danz I'm sorry for your storm woes, I'm glad your building didn't get damaged. We just got rain here, we've had rain the last two days & more coming still. It's weird to have to much rain in August.

@sharol I'm sorry about your hen, sometimes roosters can be real jerks. I have a bunch of roosters here as well, mostly Jubilees that I'm going to have to do something with. I have been waiting to choose a replacement for my breeding group & then the rest will go, one way or the other. I really hate to butcher nice big Jubilee Orps, but I don't know what else to do with them. I wish I could find someone who would take excess roosters here, I always have too many & I'm limited with my arthritis as to how many I can process. My DH is not much of a help with these kind of things. I already have 4 ducks that need to be done soon as well.

 

[HEChicken]

Sharol, you're clearly making the right decision on that one abusive rooster and the others as well. I've noticed an explosion of roosters listed for sale or give away on the swaps lately - it is that time of year when the spring chicks have matured to the point people are trying to get rid of those that aren't hens and there is sure an excess of them right now. That is one reason I have slowed way down on hatching and my broody hens are no longer given chicks to raise. I don't mind the butchering but we just don't need any more meat. Four freezers and all of them full and fewer of us to eat it.

Chicken Danz, I'm sorry about the damage you've sustained. You certainly had the worst of it. Here we only got a couple of light showers - no real rain accumulation and not the damaging winds or hail they forecast either. Unfortunately the rain was just enough to raise the humidity again, making it uncomfortable to work outside.

Things are finally slowing down here a little bit. The apple tree is almost finished - I made another 6 pints of applesauce yesterday and gathered a few more apples but I think one more batch will do it at this point. My tomatoes have died off too which has never happened this early so I think some kind of blight got them. One of my cucumbers is dying as well though the other is still producing. It is sad to see them but also a relief for it to slow down. The only problem with the tomatoes dying is that the peppers are just now starting to come on in enormous quantities and I don't know what to do with them all without tomatoes! I just made scrambled eggs with peppers diced into them and that was pretty delicious but that only uses 1-2 at a time - and I am picking them by the bucketful.