Consolidated Kansas

[HEChicken]

Thanks both of you. Trish44, that was a great article! Strangely enough, I almost started a batch when I first got up this morning, after making the coffee. Now I'm glad I didn't, as it specifically said that whey made using mesophilic culture is good, while whey obtained from using a thermophilic culture won't work so well. The goat whey I have in a big pot right now contains thermophilic culture so I guess I will wait until I make another batch of cheese using mesophilic culture and go from there. So - the dogs will once again get the whey from the cheese I made yesterday

These had better be some healthy dogs!

My incubator turkeys are a few days away from hatch. I put 18 eggs in and had 18 eggs develop. I kept thinking some would quit but I candled this morning and they all look to be the same stage of development and several of them "waved" at me as I passed the flashlight over them. I'm sure they won't all hatch as it seems there is always one or two that doesn't make it. Some of these eggs were more than 30 days old when I set them so I really wasn't expecting them all to develop, but its good to know that a 30 day old egg is still viable.

Meanwhile, my Black Spanish turkey I think is finally broody enough to be given eggs. She's been playing with the idea all week, spending more and more time on her nest, but not fully committed and has continued to lay an egg each day all the way through yesterday. However I think she's about done laying and ready to start sitting. I took her eggs yesterday but gave her a wooden egg so she doesn't get discouraged. If she sits all day today I'll give her a dozen tonight.

 

[chicken danz]

HEChicken I wish we were closer. I'd send you one of my girls to sit on eggs. They all want to be broody and the last two years I lost a hen cause she got at the bottom of the pile of girls. I have three nests out there for them and every last one of them want in one nest. I've been letting them start eggs for about a week and then taking them in to finish incubating. I've probably hatched 40 poults so far, sold 14 of them and have many more coming.
I only let them sit about a week to 10 days cause after that they tend to break eggs or not get them all turned.
@Trish44 made a trip up last evening and got a couple of really pretty young Sabastopol girlies yesterday. Good to see you again Trish.

I had such a busy day yesterday. I can't bend my back this morning. Another one of the BYCers who had to get rid of her birds because of her neighbors some time ago is coming today to get some Sebbies to give to her boss for a gift. It will be great to seem them as well.
We are supposed to have major storms move in this afternoon so I need to get out early and get the birds fed and watered and make sure the ones I moved yesterday can find their shelters. I sure don't want another repeat from the last major storm.
I forgot to mention that late last night that one of the fans went out on the incubator I use to hatch most of my birds. I had to push and shove to move the eggs here and there. I have a batch due to hatch and no place available to do it. Since it has two fans I may disconnect one of them and hope the other one does the job. It was making loud noises like the bearings were going out so I don't want to chance it burning up and starting a fire. I need to get DH busy on that to see if he can inject some oil until I can order some new fans. They are a sealed unit so it may not work. It takes a couple weeks for their replacement parts to come and they are in a group instead of a single fan. It will take nearly $100 to replace it.

 

[JiltdRoyalty]

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there! Have a great day everyone!

 

[Trish44]

Thanks both of you. Trish44, that was a great article! Strangely enough, I almost started a batch when I first got up this morning, after making the coffee. Now I'm glad I didn't, as it specifically said that whey made using mesophilic culture is good, while whey obtained from using a thermophilic culture won't work so well. The goat whey I have in a big pot right now contains thermophilic culture so I guess I will wait until I make another batch of cheese using mesophilic culture and go from there. So - the dogs will once again get the whey from the cheese I made yesterday

These had better be some healthy dogs!

My incubator turkeys are a few days away from hatch. I put 18 eggs in and had 18 eggs develop. I kept thinking some would quit but I candled this morning and they all look to be the same stage of development and several of them "waved" at me as I passed the flashlight over them. I'm sure they won't all hatch as it seems there is always one or two that doesn't make it. Some of these eggs were more than 30 days old when I set them so I really wasn't expecting them all to develop, but its good to know that a 30 day old egg is still viable.

Meanwhile, my Black Spanish turkey I think is finally broody enough to be given eggs. She's been playing with the idea all week, spending more and more time on her nest, but not fully committed and has continued to lay an egg each day all the way through yesterday. However I think she's about done laying and ready to start sitting. I took her eggs yesterday but gave her a wooden egg so she doesn't get discouraged. If she sits all day today I'll give her a dozen tonight.

Wow HEChicken, you're going to have a bunch of turkeys before long! Your turkeys are sure prolific it seems like. Well I'm glad you figured out what you need to do the FF with the whey. I figured there would be something in that article to help you. Let us know how it goes.

HEChicken I wish we were closer. I'd send you one of my girls to sit on eggs. They all want to be broody and the last two years I lost a hen cause she got at the bottom of the pile of girls. I have three nests out there for them and every last one of them want in one nest. I've been letting them start eggs for about a week and then taking them in to finish incubating. I've probably hatched 40 poults so far, sold 14 of them and have many more coming.
I only let them sit about a week to 10 days cause after that they tend to break eggs or not get them all turned.
@Trish44 made a trip up last evening and got a couple of really pretty young Sabastopol girlies yesterday. Good to see you again Trish.

I had such a busy day yesterday. I can't bend my back this morning. Another one of the BYCers who had to get rid of her birds because of her neighbors some time ago is coming today to get some Sebbies to give to her boss for a gift. It will be great to seem them as well.
We are supposed to have major storms move in this afternoon so I need to get out early and get the birds fed and watered and make sure the ones I moved yesterday can find their shelters. I sure don't want another repeat from the last major storm.
I forgot to mention that late last night that one of the fans went out on the incubator I use to hatch most of my birds. I had to push and shove to move the eggs here and there. I have a batch due to hatch and no place available to do it. Since it has two fans I may disconnect one of them and hope the other one does the job. It was making loud noises like the bearings were going out so I don't want to chance it burning up and starting a fire. I need to get DH busy on that to see if he can inject some oil until I can order some new fans. They are a sealed unit so it may not work. It takes a couple weeks for their replacement parts to come and they are in a group instead of a single fan. It will take nearly $100 to replace it.

It was nice to see you again too danz even though it was a flying trip up & back & I couldn't stay long. I always enjoy seeing all of your birds. Those are some really beautiful little goslings, I can't wait to see what they look like grown, I was so thrilled to get some nice colors. I was a bit sore today from all of the driving all at once yesterday, my knee is protesting today, but overall I did pretty well with it.

I have my last set of duck eggs in the hatcher that are due tomorrow & one hatched early this morning. These are all from green eggs so I'm excited about these. I need a few more females so I hope I get some nice ones in there.

 

[Dani4Hedgies]

Happy Mothers Day to everyone as well

great news on getting to see your little friend and getting birds moved Danz can't wait for the news tomorrow on how many of our eggs hatched into fluffy chicks I will be picking them up Wed afternoon so will post pics Wed night.

 

[chicken danz]

Happy Mother's day to each of you who are mother's. It's such a depressing day with all the rain though. I didn't get all of the feeding and watering done before the rain it. There's not a lot I can do about it right now though.I wish my children were near so I could visit with them today.
I got the numbers off the fans in the incubator and ordered 6 replacement fans for this one and the future for $30 less than I could order one unit from the incubator company. What a rip off they have. At least I'll have several more available if more goes out. I figure since one of these went out the other probably will soon as well so I might as well replace them both. I ordered the others to use on my other units if that happens. And even though they are coming from overseas they should be here sooner than the incubator company sends them out.
Dani, I still have more birds to move. We didn't get quite all the cockerels separated. I also found one of the older birds in the brooder house that I intended to move, had jumped into the feed bag and apparently was in there all night. Needless to say she was pretty thirsty!!! I guess she gets to stay in there now until the weather changes again.

 

[HEChicken]

HEChicken I wish we were closer. I'd send you one of my girls to sit on eggs. They all want to be broody and the last two years I lost a hen cause she got at the bottom of the pile of girls. I have three nests out there for them and every last one of them want in one nest. I've been letting them start eggs for about a week and then taking them in to finish incubating. I've probably hatched 40 poults so far, sold 14 of them and have many more coming.

Yeah, turkeys are really broody birds. Unlike chickens who have been bred away from brooding, turkeys only real reason for laying is to procreate, so once they've laid a clutch, they want to sit and hatch them. By taking them away daily we encourage them to lay more than a clutch but eventually they do go broody anyway. I've had pretty good luck with letting them brood. I've never had one get smothered or break any eggs and their hatch rate is usually excellent. I lost two to predators - the first to a fox, the second to a coyote. Both of those had formed a nest out in the pasture where they were vulnerable. Now that we have the LGDs, I think they'd be safe to brood there, but no one wants to use that nest any more, which is just as well. My RP hen always broods under the horse shelter, which is a really great place. It is where we used to have the hay walls for the sheep so it is protected (from weather and predators) and the hay makes a nice, clean nest. I usually give her 12-15 eggs and she hatches almost every one of them every time. This year I only gave her 12 and one of them turned out to be cracked so I had to discard it at the 1-week mark, but the rest seem to be doing well (not that I've candled but I check them every day and there are no bad smells).

The Black Spanish is brooding in the coop so at least it is a safe, dry place to brood. I'll have to rig up a way to keep the poults safe while hatching but that won't be for another 4 weeks so I've got time.

Well, it sure has rained a bunch here. I haven't been out to see the rain gauge yet but it seems to be slowing down for now so maybe I'll go and see how much we had.

Happy Mother's Day everyone!

 

[Trish44]

I'm glad you got some rain too HEChicken, I know you were wanting some awhile back. The first rains that came through went right around us north & south. I know you got some on that one because I had someone come from Augusta who said it was raining when they left. It was totally dry here at the time they came. We did however get a nice rain later on. It quit long enough I got out & did my feeding & got the sheep & goats back in their pens for the evening. I had just left the sheep out in the yard today because I figured if it got bad & they wanted to they could go into their pen & shelter but I don't think they did. I'm sure the goats got in the barn because they absolutely hate being wet.

Well I guess that one little duckling was the only early one, the rest seem to want to wait till tomorrow on their due date. That one little lonely duckling is in with the chicks in the brooder now.

 

[chicken danz]

It rained here all day and hard most of the time yesterday. We needed a little rain but not a washing rain again. At least we didn't have all the wind this time.
I've got another busy day ahead. Shipping some more goslings and trying to get brooder bins cleaned up. These birds are so darned messy.
At least I hope for some peace an quiet today. I can really use it after a busy weekend.
I have my incubator warming back up and functioning on just one fan. I guess I'll have to check temps in the lower levels to see if it's moving the air around enough. If it doesn't I don't know what I will do. I have some major hatching due to happen.

 

[Trish44]

danz I hope your incubator holds out for you till you can get those fans, I know you have lots of eggs in them.

I have my last batch of ducklings hatching today then I'm done with ducks for the year. These are looking nice so far so I may pick from this hatch for the hens I want to add to my flock, they're green egg layers as well.

HEChicken I need to get up to visit soon if I can find a day to come when it's not raining. I haven't been up in awhile & I would love to see your LGDs & barn. I looked at the extended forecast & it looks like we have a lot of rainy days coming. It seems like it rains all at once & then we'll have no rain probably.