Consolidated Kansas

[maidenwolfx80]

I'm sure most people are going to suggest a Brinsea - I hate mine. I ordered the Eco 20 and when I got it, the lid was warped on one side and the machine did not maintain temperature at all. My first batch of 20 eggs was toast. The company was great though and sent UPS to pick up the defective unit and then they sent me another unit. #2 had a warped lid worse than the first one they sent me. Again - Brinsea was great and picked up that unit and sent another. Unit #3 will not maintain temperature at all - it drops to 90 and then spikes to 104 or higher for no reason. I have eggs in there right now - went to bed with it at 96 and woke up to 104. Again, these eggs are toast. I'm keeping these eggs in the incubator in these horrible spiked temps only so I can try to regulate the temperature. So - unit #3 doesn't work either. I do believe I am now stuck with a nonworking Brinsea. I do not recommend a Brinsea... Unless you want to buy mine?

Lol thank you for the offer. I'm sorry you are having aterrible experience. That really stinks. Do you know anything about the hovabators they sell at orschlens? They have 2 different units Idont know the difference inthem. I have neem looking at them.

Hawkeye- Iam so sorry about you little polish. Will she grow a beak back? Sorry about your little one. My kids just got over that. I wish her well.

One of my EE's has an issue, I guess you can call it that. Whenever a hen goes into the ONE nesting box, out of 6 that they prefer, to lay she jumps in ontop of them. Once the egg is laid she sits on it for an hour or 2 and gets up. She lays eggs in other places like on top the straw or behind the doghouse were the chicks roost. When she gets off the egg that another hen laid she goes to eat or drink and I take the egg. I dont know if she goes back to check. Is she trying to go broody on me? If so should I let her sit?

 

[Kansas Prairie]

sunflowerparrot

I would suggest you call the company & kindly ask to speak to the owner/president, make it clear you are a customer. A quick google search shows Pearce, Frank H. is the President of
Brinsea Products Inc. in the U.S.A.
I have employees and if there is a problem I want people to talk to me, I want to fix the problem. You may be getting other people's rejects as replacements,
maybe an employee is being lazy? Go to the top and kindly explain your
experience. Be sure to state right away that you are a CUSTOMER because we get so many calls from people who want to talk to the owner to sell us something usually credit card processors. Let us know how it goes!

 

[chicken danz]

Medawinks, I am so sorry you got hurt. I hope you are feeling better. Also sorry to here A lost one of his Marans. Was it a boy or a girl? I've lost so many lately and strangely, most that I have lost are the blue ones I wanted to breed for and mostly pullets. Bad luck I guess. I hope this terrible cold snap is over for a little while. I see it is supposed to dip in temperatures again on Sunday. I am not prepared for a cold winter at all. I have decent facilites I guess just not ready for all the time I have to spend outside taking care of them all.
I think the technology is pretty clear these days in detecting sex in kids. It has improved in the last 10 years even by leaps and bounds. Josie, I think it is so wonderful that your DH is into the baby. I never had a supportive husband who even wanted to attend an ultra sound. It is a matter of convenience to know the sex of a child. It really does help in planning....even if you keep a lot of things gender neutral.
My short meeting with your MIL was enough to convince me she isn't going to change her mind about thinking she is right. I guess she will see when the building is all done that you made the wiser choice Back in her day a chicken was a chicken. She probably doesn't understand why anyone would fuss over them. And you obviously need good shelter for your horses.

I had such a crazy day yesterday. I am so glad my normal days aren't like that. to make a long story short I had a scammer from an ebay purchase claiming I sent her the wrong item. I literally spent 3 hours going over all my records and trying to figure out what happened. She was nasty and hateful and nothing I could do would make her happy. She wouldn't give the information I requested to verify what might have happened. I finally figured out from one statement she made that it is all a big scam to try to get her product for free. But it still caused me hours of work. As soon as the entire thing is resolved I will block her from being able to purchase from me in the future. Since you can no longer leave negative feedback for buyers I can't even warn other sellers of her tricks. It seems every year when I am selling my Christmas stuff I have one of these major scammers surface and I keep thinking I am going to stop dealing. But I always do it again. It is so hard to get business references with a major company. I just hate to let that go.
I had to take eggs to town to the restaurant yesterday and then go by my Dad's old house to pick up some things. I needed to do some more things but just didn't have time. I really need to dedicate at least an entire day to being in town. I'm just not sure where I am going to find a day. I got in there just as soon as my sister was needing help with a plumbing project so there was some unplanned time spent. I have a huge pile of stuff she gathered for me and it is still in the car. I guess it all filters toward the hoarder sister! Ha! Ha!
Actually I am inheriting all the craft items cause I am the only one that does that sort of thing. I guess I should say DID that sort of thing.
There is so much to go through. But we may end up selling the house to pay my Dad's bills some day so we need to get a lot of this done before that happens.
I have got to start getting ready for Christmas. I've done nothing so far.
It's just not something I am looking forward to.
Checoukan I know Ivy was wanting to get moved before it got cold. I was sure hoping she would make it before now. Jobs are so hard to get these days. I was hoping that she would be settling in and get back on here. Is Mike retiring or is he also looking for a job?

 

[JosieChick]

HEchicken- There was an article right on the front of the BYC page about composting with chickens! It was very interesting, I was amazed at the composting company that uses chickens to produce their compost. I wonder if doing a compost pile in the chicken yard might not be a bad idea! I don't know if I would want it inside their shed but it did say you could do a covered area of a run to keep it going year round. I might have to do this. You know my Nana used to dump a whole bucket of "stuff" out to the birds every day and a lot of it was not stuff they would eat but the did eat somethings that surprised me. I may have to try this with my layers when we move. Let me know how your compost project goes too!

 

[Trish44]

Medawinks, I am so sorry you got hurt. I hope you are feeling better. Also sorry to here A lost one of his Marans. Was it a boy or a girl? I've lost so many lately and strangely, most that I have lost are the blue ones I wanted to breed for and mostly pullets. Bad luck I guess. I hope this terrible cold snap is over for a little while. I see it is supposed to dip in temperatures again on Sunday. I am not prepared for a cold winter at all. I have decent facilites I guess just not ready for all the time I have to spend outside taking care of them all.
I think the technology is pretty clear these days in detecting sex in kids. It has improved in the last 10 years even by leaps and bounds. Josie, I think it is so wonderful that your DH is into the baby. I never had a supportive husband who even wanted to attend an ultra sound. It is a matter of convenience to know the sex of a child. It really does help in planning....even if you keep a lot of things gender neutral.
My short meeting with your MIL was enough to convince me she isn't going to change her mind about thinking she is right. I guess she will see when the building is all done that you made the wiser choice Back in her day a chicken was a chicken. She probably doesn't understand why anyone would fuss over them. And you obviously need good shelter for your horses.

I had such a crazy day yesterday. I am so glad my normal days aren't like that. to make a long story short I had a scammer from an ebay purchase claiming I sent her the wrong item. I literally spent 3 hours going over all my records and trying to figure out what happened. She was nasty and hateful and nothing I could do would make her happy. She wouldn't give the information I requested to verify what might have happened. I finally figured out from one statement she made that it is all a big scam to try to get her product for free. But it still caused me hours of work. As soon as the entire thing is resolved I will block her from being able to purchase from me in the future. Since you can no longer leave negative feedback for buyers I can't even warn other sellers of her tricks. It seems every year when I am selling my Christmas stuff I have one of these major scammers surface and I keep thinking I am going to stop dealing. But I always do it again. It is so hard to get business references with a major company. I just hate to let that go.
I had to take eggs to town to the restaurant yesterday and then go by my Dad's old house to pick up some things. I needed to do some more things but just didn't have time. I really need to dedicate at least an entire day to being in town. I'm just not sure where I am going to find a day. I got in there just as soon as my sister was needing help with a plumbing project so there was some unplanned time spent. I have a huge pile of stuff she gathered for me and it is still in the car. I guess it all filters toward the hoarder sister! Ha! Ha!
Actually I am inheriting all the craft items cause I am the only one that does that sort of thing. I guess I should say DID that sort of thing.
There is so much to go through. But we may end up selling the house to pay my Dad's bills some day so we need to get a lot of this done before that happens.
I have got to start getting ready for Christmas. I've done nothing so far.
It's just not something I am looking forward to.
Checoukan I know Ivy was wanting to get moved before it got cold. I was sure hoping she would make it before now. Jobs are so hard to get these days. I was hoping that she would be settling in and get back on here. Is Mike retiring or is he also looking for a job?

Danz, I have been on eBay since 1998 & before they were called eBay. I was really distressed when they took away the ability to leave negative feedback for a buyer, they didn't do the sellers any favors by doing that. I agree, now you can't even warn anyone about scammers or troublemakers or even someone who doesn't pay. It's just not fair to sellers, but they have made it a buyer's site. They encourage everyone to do free shipping or start prices at 99 cents & I can't do either when I sell something. I buy a lot of things on that site, I buy more than I sell & any more it has become easier to just try to sell things on the local swap site on FB, although there are a lot of flaky people around here that back out & one that canceled her check on me after buying something. You sometimes just can't win, but now I won't take any more checks from anyone.

I'm sure most people are going to suggest a Brinsea - I hate mine. I ordered the Eco 20 and when I got it, the lid was warped on one side and the machine did not maintain temperature at all. My first batch of 20 eggs was toast. The company was great though and sent UPS to pick up the defective unit and then they sent me another unit. #2 had a warped lid worse than the first one they sent me. Again - Brinsea was great and picked up that unit and sent another. Unit #3 will not maintain temperature at all - it drops to 90 and then spikes to 104 or higher for no reason. I have eggs in there right now - went to bed with it at 96 and woke up to 104. Again, these eggs are toast. I'm keeping these eggs in the incubator in these horrible spiked temps only so I can try to regulate the temperature. So - unit #3 doesn't work either. I do believe I am now stuck with a nonworking Brinsea. I do not recommend a Brinsea... Unless you want to buy mine?

maidenwolf, Sunflowerparrot is the only person we have heard of that has had this kind of luck with the Brinsea incubators, several of us have them & have done fine with them. I keep mine for a backup now since I have a GQF cabinet incubator. I hope she can get this one replaced with a good one & doesn't have any more problems. I can't imagine why they have sent 3 bad ones like that, it just doesn't compute. You would think they would check them out before sending them.

Medawinks, welcome back, I wasn't aware you were injured either, I hope you're feeling better. Wow, that is a big egg, it would be interesting to know who laid it.

I got my heated dog bowl in the pen with the rooster this morning, so now he won't have frozen water. Josie, thanks for telling me about the bucket for the turkeys, yeah they are about the clumsiest birds ever, they walk over their food bowl & tip it over about every day. They really didn't like the feeder I had in their pen, so I just gave them a rubber bowl & they like eating out of it better. I'm looking for some leftover pieces of guttering, asking around on swap sites, so I can make some trough feeders for the turkeys & peafowl/ guineas. I will have to drill holes & wire them to the pens or they will just tip them over, but I think that might work better for those birds. HEChicken, where did you find your guttering you used? I really hate to have to go buy new guttering just for feeders if I don't have to. Surely some company that puts up guttering would have some or someone has something laying around.

I have to figure out where I'm going to keep my two little chicks I'm getting, they will have to stay in the house for awhile until they get feathers. I wanted to replace a couple I lost while I was on vacation. Well I guess Jasmine has finally gotten used to the guinea's noise, she seems to be accepting that they're part of the flock now. Hopefully I won't say that & then lose another one, but she has been leaving them alone. I let the oldest ones out every chance I get so she gets exposure. I figured that is the only way to get her used to them. They make the most noise right when they come out or when they want back in the pen.

It's windy here today, but warmer thank goodness. I'm looking forward to a few days of above freezing.

 

[tweetysvoice]

Had our sonogram today and....


It's a GIRL!!!!!!

I'm a bit late.. but CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!

I think if I was raising fall-hatched chicks, I would probably bring them indoors... at least for sudden cold snaps. I'm not one to coddle my critters, but baby chicks are so fragile and are such a big investment at times.

Why DO hens decide to molt right when it gets bitterly cold? My barred rock Maude really lucked out--she molted really hard just in time for winter, but the temps stayed pretty mild until she was mostly feathered in again. No one is getting pushed off the roost in my coop, thank goodness--my dad went really overkill on the number of roosts in there so there is room for everyone! lol

I have one molting right now, but as for the outdoor chicks, my mama silkie has been bringing her chickies out in the cold and they are doing just fine. She has access to a small area outside and the whole duck house and during the day, when the sun is high in the sky, she's out there with the chicks teaching them how to scratch for food. I think it's too cold for them, but apparently she knows best, so I don't worry about it too much. Funny how I kept mine so hot during the summer inside and worried about putting them outside in 70 degree weather. LOL

Okay, I had a chicken emergency today! Cocoa, my polish that had been injured from my turkey over the summer some how got RE-injured! I don't know what she did! Or I know what she did, but I don't know HOW she managed to do it. Poor thing! She broke off more of her beak, and it's down past the soft tissue part! It's awful! I brought her in this evening and had my DH hold her while I put Iodine on her and clipped off the beak that was hanging loose. I took a picture BEFORE I clipped it off. The part that was torn off and hanging on was hanging on by FLESH and blood! There's no blood in the picture because I tried to clean it up as good as I could and rinsed it and poured Iodine on it and then used cotton balls to clean it up. Then I snipped it off and used more Iodine to clean it up. Poor thing, she screamed! I felt TERRIBLE cutting it off, but there was no way to put it back. We had out super glue to see if we could put it back, but there was no way.

I sure hope she'll be okay with half a beak on top!!

Click to enlarge if you wish to see what she did.

I'm so sorry.. Poor girl That does look very painful. Do they have pain meds for chickens??

HEchicken- There was an article right on the front of the BYC page about composting with chickens! It was very interesting, I was amazed at the composting company that uses chickens to produce their compost. I wonder if doing a compost pile in the chicken yard might not be a bad idea! I don't know if I would want it inside their shed but it did say you could do a covered area of a run to keep it going year round. I might have to do this. You know my Nana used to dump a whole bucket of "stuff" out to the birds every day and a lot of it was not stuff they would eat but the did eat somethings that surprised me. I may have to try this with my layers when we move. Let me know how your compost project goes too!

Thanks for pointing it out. I rarely go to the front page, so i'll have to check it out!

 

[maidenwolfx80]

6 weeks old.. I think it is interesting how the feathers are all messy like this.

Is it going to have a frizzle hair doo?

 

[HEChicken]

OMGosh!!!! That is hilarious!! I can't even imagine anyone being serious about a mommy of two kids driving something like that! I call those kinds of cars ghetto cars--- because they are trying hard to show off for some reason.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So my morning has been pretty much awful. Well.... I should say my night was. I woke up a little before 1am to my youngest daughter throwing up. In bed and on the floor. SO THANKFUL for hardwood flooring (whew!!!) and got her to the bathroom, she kept throwing up in the toilet and mean while, I cleaned up the floor and got the bedding put into the washer and put on clean bedding on her bed after making sure it was wiped down. I ALWAYS use those zippered plastic covers over our mattresses so they stay brand new, so I just had to wipe a bit of bleach on the plastic cover of her mattress before putting new bedding on. Anyway, then I put her in a bath, because it was gross. Got her out and dried her off and back to bed. Up 20 mins later, but she had made it to the bathroom and was throwing up again. This went on every 20 minutes -- running to the bathroom all night long. UGH. Her bedding stayed clean up until 7am this morning and I'll have to change it again. Sigh. She's laying down right now, but isn't feeling well, so I hope she makes it to the bathroom the next time. I'm guessing a yucky virus hit her. I'm not surprised, she's at the age where I have to force her to hand wash, and then she still puts things into her mouth. (She's 4 yrs) She is also in Preschool where her friends have had the same thing. So it was probably a no win situation. I just hope *I* don't come down with it! I can't afford to! I have my parents coming in on Saturday and I need to clean house like a mad woman this week!

A ghetto car - LOVE IT!!! I will have to remember that expression the next time I am trying to describe a car like that.

Sorry about your DD - hope she gets to feeling better soon.

I had such a crazy day yesterday. I am so glad my normal days aren't like that. to make a long story short I had a scammer from an ebay purchase claiming I sent her the wrong item. I literally spent 3 hours going over all my records and trying to figure out what happened. She was nasty and hateful and nothing I could do would make her happy. She wouldn't give the information I requested to verify what might have happened. I finally figured out from one statement she made that it is all a big scam to try to get her product for free. But it still caused me hours of work. As soon as the entire thing is resolved I will block her from being able to purchase from me in the future. Since you can no longer leave negative feedback for buyers I can't even warn other sellers of her tricks. It seems every year when I am selling my Christmas stuff I have one of these major scammers surface and I keep thinking I am going to stop dealing. But I always do it again. It is so hard to get business references with a major company. I just hate to let that go.

Wow - so sorry you had that issue. I was wondering if you'd mind PM'ing me the buyer's user name on eBay so I can add her to my blocked list?

It is good you are getting your dad's house taken care of now. It is never a fun job but will have to be done sometime, and it will be a nice feeling knowing it is done, rather than having it still hanging over you.

HEchicken- There was an article right on the front of the BYC page about composting with chickens! It was very interesting, I was amazed at the composting company that uses chickens to produce their compost. I wonder if doing a compost pile in the chicken yard might not be a bad idea! I don't know if I would want it inside their shed but it did say you could do a covered area of a run to keep it going year round. I might have to do this. You know my Nana used to dump a whole bucket of "stuff" out to the birds every day and a lot of it was not stuff they would eat but the did eat somethings that surprised me. I may have to try this with my layers when we move. Let me know how your compost project goes too!

The initial batch I dumped in there disappeared within a day. It was only a coffee can full and I think most of it got scratched into the bedding, but that's fine since ultimately that's where it will be able to compost. I will have to check out that article - I almost never go to the home page.

HEChicken, where did you find your guttering you used? I really hate to have to go buy new guttering just for feeders if I don't have to. Surely some company that puts up guttering would have some or someone has something laying around.

As part of the purchase on our new house, we got a new roof. I talked to the roofer about getting some old pieces of guttering if he had to take any down but none needed replaced on our house. He said he would drop some in from another job but he must have forgotten about it because I never heard from him again. But that is an option, I would think, for getting guttering for cheap or free. In the end, I decided to put gutters on my coop so I went and bought what I needed at Menards. They come in 8 or 10' lengths, and my coop is 14' long so I had to cut some off. I used the piece that I had cut off, for the feeder. I still have a piece left over that I can use for another feeder down the road. At the time I made the purchase at Menards, they were on sale for $4 a length but they also had a rebate that made them FREE. I didn't know about the rebate until I got home and was entering the purchase into Quicken and I happened to notice it at the bottom of the receipt. I mailed in the paperwork they needed and a few weeks later got my rebate for the full purchase price of the gutters. I did go back to Menards and buy the brackets you use to attach the guttering and they made it super easy to attach to the wall of my coop, as I just screwed into the OSB, If you are attaching to chain link or hog panel or hardware cloth, you might find it easiest to cut lengths of wire that go around the gutter and through the wire of the run, then twist to secure. If you use heavier gauge wire and can get it tight enough (and enough of them), I can picture that working quite well.

Medawinks, so sorry to hear you were injured - glad to have you back. So sorry about the Marans chick.

Maidenwolf, the Hovabator has a pretty good reputation. I wasn't aware it is sold at Orschelns. TSC and Atwoods carry only the LG.

 

[HEChicken]

Trish, I am considering making a couple of hoop coops next year. I got to thinking about my ducks' and turkey's ability to fly over the fence at will and realized that if/when they go broody in the spring, they will likely try to sit on a hidden nest somewhere, making them vulnerable to predators. I got a bunch of hog panels last week from a guy on CL, and I thought if I construct a couple of hoop coops, I might move ducks into one and turkeys into the other around the time they start to lay, and keep them there until the laying season is over. They won't be happy with less freedom but they'll be safe.

I was wondering if you would mind sharing again, your build process and pics. I really like how yours came out. What size lumber did you use for the frame? And I remember you said you stapled the panel to the frame - what size staples? Also, I remember you saying that you stapled one end first and then bent it down and did the other side. I'm trying to picture how that would work (i.e. how to attach the first end, since the panel won't want to stand on end 16' in the air.

 

[chicken danz]

Hechicken you need to use lighter weight panels to make hoop houses.. Those hog panels are a super heavy gauge and probably won't bend without mechanical help enough to make a hoop house. I've got several hog panels around here and would love to use them if I could. You need to buy the lighter weight ones that run around $20-$22 each.
Hawkeye I forgot to mention your chicken should be fine. When they dub beaks to prevent egg eating they cut it back to the quick and into the live part so it won't grow out. Yes it bleeds but she will be fine. My daughter has an orpington that got her beak torn off really short so you could see her tongue and she does fine. Just be sure to watch for infection for a little while. Depending on how it is broken it might even partially grow back.
I got the gang fed and watered. That wind is cold but otherwise the temp isn't that bad out there. Now I need to get busy in here. I have another bag of stuff to go through from Mom's things. No sense saving stuff I can't use.
I also need to go down the cold room in the basement and dig out Christmas stuff. I am really really dreading that!!!
Maidenwolf I doubt she'll be frizzle. She is just going to have a heavy feather coat.