Consolidated Kansas

[checoukan]

TA-DA
How is everyone, I have been fighting Bronchitis! I am so sick of coughing. My new barn is going up, hopefully they will get the roof trusses up this coming week. That is if the weather moderates again!

 

[Hawkeye95]

I just got home to my ten year old telling we lost our EE and RIR. Something took them out of the covered pen, a trail of feathers everywhere going to the woods and pasture of the EE's but not the RIR. take the bait out of the trap and did not get trapped.

Yikes! So sorry about your birds! Going to go with a large animal that scaled your fencing.

All my chicks hatched except 3 and those 3 were all from the same hen (none of hers hatched - she is a DK Cornish) 2 never pipped and 1 pipped but never made progress. I opened the egg and found an unabsorbed yolk - what causes this and could I have prevented it from happening? (I'm thinking there isn't anything I could have done since nothing changed from the beginning to end of lockdown and the other 14 were fine)

Okay-- I know, I know!! LOL What happened is that the chick pipped and then probably immediately died. Usually, they pip and then spend the next several HOURS absorbing that yolk. So because he died right away, he didn't get a chance to absorb any of the yolk. Poor thing. OR... it could be he just had something really wrong with him and just didn't start absorbing the way he was supposed to. I remember reading in one of my Mother Earth magazine how they broke down the exact time line for when everything happened, and I'm pretty sure the yolk was one of the last things to go. But you could hunt down that article, they post most of their stuff online too, even though I read it in the magazine I get.

I ended up buying half inch hardware cloth, and my husband covered the whole pen with it. It seemed like the strongest thing Lowes had with small openings. The pen is probably 8 x 14, not including under the coop. We are going to put them in a the coop long before dark for now on. My husband is all set to watch the thing come back tonight.

We found the foot prints, and looked them up online. Looks to be either fox or fisher cat.

SO GLAD!!! Hardware cloth is the way to go! I used it on my silkie pen. The layers have chain link fencing.

Its cold out today I'm just in an awful mood today not sure why just don't feel like doing anything. Kids and Dh are over stomach bug but the two younger ones now have funny nose and cough

. I know the flu is going around and bad so I hope they get better fast.

So sorry everyone is sick. I HATE winter. Gosh, I say it all the time, but I really do. Cold puts me in a funk because I can't stand to be outside in it. Hope you guys heal up fast! Watch them closely, the flu is especially bad. I'm STILL not right!! I have a lingering cough and am dizzy and it just doesn't go away.

The hardware cloth sounds good. Predators are bad this year. I have a friend who watched a red-tail hawk dive down and make off with one of her red sex-links about 10 feet from the house with her on the porch. I had no idea they could actually fly off with them, but this one did. They have lost several chickens to hawks and several more to coyotes this year. So far, mine are all ok.

Congrats on the extra eggs! That is crazy about the hawk! But I'd believe it, they take off with great big rabbits around here that fight and scream while they fly away, so I'd think a chicken would be easy compared to a heavy rabbit.

Thank God for my dogs. Even with them I have a loss now and then but even so I am sure they've saved me hundreds and hundreds of birds.
It was a long day and I am so happy to be home. I think I am going to kick off my shoes and settle in early tonight. There was some major snow in the KC area this evening. Not much down around the southern part. There's just occasional flakes here.

I saw a few flakes of snow, but that was about it today.



I painted today. Started in on the dining room and kitchen walls with a paint that is supposed to be "silver" but looks more blue to me than anything. It's really a grey color. I'm thinking of going to Lowes and seeing if they have some tint I can rub onto the wall to give it a metallic silver sheen now that the color is up.

Made the BEST potato soup tonight. mmmmmmm My DH is finally home today! I don't like saying when he is gone for security reasons, but I sure do like it when he's home again!! His job is always sending him on trips and I get pretty tired of it. But this one was pretty neat-- he is working on software for a helicopter (military) and he got to be ON the helicopter while they taught the pilots how to use their software that they wrote for it. It's going to run all of their missions, so it's pretty high tech and he needed to be there to explain it. Don't think he has to go anywhere for a little while again. Tomorrow is packed full of things to do-- I have church, a 3 hour meeting afterwards and then a baby shower after that! Eeks! I'm going to be dead tired when I come home. I picked up the gift today, I know, I always do things last minute. Hope everyone has a great Sunday!

 

[Hawkeye95]

TA-DA
How is everyone, I have been fighting Bronchitis! I am so sick of coughing. My new barn is going up, hopefully they will get the roof trusses up this coming week. That is if the weather moderates again!

OMGosh!! So happy to see you!!!

That's GREAT news about your barn!! YAY!! Oooh, I've had bronchitis too! Horrible! I've coughed for so long and hard now, I have that awful sharp knife in my side when I breath in. Trying NOT to breathe in deep or it hurts. Hope you are doing better and it's getting less and less. But if you had what I had... I think this is going to linger for weeks.

I'm still coughing up "stuff". Bummer. So what all are the pen plans for your barn??? Have you decided how you're going to get all your breeders set up? I'm so envious!!!! I would love to have barn space devoted to my breeders!

 

[checoukan]

Or a cold day...or a hot night or hot day.. or for that matter any night or day.
Hello, my name is Danz and I'm a hatchaholic!

 

[Frizzled Pink]

Or a cold day...or a hot night or hot day.. or for that matter any night or day.
Hello, my name is Danz and I'm a hatchaholic!

lol thats pretty funny stuff.

 

[Trish44]

TA-DA
How is everyone, I have been fighting Bronchitis! I am so sick of coughing. My new barn is going up, hopefully they will get the roof trusses up this coming week. That is if the weather moderates again!

I'm glad to see you back, I had wondered where you had been, I'm sorry you have been sick, hope you feel better soon. That junk seems to be going around. Congrats on your barn, yay! We're still working on the breeder coop & the darned weather isn't helping. Those few nice days we had we did get the doors all hung & the two big windows put in on the ends. Now I'm ready to start on the divider walls inside, but I need to go get wood first. I was planning to do that today, but the weather was awful this afternoon.

Or a cold day...or a hot night or hot day.. or for that matter any night or day.
Hello, my name is Danz and I'm a hatchaholic!

Danz, you crack me up! Yes you are, but it is very addicting. I went over & saw Sunflowerparrot's new little chicks this afternoon on my way to Wichita & they're so darned cute. That just isn't something you get tired of looking at is newly hatched chicks. Really is there much that is cuter than that? I don't think so.

Yikes! So sorry about your birds! Going to go with a large animal that scaled your fencing.


Okay-- I know, I know!! LOL What happened is that the chick pipped and then probably immediately died. Usually, they pip and then spend the next several HOURS absorbing that yolk. So because he died right away, he didn't get a chance to absorb any of the yolk. Poor thing. OR... it could be he just had something really wrong with him and just didn't start absorbing the way he was supposed to. I remember reading in one of my Mother Earth magazine how they broke down the exact time line for when everything happened, and I'm pretty sure the yolk was one of the last things to go. But you could hunt down that article, they post most of their stuff online too, even though I read it in the magazine I get.



SO GLAD!!! Hardware cloth is the way to go! I used it on my silkie pen. The layers have chain link fencing.


So sorry everyone is sick. I HATE winter. Gosh, I say it all the time, but I really do. Cold puts me in a funk because I can't stand to be outside in it. Hope you guys heal up fast! Watch them closely, the flu is especially bad. I'm STILL not right!! I have a lingering cough and am dizzy and it just doesn't go away.



Congrats on the extra eggs! That is crazy about the hawk! But I'd believe it, they take off with great big rabbits around here that fight and scream while they fly away, so I'd think a chicken would be easy compared to a heavy rabbit.

I saw a few flakes of snow, but that was about it today.



I painted today. Started in on the dining room and kitchen walls with a paint that is supposed to be "silver" but looks more blue to me than anything. It's really a grey color. I'm thinking of going to Lowes and seeing if they have some tint I can rub onto the wall to give it a metallic silver sheen now that the color is up.

Made the BEST potato soup tonight. mmmmmmm My DH is finally home today! I don't like saying when he is gone for security reasons, but I sure do like it when he's home again!! His job is always sending him on trips and I get pretty tired of it. But this one was pretty neat-- he is working on software for a helicopter (military) and he got to be ON the helicopter while they taught the pilots how to use their software that they wrote for it. It's going to run all of their missions, so it's pretty high tech and he needed to be there to explain it. Don't think he has to go anywhere for a little while again. Tomorrow is packed full of things to do-- I have church, a 3 hour meeting afterwards and then a baby shower after that! Eeks! I'm going to be dead tired when I come home. I picked up the gift today, I know, I always do things last minute. Hope everyone has a great Sunday!

Yum, potato soup, that sounds good on a cold day! That sounds like a pretty interesting trip this time for your DH, but I'm sure you're glad he's home.

I did my chores early today so I could head out to Wichita for the afternoon & evening for shopping. I had gone by Sunflowerparrot's place to see her little chicks on the way & just as I stepped out onto her porch to leave it started snowing, ugh. I was debating with myself all the way up the highway whether to just run to Derby to go to Petco or to go ahead & see how bad it was in Wichita. Well the farther I drove the better it got so I kept going & then just as I got to Andover it was snowing like crazy. It snowed all the way up to Sam's & I though oh boy I'm in for it now, but by the time I got out of there it had stopped & I only ran into one spot coming back to Derby where I slid on some ice on a bridge. By the time I had gotten my groceries & headed on home the roads were all dry & you couldn't tell it had snowed. Thank goodness this time the wind blew the snow off. When I got home there was no snow anywhere here. It's really, really cold & the wind is still blowing, but nothing else. I hope it stays that way. I came home & started up the woodstove to get it warmed up in here so the heat pump won't run all night. My DH already sent me a text before I even got the groceries in about starting a fire. I just love this woodstove we have, it does a great job of supplementing our heat & we burn the darned hedge we have so much of around here. It is a super hard wood & burns hot, so if you have a closed stove like we do you can burn it. It pops & throws stuff all over, so it's not good for open stoves or fireplaces, but it serves our purpose fine.

 

[checoukan]

Well, because of cost issues, I am still working on how the breeder pens will be. My ole egg layers will stay in the present barn. MOst if not all of the large fowl will stay in the same barn also. I have been working on those pens and have two in use. One has the polish, ( as ivy calls them, "Q-tips" ) and the other pen has a lavendar ameraucana cock bird over ameraucana/cooper maran cross hens for olive-eggers. I have one pen ready to go, but since the new barn is still being built, I have had to kid a couple of goats in that pen. I have some juvinile cream legbars running around in there.
Hopefully when the barn is ready to move into, I will have a plan. I am just thankful DH finally got the builders out here to get it going. It looks like I am only going to take the rosecomb breeders over there and maybe the partridge wyandotte bantams, and maybe the polish.

I am so excited to get my new "office, incubator/hatcher/brooder room. All my that will be in one room. Along with a fridge, sink with running water, all my cabnets, meds, and waterers, feeders, just everything I need out there.
All my equipment I will be able to keep clean, I am going to have the incubator and hatcher, vented out the wall so that most of the chick dust will go out side

going to work with the builder to see what will be the best way to do that.

I am working on how my cabnets will be. All my plastic water, feeders, founts, extra drinker cups, will have labeled places in the cabnets, as well all shelf meds, and things like that.
I m not sure how big my fridge will be, as I really don't carry that much fridge meds.

So, kinda still a big jumbo mess.

 

[Frizzled Pink]

hi checoukan, i came in the last couple days , i hope you are feeling better, please have patience with my chicken 101 questions

 

[sharol]

That's what we burn in our "Earth Stove." It is a wonderful stove and heats the whole house if we run the furnace fan on continuous, and it works OK without the fan. Love that hedge.

. My DH already sent me a text before I even got the groceries in about starting a fire. I just love this woodstove we have, it does a great job of supplementing our heat & we burn the darned hedge we have so much of around here. It is a super hard wood & burns hot, so if you have a closed stove like we do you can burn it. It pops & throws stuff all over, so it's not good for open stoves or fireplaces, but it serves out purpose fine.

 

[Trish44]

Checoukan, that sounds wonderful, wow I'm so envious of your plans for all of that, you will be so organized!