Consolidated Kansas

[tweetybaby2005]

Hawkeye, wishing you all the best on your new job. I hope you can sneak a couple of your hens in with ya! Once things settled down, do come back and visit the board.

I think south of us has the storm so we only got the cloud. But i really like the cool weather. Kids are out of school for the summer so I'm home with them today. They will be going to summer camp next week.

I'm taking a lazy day today doing nothing. My original plan was to bake some Hokkaito milk bread but got lazy. I will be doing some major baking tomorrow instead. My son wants to bake a banana cake so l'll help him with that as well. But I've a clean car today. I cleaned and vacuum the heck out of it. But it won't take long and it will be dirty again due to the weekend rain in the forecast. Guess that's the only thing I did today.

Kuan

 

[cherwill]

Josie, I hope you're feeling better.

Okay, I've been offline from BYC for a few days, I went back 3 pages, but give up after that! I have no idea what's been going on. We're just up to our eye balls in 'stuff here. I drive down tonight to start my job in OKC. Interesting story... I was going to rent this condo from this guy that owns several of them in a gated neighborhood down in MidWest City and I couldn't get ahold of him the last two days to check on the condo and I finally got ahold of him last night. He tells me that he lives in Moore and that his house sustained heavy damage-- part of his roof is gone, blown out windows, siding torn off his house. The house is standing, which he's thankful for. But he said it's going to be another week before I can get the condo-- I'm wondering if they might be staying in it themselves while they situate their own home. Sigh. I feel bad for him. So I'll be in a hotel for a week... I hope not longer!

It would get old staying in a hotel for very long. I hope you can get into the condo quickly. What a mess down there. My chiropractor is from there and has a lot of family and friends still in the area. One of his cousins lost his entire house. He's headed to Moore this weekend with a big truckload of donated stuff he's been collecting in his office all week.

I'd definitely try to smuggle a hen or two into the hotel. They're quiet, mostly.

I found three ticks on myself the other day. I hope this is not the beginning of a bad tick season.

Great. Now my head itches!

I'm taking a lazy day today doing nothing. My original plan was to bake some Hokkaito milk bread but got lazy. I will be doing some major baking tomorrow instead. My son wants to bake a banana cake so l'll help him with that as well. But I've a clean car today. I cleaned and vacuum the heck out of it. But it won't take long and it will be dirty again due to the weekend rain in the forecast. Guess that's the only thing I did today.

Kuan

I had a lazy day, but it wasn't by plan. My idea of a lazy day and yours are quite different; sounds like you still got a few things done. I did one load of laundry, stretched twice, and took a nap!

 

[Frizzled Pink]

Knowing what I know now (or at least what I think I know) I would like to have bought some chicks from a breeder /small buisiness person. But when you're at Orscliens and they are right there and it's so easy to just pick-up six and go and all the other things that cause chicken math that makes it so easy. But then on the other hand with what happened to Jen last week it seems sort of strange to just ask somebody what they have for sale.I've had pretty good luck buying things from people on craigslist but also know that isn't always the case. I know I'm not the most tech-savy person but the buy,sell ,trade section on BYC was confusing to me. How do you feel about the auctions ?, I've only been to a couple of horse auctions before as a spectator (mixed feelings there too). I'm starting to talk myself into feeling guilty about getting chicks at the store and then turning to the kind folks on BYC for advice and wisdom. whew! Enough rambling for one night.!

Thats one of the great advantages of this consolidated threads, if you are looking for a particular type of bird, most likely someone on here will either have or know of someone who does have what you are looking for AND you can feel safe about the transactions you are getting yourself into.

 

[Trish44]

Well the multi-quote thing is not working at all. I was going to say that I agree that we often can find the birds we're looking for within our group here & I would much rather get them from someone I know than a stranger & we can help each other out.

 

[pinks4girls]

In Ottawa, looking for a few pretty ladies- Lavender Orps, preferrably new hatches so they can bond with us. My husband thinks I am crazy because of this. Also looking for a quality coop that won't break the bank.

 

[chicken danz]

pink4girls, welcome to our little group. I"ll bet I just talked to you on the phone!
My internet was acting up all day yesterday and what a disappointment to get on today and have so little to read. I may end up with a shortage of coffee this morning if someone doesn't jump on and say something.
It's a typical Friday for me. Busy busy busy. Yesterday I never got a chance to work on my hoop coop at all. I put up another kennel and moved half the baby ducks over to the new pen. I had another group of little ones that needed to go out and I knew they would get trampled by the older ones. It makes me so nervous. I have no netting over the top and I dreamed about an owl coming down and taking at least 50 baby ducks during the night. The very first thing when I got up this morning Marshmallow was doing her predator pursuit bark and I saw a hawk flying over. I'm almost afraid to look. Hopefully my duck buyer will be here this weekend. He said they had some plans but he might be able to make a quick trip. I hope! It will cut my feed bill tremendously!
I need to empty the hatcher and get it cleaned and ready for the next batch of eggs.

 

[sharol]

There is an outfit in Emporia (on West 6th near the car dealers) that says they are selling Amish coops. I have NO ideas what they are charging, so they are probably too expensive.

Just avoid the light weight ones because they are so flimsly.

If you are up for it, you can actually build a coop from pallets. There is lots of info over in the coops thread about that. Just search for pallet coop.

When I got started a couple of years ago, I spent way too much for housing for the girls. I bought a Hoop Coop from Henhoops.com. It is really sturdy and well built, but it cost way too much for the number of chickens it could hold. http://www.henhoops.com/ The people were wonderful, but after I started using it, I realized that their idea of the space 8 hens needed was much different than mine. It was the 4x9, but there were only 16 sq. ft. in the actual coop part, and I had 7 hens at the time.

We ended up buying a metal building and turning it into a coop. It really worked well, but it wasn't cheap. Just remember, 4 sq. feet per bird in the coop and 10 sq feet per bird in the run. Don't let them tell you otherwise.

Sharol

In Ottawa, looking for a few pretty ladies- Lavender Orps, preferrably new hatches so they can bond with us. My husband thinks I am crazy because of this. Also looking for a quality coop that won't break the bank.

 

[HEChicken]

My internet was acting up all day yesterday and what a disappointment to get on today and have so little to read. I may end up with a shortage of coffee this morning if someone doesn't jump on and say something.

Haha Danz, you are funny! I have been reading but having a crazy busy couple of weeks and haven't had much to report anyway, so never got around to hitting the reply button.

Pink4girls, welcome to our group!

To those having problems with multis, I hope this helps. If you reply inside a quote box, it will not show up in the multi - you have to reply outside the quote box in order for it to show up in the multis. Trish44, I noticed this was the problem last night when you said the multi wasn't working at all - the quote you were trying to multi had all been written inside the quote box. What I will do sometimes on those, is copy the text I wanted to respond to, and when the blank multi shows up, then I can just copy it in. Hope this makes sense. I may not have had enough coffee yet to be making sense at all.

I haven't started my second hoop coop yet Danz, so you are ahead of me, if that helps. I've had the lumber since last weekend but this week all I've had time to do is chase my tail.

Long story short, we got some sheep. Lambs actually but they are 3-4 months old and look like little sheep more than cute little newborn lambs. We needed to put some kind of livestock on our pasture so all of that lush grassland doesn't go to waste and while I would have preferred to raise up a couple of beef steers, the logistics of getting them here and then from here to the processor later were too much for us to deal with right now so we decided to go with smaller animals. We have 6 lambs and after some hiccups in the first couple of days, they are settling in nicely now. They are mama-raised and we all know how that works from the mama-raised chicks - i.e., they don't trust humans nor want anything to do with us. So I am befriending them with grain right now. They have access 24/7 to really lush grazing within the confines of our lagoon, but only get grain twice a day, when I bring it to them. I call them and shake the pan, and then set it down and walk a little distance away so they can come up and eat. I am gradually setting it down closer and closer to me and they are getting used to the routine now and come running when I call them. This morning they were calling to me while I was working around at the coop because they knew it was almost grain time and when I went into their little pen, they came running before I even set it down. I was only able to get about 3' away before they were surrounding it eating. That is real progress from only a few days ago. Next I want them to come eat it while I am touching distance and eventually if I can get them to eat it out of my hand that will help a lot in being able to handle them later when they are much bigger. Even at 40lb or so, they are STRONG.

Other than that, I am kept busy taking care of multiple pens and brooders of turkeys, a few ducklings and a few chicks of varying ages. The turkey poults are so much fun - they have such funny little personalities and snuggle with me when I pick them up.

I found a 5' rat snake in our barn the other day and was so glad to see him. That is where we've had a problem with mice in the past. DH was not happy to find his expensive bike riding shorts with a hole in them thanks to the mice. I had set out traps and caught a few but haven't caught any in a long time. Now I'm thinking the reason we haven't caught any but also haven't noticed a mouse problem lately, is thanks to the snake - so he is welcome to stay as long as he wants. The very next day we saw a black rat snake in our horse shelter that was just huge. It was coiled up in the rafters of the shelter, only feet away from where some grackles had a great nest. I used to hear the babies but don't hear them any more so I'm sure that snake is responsible for that. He was a little close to my coop for comfort but as long as he sticks to eating the wild birds, we won't have a problem.

 

[HEChicken]

There is an outfit in Emporia (on West 6th near the car dealers) that says they are selling Amish coops. I have NO ideas what they are charging, so they are probably too expensive.

Just avoid the light weight ones because they are so flimsly.

If you are up for it, you can actually build a coop from pallets. There is lots of info over in the coops thread about that. Just search for pallet coop.

When I got started a couple of years ago, I spent way too much for housing for the girls. I bought a Hoop Coop from Henhoops.com. It is really sturdy and well built, but it cost way too much for the number of chickens it could hold. http://www.henhoops.com/ The people were wonderful, but after I started using it, I realized that their idea of the space 8 hens needed was much different than mine. It was the 4x9, but there were only 16 sq. ft. in the actual coop part, and I had 7 hens at the time.

We ended up buying a metal building and turning it into a coop. It really worked well, but it wasn't cheap. Just remember, 4 sq. feet per bird in the coop and 10 sq feet per bird in the run. Don't let them tell you otherwise.

Oooohhhh...I've heard really good things about the Amish coops.

I second everything Sharol said. Don't buy the kit coops they sell at the feed stores - those are cheap, flimsy and you will need to replace it within a year. Also, they also say they are big enough for 3 times as many birds as they will hold in reality. The best coops will be the ones you build yourselves. Don't worry if you have no building skills - the chickens don't care if its not perfect, as long as it is safe. If you go to the coops section at the top of this page, you can get a lot of ideas there, and many people have posted detailed instructions and some even have plans. At least looking through those coops gives you a start to figure out what kind of coop you want on your place. Just remember to build it much larger than you think you need, so that when chicken math kicks in, you won't have to build a second coop immediately.

 

[tweetybaby2005]

Hay, it's Friday! I have a dr's appointment today. This is my 1 yr follow up appt. A lot had happened since my surgery. I really can't believe it had been a yr, time flies.

Another day at home with the kids. I'll be baking all day today. I only have a loaf of bread left so I really need to bake some.

I'm jeolous to see Danz hatching out so many ducks. I just love them!!! I want more. Plus I love duck eggs. I have a salted duck eggs recipe that marinate duck eggs and they are delicious!!

Pink4girl - welcome to the Kansas group. Hope you find a coop to house your chickens soon. You can build a hoop coop if you the room. Bigger coop helps with the chicken math.

Kuan