Consolidated Kansas

[chicken danz]

Danz thank you so much I have reached out to LaDonna and Heather and I will be going over on Fri to pick out some hens for him.

I'm so glad this is working out. She's got excellent old English.

It is definitely worth a try - let us know how it works! This whole animal-raising thing is all about ingenuity. What works for one person in one set up won't work for another so at the end of the day we just have to try something and find a solution that works for our own set up.

LOL so true. I'd say what kind of junk we recycle helps our decisions about what to use!

 

[Trish44]

I ended up with a pair of Japanese Ohiki bantams that I got just for company for the lone Isbar chick I hatched at the time. I have no idea what I'm going to do with them, but it might be interesting to see how they grow out. They look to be really pretty birds. I normally don't like bantams but I do have little Mille Fleur Cochin bantams just because some people like them so much & kept asking for them.

I ended up hatching 3 Isbar chicks yesterday from the 2nd group of eggs, so now I have 4. I have another group of eggs due to hatch the 10th of Dec. so we'll see what I end up with. I won't need that many but you have to grow them out to see what you have & what you want to keep for breeders.

 

[lizzyGSR]

I ended up trying a small piece of 2x4" wire rolled really loosely and secure to the edge of the chicken coop. I then put a chicken wire top on it. I guess we'll see tomorrow how it works. I'll have to keep a close eye on things to make sure the chicks can't get out and that the big chickens aren't hurting the little ones. Time will tell if this is gonna work I guess!

 

[lizzyGSR]

I agree with all of this. I would just caution at this time of year there isn't much nutrition for them to find so they really do need the chick crumbles as well. In summer they can get by nicely with a lot of free-range.

I ended up buying a big bag of the chick crumbles (nonmedicated). For $2 more, I got over twice the feed. I figure I'll use it eventually. Now I just gotta find somewhere to store it.

On a non-chicken note: Do any of you have an Instant Pot? I got one on a black friday special from Amazon and tried it out for the first time today. So far, I'm thinking it might become my new favorite kitchen appliance! I made minestrone soup for supper tonight, and it took about the same amount of time start to finish as it usually would, but there was a lot less of that time that I spent actively involved with the meal. I'm excited to try a bunch of other recipes and have been having fun browsing pinterest for more recipes! Anyone on here have any good chicken, duck or other Instant Pot recipes?

 

[HEChicken]

My prediction is you will go through most of that bag just on these four chicks. In the first few weeks they don't seem to eat much but they need to stay on this until they are about 18 weeks old and by that time their consumption will be considerably higher.

I don't have an instant pot but I have one of its predecessors. I've had it about 10 years, I think, and prior to purchase I had never heard of such a thing. Mine is just called a 4-in-1 pot and does rice, oatmeal and I can't remember the other two because I never use those. Maybe slow cooker and steamer? I have a slow cooker that I use a lot so I've never needed to use that setting on my pot, and I don't love steamed vegetables so haven't used that setting maybe but once, years ago. However I use the oatmeal and rice settings practically on a daily basis. In winter DH and I have oatmeal for breakfast many mornings and we eat a lot of meals that include rice. Prior to having this pot, I had a rice cooker and made oatmeal in a pan on the stove. This pot works about the same as the rice cooker, I suppose, but it makes oatmeal so much easier than making it on the stove. With both rice and oatmeal, I just put in the dry and wet ingredients, push a button and walk away and it does it perfectly every time. A few years after I bought this, they came out with a 7-in-1 pot, and more recently I've been hearing a lot about the Instant Pot. I don't know what they do that mine doesn't, though I hadn't heard about making soup. I bet I could do that using one of the other settings on my pot - I just have never investigated it. If mine came with a recipe book it was lost a long time ago as I don't recall having one.

 

[Trish44]

@HEChicken boy I can relate on the to do list. It seems like everything that gets added causes another thing & on it goes. I got my rain barrel put up for the winter too & decided yesterday that we're going to have to put screen over the gutter out there next spring. Otherwise I just get too much stuff coming into the gutter & thus into the top of the rain barrel which causes it to clog up all the time & makes the water nasty. I have too many trees above my coop I guess that drop stuff down on my roof. My DH says we probably need to do that on the house gutters as well.

@lizzyGSR let us all know how you like that instant pot. I saw them on Black Friday but I already have a slow cooker & really don't have room for more small appliances in the kitchen. I do use my slow cooker lots in the winter.

I finally got the plastic on the breeder coop windows yesterday, I had gotten all of the other winterizing done but that. I think I'm going to try to rebuild my windows next spring or summer & make them like they were originally supposed to be. When we built that coop my DH had not taken on a big building project like that & he messed up the windows so I had to just put hardware cloth in them instead of windows that opened & closed. It has been a hassle every winter to have to cover them so I would dearly love to find some windows like I got for the ends that crank in & out, but there are 4 windows so I need to find 4 alike.

 

[chicken danz]

I had never heard of an instant pot. But I have all the appliances that do the same things. I guess if I were going to consolidate space it would be a good purchase. But I actually don't use all those things all that much. I have a steamer which also works as a rice cooker. A couple of slow cookers, a couple of pressure cookers etc. Most of my appliances like that are shoved into the back of a cabinet. I forget I've actually got them sometimes.
I'm still way behind on winter chores and DH is very unhappy with me right now. He doesn't like to do my projects or share my enthusiasm for them, so I guess I'm on my own. Yesterday I got the windows I bought nearly 10 years ago for my sunroom moved from the trailer to the chicken building. That was enough to irritate him even more. I also moved a make shift shelter to the big chicken pen where I have the younger grow out pullets. I bent it in the process but I was just trying to get it in there and get the fence panel back in place as soon as I could. I need to get a bale of straw to put in there so they'll have some bedding. It was so crowded out there there wasn't room for everyone to gather at night.
I had emptied out the garage side of the building to try to get organized and I haven't had time to get that stuff cleaned up, sorted and put back in there yet. What a mess I have to deal with.

 

[lizzyGSR]

My prediction is you will go through most of that bag just on these four chicks. In the first few weeks they don't seem to eat much but they need to stay on this until they are about 18 weeks old and by that time their consumption will be considerably higher.

I don't have an instant pot but I have one of its predecessors. I've had it about 10 years, I think, and prior to purchase I had never heard of such a thing. Mine is just called a 4-in-1 pot and does rice, oatmeal and I can't remember the other two because I never use those. Maybe slow cooker and steamer? I have a slow cooker that I use a lot so I've never needed to use that setting on my pot, and I don't love steamed vegetables so haven't used that setting maybe but once, years ago. However I use the oatmeal and rice settings practically on a daily basis. In winter DH and I have oatmeal for breakfast many mornings and we eat a lot of meals that include rice. Prior to having this pot, I had a rice cooker and made oatmeal in a pan on the stove. This pot works about the same as the rice cooker, I suppose, but it makes oatmeal so much easier than making it on the stove. With both rice and oatmeal, I just put in the dry and wet ingredients, push a button and walk away and it does it perfectly every time. A few years after I bought this, they came out with a 7-in-1 pot, and more recently I've been hearing a lot about the Instant Pot. I don't know what they do that mine doesn't, though I hadn't heard about making soup. I bet I could do that using one of the other settings on my pot - I just have never investigated it. If mine came with a recipe book it was lost a long time ago as I don't recall having one.

I had never heard of an instant pot. But I have all the appliances that do the same things. I guess if I were going to consolidate space it would be a good purchase. But I actually don't use all those things all that much. I have a steamer which also works as a rice cooker. A couple of slow cookers, a couple of pressure cookers etc. Most of my appliances like that are shoved into the back of a cabinet. I forget I've actually got them sometimes.

The Instant Pot is basically just a brand name for an electric pressure cooker. Mine says it is a 6-in-1 cooker (Rice cooker, slow cooker, sautee-er, warmer, steamer, pressure cooker). I am looking for more recipes for this thing, as I think it might be the ticket I've needed to get back into freezer cooking after the accident I had back in January. Having an infant in the house hasn't helped with me with that at all. I am excited since this seems to take a lot less "hands on" work for preparing meals.

I want to try oatmeal and applesauce in this, as well as cheesecake, lasagna, banana bread, mashed potatoes, etc. I'm gonna try to make a whole month's worth of meals using only the Instant Pot. Wish me luck!

 

[sharol]

Oreo, my mottle English Orpington has just finished her moult, and she is prettier than ever. Even DH thinks she is the prettiest bird on the place. @chicken danz
provided the eggs that hatched these two.



This is the mottle cockerel from last spring's hatch. He needs a good home and a flock of his own. Anyone need a big English Orp cockerel? I had someone interested a couple months ago and lost contact with her. Let me know. If he goes to a good home, he's free. He is just way too pretty (and nice) to butcher.


This has been a busy fall. I hope to get back to the board in a couple weeks when the classes I'm teaching end.

 

[lizzyGSR]

The first day with the chicks and mama hen in with the other birds went well. I'm scared to let the chicks out to free range quite yet because of the dogs, but they now have full access to the chicken coop and run. I took a livestock panel (4"x6" panel) gate and put it right inside the chicken coop door. It is a little wider than the door but not as tall. I ended up putting chicken wire across the bottom two rows of the panel to keep the chicks in. It kept the adult birds in for quite a while too.

The new "gate" fell over before I could wire it up, and about half the flock got out then. I caught a few of the tamer birds and showed them how to get back in. They eventually figured out how to get out, but it sure took them a while. Silly birds aren't the brightest bulbs out there.