Consolidated Kansas

[chicken danz]

I really hate these stupid town ordinances, especially in these times. Some people would have very little to eat if it weren't for their chickens. All it takes is some flooty high maintenance person to complain and they jump all over to ban them or reduce the numbers. When the rest of the nation is accepting people owning chickens, the Midwest seems to be tightening up their little small town ordinances. What is with that? Sorry I just have to vent. Most of these towns allow more dogs than they do chickens. It's just dumb.
I personally love the thought process that places like Topeka for instance have. As long as you keep them contained to your yard you are unlimited. But if they are out roaming, the fine is out the roof. That keeps things in check without governing what a person can or can not do. It keeps responsible owners on their toes and doesn't leave the chickens out roaming and open to predators but allows owners the freedom to do what they want. There are select communities that have their own home owner laws but at least it isn't the entire city.
I salute those towns that are relaxing their laws and allowing people to once again own chickens. But the ones that are still tightening the laws are just so out of touch with reality. The fact remains with the drought and grain prices that meat will go sky high. It is going to come down to the fact that poultry is one of the few meats that will be affordable if it doesn't start raining. And eggs will be a source of protein.
I remember back in the 70's how people were forced to eat dog food because they couldn't afford meat. Or they ate beans for protein instead of meat. In this day and time that won't even be feasible because dog food is super high priced as well and if there are no crops the beans would be limited too.
Hechicken during the drought you went through what happened to the food supply? Just curious.

 

[HEChicken]

Hechicken during the drought you went through what happened to the food supply? Just curious.

Good question. The whole supply/demand thing certainly came into play and the price of food got really high. Farmers were having to slaughter their animals because they ran out of feed and/or water, so recovery has been slow - it takes a long time to build up a herd again once there is food available. We had to import a lot of food. Australia is mineral rich so we trade minerals for food, and I'm sure during the worst of the drought, we imported a lot more food than we would have to normally.

It got really hard even for individual people to grow their own food, because the water restrictions went from a restriction to an out and out ban. Hoses weren't allowed - at all - so watering was next to impossible. My parents bought a huge 2'x2' plastic tub that they set in the bottom of their square, stand-up shower, so all the water from their shower was collected instead of going down the drain. Then, after each shower, Dad painstakingly carried the water out, a bucket at a time, to water the few things they were trying to keep alive.

 

[Hawkeye95]

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.

Yep, and my DH loves his job, so it'll be sad to have him laid off in March. He said that while he was in Arizona (at their base) he asked around to see what the housing market was like down there. He said it was really beautiful there and of course-- 70 degrees in winter! He knew I'd love that, and he thought he could find a job out there easy enough because there are a couple of software companies there he knew of. My only question is.... IF it's 70 degrees in winter (YAY!!!) then what is the temperature in summer??? I don't want to move to someplace that is miserable in the summer. Summer is when I want to garden and plant and spend the entire day outside. If we stay, (which means he finds a job HERE) we want to put the addition on the house and I want a wood burning stove! I was thinking fireplace, but perhaps a stove would be best. I want something to heat the house. We also agreed we need another barn-- this one will be for all of our equipment and then I can take over the horse barn and put the front half into chicken pens.

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.

Are you thinking of having a window a/c unit for the summer time? And then to heat that room in the winter--- maybe a wood burning stove? Sounds like a great plan to me! I love your ideas! I didn't realize you had partridge Wyandottes. I must have spaced that. My cousin that shows and is a judge-- oh I think you met him??? He was at the show we were BOTH at together a month or two back! Well he has white bantam Wyandottes, show stock. He says he has been concentrating on breeding out a fault he is dealing with and he will be back to showing them he thinks this year. Anyway, he he's the one that flys all over the world to judge world pigeon shows! Anyway, I learned a lot about them at that show, he took me around to show me some white Wyandottes that were out of his line that were being shown and he did a mock judging at the request of a couple of guys that asked him to. It was fun! He explained the curve of their necks/backs and showed how their tails should be and the shape they should have. They are cute little things, I'm not surprised you like them. I think the Partridge would be beautiful! But that color alone presents some challenges to keep that color correct and still keep your type. One of the reasons I'd NEVER get into Partridge in silkies--- way too hard to keep the color right. (but they tend to have challenges just because they are fighting with other silkie traits that come naturally). From your breeds and colors, I think you like a challenge! I'm of the mind set, I want it easy! LOL Anyway, we have a little mini fridge in our basement and I love it. It's really the perfect size for what we need. We don't store food in it, and it's not the smallest you can buy-- more of a mid size, but still small. They come in all kinds of sizes, I'm sure you'll find something that works for your needs. We bought ours at Lowes, and it's pretty-- it's a Stainless steel look to it which kind of classes up the mini fridge. hahaha!

Originally Posted by Hawkeye95
My son was coming down with something this afternoon. He never gets a flu shot. He was starting to get a fever when they left to go home.
And the best part would be feeding indoors instead of outside. I'm like Hawkeye. Cold weather and I do not get along. Anything below 70 is miserable to me.

Hope he's feeling better. I never get the flu shot either-- but I also usually NEVER get the flu!! I generally have a pretty strong immune system that I just rely on. This one hit me hard and I'm still out of it. And X2 on that anything below 70 is miserable! LOL I'm not a cool weather girl. I hate extreme heat too-- but for the most part, I get along just great in summer, and at least in extreme heat, you still have the mornings and evenings to be able to get out and get things done. So I still am productive.

Days like today I almost despise my birds. I got out and battled water and food and now I hurt all over.
I need to move to a warmer climate for sure.

I'm thinking more seriously about that one-- moving to a warmer climate. I just wonder where??? I don't want miserable summers. And I don't want tropical storms. How to move out all those animals when you have a hurricane coming? Can you imagine having to load up big trailers and hauling everyone out?? Hmmm..

does anyone here from kansas have grey runners ducks (mallard looking)

Revolution Mama Ranch has runners. Or at least she did. I don't know if she still does, but that is a favorite breed of hers, so maybe she still does. She doesn't respond to BYC anymore, but you can get ahold of her on her Facebook page. http://www.facebook.com/pages/Revolutionmama-Ranch She is in the Lawrence, KS area. But she's not in town, and she just moved again, so I know she's out in the sticks in some little town outside of Lawrence or Topeka now.

I've been trying to research a new car as well and can't make up my mind. Translated that means I don't want to go into debt and have monthly payments.
My son just bought a hybrid car and I couldn't believe that it made no noise at all when it went into hybrid mode. It was pretty amazing. It even has a screen that shows how the electricity it is producing or using is flowing. Another feature I wasn't sure I liked was that you don't have to use a key. You just push a button. Also if you get close to the car it automatically unlocks without getting your keys out. I would worry about that function in case you didn't want it to unlock. And it has a remote start that you can do without even opening the door. I could see that on long trips not having that motor noise would be awesome. You could have a conversation without talking louder than normal or listen to music without road noise.
But when it got down to it it wasn't a car I would want. I need more capacity for seating and hauling things.
Today while I was loosing my patience with the watering and such I decided I have to have a poultry building. Now all I need is money.

I'm with you on the payments! We've always managed to have it so that we only have one car payment at a time, which works out well. My DH is driving a 10 year old Chevy Impala. It has over 200K on it! (thinking it's around 247K) We have drove it everywhere-- from the East coast, down to the Gulf and everywhere in between. We like to travel and doing it by car saves so much money. The down side is that we have so many more miles than most 10 year old cars do, so it's starting to act up now. I drove it yesterday when we had to split up after church-- DH drove my van with the kids and I went on to the baby shower. It lurched a few times and make a "chunk" noise which makes me think the transmission is going out of it. We have a policy we don't repair BIG things-- we just get a new car. It's been doing this for a few months now, so my DH is already researching a new car for him. I'm thinking he's going to buy the Chevy Volt. (we're all about domestic vehicles) He's in love with the idea of the electric car/ gas when it runs down. And since we have my van and two different one-ton trucks here, we don't need anything big. So a small commuter vehicle will be perfect for him. Anyway we never sell our old cars, we run them into the ground and then donate them to Goodwill.

That whole cash for clunkers program really hurt us - it made the price of used cars go through the roof. I'm also off and on car shopping, used not new, and I can't believe what people are asking now for 20-30 year old cars with high mileage!

That remote start is nice on a cold day, to get the car warmed up before you go out there. A co-worker of mine had it on his truck and when it was his turn to drive when we were going out to lunch it was nice to hear it start as we walked into the parking garage and know the heated seats were going to be warm by the time we got in

. I don't ever have any of those fancy features on my cars - DH says its just more things to potentially go wrong and cost a fortune to get fixed.

I finally got my car back after it was gone almost a month. I felt faint when I saw the bill they presented me with, but hopefully it will go for awhile more now without breaking down again. It is so nice to have it back and have the freedom to come and go as I need to again.

I have the remote start on my van-- LOVE it. When it's really hot outside or really cold outside-- I love having the heat come on or the a/c come on full blast. Nice to get into a comfortable car and not freeze or sweat. And yes, I love my heated seats! I will never have anything but leather too--- sooooo easy to clean up! My van pretty much has all the options on it you could think up, so it's a lot of fun to drive and have. Of course this is van #2, but it's exactly the same thing my other one was, even down to the sunroof, so at least I don't feel too screwed over! LOL Glad you have your car back, I know how you feel about being mobile again and getting to run around when ever. That is ridiculous about the prices of used cars!! Geez--- if a car manages to make it to 20 years, it's time to DONATE that sucker-- not sell it! What on earth are they thinking trying to sell an old car like that? They are worth nothing by that point. I wouldn't pay a dime for something like that. Have you tried all the internet sites to hunt down a vehicle? We discovered that cars were just cheaper out of state! I hope you can find something that is reasonable. Maybe you could find a nice 4 year old car with low miles for a good price else where??

Just saw this story on the news about the new laws for keeping chickens in Park City. They are still allowing them, but with the typical restrictions. Looks like we may have a fellow chicken-head to help out depending on how his visit to city hall goes about his now larger than allowed flock.

Here's a link to the story: http://www.kwch.com/news/kwch-sia-r...chickens-in-park-city-20130113,0,859723.story

Good news is that at least it's not a total ban like some other towns in our area.

That is sad. And he has 12 chickens?? That's like NOTHING! LOL I'm glad it's not a total ban, yes. You know it's crazy, because while other places like San Francisco (among other forward thinking cities) are really opening up to the idea and embracing it-- WE the true farming community of the Nation are cracking down?!?! Insane! It's like we're going backwards.

I really hate these stupid town ordinances, especially in these times. Some people would have very little to eat if it weren't for their chickens..
Hechicken during the drought you went through what happened to the food supply? Just curious.

All excellent points, for sure! I really thought that the trend was now to swing towards more self reliance and people were getting back to growing gardens, keeping chickens for the protein that the eggs afford, and trying our best to reduce our footprints in several ways. One of the reasons that the cloth diaper market has really taken off and is holding strong. There are so many ways to reduce, reuse and be self sufficient. I don't know if anyone else takes the Mother Earth News magazine, but I love it! Lots of great ideas on how to be better at homesteading and keeping it organic and healthy for your family. Plans for greenhouses, ideas for gardening, and great tips on using herbs and how to use them, store them, etc. I loved the cool storage ideas for the potatoes, apples, etc they had in the magazine recently. Showed a step by step on how to build shelving to keep your produce from rotting over the winter. Anyway, with food prices going up, GMO crops and canned foods, and hormone riddled meats and dairy products... it's good to do anything you can to stay ahead of it. And we should have the right to do so.

 

[chicken danz]

This really scares me to death. I would so hate to have to slaughter my birds because I couldn't give them water. I really want to convert my washer to a gray water cycle so I can at least water a few plants with it. I want to fill my freezer to the hilt with meat because I may have to make it last. Did poor people end up starving to death during those times? I see more and more ponds that are completely dry. They did a new aerial map for google last summer and the difference in pictures is heart wrenching. Old pictures showed green fields and trees. The ones taken last summer show nothing but brown and many bare trees that just didn't live. When the trees die out we are in for big trouble.

 

[chicken danz]

Hawkeye, my son called last night and he had gotten sicker. (He said he called to see if I was alright but I think he secretly needed some Mommy sympathy.) He was on vacation this week and disgusted cause he could have just taken sick pay if he hadn't been. I do worry a lot when my kids get sick because they all have some asthma. Luckily most of them eat and live a lot healthier than I do and have some decent immune symptoms. But they all have to call Mom when they are sick. I secretly love it! I am glad they still recognize me as a source for comfort or sympathy.
I haven't had a car payment in so many years this just really bothers me. I went for at least 15 years without a car or house payment either one. It would be wonderful to get back in that condition. I had planned before I retired to keep it that way and have ample savings to buy a new car. But things change and necessity calls. I hate debt!

 

[Chickies-duckies-etc]

When I was growing up, we lived in town and had very little money. We ate good!!! Mom always had a flock of chickens for meat and eggs and a garden. I remember helping to gether eggs and help in the garden. A meal always had a meat and two veggies plus a desert. Milk came from someone in the area that was selling raw milk and there was always all we wanted to drink. Real cream was always on hand to use on our hot cereal and to whip for deserts. Bread type items were always homemade, noodles included. The folks would buy beef by the quarter or half and keep a freezer filled. Homemade soap would be made with the fat. I had the chance to work with the costume crew that was working on the movie "Sarah plain and tall" when they were in town. One of the days that Glenn Close was in town they made her favorite meal and the crew got their share of it - beef roast with veggies cooked with it. Everyone was oohing and ahhing and for me it was just like hundreds of meals that I had growing up. I was so spoiled.....

 

[maidenwolfx80]

Wow sounds like everyone is struggling too. I am there with you all. It is hard to push through and if it wasnt for my birds I think I would be in the mad house. Everyone just hang in there.

I have been looking for bantam cochins and seremas and cant find any that are not very expensive. Cant anyone help

 

[maidenwolfx80]

Danz- here is one of the duccles. They all have this extreme white on their chest and shoulders and back. Is this normal? I dont remember my little girl having this. Are they possibly mixed with SFH or porcelain?

 

[chicken danz]

I don't remember mine having that much either. I guess it is a wait and see on those. There was nothing else in there old enough to breed other than the olandsk and I think they were still in the kennel when I collected those eggs. Maybe they will be extra spotty. That one hen is more columbian so I'm not sure what they look like as chicks.
Here is a link you might be interested in. Sounds like a fair price to me.
http://kansascity.craigslist.org/grq/3543519143.html

 

[Chickies-duckies-etc]

Wow sounds like everyone is struggling too. I am there with you all. It is hard to push through and if it wasnt for my birds I think I would be in the mad house. Everyone just hang in there.

I have been looking for bantam cochins and seremas and cant find any that are not very expensive. Cant anyone help

Ideal hatchery has a special for the 1/16 hatch for the bantam cochins for 85 cents each.