Consolidated Kansas

[chicken danz]

HEChicken, thank you. I'll send you a message.
I actually spent half my day cleaning house today. My son called and he was judging a barbecue in town so he came by after ward. Very nice surprise and it was what I needed to make me get to work in here. I got most of the feeding and watering done before he got here as well.

 

[turboscooby07]

Got a new addition to the farm today...hes a big boy with tons of potential. Saw his first chickens and pigs today, lots of work to follow. He needs to gain about 50 pounds too. His name is Sandy....poor guy.

 

[chicken danz]

Got a new addition to the farm today...hes a big boy with tons of potential. Saw his first chickens and pigs today, lots of work to follow. He needs to gain about 50 pounds too. His name is Sandy....poor guy.

So was he a house dog? He's a little thin but that isn't unusual at all for summer time and pyrs. How old is he. He looks fairly young.

Speaking of dogs I had a situation last night that scared the bejeebies out of me. I was feeding my dogs deer meat, when one of the girls decided to go try to take the other ones meat. Those two fought like I have never seen dogs fight in my life. There was blood slinging everywhere and they weren't stopping. I tried to grab one and DH the other and he ended up getting bit in the back of his leg. Of course he retreated and I yelled for him to grab the hose. That worked for about a half second but they went back at it again. I finally got him to come help again and we had literally each grab a dog and pull them away. Both of them still very determined to fight and mad as they could be.
I've always fed them separately because they are food aggressive but this has never happened before. I sure hope it doesn't happen again. I hope to be able to check them all out one by one today to find any wounds and get them treated. I gotta admit that was scary.
The only positive I could take away from it is that I feel they'd be able to down a coyote without a hitch.
A friend of mine just lost her pyr. He had obviously tangled with a pack of coyotes and because of all his hair they didn't notice the bite marks on his abdomen until he got down and couldn't get up. She had picture of it after it was shaved and they were terrible deep wounds. He must have gotten down on his back during the fight and they ganged up on him. Unfortunately he was septic by that time and he didn't make it.

 

[HEChicken]

Congratulations TurboScooby - I hope he works out well for you.

Danz, that does sound scary. I've always heard that females are the worst for getting along, especially if either is intact.

Not much happening here. I'm tired as my partner in the dairy was gone with her family for a little over a week so I had to do all the milking while she was gone in addition to looking after her other animals. Milking every day by itself wasn't that bad. The main problem was that I had twice as much milk to deal with! Even with only milking every other day I have to make cheese fairly often but last week is just a blur of milking and cheese-making. Fortunately, as I wax each cheese and put it in the cheese cave, I label it with the name and date, as otherwise I wouldn't have a hope of remembering what I made and when it is ready.

 

[chicken danz]

Yeah my dogs are so sweet I couldn't imagine them getting that mad and aggressive. Even when I watched the two older ones (now passed) down a coyote several years ago I never saw this much aggression. Only one is intact but she is also the most food aggressive who started the whole thing. However the other one is the one that was probably the one I would think could do the most damage. It took me several minutes of calming to get her to settle back down. Pretty scary stuff you can only imagine if you've been there.
My daughter trains dogs and she said it made her sick to her stomach cause there is nothing worse than a b*tch fight. She has had to have a couple of her dogs stitched up after those kind of instances. But her's are African Boerboels which are trained for attack work. They are naturally very aggressive.
I prefer the worst thing to ever happen around here is an occasional cock fight.

 

[Trish44]

Congrats TurboScooby, I hope he works out great.

Danz my two female GPs are both spayed & still are terribly food aggressive & argue all the time over dumb things like who gets to lay where. I always feed them with a dog house inbetween them, they have never been able to share anything since they were little puppies. I have seen them go after each other before & from the sound of it they're killing each other. I have never seen any wounds on them though. I hope yours are OK today, that is scary.

I've been going through my chicks in the growout pen & weeding out extra cockerels, I sure don't need any more roosters around here. I've still got several really nice pure bred roosters but it seems like everyone is in the same boat. I'm trying to get the bigger birds moved to their own pens because they're picking on the smaller chicks now. I have several Silver Penciled Rock pullets in there that I want for myself so I have to get those big birds moved. Unfortunately I have to move a group of breeding stock to move another one in that pen & I had those sold until the guy waited till the last possible minute to back out of the sale. Now I'm thinking I will just keep the hens & cull the rooster, I hate to do that because these are heritage birds I had to order from out of state but I can't wait any longer. People just don't understand the value of heritage birds over hatchery. These are RIRs that are awesome layers so I guess they will just get to free range & be added to may laying flock. I hadn't planned on that so it's going to add 4 more birds I hadn't planned for.

I saw that we have 3 or 4 really hot days coming up this coming week, ugh I am so ready for a bit cooler weather so I can go out without dying in the heat. I have things I need to do but I'm just not going to do them in 100 degree weather.

 

[chicken danz]

Trish I know exactly what you mean. I have so many cockerels and I'm not just going to kill them cause they are cockerels. I have had a few instances where they picked on one cockerel and ended up killing it. Just all of them ganging up on another. I was going to try to increase the size of a pen or two today so they'd have more room but I haven't done anything out there yet.
I've been working on my bathroom project trying to remove parts for plumbing etc.
It's really hot out there today. I'm not anxious to be out in it.

 

[turboscooby07]

Yes he was a house dog....I know I know. He is almost two years old and only weighs 85 lbs! He was eating nasty pedigree food. Diamond high protein is what we use and he ate about six cups of it this morning. I am not sure he even knows his name. He has done well on his first day. He has already made big strides in controlling himself around free range birds. I might have to put him in the pig pen for a few minutes so they can show him we are not food, they can be bullies with dogs. Only took 30 seconds for our pit bull to decide she wants nothing to do with them anymore. Well off for more leash training

 

[chicken danz]

Yes he was a house dog....I know I know. He is almost two years old and only weighs 85 lbs! He was eating nasty pedigree food. Diamond high protein is what we use and he ate about six cups of it this morning. I am not sure he even knows his name. He has done well on his first day. He has already made big strides in controlling himself around free range birds. I might have to put him in the pig pen for a few minutes so they can show him we are not food, they can be bullies with dogs. Only took 30 seconds for our pit bull to decide she wants nothing to do with them anymore. Well off for more leash training

My last female was a house dog. I took a chance with her. I kept her kenneled for two weeks so she could get used to all the activity and seeing the birds roam around and the other dogs. She was 13 months old when I got her. I started taking her for walks and walked her around the property and got her used to the other dogs. She did really great. Within two weeks I let her go. She is really the best LGD I have. She loved her new job.
My dogs eat Pedigree better than anything else. I used to feed Diamond and Loyalle but they wouldn't eat it. They are very picky about what they eat. I'd even tried some super expensive stuff with no grain. They just didn't care for it.
He is really small for a male weight wise, but maybe he'll grow some. If not it doesn't matter. It's all how he works that makes the difference.

I got a couple more panels put on a grow out pen and got some netting on top. I was hoping to move some more birds but that was about all I could stand to do out there in the heat with no help. I'm trying to get a system going to separate boys and girls. I really wish I had a big open top fenced area where I could move all the boys and let them free range. I'm sure some would fly out and the owls would have a feast. I have so many different sizes right now I don't know where to put them all.

 

[lizzyGSR]

It's an exciting day for this new chicken owner! I think I've gotten my first (and second) pullet eggs from my chickens (now 4.5 months old)!!!!!

We found one egg in the barn yesterday that could've been there for several days and could've been laid by anyone. Randomly small duck egg? I wasn't sure. This morning, I found another very small egg in the chicken run. the chickens are the only ones who've had access tot he chicken run in the last 36 hours, so it had to have come from them (and I"m pretty sure the egg was NOT there yesterday evening when i did chores). I believe I only have one pullet that would lay a white egg, so I thinnk it's my appenzeller spitzhauben that's laying the egg. Now, I've only got to get the other 17 pullets to get their tails in gear!

I've owned ducks/geese now for several years, but this is my first year with chickens. I started out with a couple ducks from Orschelns (both turned out to be drakes) and some older ducks from my husband's grandma. This is the first year I have had young FEMALE ducks as well, so I'm excited for them to start laying! The young ducks are only 2 months old, so I don't expect them to start laying for a while.

I'm just excited about the pullet eggs! Pullet egg on the left, duck egg on the right.