Consolidated Kansas

[chicken danz]

I had a 4ish foot gopher/rat snake in my house. He ate several chicks one night and I knew it had to be a snake but I didn't catch him at it. My husband thought I was nuts lol. But then a couple nights later as I was falling asleep I heard the chicks sounding distressed and jumped up and ran down to find him wrapped around a Cochin chick! He had it halfway down so I went and grabbed a spatula from the kitchen to hold his head down and then I put him in an old cat litter bucket until morning. I released him a mile away but I wanted to kill him haha.

OH geez. I used to keep plants in my basement in winter and had bird netting surrounding them so the cats wouldn't use the pots to do their business. I found a big black snake tangled in the bird netting. I never did figure out how on earth a snake gets into the house.
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Deep breath. I put 20 Silver Campine eggs in the incubator early this morning (shipped eggs, came early yesterday). I filled it out with 6 Breda Fowl eggs, 1 lonely little EE egg (fertilized by a Breda cockerel), and 8 English Orpington eggs. At least 4 of the orps are Jubilee moms and a Jubilee cockerel, so we will see what hatches.

I'm going to be in really big trouble if they all hatch (LOL) since I don't have room for a lot more chickens, but....

With luck I'll have some Breda and Orpington chicks to sell in about 3 - 4 weeks. Then some Campine chicks when they get a little older and can be sexed. The breeder (Wisher1000) says that she had a cockerel crowing at 3 days recently and that they let you know gender early on. I hope that works out. I want to keep a breeding quad of them.

The shipped eggs were packed extremely well with no apparent damage. 2 air cells were detached and 2 air cells were on the sides of the eggs, but that is pretty good for shipped eggs. She was really generous with them, too, so....

Now I have to be good and sit on my hands for 10 days. I'll candle at 10 and then again when I take out the turner on day 19. I'm going to LEAVE THEM ALONE in the meantime. They have been in the incubator 2 whole hours and I'm already pacing. LOL.

Yay! Good luck on those eggs.
I have been so busy. I never even got on line yesterday. So today I had twice as much to catch up on.
I had several people scheduled for this weekend to get birds but it seems every one has a cold or flu. I have to wonder though if that means they are all sick or just wanting to stay home in good weather instead of driving. I can't say I blame them if that is the case. And of course I want no one to show up sick. I don't have time to be sick.
With the help of a friend and a long long day we completed the goose pen and walked all the geese to the pen. It's almost too quiet and bare out there today. The ducks and geese are penned which only leaves the layers to free range. I'll let the ducks out as soon as they start nesting instead of laying their eggs on the ground. I want them to use their pen for laying not just laying here and there. I still need to butcher some more boys. It would be a great weekend for that but I am so sore from heavy work I don't think I'll get it done.
My list of things to do just seems endless. I am still waiting on my fencer to come back and hang some gates and do some finish work. I wish he'd show up so it would be done.
I have a load of feed on the truck I got day before yesterday that I need to shovel off as well. It was out of the question yesterday in that wind. I understand it's still supposed to be windy today but nothing like yesterday.
It's such a busy time of year.
I need to get some more plastic ties so I can mark sexes on the geese I will have for sale. I have several pair spoken for.
We completed our new goose house a few days ago and the entire thing blew over in that wind yesterday. It's over 20 ffeet long. I got some tie downs made from rebar and it stayed in place after that. That wind was insane. It's a good thing it doesn't blow like that all the time.

 

[Trish44]

I'm starting to collect eggs for some of the breeds I raise now so I can see if I'm getting enough to start incubating. I've got a list of people waiting, just need the hens to cooperate now. I think most of them have started back up again except for maybe one breed.

I did some moving hoses & water tubs around for water for the animals today & my knee is sore, sore, sore now after PT earlier & now that. I'm still not released to do chores yet.

 

[chicken danz]

I had company yesterday so got very little done. Big mistake after working so hard the day before. Now every part of me is sore and painful. I collected 7 goose eggs yesterday morning so I'm going to have to get another incubator brought in and start incubating geese. I was really wanting to get the room in the building functional first but that isn't happening so I am going to have to do it in the house for now. I have a customer coming from a couple hours away in a bit and we didn't discuss prices at all. she just told me what she wants. She was here last summer when I was selling out everything cheap so I hope after she drives that far she isn't upset about my prices. She doesn't have internet so she doesn't have access to my adds. She has he day planned to be here a couple hours so it's gong to throw my day into another tight one. At least she admitted she wanted to spend the time. Maybe it will take her longer to get here so she'll leave sooner.
I feel so awful . I killed a hen yesterday quite by accident. She had an abscess that was huge and had opened and seeped. I had done this sort of thing many times before without problems. SO I cleaned her up and opened it up so it could drain. But she went limp and I thought that was weird so I stopped. I put medication on her and was taking her back to the pen when she had a heart attack. I could feel her heart beat extremely fast and then it just stopped. She was a huge big beautiful jubilee hen and an asset to my breeding. I am still feeling bad and had nightmares all night about it. I've worked on so many chickens both mine and others' and never had that happen before. When I was butchering a couple weeks ago all the birds were extremely fat. I'm thinking I need to change my feed and reduce the corn so they aren't so fat. I'm trying to be rational about why this happened but I still feel really awful about it.

 

[RooksMom]

Hello. I've been offline for a while, so I have no idea what's been going on on the thread, but I was wondering if anyone near Harvey-county has any hatching eggs for sale.

 

[zigzag45]

That's too bad @chicken danz -- I keep wondering when I will accidentally kill one. I'm more concerned about stepping on one while in the back yard.

I'm wondering if there is anyone interested in some hatchery, started chicks. They are three weeks old. I'm in the KC area - PM me. I have four black australorp and two cinnomon queens. When I ordered from Cackle, their town/city packages was either quantity 5 or quantity 10. So, I picked the 10 knowing I'd need to rehome a few babies.

 

[zigzag45]

@chicken danz -- that reminds me.... maybe I missed the post... did one wing pull through?

 

[Dani4Hedgies]

Danz,
Im so sorry you lost your hen hugs

 

[chicken danz]

@chicken danz -- that reminds me.... maybe I missed the post... did one wing pull through?

Yes she did and she's doing great. She went into full molt and the house is full of black feathers. I assume when she gets done with that she'll lay again. That bird should have been named cat cause she obviously has at least nine lives. I'm sure I've put much more of an effort into keeping her alive than I would most birds but she has an uncanny will to live.
Originally Posted by Dani4Hedgies
I'm sorry I killed her. It was just so unexpected. I feel so crummy about it.

 

[fyrwife95]

Hi everyone! I have been on BYC for almost a year. I just found this thread. I am located in Topeka. I have one adult duck, she is an Ancona. I also have two drakes, a Rouen and a Runner. In January I ordered 5 newly hatched female Rouen from Metzger farms. They are all a blast. I'm looking forward to keeping up with this thread.

 

[sharol]

I'm so glad One Wing made it. She is such a sweet little thing. I was afraid to ask.