Consolidated Kansas

[Trish44]

That looks great danz, congrats!

 

[spree56]

Lovely building. I like the design.

 

[TaraBellaBirds]

That was fast @chicken danz ! Congrats.


Thanks @Trish44 we are pretty proud. This was our first year with pumpkins and it was a good year for gardening!

The chickens are helping me to get the garden ready for next year. We do layered gardening so after the birds clean up seeds and flatten everything, we will just put cardboard and old paper feed bags right on top of the old garden.

 

[sharol]

Wow. Danz that building is beautiful. You are so right about the hard work though.

 

[chicken danz]

I had a surprise visit from one of my sons. This one is the engineer so I had to answer a million questions about the building construction. I haven't gotten anything else done today so I need to get moving. I probably should be sweeping that building out. It got a lot of mud and stuff in there thanks to our rains during construction. We need to get the garage door installed. Neither one of us has ever done that. It could be a challenge. I could start working with the plumbing as well. I just think it would be a lot easier if I had the walls up first though. So much to do now to make it ready. I'm still feeling pretty excited.

 

[HEChicken]

I bet you are excited Danz - it looks great. I'm surprised they didn't install the garage door for you - I guess that wasn't part of the deal. So many things to do, I bet you don't know where to start.

 

[HEChicken]

In case there was any doubt about whether broody is catching…..on Thursday my Silkie went broody in the hoop coop where she has been living with 3 other bantams. On Friday I gave her eggs. Yesterday two of the three other bantams in the hoop coop went broody. Fortunately I had given the Silkie 6 eggs and they distributed those fairly evenly between the three of them, all three sitting on one big extended nest in a dog house in the hoop coop. I'm going to just let them sit together and - hopefully - co-parent the chicks together. I'll be around to supervise on hatch day in case they start fighting over the chicks but I've had hens co-parent well together in the past so hopefully they will this time too.

I had wondered before if broody was contagious because I had SO many broody hens at any given time both last year and this year and some of the hens who brooded were the ones least likely to do it. For example, right now I have a hatchery Ancona raising 4 chicks (one of the best mother hens I've ever seen too!) But who ever heard of an Ancona going broody and especially one from a hatchery?

So I'm wondering if I can use this information next year. Maybe if I separate out any broody hens that go broody in the coop where the others can see them and put them in the hoop coop (even if it breaks their broody to do it) I won't have so many hens doing it next year. I'm going to experiment and see if that works.

Danz, I know we won't see much of you today - you'll be too busy doing plumbing or internal walls or installing garage doors. It will be so nice this winter to not have to deal with the frozen hoses and multiple pens. Just don't use it as an excuse to super-danz-size. We all want fewer birds going into winter, not more!

Speaking of which….I have a cockerel waiting to be butchered this morning so I guess I'd better get cracking and get him done.

 

[chicken danz]

Well actually I am kind of exhausted and I am broke. I won't be able to do too much just yet. I would love to work on the plumbing but I can't run the lines to the pens until I figure out where exactly the pens will go. My first priority I think is to get my brooding and hatching room ready. I am ready to get birds and incubators out of the house. I do have a sink and stuff to plumb in I could work on though. I also need to clean off the concrete. Lots of dirt and mud in there since it decided to rain while they were building. I am feeling I need a break of sorts for a day or two while I plan.
The company installs sliding doors or they will frame for garage doors but they don't hang garage doors. I am kind of glad. I bought my own garage door and got a higher quality insulated one to help reduce utility expenses. It would be nice if they installed it for me but I figure I can use the experience in case I ever build a garage proper. I hope some day I can come up with the money to do that.
I have tons of catch up work to do today as well.
I really do plan to use the building to keep my numbers down. I hope it works. I still don't like the idea I'm going to have to handle the game birds and turkeys outside.

 

[tweetybaby2005]

@chicken danz - That building looks like a great size.

@tweetybaby2005 - Totally off topic... what is claying a car. I have a guess but it's a term I've not heard before.

My broody hen took a potty/stretch break and I candled her eggs. At first I thought none were developing. But, then I candled an egg from the fridge from my flock. Now I'm confused... what I saw when I candled was no spider veins. I did see a fairly large dark blob that moved around when I rotated the egg on maybe all of them, or at least most of them. I thought it was the egg yolk but the egg yolk didn't show up on the fridge egg. It's day 8 I believe. No circular bloodlines, that I could tell.

Do you think they are developing or not?

Claying a car is using a clay bar to decontaminate the car (taking the surface bond contaminates off of the clear coat) before moving on the compound/polish then sealing it. The compounding/polishing will take out light scratches and swirls. Then I put a couple of layers of sealant on the clear coat to keep the salt and weather from messing up the paint. Hope my explanation is clear enough. I'm a weekend warrior (that's what people are called when they only detail their cars on the weekend, not like those professional detailers) and I only detail my car. It is a lot of work ... takes 2 days for me to complete 1 car. With the dirt road and snow, I make sure to spend the time prepping the car before winter hits. I only seal the car twice a year since each sealant application lasts about 5 months. Longer if I keep up with the waxing afterwards. Compounding/polishing only as needed. After all, the clear coat is only so thick so I don't over do it to avoid premature clear coat failure.

 

[tweetybaby2005]

On day 10 you definitely will be able to see the veins, they're harder to see at the first. If you candle again in a few days & the dark blobs are bigger then I would say they're developing. They will move around when you shine a bright light on them but they should not be totally free floating so that they move end to end when you turn the egg, that usually means they started & died when they do that.

Well I finally got my husband back this afternoon. He was sent to Montreal, Canada for work & left Monday & was supposed to be back last night. However when the plane was trying to go to Dallas to land for part of the flight they ran into a bad storm & had to be diverted to Little Rock, Arkansas. They never were able to get back in the air due to the storm so he had to spend the night there & take a flight out this morning & then when he got to Dallas he had to rent a car to come home because they said the next flight they could get him on would be at 10:45 tonight. He didn't relish spending the whole day wandering around Dallas, so he just got a car & drove home.

Trish, I'm glad your husband got home safe and sound. That was a bummer that he had to stay in Arkansas over night but the most important thing is he is home now.