Consolidated Kansas

[cherwill]

Me too!!!

That's strange - mine sure do. When I am doing a batch of anything, I save everything that doesn't go into the batch in a big bowl and once I'm done, go down and throw it in the chicken yard. The birds go ape over all of it and it disappears in no time. I wonder if it has to do with having so many of them that they are always competing with each other for food. They eat what I throw out because they're afraid if they don't, a "lesser" bird will get it

I don't know if we got any rain last night. We certainly had storms and the thunder and lightning went on for hours but I just looked at a bucket I left in the veggie garden and it was as dry as it was when I carried some compost up in it last night. Our rain gauge broke so I couldn't look at it this morning to know for sure.

I finally caught a break on the gender madness around here. The last 4 chicks I've hatched, that are being raised by broody hens, are all cockerels! I am so thankful as I have to keep hatching to break these broodies, and always tell myself "it doesn't matter if its a cockerel because we have a use for them". I really want to thin my numbers before winter so am glad these cockerels will be processing age before Christmas, so I won't have to feed them all winter.

Years ago, I was in a thrift store and saw what appeared to be a dehydrator on a shelf. It was marked at $3.80 but had a yellow sticker and yellow stickers were 50% off that day, so, although I sometimes worry that electrical appliances from thrift stores will not work, at that price, I decided it was worth the risk. I didn't have anything to dehydrate at the time so I put it away and…..years later realized I have never used it. Skip forward to this weekend when my neighbor was telling me about how she has dehydrated a bunch of apples and tomatoes this year and loves them as snacks. She does hers outside in the sun but with all my free-ranging birds there is nowhere I could put them that they wouldn't be eaten so - I dragged out the dehydrator, filled it up and plugged it in. Voila! It works brilliantly and in a short time we had lovely dried apples and tomatoes. They are incredible as a snack and can be stored on the shelf without taking the time and energy to can them. Plus, I put the dehydrator outside plugged into an outlet on my front porch while it was running, so it wasn't even heating up the house as it worked.

I don't know what's up with my chickens and their dislike of tomato skins. They'll eat all the seeds and tomato guts I throw out.

That's great about the dehydrator. I have one my parents gave me last year. So far, all I've done with it is dehydrate some pasta for the neighbor's Christmas present. I wonder why I never thought of using one with tomatoes; I have oven dried them in the past. It seems like a dehydrator would be so much faster and not heat the entire house up.

 

[TaraBellaBirds]

I love that. That is so perfect for me!!
TaraBella, if you mix lights and buffs you are going to end up with mostly buff looking birds. Could loose some color in the process but the buff would be dominant over the white. If you aren't showing them and just breeding brahmas there'd be no harm.. no fowl. Usually white is a dominant color but I've learned from having brahmas for several years the other colors tend to dominate it. There is a chance you could get a white with some buff colored feathers in the tail and hackles as well.
I totally loved the favorolles. They are such calm awesome birds but they don't lay great big eggs for a large bird. For beauty the males can't be rivaled. And most of them are just too calm. If you have orps and brahmas though they shouldn't be picked on. The Jersey Giants and anything like a rock would however be mean to them.

Thanks for the info! I will definitely go ahead and put my LB girls in with the Buffs and see what I get. I adore my Brahmas and am ready to have a flock full of sweet fluffy and lovable birds. Unfortunately I started my flock with a mix of hatchery birds, which did give me the experience to know which breeds I wanted and didn't want. I don't think I would have opened my heart to Orps as quickly without the BOrp (BigMama) that they tossed in, she was the first chicken to steal my heart

.

As far as the Faverolles go, I think I will have to wait to add them. My boys are attached to the WR and our older Production Red we have, and those girls are a bit too bossy and pushy, as lovable as they might be for us.
I already found a home for my other PReds and the 2 Jersey girls, my cousin is buying them! That will get me down to 11 hens, and 3 pullets, after we butcher our 26 meaties that is!

 

[chicken danz]

You guys are making me want to run out and buy another dehydrator. I really don't have much to dry right now anyway. My brother and his wife keep almost all of their food stores in dried fruits, veggies, beans, lentils etc. They keep them in gallon glass jars. He says they can store a hundred times more that way and they don't require refrigeration or special storage. He thinks the time will come soon we will need food stores to get by.
We got more rain last night and I slept really late this morning because it was so dark out. It's been thundering but I think it's at a distance.
I am feeling frantic with all this moisture cause I can't do things to get ready for my building. If it's not one thing it's another.

 

[dwink2]

Hello all! It is turning into a hot humid day here. I am ready for the cooler temps of fall. I am anxious to be able to turn off the fans and store them away for the winter.

My juveniles have all started crowing!!! I am so disappointed that they are all cockerels. I drove 3 hours one way to get lovely birds and now all I have is 7 horrible sounding birds. They are so pretty though, I may have to keep part of them if they stay friendly. I have no hens of the same breeds so they will have to really nice to convince me to stay. Do Swedish flower hen, speckled Sussex, and lavendar ameraucana rosters get mean? Maybe I can find someone who would like to trade me for some hens. I love the quality of these birds but they are of no use to me. They were sold straight run but it was evident even to this newbie that a couple of them were cockerels which was fine with me as I was holding out hope for some pullets. Just my rotten luck. Lol

 

[Trish44]

dwink2, Ameraucana roosters in general don't do well with other roosters. I have never had two that could co-exist without trying to kill each other. They can be people aggressive as well or some are fine with people, it can go either way with them. I have one of each here. My Wheaten guy is a sweetheart, he never has shown any aggression towards me, but the Lavender one I have hates me & I have the scars on my leg to prove it. I don't go in his pen without a weapon. The Speckled Sussex normally are pretty laid back, however I did have one rooster who I had to re-home for being ornery. The Swedish Flower Hen roosters seem to be pretty calm but then I don't have mine out in the general population either. I have two brothers in the same pen & while they do spar mildly once in awhile most of the time they do fine together. If you have no hens for them to compete against it might be OK, but if you do & you have too many roosters it's just a recipe for disaster. There always will be a head rooster & he bosses around any below him. If they get the testosterone going they may decide to duke it out.

Well an update on my broody hen, she hatched out 3 lavender Ameraucanas & 3 lavender Orpington chicks so far. I haven't checked under her today yet, she has 2 or 3 eggs still left under her. I'm giving the chicks she hatches to my friend for her birthday since she lost most of her lavender chicks due to a newbie error. I felt bad for her loss & am replacing some for her. These were chicks I really didn't want this time of year anyway but this hen insisted on sitting so I gave her a job.

 

[sharol]

Hey Danz, the 23 week old sister of my 2 freezer eagles laid her first egg today. It is a pinkish brown. Marans/EE -- you never know what you are gonna get. I named her Maudie (from To Kill a Mockingbird) for her little white shawl (she is mostly black). Yeah, another layer.

The babies are doing great. Graycie is going a great job with them. They were out a little while in the yard with all the other chickens yesterday, and they are getting free range time every day (1 week old -- they are very cute).

We finally got some rain yesterday and today (almost 4" total) We were in desperate need of rain, so it was really welcome. Now I need to check the babies coop to be sure we don't have wet shavings in there.

I'm several days behind. I had lost track of the updates.

 

[morgangirl1]

I love that pic! Oh and School is going well, I'll admit I should be working on homework...
Don't know about you guys but this mornings storm was crazy! We had to head into school and I had my aunt feed and let our birds out after we had left. I think we got about 5 inches of rain, the birds seem happy though with all the grass and bugs I suppose. Goose loves it after it rains.

 

[HEChicken]

Storms? What storms? It has been clear skies and sunshine here all day…..

Oh my gosh, I just had a good thing and a bad thing happen almost at the same time. Last night I candled a few of the eggs in my incubator. DH came in and asked when they were due and I told him I had no idea because I had just set eggs without recording when. Anyway, the ones I candled were not even close to due so I said "it will probably be awhile yet". Just now I was in the bathroom and heard the distinctive sound of an egg rolling around and I went in and looked and voila - there is a fully hatched chick, rolling its empty egg shell around while it learns to walk. And this is with the turner never being turned off either!

I was only setting BR eggs but they could be fertilized by either a BR or a NH cockerel and I can tell this one was fertilized by NH because it is a little sex linked pullet.

Anyway, since I don't know if any others will hatch with it, I decided to pull it out and let it sit with me for awhile for company. They seem to like that but yell if left in the incubator. So I was sitting here browsing the web and drinking my afternoon cup of coffee. The chick was sitting on my chest, the coffee sitting next to me on the bed. You know what's coming. The chick tries to walk, loses balance and rolls down my torso - landing head first in my hot coffee! Of all the luck - it could have landed next to the cup but no, it has to land right IN the cup. I immediately fished it out and it was yelling up a storm (can't blame it) and in doing that, I was so focused on the chick that I didn't pay attention to the cup and left it on its side on my bed. It had been almost full so now my bed is a mess. The chick, amazingly, seems to be fine after its shock. It was only in the coffee a split second. I decided it is safer in the incubator so it is back in there now but I can hear it and it sounds normal. Incredibly, it doesn't seem as though it inhaled any liquid.

Hopefully there is another one going to hatch soon and then I can use them to break a broody hen. I've decided to give each hen two now because I realized when I only give them one, when the mother abandons them, I have a lonely chick trying to make its way in the yard. At least if there are two of them together, they have company when Mom gives them up.

 

[Trish44]

Storms? What storms? It has been clear skies and sunshine here all day…..

Oh my gosh, I just had a good thing and a bad thing happen almost at the same time. Last night I candled a few of the eggs in my incubator. DH came in and asked when they were due and I told him I had no idea because I had just set eggs without recording when. Anyway, the ones I candled were not even close to due so I said "it will probably be awhile yet". Just now I was in the bathroom and heard the distinctive sound of an egg rolling around and I went in and looked and voila - there is a fully hatched chick, rolling its empty egg shell around while it learns to walk. And this is with the turner never being turned off either!

I was only setting BR eggs but they could be fertilized by either a BR or a NH cockerel and I can tell this one was fertilized by NH because it is a little sex linked pullet.

Anyway, since I don't know if any others will hatch with it, I decided to pull it out and let it sit with me for awhile for company. They seem to like that but yell if left in the incubator. So I was sitting here browsing the web and drinking my afternoon cup of coffee. The chick was sitting on my chest, the coffee sitting next to me on the bed. You know what's coming. The chick tries to walk, loses balance and rolls down my torso - landing head first in my hot coffee! Of all the luck - it could have landed next to the cup but no, it has to land right IN the cup. I immediately fished it out and it was yelling up a storm (can't blame it) and in doing that, I was so focused on the chick that I didn't pay attention to the cup and left it on its side on my bed. It had been almost full so now my bed is a mess. The chick, amazingly, seems to be fine after its shock. It was only in the coffee a split second. I decided it is safer in the incubator so it is back in there now but I can hear it and it sounds normal. Incredibly, it doesn't seem as though it inhaled any liquid.

Hopefully there is another one going to hatch soon and then I can use them to break a broody hen. I've decided to give each hen two now because I realized when I only give them one, when the mother abandons them, I have a lonely chick trying to make its way in the yard. At least if there are two of them together, they have company when Mom gives them up.

OMG HEChicken, you couldn't have done that if you tried, poor little thing taking it's first dip in hot coffee, I hope it's OK. I did that one time where I forgot to record the due date on some eggs & had chicks hatching in the incubator with the turner on. They ended up in the bottom of the incubator, which in my cabinet is quite a long ways from the top tray. After that I have put little slips of paper in with the eggs in the holder because I normally have too many stages of eggs in there. Right now it wouldn't be so much of a problem but in full hatching season it is. I hope the rest of your eggs hatch & do well.

I checked under the broody hen today to see if the last two eggs had hatched & they hadn't. I kind of think maybe they're done, but she doesn't like me messing with them. If I would have had time today I would have candled them, but I didn't. At any rate I have 6 little chicks for my friend I'm taking to her. She will have 3 ages & groups of chicks now.

 

[chicken danz]

Sounds like someone pulled a fast one on you. That really stinks. I've had Swedish Flowers and Sussex and they are both very calm boys. However they will fight with other roosters when there are girls around...especially during the spring when egg laying is at a premium. You might get by with one of each since they've always been together.

Originally Posted by sharol

Hey Danz, the 23 week old sister of my 2 freezer eagles laid her first egg today. It is a pinkish brown. Marans/EE -- you never know what you are gonna get. I named her Maudie (from To Kill a Mockingbird) for her little white shawl (she is mostly black). Yeah, another layer.
Freezer eagles!

Congrats on having another egg layer. They were pretty young. That's always a nice surprise.
The babies are doing great. Graycie is going a great job with them. They were out a little while in the yard with all the other chickens yesterday, and they are getting free range time every day (1 week old -- they are very cute).

Glad the babies are doing good. I hatched a lone duck yesterday I took from the nest where they hen was sitting and hatched the duck. Her duck died in one of our storms the last few days. I took this one out to her in hopes she would adopt it since she is still clucking and defensive like she still has a baby. She picked it up by the head and threw it. I guess she was letting me know that wasn't her duck and she wasn't accepting substitutes. But it was really. I just finished it up for her after she left the nest. Now I have a loan duck to deal with. I had another broody duck and I was going to slip it under her but of all times she abandoned her nest yesterday. I'm thinking all the rain was too much.

Yeah my geese and ducks are having a great time in the puddles right now. I was trying to get them corralled so I could sort them but with all the water they don't feel a need to go to their water tubs.

Wow HEChicken, I can just imagine how frantic you were. Poor little chick. That sounds like something that would happen to me. A hundred to one chances and it will take the worst route. I have accidentally sucked a duck up in the vacuum cleaner before trying to clean out a bin. I make sure they are far away from the nozzle but one seems to think they have to break free at just the right moment to go up the hose!

I'm still trying to get things organized for putting in the building. There's some really heavy things that have to be moved before the dirt work can even be started. DH is only off one day this week which is Friday and they are forecasting rain. Just my luck. I just ordered a heater/AC unit for my incubating, and brooding room. The money keeps piling up and none of that is the actual building. The building company is sending me a contract and a color chart so I can make my final selections and sign the contract.