Consolidated Kansas

[rittert3]

I got the go ahead tonight I have a place to keep birds!!! It's only 9 small city blocks from my apartment and rent free all I have to do is help with some chores and animal sit when the want to leave town in exchange for some water and power. They are super nice people. I'm really excited I have a farm to go play on now. Now all I need to do is save a little cash to fix a couple pens and figure out what birds I want first. I feel like a giddie little school girl, lol. If anyone wants to get their hands on some snowy mallards, the lady that owns the place has about 25 pairs and some are for sale.

ETA: I mostly wanted a place to keep coturnix quail and hold the feral pigeons I trap until I can sell them but I might keep a few chickens and possibly some colored Bobwhite too.

 

[Trish44]

danz, wow, it sounds like you had some real fun today, that's my kind of day! I would have had a hayday at Hobby Lobby, I can get in so much trouble in that place with their clearance stuff, I love that store. I really don't need any more Christmas decor or ornaments, I've been weeding them out actually & gave some things away right before Christmas that I wasn't using that didn't sell. I had way too much Christmas stuff. The only thing I would like to find is a slim Christmas tree though. The one I have is really nice, it's the umbrella type, so it's really easy to set up, but it's pretty big & I think I would like to have a smaller one. It would be so much easier for me to set up & decorate. I wouldn't have thought they would have all that much left after the day after sales & all, but it sounds like you made out all right. My DH would have a fit if I brought chickens into the house, would never hear the end of that.

I went down to Ark City this evening & picked up a free rabbit cage that the gal just wanted to get out of her yard, I think it had belonged to her sister-in-law & they had gotten rid of the rabbits awhile back. The cage part is in great shape, but the wood frame part that is the stand needs some work. It had this wood funnel thing that funneled the droppings down into one spot, but the wood on that part is all rotted, so I'm going to take that all off & just beef up the stand by adding some 2x4 supports to it & then I think it will be stable again. It's not an outdoor hutch, but they had it outside. I will put it in my garage & it's a nice size cage so I can use it later on for baby chicks after they don't need the heat lamp any more or I could even rig a light on there if I had to. Anyway for free how can you beat that? As soon as I can I want to get out in the garage & reorganize everything so I can make an area just for chick brooders & cages for when I hatch some chicks. We have this big workshop area in front of where the cars sit & hubby isn't into using it for anything, so I'll use it for my chicks. I'll have to clean out the area first though & that involves talking my son into coming here & picking up most of his junk in there. He's taking up quite a bit of space that I could be using if he would take his junk elsewhere. I've been storing it for at least 3 years now, it's time for him to find somewhere else to store it or get rid of it. I want to find a big cabinet for the garage to store all my chicken stuff in so it's where I can find it all & get it out of the way. There is a used furniture place in Winfield where I have bought some other things like that I just need to find out when the guy is open & see if he has what I need this time. I know DH would love it if I could get my stuff picked up & put away in there, he is always griping about having to have things in his way. I would love to have just a dedicated barn for my chickens & all, but that's not going to happen probably so I have to work with what I have.

Hawkeye, I'm sorry to hear you're not feeling well. Yeah, it sounds like your family are now carriers of the strep. My granddaughter, her mom, & sister have that too & seem to pass it around at intervals in the winter. My poor little granddaughter is seems like was always on an antibiotic when she was really little. She had to have ear tubes for infections she had & had strep all the time. I hope you get to feeling better soon.

tweety, that's nice that your DH doesn't mind you having the chicks in the house. It's not too bad for awhile until they start getting bigger & then the messes get bigger along with them.

Well I guess we'll see how long the site is down tomorrow due to the upgrade. When we meet again it will be on the all new site!

 

[Trish44]

BTW, rittert3, that's great news about having a place for your birds now, yay! I would totally like to find someone like you to come & take care of mine when I need to go on vacation. I will have to find someone for this Nov. when I go away.

 

[tweetysvoice]

Trish - Score on the free bunny cage!! Even if you do have to fix it up, I'm sure it will look great! I'd love to see a pic of it!

Ritter - Congrat on finding a place for the chicks!

Danz - Great news on the Great news from the doc! I always like hearing that kind of thing!

And everyone - I want to thank you so much for the warm welcomes and making me feel comfortable for asking questions that ya'll might be sick to death of hearing! LOL

See ya'll on the other side!

 

[chicken danz]

I hatched so many chicks that I had to keep some in bins in the house. Now I like to keep them in here for the first week or so to make sure they are doing ok. When I get serious about hatching this spring that will come to an end. I don't have a modern garage. I also have my incubators and hatchers in here. There's no place else where the heat is steady enough. If I ever figure out how to finance my addition and garage on the house that will change things a lot.
I so love Christmas, which was why it was such a tragedy for me not to have a tree or decorations up this year. I have many vintage Christmas decorations that I should probably sell but I love antiques and old things. When it comes down to it I actually have tons of decorations for every holiday. Maybe since I failed to get up Christmas I can put up some valentines stuff. (WEATHER PERMITTING)
I totally enjoyed the day. I haven't had a day out by myself for months.
Anyway since I have moved into a much smaller house my Christmas trees are too big. I had huge rooms and tall ceilings before and needed big trees but in here it takes over the room.
I'm hoping tomorrow to get out and put some shavings in some new nest boxes DH built me. Then I might get back to my basement cleaning project. I am trying to find a couple cans of deck sealer/paint that I was going to use to sela the floor in the chicken trailer. If I clean the basement then I know it isn't there.
Hawkeye I'm so sorry you're sick again. I went through that bout of strep throat over and over. Miserable!

 

[LN2008]

Quote:
He was, but we cleaned out his place in August - no dumpster involved - we used an auction house for most of the stuff. But, I did have an elderly neighbor just move out across the street from me about a month ago and his family used a dumpster... this is a big town, but who knows, we might be neighbors. LOL

We might be! I recently moved my Grandparents out of their home in Lawrence. It was heartbreaking to say the least. Hugs to your family.

 

[Ivywoods]

Checoukan-Yes, I would be proud of your birds going into that breeding project.

SJarvis has some awesome looking birds, and he is always on th OEGB thread to help anyone there. Seems like a great person.

Hawkeye-

Oh, that sounds miserable. Sure hope you get to feeling better soon!

Trish-It sounds like you are really gearing up on the rabbits. Congrats on the free bunny cage. Free is always the best price!

Chooks-When you sand the marans eggs, do you use a fine sandpaper? Do you think a scotchbright pad would work? I might just have to give it a try.

Rittert-So glad to hear you found a place for your birds!

It sounds like it will be a good arrangement. Wish you luck on that... oh... I'll have baby chicks this spring if you are intersted in any of the breeds I raise.

I have a couple boys at KSU, so maybe I could talk them into a "transport" if needed.

Danz! Other than the fall on the butt it sounds like you had a wonderful girl's day out... even if it was just ONE girl. I've always considered myself pretty good company, so sometimes one is the best number. Glad you had a great day. Tell Marshmallow WE ARE WAITING!

My DH just let Runt in the house. That dog just walked up behind me a minute ago and stuck his head under my arm while I was typing. I didn't even know he was in the house. He will come in for a few minutes, but will go back out soon after he is in. He comes in, gets an "atta boy" and a pat and then he's happy and goes back out. My sister has a GP named "Casper." Good name. Sometimes those dogs are just like ghosts the way they just "appear" out of nowhere. Gotta love 'em!

Well, we went ahead and called my friend in Salina for a referral. We called kind of late, but talked to his office. Gee. Even the office staff there is more professional than what we have been dealing with. Sheesh. He or they will call us back in the morning. I believe we are going to get a referral to Topeka to a clinic there. I will go with whatever they recommend. I was hoping to get this test done here so we had a better idea of what we are dealing with before we got referred (ie-pulmonary vs. cardiac) but since they have put it off for another week, to he** with it. We will go ahead and go somewhere else. The waiting is excruciating and perhaps even dangerous.

In other news.... in anticipation of a move later this year or early next, DH and I have been exploring properties in areas where we think we may want to move. The problem is.... WE FOUND ONE WE WANT TO MOVE TO NOW!

We are nowhere near ready to move. DH needs to get his health problems diagnosed and treated and I need to have a total knee and then get hired into my new job. If we were ready, we would be moving on this property NOW! It has everything we were looking for and the price is more than reasonable for what we were expecting to pay. I'm sure because of that it will sell long before we are ready to do anything.

Still just one fuzzybutt in the incubator. I hope more have hatched by morning.

I have a few more going into lockdown either tonight or in the morning, depending on my energy level. If this one doesn't get any hatchmates, hopefully he will from the next batch. So far it's not good hatch rate.

My chick that hatched this morning will go into the brooder in the morning. I will have chicks inside, kind of like what Danz does. I keep them in here for the first week or so (sometimes longer) depending on how they are doing and what the weather is like outside. I really don't like to have to check on them so frequently out in the shop. It is a bit of a walk (tough with my bad knee). I am just able to check them more frequently when they are in the house. In addition, I can play with them more and enjoy them more when they are inside. Heck, even if I get up at night I can take a quick peek at them to make sure everything is okay.

 

[rittert3]

Ivy- I might possibly be interested in a couple leghorns if I could get them on the cheap. I just want them for layers for my little kids to get the eggs (like I did at about their age). I wouldn't be looking for SQ or anything but I'd probably give you $5ea. for a couple hens or maybe 15 or 20 for a mature young trio if you'd be interested. Other than that I wouldn't mind having some BBS silkies and I have a sexlink project in mind if I could find some OE crele hens and a Spangled OE Roo. She has a mixed flock of mostly EEs that free range and have the hen house so I don't have much room to keep my blood seperate and away from my quail. If anyone has them I'd give 15 for young silkie hens and 10 for roos and 10 for OE hens and 5 for roos. I want to buy chickens that are between 9mos to 1yr old just because they take so long to mature compared to the other birds I'll be keeping. I don't meen to insult anybody with my offered prices thats just what chickens are worth to me and what I've seen them regularly bring at auction and I don't show or breed to a very high standard. I just like to play with colors and have them to look at and want to get eating and hatching eggs from them. I might also consider buying BBS silkie hatching eggs at $10 a doz. (Have to get a part for my bator first though.)

 

[Hawkeye95]

Tweety, I see no reason why you can't put your brooder in your garage. I did. We have an attached garage and we never leave our cars outside, so they are always in. In the process of the door going up and down, the fumes are very minimal. Never noticed it. Personally, I've had a turkey in the house recovering from heat stroke and a chicken in the house for a few days recovering from said turkey trying to kill it... NOT a fun experience. I definitely don't want these birds in my house! LOL I do ocassionaly bring in one of my silkies to sit on my lap and watch tv with me (with a towel under them) and they are very docile and calm and go right to sleep when they are pet. But they go right back outside too when we're done playing house.

I say-- put them in the garage! I used a long clear plastic tupperware and put chips in it and then covered the top with a wire grate from my BBQ grill that died in the last mini tornado/wind storm. But you could just cut down a piece of hard ware cloth and tape all the edges to keep from cutting yourself. (I've seen a lot of people do that)

Rittert- that is GREAT that you will finally be able to have some space to have your birds! Very exciting about your up coming projects. I myself am wanting to start the BBS silkie project. I have two great canidates and my 3rd has gold leakage around her neck which disqualifies her. But I'm going to take Danz's suggestion and breed her to my clean roo and see if that works. Someone on the silkie thread told me that she had a bit of gold leakage on one of her Blue Splash hens and that all the pullets produced came out clean and all of their cockerels came out with the leakage and were culled. Interesting! If it doesn't work, I guess she'll get thrown into my layer pen or get put on CraigsList. Now that my boys are in 4-H I do plan on culling heavily to make sure anything we breed is to standard. (although my definition of culling is selling as pet quality on CL-- not killing!)

Danz, sure sounds like you had a great time yesterday. Sorry about your fall, what an awful thing to do.

I hope you feel okay this morning after all of that. I would like to have a small table top tree-- I should have been out looking too. But now is probably not a good time when we think we're moving. How close is Marshmallow now? So exciting!!

Ivy, I'm so glad that you are bypassing the unprofessional and going straight for the real deal. You're right, I just don't think now is a time to be messing around waiting for weeks on end for testing and results, etc... What a mess! Like I said-- the moment I have heart trouble, they get me in right away, no waiting! I cant imagine having to wait like that and then just have it dragged out forever. Ugh! Good luck with hearing from the new office!

Trish, yay for free bunny cages! Pictures? You need to have a 'before' and 'after' shot.

Well yesterday was a miserable day. I hardly moved from the couch. The only frustration is that the kids don't care if I'm sick and can't move. I hurt so badly and was spinning when ever I stood up and felt faint. They were crying for drinks, treats, and on and on. I couldn't do it. I attempted to get up a couple of times and helped once or twice and then there were about 40 mins in there where I started feeling better. Then my fever came on higher and it was all over. By the time my DH came home, the kids ran to him crying they were hungry, etc.. I just didn't have the engery to care or do much of anything. DH sent me off to bed and took care of them. I probably should have called him to come home, but with the work situation, I know every day is touchy right now, and I didn't want to screw up our chances for the transfer. Sigh. Preschool day today. I'm feeling much better, but just worn out. I plan on dropping them off and sitting in my favorite coffee shop (Meads Corner) for the couple of hours they are there and doing nothing except reading a book.

 

[Hawkeye95]

Ivy-- btw, is there any chance you could go ahead and try to move this summer? Start doing some serious purging now and see if you can put a contingency plan on the new home stead you want? Some people accept them, others don't. You never know! Good luck making those hard decisions! We have an auction house here-- on big things we didnt wnat to just 'give away' we took it down to the auction house. Then at least you get something for it.