Consolidated Kansas

[ByN8ureHomstead]

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Yes, love them. I took videos on Saturday of my setup. Give me a few days to post them.

 

[ByN8ureHomstead]

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I don't use the water nipples, but i have read over and over on the board how people love them. I saw a good deal on them a while back and nearly bought them. I probably will next spring when I have more time to think about it.

Best place to buy them that I have found is here http://www.qcsupply.com/farm-livestock/waterers/nipple-waterers.html?animal=1231

 

[chicken danz]

I have a few SLWs and they seem to lay very nice large eggs. I also have some GLWs as well.
Seramas may actually appear larger than old English. But their frame work and bones are lighter weight. I have gobs of them and their size varies greatly. You can't tell what size babies you'll have regardless of what size the parents are. Many people are disappointed in them, because they expect them to fit in a tea cup or something. That just isn't the case. I would love to cull out the larger ones but the smallest ones are often infertile and the mortality rate of the tiny little babies is much higher.

 

[rittert3]

Chicken danz If I had the room I would be glad to buy some bigger sermas I have a freind that works with old english crosses and colors and I'm sure he would be interested. He breeds for smaller size color and mutations like rumpless and naked neck more than total conformation.
As for the 9/11 conversation I don't have alot of memory except that I was in 8th grade algebra when we caught news and watched the news the rest of the day in school. When I got back home all the gas stations had a line a mile long and the price of gas jumped from 1.8? to $5 a gallon, alot of them got sited for price gouging and were made to give refunds.

 

[Hawkeye95]

Danz, very interesting about the Seramas vs old english. I'm hoping my Polish will be good layers too, but I dont know about that. Seems like I keep reading conflicting stories and I'm guessing it just comes down to the specific birds you have. I would love it if someone would breed them to be a bit larger, even. I keep reading from time to time on the polish thread and I think there are a couple of people working on that. One of them posted a WCB Polish a while back that was HUGE! I mean... like the size of a BO. But they just had the one that turned out that large, and I'm thinking they crossed with one of those black.. ah, I forget what it was (maybe an australorp??) and then once crossed, they bred back to polish to get the conformity right again. It was a lot of work. I wonder if it makes them better egg layers too?? I'm keeping my eye on that thread.

We got more done on the coop yesterday. Mostly finished putting the plywood on the roof. There are a couple of spots where it needs to be cut off evenly. Still no "roof" as in actual roofing material. It got hot yesterday and then by the time it started cooling off, DH had to watch his football team play. Sigh. The kids love playing in it- they played in it nearly all day yesterday, and even all the neighborhood kids were over and played in it too! Everyone comes over here, we are sort of the kid play Mecca. Although I don't know why- I bet we have more rules here than their homes. I'm a lot more strict than their parents are.

I'm feeling burned out on the coop making now- taking a LOT longer than I guessed. I really thought this thing would take like 4 weeks to build and I'd be done. HA!!!!!!! I'll take a recent picture of it and get it posted later.

 

[chicken danz]

Loralee you are almost there. I know the feeling but when it is totally finished you will think it was worth it. I remember building my first chicken house. I was using recycled barn wood that I pressure washed and Water sealed. It was a tedious process because I had to find boards that were long enough without rot or holes. (A lot of the wood had been chewed by packrats. It had sat in this barn for at least 30 years. ) But once finished it turned out beautiful and I am still proud of it knowing all that went into it. Just think! It's just a few weeks until your babies get here. I think my down point was the roof as well. I couldn't do it alone and it took a lot longer.
Maybe if you go in and start setting things up like your waterers, feeders, litter, and heat lamps it will help.

 

[Ivywoods]

Hawkeye-Don't get discouraged! Hey, we are all rooting for you! We've been following along and are eager to see you get your birds in their new home.

It does take a lot longer than you think sometimes. Keep plugging, girl!

Danz-Your old barn siding idea has me thinking. I have a big old barn. Unfortunately, it was beyond repair when we bought the place. It took a pretty bad hit when we had that windstorm that wiped out our other barn. It has some beautiful old siding. Maybe I could use it to build "something." Not sure what. Anyway, I'm sure I will come up with another projects soon...like maybe a cute little house for some seramas!

 

[chicken danz]

There's quite a size difference in standard Polish. I have some that are quite small and I had some roos that were really big birds. Most of my girls are pretty little though. I got rid of my WCB LF because I only had roosters. I have silver penciled, gold laced, and Black over white standards.
I had rented a backhoe for the weekend. We had 8 hours use on it. I didn't get on it except to play until late yesterday afternoon. I so wish I had done that sooner. In an hour and a half, I built a nice big hole to use as a duck pond if we ever get any rain. Had I had a few more hours to use it I could have built a large sized pond.
We got the pond built for the Mandarins on Saturday. (We don't have the edges finished though which will be the most work.) We dug a trench for some posts to put a roof on a building. (Easier than just digging post holes.) DH dug some trenches to pour concrete so I can set my future chicken palace made of an old office trailer in place. We dug outside of a well so we can put in an outside spigot. The old one had blown out after freezing. Of course we cut the buried electric line in the process so that has to be prepared.
Anyway I think I can finish out the pond edges and make some drainage ditches to it with my little tractor.
I'm figuring it will finally rain by bucket fulls now that we have all these holes in the ground.
We have several more posts to put in to finish the Mandarin aviary. All the corner posts are in. It is going to be 16 X 16.
I sold about 30 pullets this weekend. I was culling out the small mixed breeds. I sold too cheap, but it sure made them go fast. My feed bill is getting ridiculous. I need to find a way to separate all my young cockerels for my buyer. I just have no more pens available right now.

 

[chicken danz]

Ivywoods, the barn wood, after being pressure washed turned out absolutely gorgeous. It was so weathered that remaining paint washed off. The wood is so much nicer than anything you can buy now. I think the boards were about 8-10 inches wide so running them vertically went fairly fast. It was just a lot of work sorting and cutting. I also just used white barn pain on some after a brief washing and built a pheasant lean to out of them. I like to repurpose stuff if I can. Saves me money and makes me feel good about it.

 

[Ivywoods]

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Yes, I like "adaptive re-use." I have used some of our old barn wood. I finished my son's bedroom with trim that I made from some of the wood that had come loose on the old barn. I didn't pressure wash it or anything. I just spread some varnish on it. There was scant traces of the faded old red paint. It turned out great! That old siding sure eats up the varnish and paint, though!