Consolidated Kansas

[sharol]

Just a quick note. HE glad to see you are back. So sorry about your crested turkey. She was so unique.
I went out to start chores and came back in to get the camera. I officially have 5 peachicks that Patty, the mama peahen hatched. Here are a couple pictures I took before she decided I didn't need to be looking at them.

 

[chicken danz]

Sharol, she has always been an excellent mother and Pete, Daddy peacock is very protective of her and her babies. I've let her hatch a clutch at the end of the season the last 3 years and she does a perfect job of raising them. All the eggs she had under her hatched as well. I was really happy about that.
I've been so busy trying to figure all the ins and outs to get my poultry building in. It just keeps getting more and more complicated and expensive. I sure hope I can swing it. It would be nice to just have someone do all the work and be done with it but I don't have that kind of budget.
There are so many little factors I hadn't considered.

 

[Trish44]

danz she's such a pretty girl. Is the daddy an India Blue as well or is he a different color?

I had a busy morning, I had to make a run to Oxford to meet up with someone wanting a bunny from me. I was needing to get feed as well so I didn't know how I was going to be two places at once. Since the COOP closes at noon on Sat. I had to ask my DH to go pick it up for me, he went, grudgingly but he did it. I still have two bunnies left that need new homes.

We have some hot days coming up, I had really hoped it would start cooling down, but I guess mother nature just has to show us it's still summer, ugh.

 

[chicken danz]

I've been out and about and just getting back in. I still haven't fed or watered the birds. I think I'll wait until it cools down some now. Yep Trish Pete and Patty are my original peafowl. He is about the prettiest bird ever. He just molted this week though so he doesn't have a tail. Here is a couple old pictures I had looked up for prairie fleur the other day. I don't have any good ones that show his color well with his tail open.

 

[Trish44]

Oh wow, he is a pretty guy! I wish I could have kept mine, sigh, but it just wasn't to be I guess. I saw that the gal who bought my hens is looking for a mate for them now.

Well I haven't been out to feed yet either. I did some things in the house while it was so hot. I got the brooder with the oldest chicks cleaned out & clean water in both. I also banded all of my Speckled Sussex chicks. I think I have 7 pullets & 5 cockerels. We'll see how I did as they get older. They're only a couple days old right now. Well I guess I can't put it off any longer, better get out there.

 

[sharol]

Oh wow, he is a pretty guy! I wish I could have kept mine, sigh, but it just wasn't to be I guess. I saw that the gal who bought my hens is looking for a mate for them now.

Well I haven't been out to feed yet either. I did some things in the house while it was so hot. I got the brooder with the oldest chicks cleaned out & clean water in both. I also banded all of my Speckled Sussex chicks. I think I have 7 pullets & 5 cockerels. We'll see how I did as they get older. They're only a couple days old right now. Well I guess I can't put it off any longer, better get out there.

What do you look for when you sex ss chicks? Danz says you have a method that seems to work, and I have 5 SS eggs from her under my broody.

 

[tweetybaby2005]

Thanks Danz, I went ahead and fed the grain to the birds, bugs and all. You peafowls look awesome! I wish mine didn't die. Oh well, it wasn't meant to be, I supposed.

The weather was hot and muggy. I was going to drain and refill the duck pond but figured I would do it tomorrow morning while it's cooler. It really looks yucky.

My ducks either take a break from laying or they have a nest some where else. I've not found an eggs for the last 4 or 5 days. I hope they will again soon. Maybe they are moulting. I'll. Need to pay closer attention to see where they head out to tomorrow. Right now all the birds have access to several acres during the day. Sure makes it difficult to find the new nest if that's the case.

I've started the zucchini squash for Fall. Hopefully it will produce enough for me to cook the dog food with and for us to eat. I'm starting yo plan for next year's crops. Hopefully I'll do a better job next year.

 

[HEChicken]

Danz your peacocks are beautiful. I too like to watch mother birds raising their young the natural way, and have found that left to to do it their own way, they are almost without exception excellent mothers. I currently have a bantam cochin raising two turkey poults for me. She overcame the language barrier and they now respond to her calls and she responds to their panicked cries when they don't know where she is. I let them out of their temp pen for the first time yesterday and she showed them quite a bit of the chicken yard over the course of the next 6 hours.

I spent many hours on Friday making pasta sauce. It really made me realize how much we take for granted being able to go to the store and buy a jar of pasta sauce for a couple bucks whenever we need it. I know the big companies make it in huge batches and its all automated so they don't spend the time on it that I did but still….producing one's own food at home takes a lot of time and commitment.

The recipe was simple enough: wash and quarter the tomatoes, cook, process in batches in the food processor to puree, then reduce until the sauce is thick. They also suggested pushing it through a sieve to remove seeds and skin. DH said if I pureed enough he didn't mind the skin and seeds staying in, so suggested I skip that step and I'm glad I did because it would have taken even longer and been even messier if I'd done that as well! As it was, it was a large enough batch that pureeing in batches took a long time and then reducing - divided into two pots to speed it up - took a long time as well. The end result was 8 pints of pasta sauce in the canner to set aside for winter, plus another pint and a half fresh that we will use this weekend. Phew.

I am glad we had enough this year to be able to do this though. It has been my plan for years but for various reasons I haven't been able to grow enough in past years to get to this point. Several years it was too hot for the tomatoes to ripen over the summer and when it finally cooled down in fall and they started to ripen, we had an early frost kill them. The year we moved I didn't get a garden in at all and last year when I finally started the garden, I produced only enough for us to eat them fresh - no surplus. I grew onions for the first time this year and even though I still have a few store-bought onions here, I decided to use my own fresh onions in the pasta sauce. I've never grown them before and was amazed at the difference between picked fresh and sat-on-the-shelf-for-awhile onions! They felt different when slicing and dicing and while sautéing, were so aromatic that even DH called out from another part of the house at how good they smelled. I also used a bunch of my own basil that I grew in the sauce. I sure hope it will be good!

The goats broke through their shared fence into the chicken yard again yesterday. Grrr. The sheep followed and by the time I discovered them, they'd eaten all the chicken food between them. I put the goats back in their pen (DH repaired their break) but let a couple of the sheep stay out and graze. With the rest of the flock still in the pasture, the ones out grazing won't go far, so for several hours they helped neaten up the back yard. My mower is out of commission entirely because DH took the punctured wheel off and it is jacked up waiting to be repaired. Hopefully today. In the meantime, I'm glad to have the sheep helping out with the mowing and fertilizing. I am so over having goats. The sheep are great - never test the fencing and just stay where I put them. The only time they get out is when the goats break through the fence.

 

[chicken danz]

LOL HEChicken I try to warn every one about goats because at some point that love/hate relationship swings too far one direction. I loved my goats until their destruction and little balls of poop became overwhelming. Plus the smell of the billy got to me after months of it. I still wish I had them sometimes until I remember some of the bad parts. They are really too smart for their own good. They can reason and figure out about anything...including how to break out of about anywhere. Plus mine got so spoiled they wouldn't eat anything but sweet feed and leaves off trees and bushes. They wouldn't even consider grass and rarely hay. Oh and they loved cookies and anything I was trying to grow in a veggie garden. My ultimate decision to sell all of mine was really to keep the peace around here because DH was totally fed up.
I think I'd be happy to have one trained milker and nothing else.
I think I am jinxed growing tomatoes here. I have beautiful vines and nice big tomatoes but something seems to happen to the fruit before I can get it picked. I picked one the other day that was starting to turn and when I cut it last night it had a bad spot that went all the way through. I did have a nice big tomato on a salad last night though, and it was so good. I had actually gotten it from my cousins house and picked it green and let it ripen on the counter.
Tweety I start planning gardens all year I think. As I see what I need to change one year I do it different the next year. I think I want to increase the size of my garden some so I can plant things further apart. No matter how much space I leave it seems I end up not being able to walk between the rows.
I have pumpkins ready to pick already. I should be making some puree and freezing it I guess. I gave one to my friend yesterday. I wish DH liked pumpkin better because I really love the flavor myself. I actually plant them for the birds but I plant the sweet baby pumpkins for pie making so I really need to eat some as well. I wish I didn't feel guilty about watering the garden. I am sure it would do better. I guess I am just conscious of how much the stupid rural water costs. Maybe if I get my poultry building in with the auto watering system I won't use as much for the birds and feel better about using it for the garden next year.
Tweety I have tons of baby peafowl. You should reconsider. I have learned that they really have to be wormed with Fenbendazole on a regular basis. I've had really good luck with the babies so far this year. But I need to get them moved elsewhere soon. I have them in wire bottom cages and they have definitely outgrown them. I'm sure I have between 30-40 babies.

 

[Ralph Moyer]

Like the old farmer said, "A fence that won't hold water; won't hold a goat."