Consolidated Kansas

[chicken danz]

Aw HEChicken, I am so sorry for your loss. It is so sad when someone's life is cut short especially someone you care about.
You are right. My very close brush with death this last October taught me that every moment is a gift. I had taken so much for granted.

 

[dwink2]

HeChicken I am so sorry for the loss of your friend. Thanks for the reminder to live life to the fullest.

I am very interested in the peck-o-matic feeders. Do they waste much feed with them. I feed pellets because mine waste so much. Still with pellets they are so wasteful. Could I get that code for $5 off from you Danz? Thanks.

 

[chicken danz]

Absolutely @dwink2 or anyone else that wants it. It is 62493.
I can't see that they are wasting food at all. The key to the whole thing is that they send you several different washers to use that each have a different sized hole in it. I tried 3 of them before I got the one that was just right. Let feed out if they toggled it, but didn't allow it to just fall out on it's own. Since my feed is custom made I am sure it would be a different for each kind. I have 8 of them in the building so far and have used about a third as much feed as normal. Once I get the time and energy to clean out each run and put new shavings down I'll know for sure if they are wasting any. All of the birds seemed to learn to use it really fast. The first one I put in before I had the best sized washer in was the only group that had trouble figuring it out. I just put a couple cherry tomatoes in the bowl and they grabbed them, causing feed to come down and have been using it since.
My second shipment came today. I haven't even had time to go put the box in the building.
Just for reference, I got a long length of galvanized conduit and ran it across the tops of the pens. Each section of pipe was hooked to another one. Then I bought some steel cable, which was the cheapest option I could find that had really good strength and some U shaped connectors. I hung the cable on the pipe with the connector then put another one on the other end and made a loop to hang the feeders with. I did leave a little extra steel cable on each one just in case I would need to raise or lower it for different birds some day. You could just use some strong rope or something to hang the feeders as well. Or build a stand (they sell one but why spend that money) for it to set on top of.

 

[Trish44]

Hey everyone, I just want to remind you all not to take a single moment for granted.

Yesterday morning I opened my Facebook to the news that a friend of mine had died in a car accident a few hours before. We just chatted (online) 2 days before! 24 hours later, I am still reeling from the news and from knowing how full of life she was and how two days before her death she had no idea how little time she had of it left.

I think most of us on here do live our lives to the fullest but this event was for me a reminder how precious and how short life really is.

I'm so sorry for your loss! Life is indeed too short to waste any of it. After watching my late husband die of cancer at 47 years old that fact was really brought home to me. I'm sure he didn't think he would be leaving this world at that age either. I believe you should do the things that make you happy & enjoy & rejoice in every day you wake up to another one.

Danz, those feeders look nice, but I think they really would work best inside a building or coop. I have too many outside pens where the feed would get wet & ruined & I notice it doesn't have a lid either. For those who don't have but a few chickens I think it would work fine & you could put it inside the coop. Maybe I'll get back to that one day when I get too old & tired to do all the work I'm doing now.

 

[HEChicken]

Trish, having seen your breeder pens, is it not possible to feed those birds inside instead of out in their run? I know that wouldn't solve the issue on the hoop coops and other outdoor pens but might be an option at least for the breeder pens.

 

[chicken danz]

Quote:
Trish if you put a lid on them they are as waterproof as anything you can get. The catch bowl hangs under the bucket so unless you have sideways rain it won't get wet. Another beauty to them is that they let so little feed down at a time that you aren't going to be getting much feed wet even if it did manage to get wet.
I just got done putting together and hanging the last 6 in the building.
They are all pretty full so everyone should have plenty of feed. I also dipped the other half of the birds that I hadn't dipped earlier.
I had to come in and wash off, cause my clothes and myself were soaked in sweat and dip. Mostly sweat. What a miserable day it is out there.
I still have a ton to do too.

 

[Trish44]

@HEChicken yeah I could use them in the breeder coop if I wanted to but I don't need them unless at some point I stop using fermented feed. I use troughs for feeding that are made out of pieces of guttering. The breeder coop is only one small portion of the pens out there too, I have tons of hoop coops & dog runs as well. I should have a couple emptied out as soon as I can get my new Lavender Ameraucanas grown out & to their permanent pen, but for now there is still one pen in use in the front row. The Wheaten Ameraucana group are going to be moving to where the Ameraucana chicks are now residing eventually. Those pens in the front really are a pain in the winter to get the doors open when there is snow on the ground, so I hope to not have any birds in there this winter.

Danz are they made with 5 gallon buckets, I couldn't tell? I guess it might be an option for my main coop for vacation if I decided to do that. I save a lot of feed doing fermented though plus for the number of birds in there I would have to have more than one. Since they free range during the day & only come in to sleep I can keep more birds in there than they say you should. They still have plenty of room to roost.

We had a storm come through yesterday afternoon & messed up one of the towers for our internet & it is the pits. It's slow as molasses & they told me when I called that they would have to climb the tower to fix it & it has been raining again this morning so it's still not fixed.

 

[chicken danz]

Yep you use 5 gallon buckets.
We got a storm last night but not a drop of rain. Just high winds of about 50MPH. We got some sprinkles earlier this morning. I had moved a huge group of cockerels to a big pen together and I was so afraid they would stand out there and drown. I need to move several more boys and girls around but my stupid net broke and it's irreparable this time.
It's supposed to be much cooler today which would sure help if only I had a net!!! Always some wrench in the works.
The biggest problem is I've been working so hard lately that every muscle in my body is sore and weak right now. I tried to do some work on my vanity project last night but I didn't have any strength left in my arms.

 

[HEChicken]

I just had a minute to stop by and share a funny story. A short time ago I heard our alert dog barking. I looked out to see one of our goats coming down the driveway. Crap. The sheep and goats are currently on rotation in the chicken yard which adjoins the hedge and apparently they leaned on the fence to browse the hedge and bent it to where they could just step over it. From there they went through the hedge and over to the neighbors. By the time I got my boots on and went out there, the second goat was at the top of the driveway. I called out "Hey Girls come on home" and they both started trotting as soon as they heard my voice and ran up to me, apparently relieved to have found their way home from their adventure (with the help of the neighbors to whom I waved a thank you). I don't think of goats as being as obedient as dogs and they've never come when called before but anyone watching would assume they are just that well trained

It was time to move them to new graze this evening anyway so I quickly laid out the new fence and moved everyone - the entire operation, including laying out fence, moving water buckets and hooking up the electric couldn't have taken more than 10 minutes. Everyone is now happily grazing the long, lush grass of the new area. Best of all, they won't have access to the fence over to the hedge in this location so at least the neighbors are safe from unwanted visitors for awhile. GOATS!!! I'm telling you - sheep are the way to go. If only sheep produced milk as easily as do goats.....

 

[Trish44]

I just had a minute to stop by and share a funny story. A short time ago I heard our alert dog barking. I looked out to see one of our goats coming down the driveway. Crap. The sheep and goats are currently on rotation in the chicken yard which adjoins the hedge and apparently they leaned on the fence to browse the hedge and bent it to where they could just step over it. From there they went through the hedge and over to the neighbors. By the time I got my boots on and went out there, the second goat was at the top of the driveway. I called out "Hey Girls come on home" and they both started trotting as soon as they heard my voice and ran up to me, apparently relieved to have found their way home from their adventure (with the help of the neighbors to whom I waved a thank you). I don't think of goats as being as obedient as dogs and they've never come when called before but anyone watching would assume they are just that well trained

It was time to move them to new graze this evening anyway so I quickly laid out the new fence and moved everyone - the entire operation, including laying out fence, moving water buckets and hooking up the electric couldn't have taken more than 10 minutes. Everyone is now happily grazing the long, lush grass of the new area. Best of all, they won't have access to the fence over to the hedge in this location so at least the neighbors are safe from unwanted visitors for awhile. GOATS!!! I'm telling you - sheep are the way to go. If only sheep produced milk as easily as do goats.....

That's funny HEChicken! Actually my goats are better behaved most of the time than my sheep as far as staying where they're supposed to be. If I let the sheep out in the yard to graze they just go through the barbed wire & escape to the neighbor's places. They seem to think their yards have better grass, sigh. I had my new animal care lady here last evening showing her the feeding routine & I told her to step to the side of the gate because I was going to let the animals in to go to their pens. They make a mad dash in a group to their pens so when I opened the big gate they just took off, the goats split off to their pen & all of the sheep to theirs. She was just amazed that they did that so automatically. I said yeah they know where the food is for sure.