Consolidated Kansas

[chicken danz]

I just did a necropsy on my peahen. The only thing I found was a ruptured gall bladder. The liver itself looked great. Not sure what might have caused that. Since my own gallbladder burst back in the 70's I know she didn't have a chance. Mine burst because there was a stone stuck in the duct. Gall bladders are nasty so I didn't cut hers open to see what was wrong. The liver itself looked very healthy. I am now cooking the meat to feed to the dogs. I cut off any that had bile on it. Might as well make use of what I can.

 

[22qZoo]

Danz- sorry about your peahen, weird .
We didn't have tv till I was 8 when I was a kid (my folks were very conservative )funny thing is my dad was and still is the one that gets sucked in. My sis and I were happy about Sat. Morn. cartoons but other wise it seemed like it was always news on. I mostly tune it out and just have it on in the background. I do have a peeve tho,I hate it when they self-promote there own "murder & forensics" shows during times that family's may be watching something together. I'd much rather see a wardrobe malfunction than a corpse in a park on CSI.

 

[zigzag45]

Wow @chicken danz , I doubt I'd be able to find those organs inside a bird. Let alone determine health.

 

[cherwill]

Pages and pages behind again. I got a cold shortly after Thanksgiving, but I'm feeling a lot better now.

I've missed a ton of stuff, but it looks like you lost your peahen, Danz. I'm sorry to hear it.

We have a heat lamp in the coop, not a big one, but it is keeping water from freezing on the side that faces it. The lamp is raised up on the opposite side from the roosts; there's no way we can see that a bird would accidentally get up near it. I still worry a little, though. The girls are fluffed out to about twice their normal size, but it seems to be keeping them warm enough. Old Sophia has decided now is the time to go broody. I guess it's better than sitting in a nesting box in summer, when it's 120 degrees in there.

I wish I'd caught more of the conversation on TV options. DH just got his yearly itch to make a change to something and see if we can save money. We have Cox for both cable TV and internet, and have a DVR. We don't go to or rent movies, or eat out much, or even go out much, and we don't shop much except for groceries. TV and books are our entertainment, so we consider the cost of cable pretty cheap compared to what most people we know spend on entertainment. I've always been a reader, but I do like TV as well. The other guys at the fire department are always changing what they -- cable to dish to Netflix -- that kind of thing. DH kept talking about Roku but couldn't really tell me what it does. In the end, we decided to stick with something that would get us current-season TV. Dish has a terrible reputation in McPherson for losing reception in storms. We talked with our neighbor and a friend who have DirecTV and decided to try it. The cheapest version will still get us the channels we watch, we'll be able to record more and watch it on all our TVs (not that we need to), it's still a lot cheaper than cable for the first year. It will be close to the same price by the third year, but by then DH will be itching to try something else anyway.

We're supposed to be having it installed tomorrow morning.

Try to stay warm! It's not working for me.

 

[HEChicken]

Aw! So I am not totally unique! It's nothing I do consciously. I just zone them out.

Same here!!!

It's snowing like crazy here, the weather says we're only supposed to get an inch but at the rate it's coming down we may get more. At least it's snow & not ice like they got south of us a few days ago. I would rather see snow any day than an ice storm. My son got sent to Texas with his job because of an ice storm down there. He had to miss his daughter's birthday party because of it, he was really upset. He's still down there as far as I know & working really long hours.

You can keep the snow, thank you very much. We haven't had more than a dusting here, and I'm fine with that!

I was thinking about your goats the other day and thinking what a shame it is that you can't let them out on your other 5 acres due to the fencing. I set up those hay walls for the sheep and goats and I've occasionally seen them nibbling at the hay but for the most part they are still out in the pasture grazing for almost all of their food. I wouldn't have thought there would be much left to find out there after all this sub-freezing weather but apparently they would still rather graze and find what they can than stand around in the shelter eating their hay.

Wow @chicken danz , I doubt I'd be able to find those organs inside a bird. Let alone determine health.

If you process a few birds, it gets easier to figure it out. When you take out the entrails, at first its just a jumbly mess but after awhile you start to recognize certain organs and eventually the whole anatomy makes sense and you can easily see if something is out of place.

DH kept talking about Roku but couldn't really tell me what it does.

Basically it is just a little box that connects to the TV and if you have a service like Netflix or Hulu Plus or Amazon Prime where you pay for streaming, instead of having to watch shows on your computer, you can watch it on the TV via the Roku box. DS bought us one for Christmas a few years back and it is super simple in terms of hooking it up. Its a simple little box with only a couple of places to attach cords and DH and DS had it up and running in no time flat. It also has a remote control so we can sit on the couch and stop, start, pause, change shows etc, just as if we were watching broadcast TV. Think of it like a cable box for streaming.

 

[Trish44]

Pages and pages behind again. I got a cold shortly after Thanksgiving, but I'm feeling a lot better now.

I've missed a ton of stuff, but it looks like you lost your peahen, Danz. I'm sorry to hear it.

We have a heat lamp in the coop, not a big one, but it is keeping water from freezing on the side that faces it. The lamp is raised up on the opposite side from the roosts; there's no way we can see that a bird would accidentally get up near it. I still worry a little, though. The girls are fluffed out to about twice their normal size, but it seems to be keeping them warm enough. Old Sophia has decided now is the time to go broody. I guess it's better than sitting in a nesting box in summer, when it's 120 degrees in there.

I wish I'd caught more of the conversation on TV options. DH just got his yearly itch to make a change to something and see if we can save money. We have Cox for both cable TV and internet, and have a DVR. We don't go to or rent movies, or eat out much, or even go out much, and we don't shop much except for groceries. TV and books are our entertainment, so we consider the cost of cable pretty cheap compared to what most people we know spend on entertainment. I've always been a reader, but I do like TV as well. The other guys at the fire department are always changing what they -- cable to dish to Netflix -- that kind of thing. DH kept talking about Roku but couldn't really tell me what it does. In the end, we decided to stick with something that would get us current-season TV. Dish has a terrible reputation in McPherson for losing reception in storms. We talked with our neighbor and a friend who have DirecTV and decided to try it. The cheapest version will still get us the channels we watch, we'll be able to record more and watch it on all our TVs (not that we need to), it's still a lot cheaper than cable for the first year. It will be close to the same price by the third year, but by then DH will be itching to try something else anyway.

We're supposed to be having it installed tomorrow morning.

Try to stay warm! It's not working for me.

I have had Dishnetwork since it came out & it rarely goes out unless we have a terrible storm here, then everybody's is out. We checked into getting DirectTV awhile back because they told us Tom could get all of his baseball games. Well guess what we signed up & found out the next day they had lied to us so we canceled it & kept our Dishnetwork. They're also more expensive for the same channels we have on Dish & we actually get more channels for our money. We have heard they have more outages than Dish from other people who switched.

You can keep the snow, thank you very much. We haven't had more than a dusting here, and I'm fine with that!
Yeah, well I would rather we didn't have it either, but like I said I prefer snow to ice any time. It was still lightly snowing while I was out doing chores, it's supposed to stop according to my DH about 7:30. The cats were really disgusted about it & some were sitting out there getting covered with snow rather than go in somewhere when they have plenty of cozy places they can get in.

I was thinking about your goats the other day and thinking what a shame it is that you can't let them out on your other 5 acres due to the fencing. I set up those hay walls for the sheep and goats and I've occasionally seen them nibbling at the hay but for the most part they are still out in the pasture grazing for almost all of their food. I wouldn't have thought there would be much left to find out there after all this sub-freezing weather but apparently they would still rather graze and find what they can than stand around in the shelter eating their hay.
Yeah, I don't know if I'm going to be able to convince my DH the money for the fencing is worth it. He's now balking about getting the lambs in the spring, so I don't know what will happen. The neighbors down the hill from us just used the electric movable fence, but we have such high grass & weeds down on that acreage that I don't see that working for us. My friend down there said she let the people put their goats on part of her land as long as they didn't get anywhere she didn't want them. I'm wondering if they butchered their goats this fall because I haven't heard them in awhile & our dogs came home with a jaw that looks like a goat's & it still had teeth in it. If they butchered themselves they may have just thrown the bones & parts they didn't want out in a pile & the dogs found it & brought some things home. I would love to use that 5 acres down there for more than just firewood, but I have to convince my DH first to shell out the money.

We both got up today not feeling that well, so I hope we're not coming down with something. I have had to drag myself around all day doing what I had to, bleah.

According to the weather forecast it's going to be nasty cold tomorrow & then warm up above freezing for a few days. I sure could go for not having to haul so much water for a few days.

 

[HEChicken]

Yeah, I don't know if I'm going to be able to convince my DH the money for the fencing is worth it. He's now balking about getting the lambs in the spring, so I don't know what will happen. The neighbors down the hill from us just used the electric movable fence, but we have such high grass & weeds down on that acreage that I don't see that working for us. My friend down there said she let the people put their goats on part of her land as long as they didn't get anywhere she didn't want them. I'm wondering if they butchered their goats this fall because I haven't heard them in awhile & our dogs came home with a jaw that looks like a goat's & it still had teeth in it. If they butchered themselves they may have just thrown the bones & parts they didn't want out in a pile & the dogs found it & brought some things home. I would love to use that 5 acres down there for more than just firewood, but I have to convince my DH first to shell out the money.

We both got up today not feeling that well, so I hope we're not coming down with something. I have had to drag myself around all day doing what I had to, bleah.

According to the weather forecast it's going to be nasty cold tomorrow & then warm up above freezing for a few days. I sure could go for not having to haul so much water for a few days.

You beat me to it - I was about to suggest the electric movable fence. I just heard on another thread today that you can get 100' of it with all the connecting rods and free shipping for $142. If you could use that 100' to fence off an area and let them graze it down and then move it, perhaps they can help you get it cleared. But of course, you have to have an area to set up the fence in the first place.

I'm sorry you aren't feeling well. I am finally today starting to feel better after being out for the count with a cold the past week. This one really hammered me, and it didn't help that it was so cold outside but I still had to bundle up and go out multiple times every day.

Tomorrow is looking nice for us. Sunny and a high of 37. Far colder than LAST Tuesday when it was 62, but after a week of sub-freezing temps, I will take it. At least for a portion of the day I won't have to worry about water freezing.

 

[chicken danz]

Today was the coldest day yet. It never got over 16 degrees here all day. I am sure the forecast was better than that. We were also supposed to have some sun but didn't have any at all. Tomorrow is supposed to be sunny and warmer. We'll see.
ZigZag, I was a biology major for my first stint in college. I loved biology and have always been super interested in it and have continued to study what I can about body functions and organs. I can pretty much tell what is wrong with anything around here if I can cut it open and check it out. .If I had a lab and could grow my own cultures, I'd do that as well then I could identify diseases (with references of course!) It's just my thing.
I was really pleased that there were no worms or anything.
If anyone has ever thought about it at all, I was very surprised to find that Peafowl is almost all white meat. That surprised me since pheasant is mostly dark meat and they are in the same family. It actually looks really good. Had I seen her die, I might have considered trying the meat myself.
Today was just terrible. I put off going out and when I did I wasn't happy. I had a valve break on my 4-plex controller to the hoses. I finally got it set so it just drips slow but that means I won't be able to use it any more. I started with my pirit hose but the dumb thing froze up at the hookup while I was feeding. What good does it do to have a heated hose with non-heated ends?? DH helped me feed yesterday and left the door open on my white orpingtons. Needless to say I was a bit chaffed when I found them out running around the yard!! Grrrr! Thank goodness I wasn't missing any and they seemed okay.
I gave up on watering after the dumb hose froze up. All the pens had water but I normally dump it and refill it. Today they all didn't get fresh water. I'll try to get out early tomorrow to make sure they are okay. It's only supposed to get down to 10 degrees here tonight so I'm sure it will be toasty warm out there. Can you tell I am SICK

of this weather???
We have Dish network too and I have zero complaints. Very rarely do we ever loose our signal...unlike the satellite internet which was a joke. We have had it for 6 years and never had a price increase. There's tons of sports channels which I can live without. We don't have premium channels like show time or HBO but there's lots of choices. I am thinking though if I can get what I want with the Roku that would be one less bill to pay.
My propane guy came today and we had used a ton of propane already. I sure hope this weather breaks soon.

 

[HEChicken]

That is interesting about the peafowl meat. I'm sure very few people have eaten them since they have more value as a bird than for meat and are harder to come by than other forms of poultry.

I must be one of the oddities then because I hated Dish. A salesman happened to come to the door right as I was considering it anyway so I made his day by inviting him in and signing up on the spot. The problem is, he sold me a $45/month plan, but every month the bill was over $70 due to all the additional fees and charges and taxes he had failed to disclose. Then, the first week we had it, we had a storm and the dish went out so for hours we couldn't watch anything. If we'd had it for longer, we'd have had things recorded on the DVR but because it was a new system, we didn't have anything pre-recorded yet. After that it wasn't so bad when it went out because we could watch pre-recorded stuff BUT if the DVR was in the middle of recording something when it went out (which was often), we'd have a big patch of static for most of the pre-recorded show, which was pretty frustrating.

Add to that, that twice, the DVR kicked on in the middle of the night for no apparent reason and deleted EVERYTHING we had pre-recorded. The first time that happened, I got on the phone to customer service and they refused to back their equipment. After the second time it happened, I just made note of the 2-year anniversary of when we signed up, since I signed a 2-year contract, and the day our contract was up, I called them and told them to come and get their equipment. That is when we switched to Netflix and have been much happier with it.

 

[chicken danz]

Here's the scoop on the peafowl. I had heard of people eating it before but couldn't imagine. Anyway the bird is mostly meat. The legs and wings are much heavier bones and much longer than what you see on a normal bird. The wings have about as much meat on them as you would find on a breast of a home grown chicken. The breast was massive. The peahen was mostly meat. Makes sense. Their strength and therefore their principal muscles are their wings and their breasts. I was actually thinking if they weren't so darned expensive and beautiful I'd grow some just to butcher. Pretty amazing amount of meat for one 6 month old bird.