Consolidated Kansas

[tweetybaby2005]

Arrrggghhh... multi quote doesn't work for me today. Frustrating...

KKB... funny about the **** story on a frozen bird. I so need a good laugh today. Talking about alfalfa cubes... I tried it and the birds just turned their beaks up on those. I fed them to the sheeps that were on our property for a week (owners went on vacation so we kinda looked after the sheeps for them). They loved them...

Danz... beautiful tree... really love the color scheme you got there. We have a fat tree that's about 7' tall. Too big, imo. I go for the simple theme so only decorated it sparingly with ornaments. Less for me to take down on new year.

1500 lbs of feeds... how long does it last you before you have to go get another load? I can't imaging bringing home 1500 lbs of feeds.

Hechicken... good heaven!!! Your birds really do like the horse doo doo... We have a few professional lawn mowing companies dump their grass clippings, branches, etc. at the back of our property and we let those compost on their own. I'll see if I can get a few tractor loads of them dumped into the chicken pen. My husband just turned them over about 2 weeks ago and they are rich looking. I'm sure they are loaded with bugs. I'll have to report back after dumping the compost in for the birds and see if they go for it. Just about everyone around us have horses. The closest neighbor has 2. I think I'll have to pay them a visit and see if they are OK with me getting a couple of buckets of horse doo doo for my birds. If not, I'm sure the lawn clippings compost will keep them busy for quite some time. By the way, I love the pics of your birds...

Trish ... wish the weather is warmer but with the wind... it is a bit on the cooler side today. I saw the forecast for tomorrow and it looks brrrrr... I still have to get a few more gifts yet and I plan to go get them this weekend. I'll just have to brave the cold...

Lizzy... I think scattered brain came with kids... LOL... I remember a coworker told me how each kid robbed her of her brain cells as soon as they were born but she said the good memories outweigh losing a few of those brain cells... She is a very loving mother and her kids adore her.

How's Ethan doing? You are back to work already? How time flies nowadays...

I'm sure I left out some posts and I still haven't gone back to catch up on posts... yet...

Stay warm everyone! Have a very merry Christmas if I don't happen to drop in before that. Work is crazy busy!

 

[sharol]

Lizzy... I think scattered brain came with kids... LOL... I remember a coworker told me how each kid robbed her of her brain cells as soon as they were born but she said the good memories outweigh losing a few of those brain cells... She is a very loving mother and her kids adore her.

How's Ethan doing? You are back to work already? How time flies nowadays...

 

[lizzyGSR]

It's very cloudy here and feels like it is getting cooler. Glad your birds were okay. I got home late last night and left before bed time so mine didn't get locked up either. The dogs are looking for action because they love this cooler weather so I wasn't too concerned. They all go to their own coops anyway. It's just that the gates weren't shut.
Lizzy you are doing amazing with a new baby. When does he go for his next checkup? I need to hear how much he has gained! I live vicariously through you and JosieChick since I don't have babies of my own any more.

Our "guard dog" spent his first couple years of life penned up when we were living in one of the "ranchettes" outside of Cheyenne, WY. Therefore, he doesn't do as good of a job as I had hoped he would do and I don't trust him to keep everything away. For instance, I believe it was last year that we had a coon come into the yard every night to eat off of the mulberry trees not too far from the back door. That's one reason why I was so worried about my birds. Yes, they put themselves to bed, but the gate was open, and it would have been WAY too easy for something to get in there. Plus, we regularly see wildlife in the yard, and the dog always seems to be sleeping when he should be working.

I'm glad you think I'm doing so well. It feels like I've still got a whole lot to learn. Ethan goes for his next checkup in early January. We haven't scheduled a day yet though. We weighed him on the bathroom scale about half an hour ago. He's up to 13 pound already!

Here's a picture of him (right) and his cousin who is only 2 1/2 weeks younger than he is.

Lizzy... I think scattered brain came with kids... LOL... I remember a coworker told me how each kid robbed her of her brain cells as soon as they were born but she said the good memories outweigh losing a few of those brain cells... She is a very loving mother and her kids adore her.

How's Ethan doing? You are back to work already? How time flies nowadays...

Ethan is doing well! He's growing like a weed and keeping his parents on their toes. Yes, I am back to work already. This past Monday was my first day back. I work from home, so I've been watching Ethan while I work. So far, it's been going better than I thought it would.

My daughter calls it "kid brain."

Lol. I would agree with that!

 

[lizzyGSR]

I just had to order a slim tree. I have two huge trees. But my old house could have swallowed this one a couple times and I had 10 foot ceilings so there was plenty of room for a huge tree. If I ever get my sun room built on I'll use one of the big ones again. If I live that long!!!


It's very cloudy here and feels like it is getting cooler. Glad your birds were okay. I got home late last night and left before bed time so mine didn't get locked up either. The dogs are looking for action because they love this cooler weather so I wasn't too concerned. They all go to their own coops anyway. It's just that the gates weren't shut.
Lizzy you are doing amazing with a new baby. When does he go for his next checkup? I need to hear how much he has gained! I live vicariously through you and JosieChick since I don't have babies of my own any more.

I got to the co-op and got 1500 pound so feed. Stopped in Burlington on the way back and got a package mailed to my daughter for Christmas. I ordered it on black Friday and it just arrived yesterday. With luck maybe she'll get it on time.
I stopped and got a cream filled long john when I was getting gas. I hadn't had one in a couple years and decided to treat myself. It was so good.
Then I got home and got all the feed shoveled off into barrels. I feel beaten up and I still have to feed and water. It's getting really gloomy out. I need to go do some shopping but I haven't made a list or anything. Looks like the weather is going to keep me home so it needs to get done today.
Some time in there today I need to feed and water. I swear the days rush by. I still haven't gotten any cleaning done either.

Arrrggghhh... multi quote doesn't work for me today. Frustrating...

KKB... funny about the **** story on a frozen bird. I so need a good laugh today. Talking about alfalfa cubes... I tried it and the birds just turned their beaks up on those. I fed them to the sheeps that were on our property for a week (owners went on vacation so we kinda looked after the sheeps for them). They loved them...

Danz... beautiful tree... really love the color scheme you got there. We have a fat tree that's about 7' tall. Too big, imo. I go for the simple theme so only decorated it sparingly with ornaments. Less for me to take down on new year.

1500 lbs of feeds... how long does it last you before you have to go get another load? I can't imaging bringing home 1500 lbs of feeds.

Hechicken... good heaven!!! Your birds really do like the horse doo doo... We have a few professional lawn mowing companies dump their grass clippings, branches, etc. at the back of our property and we let those compost on their own. I'll see if I can get a few tractor loads of them dumped into the chicken pen. My husband just turned them over about 2 weeks ago and they are rich looking. I'm sure they are loaded with bugs. I'll have to report back after dumping the compost in for the birds and see if they go for it. Just about everyone around us have horses. The closest neighbor has 2. I think I'll have to pay them a visit and see if they are OK with me getting a couple of buckets of horse doo doo for my birds. If not, I'm sure the lawn clippings compost will keep them busy for quite some time. By the way, I love the pics of your birds...

Trish ... wish the weather is warmer but with the wind... it is a bit on the cooler side today. I saw the forecast for tomorrow and it looks brrrrr... I still have to get a few more gifts yet and I plan to go get them this weekend. I'll just have to brave the cold...

Lizzy... I think scattered brain came with kids... LOL... I remember a coworker told me how each kid robbed her of her brain cells as soon as they were born but she said the good memories outweigh losing a few of those brain cells... She is a very loving mother and her kids adore her.

How's Ethan doing? You are back to work already? How time flies nowadays...

I'm sure I left out some posts and I still haven't gone back to catch up on posts... yet...

Stay warm everyone! Have a very merry Christmas if I don't happen to drop in before that. Work is crazy busy!

 

[cherwill]

I love the tree! We don't even put ours up any more. We have to move furniture out of the living room, and I get tired thinking of putting everything back in January. We have a couple of little table top trees we use now, but sometimes I miss seeing my decorations for the big tree. I have a lot of handmade and unusual decorations.

Here's a picture of him (right) and his cousin who is only 2 1/2 weeks younger than he is.

What cuties!

It's a good thing I always glance over the yard before I go out or let one of the dogs out. Today I found Rose wandering around, happy as could be. Usually when a hen escapes, she ends up running along the fence to the chicken yard, frantically trying to get back in.

It took a few minutes, but I got her put back in. We're averaging about 3 eggs a day now from our 9 hens. Not bad for winter with one broody.

 

[Trish44]

I'm not going to try to quote everyone. We had to make a trip to Wichita today & were gone all day, just got back about 30 minutes ago. This was my DH's first day off for the holidays, he will be off now till after the first of the year. He always takes off the rest of his vacation time at the end of the year & he has quite a bit of it due to all the years he has in at his job. Anyway, we had a dozen places we needed to get to today since we didn't have to hurry back home for him to go to work for once. We actually got to shop leisurely & go all the places we wanted to go & a few more we added on as we went. We also ate out twice today, not a usually thing for us. We're collecting information about putting down hardwood floors upstairs in the hallway & on the landing between levels of stairs to begin with then later on we'll start putting it down in the bedrooms as well, that is if my DH decides he can do it after he experiments on the hall. I've been wanting to get rid of all of our carpet for quite awhile & finally we're going to start phasing it out, yay! We got some wood samples today while we were out to see what color we might want to get & figure out cost. The place we looked at also gave us quite a bit of information to look over & they were quite helpful, kind of surprising & they weren't pushy at all. My DH was the most surprised at that. We're also getting ready soon to totally redo the upstairs bathroom & that may be a challenge in itself. The people who built this house just didn't think or plan about a lot of things & they put the smallest bathroom upstairs where the bedrooms are, go figure, it makes no sense, but then a lot of the things they did don't make much sense either. We got a couple more stocking stuffer things for the girls & I think we're done. Now I just need to get wrapping & we just found out today that our future daughter-in-law isn't allowed to travel any more now before the baby is born so we're going to have to try to take our granddaughter down to OKC whenever we can arrange that with her mom to have Christmas down there with her dad. That's not something we had planned on, but we'll work it out. We were supposed to go to Missouri tomorrow to see my DH's family for Christmas, but with the weather coming in we opted out so now we have to work that in after Christmas too.

Wow Lizzy that boy looks like he's going to be walking soon, he's really growing! We got to see the sonogram pics of our new grandson to be today. My DH said he couldn't make it out, but I could see his little face really clear.

Danz I don't know how you deal with that much feed at once, wow! I get 500 to 600 pounds at a time & that's plenty for me to deal with. I wouldn't even know where to store more than that. I still haven't gotten my Christmas tree up, I've got to get working on that or forget it. We went to get my DH's hair cut today & my hairdresser is the one who cuts his hair also. She had ordered a new Christmas tree online on Black Friday & is having trouble with the company she bought from. She was so mad today because it still hasn't come & they called while we were there. She was already mad & she was even more mad by the time she got off the phone. I don't blame her a bit, here it is almost Christmas & she has no tree.

HEChicken, your chickens looked so happy digging around in that horse poop. My next door neighbors don't have horses any more, the husband died last year & he was the one that had them. After he passed the wife got rid of the horses. Our neighbors across the road have some though, but I don't know if there is a shed they get in or they're just out on pasture all the time. I'll bet mine would love that too. I know when I clean out the rabbit trays they sure have fun digging through that. BTW, I did see your Exchequers in the pics. The two I got are still doing well.

Tweety, I hope things slow down for you soon so you can catch your breath.

Well everyone batten down the hatches, tomorrow isn't going to be good. We just looked & now they're saying 1-3 inches of snow instead of ice. I would rather have the snow than ice, but actually I'd rather have neither if I had my choice.

 

[Trish44]

Oh wow, I just saw this on FB, these are gorgeous!



This tells about how they're done: http://www.theeggshellsculptor.com/the-carving-process/

 

[chicken danz]

I'm glad you think I'm doing so well. It feels like I've still got a whole lot to learn. Ethan goes for his next checkup in early January. We haven't scheduled a day yet though. We weighed him on the bathroom scale about half an hour ago. He's up to 13 pound already!

Here's a picture of him (right) and his cousin who is only 2 1/2 weeks younger than he is.

Wow! He is really growing fast! That's amazing he has gained that much already.

I'm not going to try to quote everyone. We had to make a trip to Wichita today & were gone all day, just got back about 30 minutes ago. This was my DH's first day off for the holidays, he will be off now till after the first of the year. He always takes off the rest of his vacation time at the end of the year & he has quite a bit of it due to all the years he has in at his job. Anyway, we had a dozen places we needed to get to today since we didn't have to hurry back home for him to go to work for once. We actually got to shop leisurely & go all the places we wanted to go & a few more we added on as we went. We also ate out twice today, not a usually thing for us. We're collecting information about putting down hardwood floors upstairs in the hallway & on the landing between levels of stairs to begin with then later on we'll start putting it down in the bedrooms as well, that is if my DH decides he can do it after he experiments on the hall. I've been wanting to get rid of all of our carpet for quite awhile & finally we're going to start phasing it out, yay! We got some wood samples today while we were out to see what color we might want to get & figure out cost. The place we looked at also gave us quite a bit of information to look over & they were quite helpful, kind of surprising & they weren't pushy at all. My DH was the most surprised at that. We're also getting ready soon to totally redo the upstairs bathroom & that may be a challenge in itself. The people who built this house just didn't think or plan about a lot of things & they put the smallest bathroom upstairs where the bedrooms are, go figure, it makes no sense, but then a lot of the things they did don't make much sense either. We got a couple more stocking stuffer things for the girls & I think we're done. Now I just need to get wrapping & we just found out today that our future daughter-in-law isn't allowed to travel any more now before the baby is born so we're going to have to try to take our granddaughter down to OKC whenever we can arrange that with her mom to have Christmas down there with her dad. That's not something we had planned on, but we'll work it out. We were supposed to go to Missouri tomorrow to see my DH's family for Christmas, but with the weather coming in we opted out so now we have to work that in after Christmas too.
Is your DH planning to install the floors himself? I'd suggest getting a Bostitch pneumatic hardwood flooring tool. They are pricy but certainly worth the money. It takes a lot of the labor out of installing the floors. Now if I could just get some help I could use mine again and get the rest of my own floors in. I have to have some one to help tear out the existing top layer of plywood flooring before I can install my hardwood to keep it all level.
Wow Lizzy that boy looks like he's going to be walking soon, he's really growing! We got to see the sonogram pics of our new grandson to be today. My DH said he couldn't make it out, but I could see his little face really clear.

Danz I don't know how you deal with that much feed at once, wow! I get 500 to 600 pounds at a time & that's plenty for me to deal with. I wouldn't even know where to store more than that. I still haven't gotten my Christmas tree up, I've got to get working on that or forget it. We went to get my DH's hair cut today & my hairdresser is the one who cuts his hair also. She had ordered a new Christmas tree online on Black Friday & is having trouble with the company she bought from. She was so mad today because it still hasn't come & they called while we were there. She was already mad & she was even more mad by the time she got off the phone. I don't blame her a bit, here it is almost Christmas & she has no tree.
Yep get that tree up. It will make you feel better about he holidays!
HEChicken, your chickens looked so happy digging around in that horse poop. My next door neighbors don't have horses any more, the husband died last year & he was the one that had them. After he passed the wife got rid of the horses. Our neighbors across the road have some though, but I don't know if there is a shed they get in or they're just out on pasture all the time. I'll bet mine would love that too. I know when I clean out the rabbit trays they sure have fun digging through that. BTW, I did see your Exchequers in the pics. The two I got are still doing well.

Tweety, I hope things slow down for you soon so you can catch your breath.

Well everyone batten down the hatches, tomorrow isn't going to be good. We just looked & now they're saying 1-3 inches of snow instead of ice. I would rather have the snow than ice, but actually I'd rather have neither if I had my choice.

Tweety I think you asked how long the 1500 pounds of feed lasts? It actually only last for about 10 days. I am feeding about 150 pounds a day. I really really need to get some of the excess birds out of here. Oh and then I buy chick starter on top of that. Luckily I'm not hatching many right now. I shovel my feed into big plastic trash cans. Each can holds about 150 pounds.
Quote:

Oh wow, I just saw this on FB, these are gorgeous!



This tells about how they're done: http://www.theeggshellsculptor.com/the-carving-process/

Beautiful. I could see me trying that. I'd get almost done and accidentally break the egg!!! I can't even wash an egg without sticking my thumb through it and breaking it.

Yesterday was another very busy day. After getting the feed I decided to go to Ottawa and buy groceries for Christmas dinner and get the few last things I needed for gifts. Of course it took me a lot longer than I expected. I got home just about 5:00PM and had to feed the birds in the dark. I didn't get them watered though so that means getting out earlier today and getting fresh water to all of them. It's not that they don't still have water, but I want them to have clean fresh water. Besides it's only going to get more miserable out there!
I couldn't believe what it cost me for just a few items. I have the meat already for the meal from my own birds. I have the stuff to make pies but decided to get more sugar and shortening just to be sure. Most of the rest of the meal items are being brought by my kids. I'll make sweet potatoes, gravy and dressing as well. Yet I still spent about $100 just for the little staple items to finish things up. You know like cool whip and that like.
I did throw a couple of small things in the cart with the groceries. Like a little pair of leggings for one of my granddaughters to wear under her princess dress. But none of those things were very pricy.
So since the weather is going downhill, maybe I'll finally concentrate on the house. I've got to get the brooder house heated back up and get all these chicks moved out there. That means putting down new shavings, washing and disinfecting waterers and feeder trays etc.
I guess I might want to start wrapping a present or two too. There's nothing at all under the tree.

 

[zigzag45]

@chicken danz - to add some comedic relief to your day.... I'm in a bit of shock here. It looks like my birds are going to finish off a 50 lb bag of feed in under a month. They are really tearing through it. The most recent bag looks like it will go 3-3.5 weeks. Wow!

I can't imagine feeding 150 lbs a day. Took me 15 minutes this morning just to add some hay to their nesting boxes, dump a pitcher of water into their heated bucket, and add some bedding and scratch grains to their coop for their intellectual stimulation today. That's 10 minutes longer than I normally have to spend.

BTW- Don't remember who, but someone helped me with the concept of adding a light to the coop. I'd read about it, but wondered if people actually did it. Egg production went tangibly higher with the light. By the 15th of Dec, we had gotten more eggs than the entire month of Nov. Sure, a couple new layers had started, but it was a tangible increase. Thank you!

There's an egg guy around here who keeps 500-700 birds and sells out of his truck a couple times a week. He was telling me about a spouted/green mat he grows and then feed the birds - at least he was starting to experiment with it last time I talked to him. I need to talk to him again, I'd love to see about replicating that on a small/easy scale. Didn't get enough details.

 

[Trish44]

@chicken danz - to add some comedic relief to your day.... I'm in a bit of shock here. It looks like my birds are going to finish off a 50 lb bag of feed in under a month. They are really tearing through it. The most recent bag looks like it will go 3-3.5 weeks. Wow!

I can't imagine feeding 150 lbs a day. Took me 15 minutes this morning just to add some hay to their nesting boxes, dump a pitcher of water into their heated bucket, and add some bedding and scratch grains to their coop for their intellectual stimulation today. That's 10 minutes longer than I normally have to spend.

BTW- Don't remember who, but someone helped me with the concept of adding a light to the coop. I'd read about it, but wondered if people actually did it. Egg production went tangibly higher with the light. By the 15th of Dec, we had gotten more eggs than the entire month of Nov. Sure, a couple new layers had started, but it was a tangible increase. Thank you!

There's an egg guy around here who keeps 500-700 birds and sells out of his truck a couple times a week. He was telling me about a spouted/green mat he grows and then feed the birds - at least he was starting to experiment with it last time I talked to him. I need to talk to him again, I'd love to see about replicating that on a small/easy scale. Didn't get enough details.

I always have a light on a timer in my layer coop in the winter, otherwise I don't think I would get any eggs at all. The girls are starting to increase production slightly, but with this weather I imagine it will go back down again. I'm looking at getting them some extra calcium to supplement this winter because I have noticed a couple of the older hens have thinner shelled eggs. The older they get the more calcium they need. I do feed back the shells to them, but I'm sure it's not enough. My birds don't look happy today out there at all, they're all fluffed up & looking kind of miserable. It's time to go back out there & feed now, ugh I hate this cold!

ziggag, that would be interesting to find out what he grows for them & where he gets it, I'm sure the birds would appreciate something green this time of year when everything is dead outside.

Everyone try to stay warm!