Still trying to integrate the two younger silkies into the four older bantam Cochins. My rooster & head hen are being rough. I just keep letting them share space with a fence dividing them. Hoping they'll play nice soon.
I am too tired to stop and think what every one has written. HeChicken good to see you back. Cherwill I know what you mean. Having someone around just throws everything off for me. I am so used to being an island. I have to remember to be quiet or to put on more clothes to walk through the house, or shut the bathroom door, etc etc.
Luckily I only have one granddaughter that comes to stay for any length of time and I love having her here. She reminds me so much of myself when I was that age. We have fun. She is kind of a loner like myself but loves the birds and the animals. But alas she is 13 now and has "in a relationship" on her facebook page. She has started wearing makeup and all those big girl things. I'm afraid she will stop wanting to come spend time here. You know when boys get in the picture nothing else takes the forefront.
Maybe some day my two younger granddaughters will be old enough to come stay at Granny's farm.
You guys are making me glad I have a man that is pretty handy fixing things. He takes forever and a day but I only pay for parts. Of course he took my first Dixon apart because it was "going to break" and three years later it is still in pieces. After the grass got so tall I just bought another one. I doubt if he could even find the parts now.
I worked on the floor in the hoop coop later in the afternoon today. I was really not wanting to do any heavy work but decided to get busy. I had to go all the way out to the south barn and dig through a pile of old barn lumber. I am using 2X lumber and even though it is probably 100 years old it still smells like pine when I cut it. The same size lumber which is about a 2X 6 modern stuff weighs maybe a forth of what this stuff does. I wonder what people did to make the trees not grow as hard and strong without knots as it used to? Anyway dragging that big old heavy stuff up and then dragging it into the other barn to cut about wore me down. I did have a break when the breaker flipped. I was afraid to mess with the electrical mess in the barn cause it has an old fusebox and tons of cords here and there. So I had to wait for DH to wake up to get ready for work.
Then I started draining and cleaning the duck pond. I got that project done, got it refilled and cut a few more boards before I came back in. I am only about halfway done cutting boards for the floor and I am going to have to go back out and dig through the lumber pile some more. I didn't want to use this heavy stuff but it is there and I don't have to buy anything so that is what I am using.
I'll have to drag myself back out after while to put all the birds up. I just hope my feet will carry me that far.
Trish, You may have already considered this but I figured out when I am dealing with old boards, unless the nails are someplace I need to saw them I just use a grinder and cut them off. Sure saves a lot of work and effort. Plus you don't end up with a bunch of empty holes. That's the one redeeming quality about goats over chickens is cleaning. Those little balls they produce just roll off instead of make a nasty mess.
So glad to see you back. How old are the birds Maidenwolf? If they are like 5-6 months or older it could be Mereks. You would definitely want to cull them. You don't want that to get started in your flock. If they are chicks you might try giving them vitamin b complex as well as E. I've never had Mereks and never want to. Josiechick can tell you more about it.
I have missed you a lot.
So many of our regulars are MIA right now. i.e. Checoukan, Hechicken, Mammahen (at least I know she is okay),Deerfield (she's busy), etc etc. Didn't mean to leave many out ....I just miss hearing from so many people.
I have an incubator full of chicks of various kinds and really have no place to put them. My bins are full. I've gotten quite a few guineas to hatch although the fertility has been really poor this year. I'm not sure why unless the weather has something to do with it. But I need a place to put them for the time being because I have too many other birds to put here and there.
I think I figured it out Danz. I started her on the vit/min and apple cider vinegar in the water and she seems to be perking up. The other one that was limping, on close inspection, she had a thorn poor baby. I did a bumble foot surgery on a hen last weekend and she is healing and doing great I am pretty proud of myself.
I wonder were everyone went off to. Hopefully every one is ok and just busy.
I have been looking for a couple guinea. The ticks this season are terrible.
I've had my nephew staying with us the past few 3 weeks and I didn't expect his visit to make that big a difference but these past 3 weeks have just been sooooooo busy! Either we've been out doing stuff with him, or home trying to catch up on chores and things that didn't get done while we were out. At the end of the day, I've managed to get online and check email and read the forum but most days have been too tired to try to catch up or reply. I just dropped my nephew off for his return home and for the first time in what feels like a long time, I have a quiet house and a chance to start feeling like I'm catching up. I have sooooo much to do so can't spend long on here though. I didn't even try to multi because for sure I'd leave someone out
Maidenwolf, I second the Mareks suggestion. I don't know for sure I've ever had it, but I had a batch of broody raised chicks a few years ago that got to be about 15 weeks old and one of them started limping. Each day it got worse until she wasn't using that one leg at all. I did cull her at that point because I suspected Marek's and knew if that was it, she would continue to get worse, not better, and I didn't want to watch her slowly die. No one else ever got it, either from that batch or future chicks, which is why I don't know for sure that's what it was, but in googling the symptoms, they did seem to match.
I have a really strange situation. Does anyone remember me telling you about the muscovy duck who started laying her eggs in a burn barrel awhile back? Well, I moved her to my hoop coop and gave her 23 eggs and she saw that nest full of eggs and bam - she was broody. I wrote down the date on my calendar, and when her five weeks sitting was up, I started checking morning and evening to see if there was anything happening. Four days after her due date, there were no ducklings, so after dark that night, DD and I pulled her off the nest and candled. We removed a dozen eggs that were either quitters or had gone bad, but saw movement in several others so put them back under her. I figured if we saw movement, they would hatch any day so continued to monitor her, but everyday there was nothing. By yesterday morning I was feeling so morose for her. At that point she was 11 days past her due date and I was trying to decide what to do for her. I don't have access to ducklings to get some and put under her, I don't want to set new eggs under her and have her start the 5 weeks all over again, yet I know she will continue to set those eggs until something happens. I was moving around doing my chicken chores, when I happened to glance in again and saw a broken shell. A moment later she moved and I could see a fluffed out duckling under her! I was amazed and stunned!!! This duckling hatched a full 11 days after she started setting those eggs. My first thought was I must have got the dates wrong, but I checked the calendar and they were right. Plus, since I knew I had talked about it on the forum, I went back to look and recheck the dates. She started setting on Apr 16th per the following post: https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/248925/consolidated-kansas/22307
By this morning, there are at least 4 ducklings in the nest. I still can't get over this. My first broody muscovy hatched 1 duckling that was 6 days late and I was surprised enough about that, but 11 days seems way over the top. And its not the eggs themselves because when I did a batch in my incubator, they hatched on exactly day 35.
Whatever the reason - and I will probably never know why or what happened - I am so happy for her that she has some ducklings to raise, so she can stop sitting in that dog house and get out and start enjoying life again.
My big mower is on the fritz so I can't mow at a time of year when the grass is growing like crazy. A repairman picked it up last week and I already know I won't get it back until at least Thursday. They are calling for more storms this week so a) the grass may be too wet to mow when I do finally get it back and b) the additional rain will make it grow even more. I'm sure my neighbors are cussing out the people with the long grass right about now - if I see them I will have to explain so they don't think too poorly of us. It doesn't help they mowed theirs yesterday so it looks beautiful and makes ours look even worse.
Well, I need to get out and get moving. I will try to check in again later. Have a good day everyone!
I was looking at buying a brinsea spot check thermometer but they are charging $10 for shipping it to me. I called to ask them about it and they said that is their minimum shipping and there are no other options. That seems crazy to me. What thermometers are good for incubating? I think that is one problem I had with my first hatch, I don't think the thermometer was reacting fast enough to temp changes. I think over the past month I have bought about $50 in thermometers that don't work very good for a variety of reasons.
I have two Sper Scientific thermometer/hygrometers. They're small & I can see them through both windows on the incubators. You can buy them from the company direct, but I found mine on eBay & the shipping was cheaper there. I just love them & you can buy the batteries on eBay, a whole card of them a lot cheaper than trying to buy one or two at Walmart.
I think everyone is just overwhelmed right now with kids home for the summer & how busy it gets with that besides just projects outside. I hope everyone can come back every once in awhile & check in at least, it's nice to hear from everyone & see how they're doing.
So sorry - with silkies its so hard to tell. I got two last year that were 10 weeks old when I got them and the breeder thought they were both girls. Around 16 weeks I posted a pic, and Hawkeye said she thought one was a cockerel. So when, a few weeks later (around 20 weeks) I heard a crow, I figured it was that one and looked out the window to see the other other one crowing! Within days both were having a little crow fest every morning. 8 weeks is pretty early for a silkie to crow, in my limited experience, but if you are able to keep roosters where you are, you may end up just loving that guy. My boys were both so sweet and wonderful - I really enjoyed them.
So sorry - with silkies its so hard to tell. I got two last year that were 10 weeks old when I got them and the breeder thought they were both girls. Around 16 weeks I posted a pic, and Hawkeye said she thought one was a cockerel. So when, a few weeks later (around 20 weeks) I heard a crow, I figured it was that one and looked out the window to see the other other one crowing! Within days both were having a little crow fest every morning. 8 weeks is pretty early for a silkie to crow, in my limited experience, but if you are able to keep roosters where you are, you may end up just loving that guy. My boys were both so sweet and wonderful - I really enjoyed them.
I already have a cochin rooster that I'm not supposed to have but I really like him. If both silkies are boys, I'll end up with only 1 roo & 3 hens. I was hoping for 1 or 2 more girls, dang it. Oh well, it is still fun hanging with these chickens.
jennyjane73 you are having quite a time with those silkies. It happens to all of us and not with just silkies. I had an orpington that was 8 months old before I finally figured out he was a rooster. He didn't crow and he liked sitting on eggs. He still rarely crows but now he is wearing his big boy comb!
I guess I am different from a lot of people. I am so over worked but sometimes it helps to come in and do a quick read, and a quick post so I can go back out and tackle projects with a better attitude.
Never give half a watermelon to white silkies!!! They look like my cat when he eats a squirrel....there preety poofs are all red with the watermelon juice and they are a mess. Also if anyone is interested in a young white silkie roo might put a add on craigslist but maybe not. Another thing is I'm grounded so I cant be on so I will talk to you all later.
Your friend Polishpal
