Consolidated Kansas

[Trish44]

Hi all. I'm kind of new to BYC. I haven't posted yet but have been lurking for a few months now. My husband and I just started our chicken experience about 6 weeks ago. We just moved to Augusta. We bought a house on 10 acres and thought it would be fun to have chickens. Needless to say we have become obsessed. We just moved them out of their box in the garage into their chicken coop on Tuesday and they seem to love all the space they have. Most of our flock are barred rock. We also have a few bantams. We are interested in owning a few frizzles or sizzles but we have been unable to find some. Anyways we are excited to be apart of the kansas group!

I forgot to say before that I'm not that far away from you, maybe 45 minutes south & I raise quite a few different breeds of chickens & will be hatching in the spring. If you're interested in being on my waiting list for spring hatching let me know. I haven't had much time to be on the computer the last few days, it's just been crazy with the sick cat running her to the Vet & taking care of her as well as trying to get my outdoor pens winterized. We're going to put a tin roof on my growout pen in the morning, my DH is going to help me do that one because I just can't do that project by myself. Oh & I didn't have time to come back & give you those links to the FB swaps so here they are: https://www.facebook.com/groups/275183675880038/ & https://www.facebook.com/groups/312601348787264/. Just click on join & one of us will approve you. We keep the groups closed to avoid spammers.

Today was just wild with that wind wasn't it, wow I thought I was going to blow away. I managed to get all of my summer bucket waterers cleaned up & sanitized so I could get them put in the garage for the winter, that was an accomplishment in that wind. I still have the pans sitting out there on top of a pen waiting to be put away yet. I'm getting there with all of it, just takes time to get it all done. I have one more heated base to hook up in the peafowl pen yet as soon as I get the cord to plug it into. Then I will have all of the ones I have hooked up & ready. I just hate winter with a passion! Some day I would love to move somewhere where I don't have to put on a heavy coat ever. It probably won't happen, but that would be heaven. The only thing about that is having to put up with the humidity, although any more with our climate changing we have about as much as they do in the south now. Growing up in Kansas we never had that kind of humidity in the summer, it's only been in the last few years that we started having it so bad. We even have gotten some of the strange bugs that come from the south here as well.

HEChicken, it was nice seeing you today & visiting. I love seeing all of your birds when I come. I just love the markings on those Exchequer Leghorns, they're so pretty! I got home & couldn't find my Ancona hen that got left out, I heard her somewhere behind my coop, so I hope she is somewhere safe, I couldn't find her in the dark. I hated it that she got left out, but I just didn't have the time to keep chasing her around the yard to get her in before I left. Bandaid the Tom turkey was so excited that I brought him home a new girlfriend from HEChicken's tonight! I took the crate she came home in into the pen & let her out & Bandaid immediately started talking to her. She then made herself right at home on the branch roost I have in there, so she seemed to be happy to be here too.

 

[tweetybaby2005]

Ok. My multi quotes quit working again. So I'll just do it from my not so good memory.

Danz, so sorry about the coffee. I like either really hot coffee or iced coffee. Nothing in between. Lukewarm old coffee sounds awful. Hope your days went better.

Hechicken, love your creative way of giving the goats a cozy warm bed. I absolutely love the way you raised up that little cage for the chicks to hide under.

Josie, so sorry you had such crappy neighbor. Why can't people act like an adult and just discuss issues face to face is beyond me. I like your way of dealing with it though.

Trish,nglad your cat is feeling better. Hope she is on the mend. I'm sure she will forgive younonce she is better.

********************************

More bad news. The lone peachick died as well. I tried vetrx and steam veporizer with oxine but guess it was too late. I'm absolutely devastated. My other chicks are doing just fine so I don't know what I did wrong.

I'll be doing major cleaning and disinfecting tomorrow. I'm also moving the 6 to 8 weekers out to the main coop. After disinfecting the storage room brooder, I'll leave it empty for at least a week before moving this last batch of chicks out there.

I've put the tarp up on the south wall and will be putting the watering cups bucket and nipple drinker bucket away. Then I'll put the heated dog bowls out. Forecast says next week's temp will drop drastically so I need to finish prepping for winter.

I better head to bed soon. I've a long day ahead of me tomorrow plus I've to work the midnight shift tomorrow night.

 

[Trish44]

Well we started out getting 4 bantams and 16 barred rock. Then I went out of town for a couple days and when I came home we had 10 more. So we ended up with 4 bantams, 21 barred rock, two blue cochins, and 3 brahmas. Sadly the first night he got the second batch the water thing fell on one and killed it, so we have 29 birds total now. We bought them straight run so we are hoping to have 12 or 15 hens, hopefully. We built a 10' by 8' coop. The roof goes from 8' down to 6'. We just put them in there on Tuesday and they have a ton of space. We haven't quite got the nesting boxes in there yet, but those will be going in the next week or so. It took us longer because we decided to insulate it. The run is going to be about the same size, and they can go underneath the coop because it is about 3 feet off the ground. We plan on free ranging them so that's why they don't have a huge run. Hopefully that will work, if not, we can always expand. I am sure my husband will love that idea ha ha. After looking on BYC for a few ideas we decided to do the feeder out of PVC pipe. For the most part it has been greater, and the chickens learned rather quickly where the food was. We didn't put the bottom piece at a slope so the food isn't falling down as well as it should. My husband is going to work on that this next week or so as well. After much debate, we decided to put a laminate tile down on the floor so it made it easier to clean and we were hoping that the OSB wouldn't rot or something like that. We are amazed at how many personalities we have in the bunch, and how fast chicks grow. It is amazing. Luckily, my husband loves animals as much as I do, so we are both open to expanding. I think that we might end up putting another coop up right beside our other one and maybe connect them. I haven't told my husband yet, but that is what I would like to do ha ha. We also have a 10 month old baby and 4 German Shepherds so it is rather busy. This "quick" project has taken way more time than we originally anticipated. It also cost us twice as much as what we planned on, but that's okay. We wanted to have a pretty nice coop for them. We just moved to Augusta, and chickens were something we really wanted to have for quite awhile. Needless to say, once we found out we could have some, we jumped at the opportunity. I plan on posting pictures of our coop and everything as soon as we are done so I am hoping to be done soon. I am really wanting to get a couple frizzle hens because I absolutely love them, so hopefully I can find some come spring.

I guess you were posting at the same time I was. I really like the Barred Rocks for laying, they're just egg laying machines & mine lay really big eggs. I just got the Heritage Barred Rocks recently too & will be raising those next year. You wouldn't believe how much difference there is between the hatchery ones & the heritage breed, it's like night & day. The hatchery ones are barred, but they're usually kind of blurry lines & not really black, at least the one I have looks like that. The heritage ones are twice as big & the barring is so crisp & clear. You can really tell the cockerels at a young age too because they're much lighter than the pullets. Several of us got them from Frank Reece who raises quite a few heritage breed birds. It sounds like you really jumped in with both feet on the chickens, wow! It sounds like you built a nice coop for them too, we would love to see pics of it. I started out with PVC feeders in my main coop & I used them for quite awhile. I found out if you hang them straight up & down they don't feed down well, so I had to put some spacers behind them to make them hang at an angle. I now feed fermented feed, so when I cleaned out my coop awhile back I took out the PVC feeders for now because they were just full of shavings all the time & I wasn't using them anyway. I will keep them in case I want to use them again. It's nice your DH is into the chickens along with you, mine sure isn't. He will help me do projects grudgingly, but he always says they're my hobby. He does like them to some degree because he is always asking me what breed one or the other is & telling me that one is pretty. He just doesn't want to get roped into the work of taking care of them I think is why he tells me they're my hobby. He did build me a breeder coop last year too with 4 rooms in it for 4 different breeds. Once you get hooked on chickens it just escalates & we're all enablers here so be prepared. I hope you find the Frizzles you want, I don't raise those, but I'm sure there is someone around who does if you put a wanted ad on the Poultry swap on FB.

 

[Trish44]

Ok. My multi quotes quit working again. So I'll just do it from my not so good memory.

Danz, so sorry about the coffee. I like either really hot coffee or iced coffee. Nothing in between. Lukewarm old coffee sounds awful. Hope your days went better.

Hechicken, love your creative way of giving the goats a cozy warm bed. I absolutely love the way you raised up that little cage for the chicks to hide under.

Josie, so sorry you had such crappy neighbor. Why can't people act like an adult and just discuss issues face to face is beyond me. I like your way of dealing with it though.

Trish,nglad your cat is feeling better. Hope she is on the mend. I'm sure she will forgive younonce she is better.

********************************

More bad news. The lone peachick died as well. I tried vetrx and steam veporizer with oxine but guess it was too late. I'm absolutely devastated. My other chicks are doing just fine so I don't know what I did wrong.

I'll be doing major cleaning and disinfecting tomorrow. I'm also moving the 6 to 8 weekers out to the main coop. After disinfecting the storage room brooder, I'll leave it empty for at least a week before moving this last batch of chicks out there.

I've put the tarp up on the south wall and will be putting the watering cups bucket and nipple drinker bucket away. Then I'll put the heated dog bowls out. Forecast says next week's temp will drop drastically so I need to finish prepping for winter.

I better head to bed soon. I've a long day ahead of me tomorrow plus I've to work the midnight shift tomorrow night.

tweety, don't beat yourself up, those peachicks are pretty fragile till they get started well. I lost my other black shoulder peachick awhile back for no apparent reason, he wasn't sick he just keeled over dead one day. That's why I was so angry that the critter sitter let my peachick out while I was gone, I babied that thing for so long & then she lets her out to roam around & fend for herself for two weeks, grrrr! They are pretty sensitive to the cold too, so maybe it just got too chilled. Maybe you can start over with some in the spring & then they will have warmer weather to grow, don't give up.

 

[PrettyWhitty23]

[COLOR=0000FF]I guess you were posting at the same time I was. I really like the Barred Rocks for laying, they're just egg laying machines & mine lay really big eggs. I just got the Heritage Barred Rocks recently too & will be raising those next year. You wouldn't believe how much difference there is between the hatchery ones & the heritage breed, it's like night & day. The hatchery ones are barred, but they're usually kind of blurry lines & not really black, at least the one I have looks like that. The heritage ones are twice as big & the barring is so crisp & clear. You can really tell the cockerels at a young age too because they're much lighter than the pullets. Several of us got them from Frank Reece who raises quite a few heritage breed birds. It sounds like you really jumped in with both feet on the chickens, wow! It sounds like you built a nice coop for them too, we would love to see pics of it. I started out with PVC feeders in my main coop & I used them for quite awhile. I found out if you hang them straight up & down they don't feed down well, so I had to put some spacers behind them to make them hang at an angle. I now feed fermented feed, so when I cleaned out my coop awhile back I took out the PVC feeders for now because they were just full of shavings all the time & I wasn't using them anyway. I will keep them in case I want to use them again. It's nice your DH is into the chickens along with you, mine sure isn't. He will help me do projects grudgingly, but he always says they're my hobby. He does like them to some degree because he is always asking me what breed one or the other is & telling me that one is pretty. He just doesn't want to get roped into the work of taking care of them I think is why he tells me they're my hobby. He did build me a breeder coop last year too with 4 rooms in it for 4 different breeds. Once you get hooked on chickens it just escalates & we're all enablers here so be prepared. I hope you find the Frizzles you want, I don't raise those, but I'm sure there is someone around who does if you put a wanted ad on the Poultry swap on FB.[/COLOR]

I would love to be put on your waiting list. Our barred rocks have gotten really light, the first batch at least. The second round we got, are really dark. They are about 1 week younger. I am not sure if that makes a difference. We would like to get some heritage birds but decided to start with the hatchery and see how they go. Sort of like we are starting at the bottom and working our way up. 30 birds is a lot but it seems like every project we do doesn't start small ha ha. My grandparent own 100 section cattle farm in NM so I have some experience with them, but not that much. They had them more for the eggs rather than the style I guess I would say. What kind of waterer do you have? We are wanting to do a 5 gallon bucket with those little cups I think. Right now we just have one that we bought from the store. The chickens always get the wood shavings in it so we want one that hangs I think. Anyways, we are excited to know that there are people close that also have chickens? Are you in Winfield then?

 

[HEChicken]

Our barred rocks have gotten really light, the first batch at least. The second round we got, are really dark. They are about 1 week younger. I am not sure if that makes a difference.

With Barred Rocks, both pullets and cockerels are barred but while pullets are even bars of black and white, cockerels, the white bar is a little wider than the black bar, making them look "more white than black". Age shouldn't make a different but your description of darker and lighter makes me wonder if the difference you are seeing is between cockerels and pullets. If you can post pics of them, we can give you a better idea.

If you are interested in heritage barred rocks and heritage NH's, that is what I am focusing on as well. I got my parent stock from the same place Trish44 did. I may also produce some black sex links and Delawares down the road.

 

[chicken danz]

Well we started out getting 4 bantams and 16 barred rock. Then I went out of town for a couple days and when I came home we had 10 more. So we ended up with 4 bantams, 21 barred rock, two blue cochins, and 3 brahmas. Sadly the first night he got the second batch the water thing fell on one and killed it, so we have 29 birds total now. We bought them straight run so we are hoping to have 12 or 15 hens, hopefully. We built a 10' by 8' coop. The roof goes from 8' down to 6'. We just put them in there on Tuesday and they have a ton of space. We haven't quite got the nesting boxes in there yet, but those will be going in the next week or so. It took us longer because we decided to insulate it. The run is going to be about the same size, and they can go underneath the coop because it is about 3 feet off the ground. We plan on free ranging them so that's why they don't have a huge run. Hopefully that will work, if not, we can always expand. I am sure my husband will love that idea ha ha. After looking on BYC for a few ideas we decided to do the feeder out of PVC pipe. For the most part it has been greater, and the chickens learned rather quickly where the food was. We didn't put the bottom piece at a slope so the food isn't falling down as well as it should. My husband is going to work on that this next week or so as well. After much debate, we decided to put a laminate tile down on the floor so it made it easier to clean and we were hoping that the OSB wouldn't rot or something like that. We are amazed at how many personalities we have in the bunch, and how fast chicks grow. It is amazing. Luckily, my husband loves animals as much as I do, so we are both open to expanding. I think that we might end up putting another coop up right beside our other one and maybe connect them. I haven't told my husband yet, but that is what I would like to do ha ha. We also have a 10 month old baby and 4 German Shepherds so it is rather busy. This "quick" project has taken way more time than we originally anticipated. It also cost us twice as much as what we planned on, but that's okay. We wanted to have a pretty nice coop for them. We just moved to Augusta, and chickens were something we really wanted to have for quite awhile. Needless to say, once we found out we could have some, we jumped at the opportunity. I plan on posting pictures of our coop and everything as soon as we are done so I am hoping to be done soon. I am really wanting to get a couple frizzle hens because I absolutely love them, so hopefully I can find some come spring.

Chickens will get their water dirty no matter what you use. It's a given fact. They also spill water. Other than my brooder house I like to keep water out side of the coop most of the time. Please post some pictures of your coop when you can.

Ok. My multi quotes quit working again. So I'll just do it from my not so good memory.

Danz, so sorry about the coffee. I like either really hot coffee or iced coffee. Nothing in between. Lukewarm old coffee sounds awful. Hope your days went better.
Me too!
Hechicken, love your creative way of giving the goats a cozy warm bed. I absolutely love the way you raised up that little cage for the chicks to hide under.

Josie, so sorry you had such crappy neighbor. Why can't people act like an adult and just discuss issues face to face is beyond me. I like your way of dealing with it though.

Trish,nglad your cat is feeling better. Hope she is on the mend. I'm sure she will forgive younonce she is better.

********************************

More bad news. The lone peachick died as well. I tried vetrx and steam veporizer with oxine but guess it was too late. I'm absolutely devastated. My other chicks are doing just fine so I don't know what I did wrong.

My guess is that the peachicks either got chilled or the picked up some kind of virus or germ that didn't bother the chicken chicks. Peafowl are really vulnerable to disease or just about anything until they are about 90 days old. If you and your DH still want some in the spring I will probably have a pair I can sell you at a very reasonable price. I'm just so sorry. It's a learning curve for sure. Peachicks go down hill so fast too. If a chicken chick gets sick it can hang on for several days usually. When a peachick gets sick they can die within just a few hours. But it seems once they get past the chick stage they are super hardy.

I'll be doing major cleaning and disinfecting tomorrow. I'm also moving the 6 to 8 weekers out to the main coop. After disinfecting the storage room brooder, I'll leave it empty for at least a week before moving this last batch of chicks out there.

I've put the tarp up on the south wall and will be putting the watering cups bucket and nipple drinker bucket away. Then I'll put the heated dog bowls out. Forecast says next week's temp will drop drastically so I need to finish prepping for winter.

I better head to bed soon. I've a long day ahead of me tomorrow plus I've to work the midnight shift tomorrow night.

All this talk about winterizing and I am SO FAR behind. Looks like the beginning of the week the night temps will be down to 20 degrees for like three nights. I need to get cords run and get the heated bowls set up. I also need to switch out water hoses and set them up different so they don't freeze. I wanted to get some coverage up on some pens to block some of the North wind as well but I don't have the material to do it all.
I think we may make a trip to Topeka and I'll need to pick up some tarps and stuff to get by. I also need to get the water system installed in the peafowl house. That would save a lot of hose dragging.

 

[JosieChick]

That is a wonderful idea. We originally looked into getting some at a hatchery but then we decided if we could get some elsewhere we would rather do that. Ah,yes. The monkey just turned 10 months today. He is crazy. He loves the chickens. When they were in the garage he would just look over and yell (talk) to them. We also have 4 German Shepherds so he loves animals already.

YOU TEASE!!!!!

Just for fun-- looks like a stuffed toy LOL

My DH got her on his lap & I warmed up this canned food the Vet had us get from her, it's a special diet for seriously ill cats. I really was expecting her to look at it & turn up her nose again the way she has been doing, but to our surprise she started chomping it down & ate every little bit. I didn't want to overwhelm her stomach after not eating for days so I didn't give her much the first time. But we were so thrilled to see her eating something & then evidently the canned stuff spurred her to go out & try some dry food as well after that. That is so exciting to see her eating & acting better. She got brushed, something she loves for a reward for eating & she was actually purring! Finally, something helped her, I was getting really concerned & the Vet was too, she said she should have been better before this & she told me she would call me tomorrow to see how she is doing. I'm really liking this new Vet we have, she is really good & is really caring. I like that she tells you all of your options & let's you decide what you want to proceed with. The next step if this didn't help was to sedate her & check out her nose, but I hated to have her go through that, she has had so much trauma already.

Ugh, winterizing. I need to get that done this weekend. BRRRR!

Chickens will get their water dirty no matter what you use. It's a given fact. They also spill water. Other than my brooder house I like to keep water out side of the coop most of the time. Please post some pictures of your coop when you can.
All this talk about winterizing and I am SO FAR behind. Looks like the beginning of the week the night temps will be down to 20 degrees for like three nights. I need to get cords run and get the heated bowls set up. I also need to switch out water hoses and set them up different so they don't freeze. I wanted to get some coverage up on some pens to block some of the North wind as well but I don't have the material to do it all.
I think we may make a trip to Topeka and I'll need to pick up some tarps and stuff to get by. I also need to get the water system installed in the peafowl house. That would save a lot of hose dragging.

Tweety- So sorry about your peas. They are such fragile creatures the first year of life. I think after that they are pretty hardy but I hear it is tough to raise them as babies.

HEchicken-You get that fox! Nasty little bugger, so sorry about your hen. Love the goats in the dog loo.

So I have been watching the dogs last night and we were so worried about them that we put them on the enclosed porch for the night because I couldn't stand the thought of someone doing something harmful to them. I think Lucie is our main culprit. Part of the problem began when our neighbors down the road started jogging by with their dogs in the morning. They are highschool age kids and they have a whole bunch of shepherds and golden. Now they run the dogs on this bicycle thing that has hoops coming off of it that I call the dog chariot. Well this just drives Lucie bananas and she "runs" the fence line all morning barking in anticipation of their arrival and then goes beserk when they go by. This morning after I let them out I saw our neighbor across the street jog by with their german shorthair. So Lucie barks at their house constantly because she never truly chases that dog away, it is right across the street all the time. So we are trying to devise a plan to move Lucie further back on the property so she isn't "chasing" all these non real threats.

 

[JosieChick]

Now I feel badly that I haven't paid attention to this before now. I feel badly for Lucie, I feel like she is bored and wants to run and play and this is her only outlet, chasing people going by and barking at them. Sigh. And I just thought to myself the other day how wonderful she has been with the birds and ignores the chickens entirely after we had so much trouble with her as a pup and she is finally growing up.

 

[HEChicken]

HEChicken, I think we should explain government cheese. I've never had any myself but only because my parents were too proud to take anything. When your income is fairly low the government had commodities they would provide. Cheese was one of those. I think maybe flour and sugar were other things they had. The government didn't make it. It was stuff they provided in large quantities.

Please forgive me and pass it off to my being one of those durned foreigners. I thought it was just one of those auto correct things. I assumed she had been trying to type "goat cheese" and the auto correct changed it to "govt cheese".