Thanks for the kind words everyone! It's been a rough day. DH has sweetly done the chores for me. I haven't been able to go out there - it still hurts so much to know I won't see Elf running around and demanding food! 
Consolidated Kansas
- Thread starter ChooksChick
- Start date
It is so hard when we lose them so young, isn't it? ((((( )))))))Thanks for the kind words everyone! It's been a rough day. DH has sweetly done the chores for me. I haven't been able to go out there - it still hurts so much to know I won't see Elf running around and demanding food!
Looks like my own lovely Rhode Island Red roo! Mine is a very good guardian of our little flock.Ok everyone I need some help in identifying this good looking Rooster.
A friend of mine has a pasture with horses in it and this boy showed up last week and is just hanging around.
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Thanks both of you.
Thats what I thought it was, but being so new i didn't trust myself to make that call yet.
sharol, That's so cute, little chick diving under the wrong mommy! I took another man's arm once during a visit to the zoo, thinking it was DH. I made some comment as I did so, when he didn't respond I looked up and a stranger was looking at me with a crooked smile on his face. So embarrassing. I'm sure chicklet felt no such shame!
sharol, That's so cute, little chick diving under the wrong mommy! I took another man's arm once during a visit to the zoo, thinking it was DH. I made some comment as I did so, when he didn't respond I looked up and a stranger was looking at me with a crooked smile on his face. So embarrassing. I'm sure chicklet felt no such shame!
Danz, whew I'm glad you came along when you did!
He's a Rhode Island Red, nice looking guy.Ok everyone I need some help in identifying this good looking Rooster.
A friend of mine has a pasture with horses in it and this boy showed up last week and is just hanging around.
Prairie Fleur that goat looked so sweet, I'm sorry for your loss.
It was still muddy as everything in my pens yesterday. I sure hope they get a chance to dry out a bit today, what a mess. I haven't even been able to get to some of my nests to gather eggs for fear of falling.
We spent the afternoon yesterday for several hours taking down a 5 strand barbed wire fence where we're going to put up a better fence so the sheep & goats can clean out an area not in use. There was an old dog pen in there that was 30x30 that my DH's ex had put up years ago for dogs but it never got used & always has been in the way. We spent hours disassembling that thing. It was made of two pieces of old field fence wired together & nailed with fence nails to posts & then the bottom was wired to wire shelves to keep the dogs from digging out. Boy was that a pain to take apart! I thought I was going to collapse before we got it all done. If my DH hadn't helped me it would have taken me all year to get it out. I'm so relieved to have that done. Now we have to put up the t-posts where we need them & start putting up fence tomorrow. Today was his running day so there's no work getting done today.
I am sorry to all of you who lost furry and feathered friends during the recent flood. Even with the toughest resolve and acceptance of life, loss is hard, and all life is precious. I still find myself reminiscing about former pets we've had that are long gone.
We spent all afternoon yesterday mucking out the silo coop and putting it back in order. It was a family affair. The little ones hosed off nest buckets, feeders, and waterers. My husband and I were down in the coop filling up 5-gallon buckets of muck and then lifting them up and out, dumping them into our mower trailer. The oldest two drove the trailer loads to the burn pile and dumped them.
My husband blocked Cheeky's access to her secret laying nest under the stairs with hardware cloth, and she's M-A-D. My youngest son and I went out to check on them this afternoon and Cheeky was squawking and complaining, going in and out of the nest boxes, and pacing in front of the new barrier and fussing, as if to say, "My secret spot has been blocked. Let me back there!" My son went out about an hour later and found her blue egg IN a nesting box.
We transferred half of our 6-week-old chicks out to the silo coop when we got the silo cleaned out. We initially moved all 12 of them out to the run with our 8 full-grown hens while we cleaned the silo out, and we quickly discovered which ones could still fit through the holes in the chain link! I put my youngest to work watching to see which chicks were getting out. I told them, "If a chick gets out, catch it and put it back in the brooder in the garage." The 6, 6-week-olds that survived the run without being able to fit through the chain link holes are now transitioning to the coop quite nicely.
I think all of the craziness may have upset one of our hens enough that she is laying shell-less eggs. I saw her drop one off of the roost last evening after we had just put them back in the silo, then my son reached in to check the egg box today and found another. I have no experience, up to this point, on shell-less eggs. I will have to read up a little and see what's up.
My husband just got back with sandbags for in front of the chicken coop door. We are going to sandbag around the door or the concrete pad of the silo coop, as we are in another flash flood watch here in Sedgwick County from Tuesday evening to Wednesday evening. I hope this will be enough to keep the water out this time. The silo flood line went clear up to the bottom of the door, which means that the water got MUCH higher after we rescued the chickens. The curious thing, is that by 1:00 p.m. the next day, all of the water had already drained out. The floor of the silo is a very sandy loam (almost just sand), so my husband thinks that's the reason it emptied so fast. I still wonder where all of that water went in that amount of time!
We spent all afternoon yesterday mucking out the silo coop and putting it back in order. It was a family affair. The little ones hosed off nest buckets, feeders, and waterers. My husband and I were down in the coop filling up 5-gallon buckets of muck and then lifting them up and out, dumping them into our mower trailer. The oldest two drove the trailer loads to the burn pile and dumped them.
My husband blocked Cheeky's access to her secret laying nest under the stairs with hardware cloth, and she's M-A-D. My youngest son and I went out to check on them this afternoon and Cheeky was squawking and complaining, going in and out of the nest boxes, and pacing in front of the new barrier and fussing, as if to say, "My secret spot has been blocked. Let me back there!" My son went out about an hour later and found her blue egg IN a nesting box.
We transferred half of our 6-week-old chicks out to the silo coop when we got the silo cleaned out. We initially moved all 12 of them out to the run with our 8 full-grown hens while we cleaned the silo out, and we quickly discovered which ones could still fit through the holes in the chain link! I put my youngest to work watching to see which chicks were getting out. I told them, "If a chick gets out, catch it and put it back in the brooder in the garage." The 6, 6-week-olds that survived the run without being able to fit through the chain link holes are now transitioning to the coop quite nicely.
I think all of the craziness may have upset one of our hens enough that she is laying shell-less eggs. I saw her drop one off of the roost last evening after we had just put them back in the silo, then my son reached in to check the egg box today and found another. I have no experience, up to this point, on shell-less eggs. I will have to read up a little and see what's up.
My husband just got back with sandbags for in front of the chicken coop door. We are going to sandbag around the door or the concrete pad of the silo coop, as we are in another flash flood watch here in Sedgwick County from Tuesday evening to Wednesday evening. I hope this will be enough to keep the water out this time. The silo flood line went clear up to the bottom of the door, which means that the water got MUCH higher after we rescued the chickens. The curious thing, is that by 1:00 p.m. the next day, all of the water had already drained out. The floor of the silo is a very sandy loam (almost just sand), so my husband thinks that's the reason it emptied so fast. I still wonder where all of that water went in that amount of time!
One of the problems with shelless eggs comes when they can't be expelled. It can cause egg binding. If the shell-less (how the heck do you spell that?) egg can't clear the canal, it can cause awful side effects. Keep a close eye on her. How old is the hen that is doing this?
Where did the water come from in the silo coop? In the door or under the wall? If it came under the wall, you might want to put some sort of riser in there that would keep the chickens up out of the water if it happened during the night. If they were caught on the ground, they wouldn't be able to see to get up on the roost.
I'm a champion worrier. Just ignore me.
@sharol , the hen that has laid the 2 shell-less eggs is one of my 7-month-old Red Stars (Golden Buff). I will keep a close eye on her.
The water that came into the silo coop came directly into the door opening. Thankfully, our roosts are higher than the flood line, however we'll be investigating more when when we get that much rain again. We have considered pouring a concrete "lip" of sorts that is at least 6" high to raise the level of the door entrance. My husband, who works in the grain industry, and I talked about how anyone could ever keep grain in the silo if it flooded like it did Saturday. My husband only cut vertically into two existing silo "windows" to create the door, so the lowest point of the door was already there before we cut into it. The silo was there WAY before the house, though, so it's possible (and probable) that the addition of our home 10 years ago changed the entire drainage flow of water on our land. We've only lived here a year, and have only been using the silo for a chicken coop for about 5 months. We've never seen the silo filled with water, but for the 7 months we never checked, perhaps it held water at one point during a good rain. Who knows. We just have to fix it.
The water that came into the silo coop came directly into the door opening. Thankfully, our roosts are higher than the flood line, however we'll be investigating more when when we get that much rain again. We have considered pouring a concrete "lip" of sorts that is at least 6" high to raise the level of the door entrance. My husband, who works in the grain industry, and I talked about how anyone could ever keep grain in the silo if it flooded like it did Saturday. My husband only cut vertically into two existing silo "windows" to create the door, so the lowest point of the door was already there before we cut into it. The silo was there WAY before the house, though, so it's possible (and probable) that the addition of our home 10 years ago changed the entire drainage flow of water on our land. We've only lived here a year, and have only been using the silo for a chicken coop for about 5 months. We've never seen the silo filled with water, but for the 7 months we never checked, perhaps it held water at one point during a good rain. Who knows. We just have to fix it.
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