Consolidated Kansas

[JosieChick]

Oh lord! I hope she isn't going back to where she lives, she is 8 years old and it is an hours drive away!! She has been so good, haven't seen her leave the yard, even at night. I have been putting her in the pen at night because she was up around the front of the house a lot and I didn't want her to wander off!!!! I don't know what else to do, have been looking for four hours.

 

[HEChicken]

A lot of animals have an amazing "homing instinct" that allows them to travel large distances to return to what they consider to be home. When I was a kid we had a boxer who was stolen out of a fenced yard with 6' high privacy fence. Weeks later he turned up ragged, dirty, with 2 broken legs. The vet's best guess was that he jumped out of a moving vehicle and traveled a LONG way, dragging himself along on his two good legs, to get home to us.

I really would alert the people you got her from that she has disappeared and they should be on the lookout for her. She won't travel the roads, if that's where she's headed, so there's no point driving that way to look for her. She'll travel across fields and may not be visible, for long periods of time.

Keeping my fingers crossed for you. Did you have time to get her a tag for her collar, so if someone sees her they will know to call you? For that matter, was she wearing a collar? Do you know if she is microchipped?

 

[JosieChick]

She is wearing a collar and I was going to get her a tag tonight. She was gonna get microchipped on Thursday. I don't think she was leaving to go home because she went up to the neighbors and they said she was heading back toward our house. I am afraid she laid down to take a nap somewhere between and she is dead as a door knob when she is asleep. You could set off a bomb next to her when she is asleep and she wouldn't move.

I will let them know if she hasn't showed up in the next little while. The fact that no one else has seen her even though they have all been out in their yards working makes me think that she didn't continue going down the road but turned back and is sleeping somewhere in between.

 

[Deerfield Acres]

Oh JosieChick,

hoping she'll come home soon.

 

[chicken danz]

Josie I wouldn't worry much. She probably went some place to lay in the shade and cool off. Just put her food out for her and praise her when she gets home. Don't scold her for leaving. You might want to pen her a few more days when she gets back. BTW bonding with your DH was probably a good thing. That might make her want to come back more.
When it is hot out my dogs are no where to be seen lots of times. They dig in the coolest place they can find and hang out until it cools down some.
Trish everything in my house, my house, my land, my tractor, the implements, etc is mine and something I bought. My DH spends tons of money on stuff but when it comes down to it he doesn't have much except tools. I actually kind of like it that way. That way I don't have to deal with a bunch of crap that I don't like!!

 

[cherwill]

Oh no, Josie. I hope she comes back soon.

The house in the photos is actually our neighbor's house. The houses in our neighborhood were built around the 1900s-1920s. Ours is a beautiful Craftsman style home on the inside, with most of the original features such as unpainted woodwork and push button light toggles, but the outside is just plain old white siding with black trim. The fence was designed by our neighbor and built by DH and me and her husband. We used to have an ugly chain link fence there from when we moved in. We became good friends with the neighbors and agreed to split the cost of putting up a nicer fence.

TNT, Sophia's legs are the same white/buff color as the BOs and are unfeathered. She looks almost exactly like them, but her comb is slightly different at the back (I think it was flopped over a little in the photo) and she's bigger, and her eggs are bigger (maybe because she's bigger?) and darker. A little over a year after she wandered onto our property, we found out (second-hand) how that came to be. A woman on the corner had bought a chick as a pet and it got away from her somehow. The neighbor who told us this said she just kept her mouth shut about what happened to the chick!

 

[JosieChick]

Oh, I won't scold her for leaving, I will probably bake her a cake. It has been so cool this morning that I am worried that she is feeling more spry and decided to go for a jaunt and might not know her way back. I am scared that I hurt her feelings. One of the house dogs was barking his dumb head off in the backyard this morning while I was doing chores so I yelled at him to knock it off and Molly looked like she was going to wilt. I told her it was ok and she wasn't in trouble but she didn't look like she believed me. I wish she would turn back up, I would think someone else would have spotted her if she was out wandering. They are all out in their yards, I don't think I realize how many people up here are retired in our area. Also, the guy down the street said his cows were calving so maybe she stuffed her self with afterbirth and passed out somewhere?? Sigh. I hope she shows up soon...

 

[MarcAustin]

Hello all, Newb question alert. I know I should ask these things on the Newbie board, but I like you all better !

ANywho, so i went to the feed store as I was out of chick feed. One of the ladies there is legitimately knowledgeable about birds. She recommended we make the switch from the starter to the Meat Bird formula still in the crumble format (has 22% protein but lacks the calcium additive adults require). So I trust this lady but defer to the wisdom of the BYC. These guys are all 37-44 days old. Too soon ??

 

[chicken danz]

Marc, I like to keep my chicks on starter for about 6 weeks. A lot of people disagree with that but the first six weeks is when they are most susceptible to disease so I like to keep the medication going. I believe they say to switch them at about 4 weeks or so. I like to start mixing food after a few weeks where they are still getting some of the medication. But as soon as you switch feed you need to start providing grit for them. My thinking is when they are old enough to be outside without heat and can get some grit naturally from the ground then it is time to change food.
Don't get me wrong. I do have grit for the girls but they prefer to just peck and find their own.
I was thinking you had birds you wanted as future hens to lay eggs. If you have Cornish cross then definitely switch the food to the meat bird formula.
But if you have birds for future egg laying I wouldn't do so. I would switch them to grower good instead.
That just my opinion.

 

[Hawkeye95]

Well Hawkeye we don't have all the holes drilled yet and DH said he didn't want me to try to drill the rest of them by myself. He didn't get as far as I thought he did. I am tempted to try anyway but if I got the auger stuck again he'd be ready to kill me.
He went to Topeka to pick up the lumber for the building yesterday. I sure hope this is one of those projects that doesn't get put on a back burner. I wanted to buy painted metal so the building would look nice but he thinks he can buy some galvanized metal from a friend a lot cheaper. He says he can paint it but I'm afraid it would go on the list of projects that never get done.

Ahhh! Yeah, I need to get mine drilled too. But I can't hook the auger up to the tractor-- that's my DH's job and then I sit on top of it while he makes it go down because our dirt is harder than rock! I didn't realize you could paint galvaized metal. I bet it would look pretty nice like that.

Hawkeye, I know what you mean about gardening and needing more space. We tried a small garden many years ago and just weren't good at it. When we moved to the house we're in now, I wanted an herb garden and seemed to be able to do that without problem. Then I decided a couple of years ago that I should be able to grow greens. I have no real garden space, so they're just all over the place:





Anyway, this was a very long story to tell you how we manage to have a ton of garden space even though we live on a not-large lot in town. It gets the job done, but it's not as convenient as having one large garden in one place.

Your back yard is gorgeous!! This is exactly how I'd like mine to look! I need a lot more plantings if I'm going to get anywhere near that. And each year I'm busy adding to it, but it still seems so sparse with no charm or 'warmness' to it. You know? Your backyard is really inviting and looks so beautiful. I probably need more borders and beds, etc.. I need more money!! LOL!!! And I know it just takes time over the years to get it the way you want it. I wish I'd started all of this when we first moved in, but I was busy working and had no real thought to how our yard looked or what I wanted to do with it other than keep the horses on the back part of it!