Consolidated Kansas

[Trish44]

Hawkeye, no I don't have a fenced yard for the chickens, I just let them out during the day & only when I'm here. They don't go far from their pen usually, just around the yard for the most part & up to the house to eat the cat food left out for our outside cats, they love that. It just freaked me out yesterday because it was so wet & windy & the two new speckled sussex were missing. They haven't gotten fully integrated into the flock yet & went off on their own. I have been very lucky with combining all of these new chickens so far that they are doing pretty well together.

 

[chicken danz]

My dogs protect my birds and they free range all the time, except the game birds and the bantam type. If I'm going to be gone I might lock them up at night but I haven't even done that all summer. I probably will when the weather gets cold though. They go to their buildings. I always used to shut them in at night but this summer they'd be out still eating until 10:00 so I got out of the habit. I live in panic at the idea of not having my dogs here to protect them. Since food is so scarce out there they go further and further. I found some chickens out by the back fence line in the field last week. They were picking at the remnants where the corn crop had been. It freaked me out. That is over 600 feet back. A coyote could have snatched them up before my dogs could have gotten there.
If I get my chicken trailer done some day all the breeders will stay in their own pens. I'll probably continue to let the mixed layers just run at will. I thought I might let the breeders out one breed a day so they could still get the bugs and grasses, but that is all down the road.
I didn't treat my Seramas and bantam polish any different than I did my others last winter. It was so cold though I had heat lamps in most of the houses all winter. I was worried about last night because I have some fairly young birds and the north wind was blowing so hard. I will turn them back off again after tonight until it gets really cold again.
I still have tons to do outside but I think it is going to wait until tomorrow. I have no desire to be out in the cold today.

 

[checoukan]

Oh Hawkeye, I have been there, only my "door pecker" was a big royal palm tom! And yes, I understand the "ICK"!

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[checoukan]

Ok, ivy just called me and wanted me to post that yesterday morning, they had a pretty good storm move over their place, and knocked out the server too their house....

so she won't know, does not know for sure when they will get the internet back. She said, she wanted to contact the person who wants the wyandottes, but the number is in her pm's on byc and cannot get to it.

....so if you need to contact her about the chickens you will have to call her if you have her number, or wait, and hopefully she will get Friday!!

Now she wants me too post this, it is a story that I told her this morning on the phone.

I was late going on to take care of my birds, that happens alot, but I have lights in the barn so no big deal. I waited till after the storm passed, and quit raining to go out. I fed the dogs, and checked and fed the birds, don't have to worry about water as every pen has a automatic waterer in the pen.

Had everything finished, and then I remembered to gather eggs out of the hen nests.
I keep three nest eggs in the boxes, and grabbed one put it back, reached in the next box, no eggs,just a nest egg,

hmmm, reached into the next box, well I have a wet chicken in there

. Pushed with my hand to get her out, and thought that hen really is wet and does not want to come out, and I don't want her roosting in the nest bot all night, YUCK! So I reached back into shove her out and realized those were not wet feathers I was feeling, but wet FUR!! So I bent over a little more and looked in the box. WELL

WET POSSEM! Holy Crap wonder that thing did not bite me or something!!

So, I called my husband, who was sitting in the house,( seems like I have been there before), you must realize that the house is less that 60 yards away, he said his dog catcher pole thingy was in the outside garage, so I went and found it, came back in wondering in my visitor was still in the box.

Well, it was, so then, I am trying to get the noose part of the pole around this varmits neck, that is in the back of the next box,up against the wall, trying to go down the wall , threw the metal nest box, and it keeps ducking it head down so it was impossible to do.
This noose now is very flexable, with a light weight kind of cable with plasitic that covers the cable and just kinda flops around on the end of a 6 foot pole.
Finally the darn thing gets down to the bottem level and sticks its head out from behind, and I was able to get the noose around its neck and pull it out!

So now I have a possum with a noose around its neck grabbing everything it can to keep from going out of the hen coop.

As I am trying to get outside with this live varmint, my 6 month old leapard catauhula pup takes offense to the possum. He starts barking (well it really is not a bark), growling lunging at the possem, grabbing it, shaking it. Im trying to get out the door, dogs upset, possems upset, and Im trying to get the hole mess outside into the night.

Well after a time all is done, varmit is dead, dog is settled down, and I get back in the house, and my husband looks up and said"What took you so long"

 

[Ivywoods]

Checoukan- I'm laughing so hard I've got tears in my eyes! I can picture it all!

Well, after I told you to post that my internet is down, we got the internet back!

We had a pretty heavy storm. After I looked at the radar I decided I better get out and get my chores done before it started raining. It started to sprinkle as soon as I went outside, and there was WICKED lightning that was a little close for comfort, and of course that was accompanied by loud BANGS of thunder. As soon as I was in the barn it started to pour. In just a minute or two I could hear it hailing. I looked out the barn door and could see we were getting pea to marble size hail, and LOTS of it! That storm didn't last too long, but it was really intense for a short time, and we got 1/2" of rain in a matter of about 5 minutes! If you've never been in a metal barn during a hailstorm I can tell you it is REALLY LOUD!

Hubby's goats were all locked out because of the work we were doing in the barn, so I quickly rearranged things and got them in, but they got pretty wet before I got them in.

It's pretty nice out today, but I won't have much time to do much outside. Tomorrow is another day, and it is also my day off so why do much today when I can procrastinate till tomorrow?

 

[chicken danz]

My daughter called and just now got off the phone. I haven't even got the birds fed yet. I took the chicks out of the incubator while I was listening to her and put them in a bin in the house. I want to clean out the brooder again before I take them out. I had one chick that was in a huge egg. I thought it was a duck egg until it hatched a week early. The chick is kind of in the middle of the picture but it would make three of the bantam chicks. I swear it is the biggest chick I've ever hatched. It has fuzzy feet. Not sure if it is a cochin, or a brahma or a combination. I just know it is a monster.

 

[Trish44]

LOL IVYWOODS, that was hilarious! I'm sure you didn't think so at the time, but I couldn't help myself. I just hate those critters, they ate half of my guineas. I will be glad when I get my puppy here & get her trained so hopefully I won't have that happen any more. BTW, how did this critter get past all of your dogs?

 

[Hawkeye95]

oh my GOSH, checoukan! That opossum story is crazy!!! I would have been freaked out if I had grabbed that thing and not known what I was grabbing. WOW! That explains where you eggs went, hope he didn't try to eat the fake eggs, too?? There was a story on the predator page where a snake came in and ate a fake egg, I don't remember what happened after that. I was just trying to picture it. If your DH was so concerned with how long you were gone, he should have come to see what was going on! ha! But it sounds like my DH! I could probably be trampled and dead under my horses feet and he'd never know it until the next day. Sigh.

Ivy, glad your internet is back! Your storm is nothing like what we got. We had rain for all of 3 minutes and then it was the heavy mist or sometimes light sprinkle. I have been in the horse barn during a hail storm, though. It's pretty loud, I agree.

Danz, wow, you know how to grow them! Your monster chick looks like how mine started out! I think you're going to have a huge bird there! Those little polish are sooo cute!

My day was insanely busy. It was a preschool day and I took the kids in and had about a million errands to run. My mom came with me and she's been without a car for 5 weeks now! It's been in the shop at Conklin cars in Newton. They called and said it was ready- totally unexpected, so I drove all the way out to Newton to get her car, and dropped her off. Drove back to Derby to go to Atwoods. I think I figured out a CHEAP idea to keep Seymore from flying out of my horse stall. I bought a really large tarp and I'm going to cut it in half and then tie the top to the barn and then staple the bottom onto the walls of the stalls. Just over where there is open air above the stalls. I won't be leaving her out there at night, so it's just mainly to keep her in. Just got home at 3pm and I'm tired. Looking forward to working on the coop tomorrow, though! Should be a nice day!

Oh- and Seymore was out in the pasture near the barn with the horses. Literally under their feet. Geez.

 

[Ivywoods]

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That was my sister's story. Her dogs were out back with the goats, I'm sure. I'm just glad it was HER and not ME!

 

[chicken danz]

Been on the go this afternoon. I found a hen in the hen house that was half eaten. Not like a chicken would peck at a dead body but literally everything eaten down to the bone on the bottom side. I think some predator must have gotten by the dogs. My female is in heat right now so I am sure their attention is elsewhere. I guess it is time to lock them up at night.
I have trouble getting a couple of them in because they like to sit on top of the pen rather than go in it. Guess I'll figure out a way.
I also lost a pheasant last night but it might have been due to cooler weather. It was a younger one.
I've got to get out and get to work on that brooder. I haven't done a thing worthwhile today.