Consolidated Kansas

[pikeman94]

Howdy All! It was been a crazy last few weeks.

First, everyone that is experiencing difficult times remember one way or another you will make it through. No matter how trying the times are you come out the other side just a bit stronger and wiser for the experience. I will keep you all in my thoughts and prayers.

DD is doing much better after her round of antibiotics and shows almost no sign of having had pneumonia. DS didn't have pneumonia, just the gunk that has been going around. He is doing much better as well.

We were on vacation last week because of Spring Break so I think that allowed everyone some time to heal.

Pepper the hen I had been trying to nurse along had to be put down this evening. She had lost too much weight and was not doing well. Luckily my neighbor the vet came over with some drugs put her down humanely. Brooke (the vet) is officially awesome in my book. Her professional opinion without doing a necropsy was that this hen had some sort of congenital defect. Sigh....

DD didn't take it too well until I told her that this hen and the other we have lost over the last couple of years are now in heaven with her Grandpa and Grandma keeping them company and giving them fresh eggs every day!

The new chickies have doubled in size! Sage and Paprika will move outside in a few more weeks I think.

I had replied to Hawkeye's post earlier regarding her coop and was wondering how many birds it would hold? My next big question is if I truly free-range my birds would I only need a coop big enough for the hens to lay and sleep in at night or would I need to stick to the 2 sq ft. per bird rule? Any one else that has a comment on this feel free to chime in.

It is funny how fast Spring creeps up on you! I leave for Florida and everything is brown. I come hope and it is mostly green! Several of my hops plants are already 2' tall! Of course the monsoon season has started so getting the maintenance performed on them is going to be tricky. I should have a few rhizomes to harvest per crown and I am excited about that.

Beyond that it is time to get the garden prepped as well.

No rest....

That is all I have to report for now. I will check back after I chip away at a little project I have been working on.

Pikeman

 

[Ivywoods]

Pikeman-Florida.... sounds like a really nice spring break.

About the lady with the adopted daughter. I knew that mom was an angel as soon as I talked to her. She had been told the little girl would never see her first birthday. The little girl is now 7.

I have sold down most of my chicks now with the exception of a few golden lakenvelders and a couple BCM's. I may just keep the BCMs. These will be the last I have out of that rooster as I now have a different roo in with the girls.

Hawkey-Congratulations on your "flippin' chicken" success. You and Checoukan will know what I'm talking about!

Tweety-the ducks are SO cute! You are really brave, though, playing with them on the carpet!

 

[pikeman94]

If I could find an excuse to drive North I would take a couple of those BCMs off your hands.

Pikeman-Florida.... sounds like a really nice spring break.

About the lady with the adopted daughter. I knew that mom was an angel as soon as I talked to her. She had been told the little girl would never see her first birthday. The little girl is now 7.

I have sold down most of my chicks now with the exception of a few golden lakenvelders and a couple BCM's. I may just keep the BCMs. These will be the last I have out of that rooster as I now have a different roo in with the girls.

Hawkey-Congratulations on your "flippin' chicken" success. You and Checoukan will know what I'm talking about!

Tweety-the ducks are SO cute! You are really brave, though, playing with them on the carpet!

 

[cherwill]

Ivy, what a wonderful thing for that woman to meet someone like you. You will have helped make a huge difference in her and her daughter's life.

Tweety, that picture of Daffy is adorable!

WichitaKidd, you have been busy. You got so much accomplished in such a short time. I'm only a little handy. My husband is the real handy one in the family, and I help with whatever he tells me to do. I couldn't do that kind of project by myself. I'm the designer; I draw what I want and he makes it happen. I guess that's a pretty good combination.

My thoughts are always with those of you dealing with your parents' health. I'm just horrified by how little concern the medical people have for the emotional and psychological states of their patients.

I never realized how many strange ideas people have about chicken ownership. Most of my family thinks they're neat (not that they'd want any themselves, and that's fine). My in-laws used to have them and even the ones who don't like chickens at least understand they're pretty harmless. The only exception is my SIL, who wouldn't let her daughter be near them for several months after the Mysterious Chicken Death incidents.

 

[JosieChick]

Pikeman-Florida.... sounds like a really nice spring break.

About the lady with the adopted daughter. I knew that mom was an angel as soon as I talked to her. She had been told the little girl would never see her first birthday. The little girl is now 7.

I have sold down most of my chicks now with the exception of a few golden lakenvelders and a couple BCM's. I may just keep the BCMs. These will be the last I have out of that rooster as I now have a different roo in with the girls.

Hawkey-Congratulations on your "flippin' chicken" success. You and Checoukan will know what I'm talking about!

Tweety-the ducks are SO cute! You are really brave, though, playing with them on the carpet!

Hahahaha! I looked at those sweet little duckies on that beige carpet and thought the same thing!!! Seems like every darn time I run in the house with a chicken under my arm for some reason they poop as soon as I get in the door.

Pikeman, how many chickens can you have in Olathe? I am new to the area and curious about chicken laws up near KC.

Good news on my freshly moved outdoor chicks, they were very smart little buggers and all stayed in their coop when it poured today which I was very proud of.

Quick question for you folks up near Kansas City, I am near Ottawa and am looking for somewhere that carries Mazuri waterfowl feeds if anyone knows of a feed store. Otherwise I will start making phone calls tomorrow to see if I can locate some. Thanks!!

 

[chicken danz]

I haven't found any Mazuri bird feed but I do know that Ottawa co-op does sell some Mazuri feed for other animals. They are very cooperative and would gladly order it if you can assure them that you will buy it up over time. (Usually an order is 10 bags.) As much as Mazuri is known I would think it would fly out of the place once people learned it was there. I've requested several things from our local branch of Ottawa co-op and they ordered it without question.
After spending 20 minutes chasing Chopper around with a roll of paper towels this morning I was pretty impressed those ducks could be on carpeting. I do put him on towels and just see to do a lot more laundry these days! He is getting more independent all the time about running to the kitchen to eat the cat food, so some days it seems all I do is clean and mop up after him. If I spent that much time cleaning my house normally it would be spotless. Now I have no time to even start it! I Had thought about putting my baby goose with Chopper so I could hand tame it but REALLY? Now that would be way too much!
It's been raining non-stop since yesterday morning. I am out of feed and have to go get some. I just wish it would stop so I could at least not get the feed wet.
My new peafowl have taken over the shelter so my red golden pheasant have been standing in the rain. I don't think they are being mean but the pheasant are afraid to cross in front of them. Do You think the weather could be decent so I could get something else built???

 

[Hawkeye95]

Tweety, we had mallards, and I soooo wondered about yours! But I don't really know much about ducks! Ours didn't fly off at first. But when we had a coyote attack one day when they were a few months old, they flew off and never came back. They went down to the river, so we saw them and they were okay, but they wouldn't come up to us anymore, either. Brave, brave to put the ducks on carpet with no towel! LOL They are soooo messy!

Danz, we had white geese-- don't know what kind they were, but they stayed nice. But my brother and i played with them and the ducks an awful lot. They got picked up a lot, too. They did start to get a little more tempermental as they got older. You could kind of tell what mood they were in and whether it was safe to pet them or not. If you have a goose, I'd do my best to tame him down so he's a bit nicer. I still haven't worked on the diapers yet! I worked all day cleaning house yesterday and then changing beds, etc.. I was worn out. Maybe I can try one out today after I run errands here in a bit.

Ivy, yes indeed-- that was part of my problem-- getting him positioned right. (although my main problem was that he really did need to be separated away from them) He really does have to be head down, tail up. I have a stool out there to sit on and then I just flipped him up while holding his legs straight out behind him. Worked really well and I'm sooooooo excited it finally worked and now my pullet should be laying fertile eggs!! YAY!! I should try to do my other pullet too-- but she's still broody and I don't think she's laying. I tried breaking her. I took her eggs and put her outside for a couple of days (eggs were no good). I think we'd have been in good shape, except that they had to be inside all yesterday and my other girl laid an egg and Yoda (my broody) grabbed it faster that you can blink and stole it and is sitting on it. There's no way that egg is fertile, either. I left her with the egg anyway and will try breaking her again when it stops raining.

Pikeman, the little bitty coop I made for myself really only can handle 3 chickens. The coop I'm making right now-- that is the same shape (hutch style) is going to be able to hold 5 chickens. It will be a bit on the small side for 5, but not too bad. If you have a secure run they can be in all the time that you can leave their door open to-- then you could probably get by with a smaller coop. But the problem is that in bad weather-- while it's sleeting, raining/storming/lightening, or whatever the issue may be-- it could be necessary to lock them up. If the space is too small in there, they might try to kill each other. I'd error on the larger side for the coop. If you have 5 hens, I'd go with nothing less than 5 feet in length. From there, at least 3 feet in width. That would give you even cuts on your 2 X 4 X 8-- so that you can use the 5 and 3 ft lengths with no left over. If you go larger, then you'll be using a bit more lumber, but that's fine, too. Of course-- that doesn't include the nest box-- if you throw a nest box on the inside of that, then it's going to be waaaay too small. That's why I've been building external nesting boxes-- you can get more out of your floor space.

Josie Chick, that's great that your little ones were smart enough to stay inside! Good for them!!

 

[Chickies-duckies-etc]

Yup. Those are Pekins! What cuties! Mine are growing sooo fast!!
Here are my two at just 3 1/2 weeks old:

This is a perfect "Caption This" picture.......... Such as: "You call those WINGS" ?

 

[tweetysvoice]

Tweety-the ducks are SO cute! You are really brave, though, playing with them on the carpet!

Hahahaha! I looked at those sweet little duckies on that beige carpet and thought the same thing!!! Seems like every darn time I run in the house with a chicken under my arm for some reason they poop as soon as I get in the door.

After spending 20 minutes chasing Chopper around with a roll of paper towels this morning I was pretty impressed those ducks could be on carpeting. I do put him on towels and just see to do a lot more laundry these days! He is getting more independent all the time about running to the kitchen to eat the cat food, so some days it seems all I do is clean and mop up after him. If I spent that much time cleaning my house normally it would be spotless. Now I have no time to even start it! I Had thought about putting my baby goose with Chopper so I could hand tame it but REALLY? Now that would be way too much!

Tweety, we had mallards, and I soooo wondered about yours! But I don't really know much about ducks! Ours didn't fly off at first. But when we had a coyote attack one day when they were a few months old, they flew off and never came back. They went down to the river, so we saw them and they were okay, but they wouldn't come up to us anymore, either. Brave, brave to put the ducks on carpet with no towel! LOL They are soooo messy!

SO, these made me laugh out-loud.

That was my first thought when I walked into the room and my DH was letting them all just run around, but we have one of those small pet bissells and so far there have only been about 4-5 messes to clean up each time we've gotten them out. Papertowels and the bissell clean it up really easily. Takes just a couple minutes after they are put up. The room that they are in is the extra downstairs room that has my husband's music recording studio and our treadmill, so it's not anywhere that company would ever go into anyways - not too worried if we ever had to tear up that carpet. I've found that they poop WAY more when they are swimming in the bathtub. It's funny how that grosses me out much more than cleaning the poo from the carpet.

 

[checoukan]

Ah-Ha Hawkeye! So you have begun "Flippin Chickens"????
I have never done that, course I don't have that breed of "Fuzzy Butts". Mine seem to manage to take care of that by themselves. Thank goodness.
Just looked at the rain gauge, and we have had 3 3/4 inches of rain since noon yesterday. Spring River is getten up pretty good, and I have not heard anything on the Neosho River yet, but I bet its gonna get out before long, that is if it has not already done so. Not much going on down here, hope to start the new barn by May 1st, Iam so ready for it. Got all of the U of A Chicks out to the kids and everyone seemed really pleased with the babies. Ivy, I will take some of those you have up there with you, and I will get them out to the kids, Maybe we could meet half way or something?

Hawkeye, are you able to come to Wichita today? I will be passing thru later, and I have something that I would like to give to you. I know you like suprises, so I will leave it at that. If you can let me know. If not, I will leave it hear as we are going to blow thru Wichita pretty fast.

Hope all is well with everybody. Prayers for all who need them. Be thankful for the rain. We very well may need it this summer. I am very thankful as all of our ponds are full and running over, so fresh water in the ponds. All the pastures are saturated, and should have a good spring hay season. Be gone a few days, so all take care!!!