Consolidated Kansas

[JosieChick]

Oh I am so very sorry for your loss. Dachshund are very strong willed hunters. We had a retriever that attacked and killed about 10 birds this summer and I felt terrible about rehoming him but I am so glad we did. The couple who took him love him to death. They send us photos of him all the time and they even bought a camper just so he can go to the lake with them this summer! I think it was a better deal for him and us. It is stressful to deal with a dog that wants to kill your other animals and no fun for the dog either who is just following his instinct.

It's been awhile sense I've been on. We've had a rough weekend our dogs got into the garage and killed 6 chicks. My 4 ye old kept telling me it's okay mama they are only sleeping. I'm still so upset. So we only have two chicks left

. Dh built a temp pen for me so the chicks can see the older chickens going to give this a try for a while then put them together. The bigger chickens are very interested in the younger ones.
How will I know if they would be okay sense they are so much smaller? ( they are about 8 wis old)
I haven't figured out if I should keep our youngest dachshund or not he is the one that killed chicks. My chickens can't free range if he is out

I do that all the time. By the time I finish a post there are three posts that have gone up since I started typing. What a wonderful gift from your daughter! Nice to have other chicken people in the family.

So it must have been telepathy. I wrote about Karen and Checoukan as they were posting themselves. I hate it when that happens because then it makes me look like I haven't been paying attention to people's posts. I'm still wondering if Mammahen is okay. Maybe she has been out hunting with her son some more and has lots of deer to dress.
Trish I probably won't sell this sussex as a meat bird. He is young but is looking really nice so far. I had a nice pullet and I ended up selling her Sunday even though I was going to keep her. If I had more time I'd just make a trip down to the Wichita area and bring several birds down, go visit Karen, and look at Josie's new house. Nothing like inviting myself. I just don't know that I can work it into my already crazy schedule any time soon. I hate the holidays for that reason. Not that I have left the house to go shopping or put up any decorations yet.
I've done quite a bit of shopping on line. I am down to needing to buy something for DH, small gifts for my sisters, a couple small things for my oldest son and his wife, a gift card for my oldest daughter and my granddaughters, and a gift for one of my other granddaughters. It's the gifts I don't have a clue about that aren't done. I guess that is quite a bit; but my credit card looks like I should have been done along time ago.

Trish I hear you on getting things done. I am still working on fall projects and haven't even gotten close to spring. I realize that I am down to a couple months max to have the breeds divided and I don't have any facilities at all for them. I haven't been out to work on my chicken trailer in months and even if I did DH hasn't done anything about getting a place ready to set it or start putting posts in for pens.
I just wish I could scrap all my projects and have a large building built for all my birds with pens running out from them. With a heated area where I could set up my incubators and my chick brooders. I think it would be awesome to have it all centralized with wiring and plumbing. It would probably being worth more than my house if I could do it.

It would be so awesome not to have to drag hoses or a mile of extension cords around.
Michelleml, so sorry about your dog killing your chicks. It seem Dachshunds are notorious for killing chickens. It must be something in their breeding. But then a lot of dogs are that way. I am so glad that mine live in harmony.
My daughter bought a trio of olandsk for me for Christmas. I think they are supposed to be shipped today and should be here Thursday. They are young so I hope they make the trip okay. I think my female is laying. I have my pair in with the d'uclles so I can't be sure but about a week ago I started getting some little white eggs so I assume it is theirs. I need to get the gate up to divide those guys. I don't worry about the d'uccles breeding the olandsk but I do worry about the Olandsk breeding the d'uccles. My little olandsk boy protects his lady to a T and she follows him and is right beside him all the time. I've been popping eggs in the incubator to check fertility and I guess I'll see what results. Just one more unfinished project.

I have been feeling guilty recently as I haven't been able to spend as much time with my birds as I would prefer. When we went on vacation for Thanksgiving, I took my birds to a friends' house. This friend has a whole slew of chickens, mostly barred rocks, and 2 pekin ducks. she had plenty of room for my crew, so I just added mine to her flock for a while. Her birds are utilitarian and not pets, so she didn't handle mine at all while I was gone. Now, they act like I'm an ax murderer all over again. It was pretty windy here and both my birds and my horses were pretty spooky. I went ahead and chased my birds out of their pen anyway, though. I had been opening the gate, and they wouldn't get more than a step or two outside of the pen. Silly birds. Anyway, the birds were scaring the horses, and the horses were scaring the birds. By the end of the day, the horses were finally getting a drink from their water trough that was 100-150 feet from the tree the birds were hiding underneath. When I got off work, I put the birds in their pen, fed them, and then went to play with the horses. When I was done with the horses, I went to put the birds in the coop for the night. My goose led the way up the ramp, and the ducks lined up waiting their turn. My drake, Lucky, was near the front of the line. When his turn came, he got most of the way up the ramp and then fell off - most of his girls were watching too! He picked himself up quickly as if to say, "I'm okay!" and then got back in line like an embarrassed little kid. It was so funny! Just the other day, my goose fell out of the duck house when she went to step on the ramp and completely missed it! When she picked herself up, she looked confused about what had just happened. What I don't get is that my ramp is like two feet wide! I don't see why it is so hard for them to stay on the ramp! Silly, silly birds!

Oh I am so very sorry. How heartbreaking.

I have a tragedy to report ... we had a fire early Monday morning and lost our chicken coops and most of the chickens. We don't know for sure how the fire started, are just trying to concentrate on how to move forward. Danz, I'm so sorry but we lost all of the young ones from you, the guineas, the cochins and the polish mix. Out of 37 total birds, all we have left are the 6 roosters that were in their bachelor pen (luckily they weren't locked in their coop) and were at the far edge of their pen when we got outside. There were 3 hens that also, a miracle, made it out of the burning coop. We had one Orphington pullet and she made it outside but she might not make it, she still is in a state of total shock and her feathers are singed pretty good. We're keeping our fingers crossed that she will pull thru. There are also two brown leghorn hens that made it out. They are in better shape, just totally freaked out. Yesterday I left work early and was able to rework their pens and set up a temporary shelter for them so that they would have a safe place to sleep. I need to get them a better place set up so that they will be warm, this nice weather won't stay good for long I'm afraid. Please keep us in your prayers, as you can imagine, this is a tragedy. I don't post much, just read and absorb all the knowlege and support that you all pass on.

I am so glad you like the roo. I always thought he was a lovely boy. He is a punk about other roos near his ladies though!! He used to run the fence because he was next to the brahma pen and drag his wings and lunge. The brahma roo would just look at him like he was crazy!

chickmama, I'm so sorry to hear of your loss, I mirror what the others said that if there is anything I can do let me know. I don't have any extra chickens right now either other than a rooster, but in the spring I will.

I went out this morning & got the two other tarps put on my turkey pen. At least now that will block the major part of the wind. The front of the pen faces south, do you all think I need plastic on that part? They like looking out so much I hate to have to close that all in so they can't see out other than the door. I'm thinking they should be OK with the sides & back covered because the back faces north. It also is down under the trees & in behind my other two pens, so it's in a kind of sheltered spot. I haven't covered any of the fronts of my other pens, just the sides & back & the hoop coop also has an open front. I thought about putting some plastic on the front of my grow-out pen & still may, it does get some northern exposure. Whatever I'm going to do with any of them I have to do it this week & that includes cleaning out pens. This is the last week of decent weather. I looked at the forecast for next Monday & it's going to be super cold & chance of snow, ugh. I had to think of that coming, I know it's supposed to be winter, but oh I hate it so much. If you all have things that you need to finish outside now is the time to do it.

Danz, I know what you mean about how nice it would be to have everything in one place with electric & water & all. I'm getting to be in the same boat you are any more, well not quite as much as you. I have added so many pens this year that now besides my main coop I have 5 other pens & will have more when the breeder coop is finished to have to have cords & haul water to. I hope I'm not getting in over my head because I don't want to spend hours every day caring for birds. I like them a lot & they give me a lot of joy, but I don't want to work myself to death taking care of them. I just want to have enough to hatch a few pure bred chicks each year to offset costs for feed & enough eggs to sell to do the same. I got a new egg customer the other day, he is a Russian guy. He emailed me from my Craigslist ad & came & got 4 dozen eggs, he seems really nice. Between him & my other customer who buys several dozen at a time & Sunflowerparrot until she gets enough of her own eggs, I don't think I will have a problem getting rid of extra eggs now. I still have a few pullets that aren't laying yet, 3 Welsummers & a Lavender Orpington. None of my imported birds are laying yet either, which is for the best since they're still not in their own pens yet. I did notice that the SFH roos are going after my Salmon Faverolle pullets, so they must be getting close to point of lay now. That would be an interesting mix wouldn't it? I haven't gotten my new Salmon Faverolle rooster yet, but I have no pen to put them in yet either.

Speaking of roosters, the Wheaten Ameraucana rooster I got from Josie yesterday is just gorgeous! I guess things happen for a reason, I hated to lose my rooster, but this guy is even more beautiful than the other one. The pullet is very nice also. They're settling into their new home today & the new rooster is already arguing with the SFH roos next door to him. They're having crowing contests out there. I don't know who it was, but there were two roosters crowing in the middle of the night last night, crazy birds. Have any of you had that problem with your roosters crowing at night? We think it may be our big outdoor pole light that confuses them, they wake up & see the light & think it's daytime. The black Ameraucana roo that is adjacent to the light in his pen often does that.

Well I hope you all enjoy the day, we have to take advantage of the weather while we can, it's ending soon. For all of you that have been sick, I hope you recover fully soon so you can enjoy Christmas with your families.

Karen- I hope you are feeling better really soon and your kiddos are on the mend too!! We are all thinking about you!


Well I need to get off my butt and get some stuff done. Lucie gets her 8 week post op radiographs tomorrow so she might get cleared for going for longer leash walks. Yeah!! She is like a wild animal these days. Nothing like 8 weeks of strict crate rest to bring out the crazies in a 9 month old pup. Ugh.

We have a house!!! So now we need to get the gang moved. Sigh. I am going to stop tomorrow hopefully and get some drawings to the barn guys and see what they think about building chicken and horse shelters. I am hoping we can do it for a reasonable price. We also need to get invisible fence installed. There is four acres of existing wire we are hoping to tap into to save us some work. DH wants to bury all of it this time. I don't know how he thinks that is going to work out when the ground freezes but I have given up arguing the finer points. I will just wait and see and if he and his dad want to goof around trying to dig a ditch in the cold then they can knock themselves out. They also want to build all the chicken pens themselves which I have now vetoed for the 4th time! I told them I want to be moved in before we have the baby, not after!

 

[tweetysvoice]

Oh wow.. emotions were all over the place reading these posts!

I have a tragedy to report ... we had a fire early Monday morning and lost our chicken coops and most of the chickens.

I'm so sorry chickmama. What a horrible tragedy! That would just break my heart.. HUGS!!!

We have a house!!! So now we need to get the gang moved.

Congrats!!!!!!!!

 

[lizzyGSR]

Last night, I made a dumb mistake. I thought I'd share so others can laugh at/with me. I started filling the stock tank (water) for my horses last night. Then, I went and got one of the horses to play with. Not long after I started playing with the horse, I realized that I had forgotten the water, so I just turned it off, leaving the end of the hose in the tank. We are on well water, and after I turned the water off, the siphon from the pump started sucking the water out of the tank. When I got up this morning, I had a frozen hose and only 6-12 inches of water in the bottom of the stock tank. GRRR!! So, I had to move the hose to a sunny location and let it thaw out so I could water the horses again today. Just a few minutes ago, I went out to water the horses and walked right past the duck run. Much to my surprise, there were 3 quail in there. I shut the door and ran to get my DH, who is a hunter. We caught a couple of the birds (one flew out) and took some pictures with them. I've included a couple of the best ones below. To clarify here, the neighbor down the road owns a lot of property, which we happen to be right in the middle of. This time of year, they host a lot of hunters, who come to hunt deer, pheasant, quail, etc. The neighbors "plant" pheasant and quail for the hunters to hunt. Since we are so close, we often discover some of these birds in our treeline. My duck run sits amongst the trees, so it isn't a far stretch to discover some of these birds in my duck run.

EDIT: I should probably add that these birds were difficult to catch and aren't as tame as they look. They only stayed in my hands for a rather brief time until they realized that they could fly away.

 

[chicken danz]

Wow! I finally got to sit down. What a busy day I had. I thought I was done but just looked and the new chicks are out of feed in their bin so that means another trip outside. I got three boxes ready to mail, Loaded them and 17 dozen eggs in the truck. Then I drove to the Co-op(20 miles away). Got a load of feed. (1200 pounds), drove back the long way through Burlington, Delivered eggs to all the places they were to go, went to see my Dad and set up a Christmas tree for him. No ornaments yet. Just tree and lights so far. I visited with him while I did that and left about an hour and a half later. Then I went to the post office and dropped off the boxes, then to the drugstore to pick up a prescription. Then I went to the doctors office and got a flu shot.
I left there and came back home, I shoveled off all the feed into barrels. Then started feeding and watering. 2 and a half hours later I finally got done.
Then I got the turkeys loaded into a big dog crate. They were not happy being caught. I tried to load it onto a wagon and the door came open and they all escaped. So This time I loaded the crate on the wagon and caught the turkeys again. The big boy about beat me to death. He is a lot stronger than I am. There's no way I could have carried any of those birds across the yard alone. so I pulled the wagon over to the new pen and left the turkeys in the crate. I took down the gate panel, then took down one solid panel on their old pen. I moved the solid panel over to the new pen, pulled the gate panel out, installed the solid panel then wire tied the netting onto the replacement panel. Then I hauled a bale of straw over and put half of it in their new house. I didn't break it up. I decided I'd let them do that on their own. I let them out of the crate and pulled it out of the pen. Then put the other half bale of straw in the wild turkey's pen. So what seems to have taken me weeks to get done I finally finished and both of those groups of turkeys have double the size of pen they had before. They sure weren't happy but it was starting to get dark so I am sure they were freaking out with a new pen and house.
The next project is to take some panels and add to the Lady Amhurst pen. I want to double the size of it, and then move all of my guineas into the larger pen. Then move the Lady Amhurst into the pen where the breeder guineas are right now. I will have to come up with some different housing for them cause what is there isn't nearly large enough for all those birds. At least that is what I am thinking. I may change my mind. I am just trying to get these birds closer together so I don't have to go so many places to feed and water. Dragging a few hundred feet of hose around everyday and hauling at least 75 pounds of feed here and there is just wearing me out. I just have to stay focused on the big picture and get my chicken trailer done and ready to use for breeding by spring. I am afraid the cold weather coming will take my ambition.

 

[maidenwolfx80]

Lizzy-- wow great pics. I am sure they will visit again before it is all over.

Danz- goodness you were busy, I didnt get half of what I wanted to get done accomplished today at all. I still havent gotten the feed bags up on the inside of the run. I need to find materials to make covers or window shutters for the window areas on the run. That is what I have ben focusing on while I could be stapling the feed bags up. I guess I better get my butt in gear before it is too late huh?

 

[Trish44]

lizzy, what great pics! We used to have wild quail here till we got the GPs, now there are no wild birds or any animals allowed in here with them around. Today Lily got a big wild rabbit, she is always getting rabbits & she & the cats were fighting over it.

Well I got the chicken wire all on all the way around the inside of the turkey pen & on the door, that was a job. It's more for keeping them from sticking their heads in the chain link & getting them stuck than anything. The male tom turkey was really mad at me for putting that wire up. While I was working in there he was throwing himself at the fence & really having a fit about it. When I got the wire all the way around & he decided I was going to do it anyway he finally gave up, after he had stepped in his water bowl & spilled all the water out. I have been working so hard on this pen for the last 3 days I am so glad to be done with it.

Tomorrow I'm going to clean out the grow-out pen again, I still can't figure out why it gets nasty so fast. My other pens just don't get like that at all. I have to get it cleaned out again & put lots of bedding in there & hope it lasts awhile because I can't see myself out there in 20 degree weather mucking that out. I need to get some bedding put in the new turkey pen too, I haven't put any in there yet. I wish I could have had time to go & get another load of cattails, but I'm not sure if I will have time before it gets cold. I sure could use another load. The chickens in the main coop got into the straw bales up by the side of the run & just spread straw all over the run today, accckkkk. I just didn't have the time to deal with it today, now I'm going to have to add that to tomorrow's chores & rake that all out of there because it just makes for a big mess. Maybe I'll take that loose stuff out to the turkey pen to put in with the cattails.

To add insult to injury today I was carrying an old printer that doesn't work any more from upstairs down & didn't realize it was leaking ink as I walked down the stairs with it, so it dripped all the way down my stairs on the carpet & then got on the tile downstairs too. I was able to wipe up the tile fast & get it mostly off there, but I don't know yet if I'm going to be able to get it out of my carpet. I have to go work on it some more after while I sprayed some stuff on there & left it & worked on it some, but need to do some more on it. I just had to get outside & put up that chicken wire & do chores this afternoon.

Danz, it sounds like you had fun moving your turkeys too. I let mine out for awhile today & they didn't go back down to the new pen, they were standing outside the old pen, so I had to herd them down to the new one & show them where home is now. I wonder how many days it will take for them to see that as home to them? They were standing outside the old pen looking at the Ameraucanas in there like what are you doing in our pen. Turkeys are such characters, I never knew they were so entertaining until I got some, now I really enjoy having them.

 

[WichitaKidd]

Just checking in to let you know I'm still kicking. Getting sick at this time of year was seriously poor timing. I'm not anywhere near normal yet, but will be. As my doctor explained it to me what happened was the equivalent of a stroke, only it happened in the colon. No cancer, no horrible diagnosis, just having a very slow recovery. My energy level is very, very slowly returning but things that used to be nothing are monumental. Just walking out to see the birds is exhausting. Not in an "oh, I'm fatigued." sort of way but a "my body is going to sleep whether I like it or not" sort of way. Very frustrating but the doctor says it is just going to take quite some time to get my energy back. I had to give up caffeine also, so that's complicating things considerably. I'll be back with you all as soon as I can. My eyes are fine for reading now but with the kids, Christmas coming, and John working more hours since the layoffs, I'm stretched really thin. I've had two kids with pneumonia as well. Sheesh. Miss ya'll!

Glad to hear you're doing better. Sounds like it will be slow going for a while. If there is anything I can do to help out taking care of your flock just let me know. I'm not that far away & could come by on the weekends to help out if you need it. Take care.

 

[WichitaKidd]

Wanted to let everyone know that I'm definitely getting back into chickens. Getting ready to place an order with Meyer Hatchery for my spring flock. When I got their catalog in the mail a couple weeks ago I started getting the same feelings I had a year ago when I first got into this. Just too excited to say no. I found a few other families who are wanting to get into backyard chicken raising as well. We're pooling our order to meet minimums & to save on shipping costs. As of tonight, including myself, I'm ordering birds for 3 other families & still waiting to hear from a 4th before submitting the group's order. I sent them all a link to this forum so hopefully we'll have some additional newbies on the list in the future.

Question for all the Wichita metro area backyard chicken farmers on the forum. Has there ever been a discussion about hosting a Coop Tour? Something similar to a garden tour to educate/promote urban chicken raising. I've read about them in other cities & thought it might be something interesting to try here if there is enough interest. Any thoughts?

Hope everyone has a good week.

 

[sharol]

On the first issue, is there any chance you have a water line or septic line running under that run? I had a wet area near my garden the first winter we were in the country, and it turned out to be a tiny leak in the feeder water line. Unfortunately it was on my side of the meter, so we had to pay for the work, but it stopped the wet spot. I wouldn't think there was much moisture in the ground after last summer.

The ink drip thing happened to me about 7 years ago on our move. My DH put the printer in the back seat of my car to bring out here, and he tipped the thing. There was ink everywhere -- on the blanket on the car seat, across the driveway, into the house across the carpet and into the computer room. Talk about nasty. We were replacing the carpet anyway so that wasn't a problem, but I never did get it out of the blanket. According to eHow, you can use alcohol to loosen it up: http://www.ehow.com/how_5569900_remove-printer-ink-carpet.html

sharol

Tomorrow I'm going to clean out the grow-out pen again, I still can't figure out why it gets nasty so fast. My other pens just don't get like that at all. I have to get it cleaned out again & put lots of bedding in there & hope it lasts awhile because I can't see myself out there in 20 degree weather mucking that out. I need to get some bedding put in the new turkey pen too, I haven't put any in there yet. I wish I could have had time to go & get another load of cattails, but I'm not sure if I will have time before it gets cold. I sure could use another load. The chickens in the main coop got into the straw bales up by the side of the run & just spread straw all over the run today, accckkkk. I just didn't have the time to deal with it today, now I'm going to have to add that to tomorrow's chores & rake that all out of there because it just makes for a big mess. Maybe I'll take that loose stuff out to the turkey pen to put in with the cattails.

To add insult to injury today I was carrying an old printer that doesn't work any more from upstairs down & didn't realize it was leaking ink as I walked down the stairs with it, so it dripped all the way down my stairs on the carpet & then got on the tile downstairs too. I was able to wipe up the tile fast & get it mostly off there, but I don't know yet if I'm going to be able to get it out of my carpet. I have to go work on it some more after while I sprayed some stuff on there & left it & worked on it some, but need to do some more on it. I just had to get outside & put up that chicken wire & do chores this afternoon.

 

[sunflowerparrot]

I have a tragedy to report ... we had a fire early Monday morning and lost our chicken coops and most of the chickens. We don't know for sure how the fire started, are just trying to concentrate on how to move forward. Danz, I'm so sorry but we lost all of the young ones from you, the guineas, the cochins and the polish mix. Out of 37 total birds, all we have left are the 6 roosters that were in their bachelor pen (luckily they weren't locked in their coop) and were at the far edge of their pen when we got outside. There were 3 hens that also, a miracle, made it out of the burning coop. We had one Orphington pullet and she made it outside but she might not make it, she still is in a state of total shock and her feathers are singed pretty good. We're keeping our fingers crossed that she will pull thru. There are also two brown leghorn hens that made it out. They are in better shape, just totally freaked out. Yesterday I left work early and was able to rework their pens and set up a temporary shelter for them so that they would have a safe place to sleep. I need to get them a better place set up so that they will be warm, this nice weather won't stay good for long I'm afraid. Please keep us in your prayers, as you can imagine, this is a tragedy. I don't post much, just read and absorb all the knowlege and support that you all pass on.

I will happily give you chicks - where are you located? I am putting in a variety of eggs (22 of them) in the incubator this weekend and they should hatch in 21 days. I live in Winfield, KS - I will give you all that hatch - no charge at all... please let me know if you'd like them. That would give you about 3-4 weeks to prepare for chicks.