Consolidated Kansas

[Hawkeye95]

Ivy, So glad to see you made it home. Keep that leg elevated when you aren't up!! Sure have missed your wit!
What a day I had. I was awake at 4:00 AM and couldn't get back to sleep so I got h.up and sat on the computer and drank a pot of coffee. Made a trip to meet Patricia's husband to pick up some geese, then back home. Then changed clothes and got ready to head to Emporia. I did some shopping then met KarenS and her husband.
Oh funny story. I was bringing Karen some ducks in exchange for her chickens. I went out and caught 3 of them and brought them in the house. I sat down some food and water thinking they would be starved as baby ducks always are. Then I went looking for a box to put them in. When I got back they were gone. Scattered everywhere. So I finally found 2 of them but never found the 3rd one. I finally gave up and just left it in the house. I went out and just caught another one.
So after meeting Karen and her husband; (It was great meeting you both, by the way.) then I had some shopping to do. I hadn't been any where in so long and it's been months since I walked in a store by myself. So even though I didn't really find what I was looking for, it was great to do just take my time and look around. Then I headed back home. First I looked all over and finally found the escape duck behind some bins in my closet.
Then I started feeding and watering birds.
I had a group of polish babies I was supposed to deliver tomorrow in a new brooder box my DH just made for me to go on top of my other brooder sections. Every last one of the babies was dead. There went a little money down the drain. I have no idea what happened. The only thing I can think of, is he used stain on the floor of the box instead of the normal barn paint and sealer I normally use. Maybe they ingested some of that or something. They had food and water and heat so what else could it be? So now I have an incubator full of newly hatched chicks and no place to put them! I'm ready to drive to a major city and sell them on the street corner! I still have to make the trip to Iola tomorrow to meet the gal anyway, because my friend is buying chicks from her and I committed to driving her and keeping her chicks until Sunday for her son's Easter present. I just won't make any money at it this way. And now I don't know where to keep her chicks either!
Well then, my other plan was to construct a new idea I had for a portable pen to put all the baby geese in. I've had three in the house and was ready to get them out. Well now I have 7 of them. I have them in a huge dog kennel but there isn't room for it and a bunch of geese isn't something you want your house to smell like. I had planned to set them outside with a cover and a heat lamp until I could get a temporary pen built but it turned too cool out for them. So somehow tomorrow I need to rig up a temporary shelter for them. Chopper decided he wanted to play with them so he is reaching in and grabbing the paper towels I had underneath them and pulling them out the sides of the kennel.!! Yes he is far worse than a puppy!!!
Just got them in the kennel and Patricia's husband called and I drove to meet him with an exchange bird. (He was in meetings all day so we had to meet twice.)
I spent a lot of money today and got very little. I was out of some of those things like herbal supplements and $$$ moisturizing cream. I did buy some garden seed even though I am starting to doubt I'll ever get my new tiller in the ground!

OMGosh!! That's horrible that all your polish babies died!! So sad!! I wonder if it was the fumes? So maybe you can just paint over it and let it dry and use it again? Maybe the heat lamp made the fumes bad?? I can't imagine either what happened? Wow. Glad you got some shopping in there, but today sounded like one of those insanely chaotic days that I am glad to be over! LOL Chopper sounds like a baaaaaaaaaad boy! hehe!

 

[chicken danz]

Karen the pictures are adorable. That pottery behind them looks like spring. It goes perfectly with baby ducks.
It was so great to meet you and thanks again. I put the birds in the brooder with some of my bigger chicks for the night. Maybe tomorrow I'll get them settled in their new quarters. They are all very docile.
And Patricia thanks so much for the trade. Hope to hatch you a roo soon as well.

 

[chicken danz]

My guess is that it will be within about 2 days. Normally they will pip the air space and then hatch the next 24 hours. You could have a baby hatch on Easter. Wouldn't that be special to hatch your very first chick on Easter Sunday???

 

[Deerfield Acres]

Karen-- CUTE, CUTE duckies!!! Danz grows them up adorable, doesn't she? I LOVE all your tea pots! I have a small collection of tea pots myself. I'm a BIG fan of them!! I love tea, drink it a lot! I love choosing a tea pot to steep my tea in. I have a cute collection of tea cups, too. My favorite teapot of mine is a pot that looks like a pumpkin, it's all white and has vines (3D) sculpted on it and came with a set of 4 little pumpkin teacups with vines and leaves for the handles! I bought it several years ago when I saw a set similar to it that some one else had. I searched for it online and found this one, which I ended up liking better and bought it. I did find the other one my friend had, but thought mine is cuter. LOL Are you a tea fanatic? I have tons and tons of teas! When I was nursing, I even bought this really fabulously yummy tea that promotes milk production. I still buy it because it tastes SOOOOO good. ha!!

Thanks Hawkeye, she does! I love my duckies! I used to have tons of teas, BK (before kids, read 10+ years ago) but I LoVE tea. After Kids I just chug my coffee and go! I've collected teapots for years and finally had to quit -- I have approx. 60. I used to have tons of different teas -- I think it's high time I get back into tea drinking. I've collected teapots from wherever I traveled: China, Moscow, Kazakhstan, Guatemala, and all over the states. My DH used to always bring a teapot home when he was sent out of town, one whimsical teapot came from France. I have a few antique teapots that got me started and then I branched out into Sadler, Royal Doulton, Portmeirion, Villeroy & Bosh and then I discovered Mary Engelbreit and collected almost all of hers. My fav is the "Queen of the Kitchen" teapot with cups that say "Don't Slurp". I loved drinking tea with my grandmother and one of our neighbors. Do you drink yours with or without milk? My grandmother is English and wouldn't dream of drinking her tea without milk.

I like it both ways. I still can't look at a teapot without wanting to rush to the checkout but have reigned myself in. Most of the time.

 

[cherwill]

Karen, those ducks are absolutely darling!

Danz, I'm sorry about all your chicks. Very odd. The only thing I would guess is what you already have -- it must somehow be related to the stain. I know a lot of things will continue to "off-gas" long after you'd think they were dry and harmless. Maybe stain is one of those things.

 

[Ivywoods]

Well, I feel like I could fill the entire cast of dwarfs from "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs".... Sleepy, Dopey, Grumpy, Itchy, Bitchee, Burpy, and Gassy. (Maybe I got some of those names wrong.)

Danz-so sorry about your chicks. It does kind of make you wonder what happend.

Josie-I'm SO GLad Molly is back. You know after we got Buddy we had him locked in the barn to get him used to where he was supposed to be. He jumped a high fence and went through a small hole to get out and then disappeared. He was gone for about a week or ten days. Mike and I were setting out there in the barn wishing we could find him and feeling sorry for ourselves, when all of the sudden he showed back up, happy as a clam. I didn't cry when he ran away, but I cried tears of joy when he came home. That very day he followed us as we circled the place in our JD Gator looking for good places to cut firewood. I guess he just had to hide and figure things out for himself.

Tweety-Nice coop!

Checoukan-Thanks for keeping everyone updated for me. Love ya, Sis.

Mike took me out in the gator to look at my two new turkey hens. They are the same age as the one I already had, but they are smaller. I suppose they weren't fed as well or something. I did find my first turkey egg out there though. I think I'll be able to hatch some before too long. I just candled my bantam partridge wyandotte eggs, and it looks like more of them are developing than I thought. It's still early, though, so I left them all in there. I also got another 2 1/2 dozen and set those today..

I'm a tea drinker, too. I've haven't drank a cup of coffee in my life. I like the smell of coffeee but I can't stand the taste.

It's good to be home.

 

[Trish44]

IVY, I'm glad you made it home & you're probably glad your groggy, at least you're not in so much pain, anyway it's nice to see you back.

Danz, I'm so sorry about your chicks! That Chopper really is a character isn't he, I couldn't believe he followed you around the whole time we were there the other day, just like a puppy.

KarenS, Cute ducks & pics, love the tea pots too, I'm a teapot fan too, I have quite a few myself. I never drank tea with cream in it until we went to New Zealand & we went for tea & they had it that way, now I like it. I can drink it without too.

Well my first batch of eggs are in the hatcher & guess what, I'm hearing peeping coming from in there! I thought my ears were deceiving me when I first heard it, but no I heard it again. They're due to hatch on Saturday. Oh & Danz I got my eggs in the mail today & they were packed super well & honestly they look fine to me. I candled them & they all look fertile, none were cracked & I'm letting them sit overnight & will put them in the bator tomorrow & they sent extras too. So we'll just see how it goes, I thought what the heck, I might as well give it a try. I also got some Royal Palm turkey eggs that came today. I have never dealt with turkey eggs before so does anyone have any tips for me on those? I would love it if those hatch, I have been wanting some turkeys. I'm also looking for peacock eggs if anyone hears of anyone with those. My DH has been wanting some peacocks, I'm kind of surprised, but he likes them, so I was kind of thinking of trying to hatch some of those too.

 

[Trish44]

Oh I forgot, Hawkeye, they called about our furniture delivery this afternoon & they're supposed to be here between 6:30 & 8:30 a.m., yow that's early for us around here with DH's 2nd shift schedule. He offered to get up, but honestly if he's up & they come I will be up too, who is he kidding I could never sleep through that. My house is a terrible disaster, we have been moving things all around & stuff is piled all over the dining room. I have been cleaning in the living room to get ready for the furniture & then today I decided we couldn't get new furniture without painting the walls, so I spent my afternoon priming the walls & now I have to run to the store to get the paint & hurry & get it on the wall. Won't my DH be surprised when he comes home & the walls are mostly painted in there. I can't move the huge TV by myself or the huge roll-top desk, so that wall will have to wait, but I can do the others. Gotta get moving again.

 

[tweetysvoice]

First off, Welcome home Ivy!! Glad to see you are doing well!

Thanks everyone for the kind words. I'm loving this new set-up more and more.

So, today we set up the inner kennel run (this is what the chickens/ducks will have access to during the day while we are at work), as well as the outer run. We'll let them out into the outer run when we get home and on weekends. We got hardware cloth run along the whole bottom of the outer run and will be adding wire to make the squares smaller tomorrow. Tomorrow we will also be adding the deer netting to the top of the whole outer run as well as digging up and creating the pond for the ducks. We went ahead and put the chicks and ducks outside this afternoon. They LOVED it!

oh, and I don't remember who asked, but the signs are tin signs that I bought off of Amazon.


This is the "inner run"


You can see the whole thing together here. This is before we added hardware cloth to the cattle panel.
(ignore the ladder and the rain barrel) - I'm using the rain barrel for water storage closer to the coop.


Added the hardware cloth.


Let the girls move-on-in!


The chicks immediately found a spot to dust bath in. I'm going to set up a sand dust bath area in the outer run for them as well.


Unfortunately, I didn't get the water saver set up and the ducks already made a huge mud pit.



Here at the ducks in their bed. Now, how to get them to actually sleep in it. Everytime we put them in, they come right out. It's now 11 pm and they are still playing out there - not sleeping. Maybe it's all the excitement.

 

[tweetysvoice]

Giggle.. I had a request for a couple more pics of my grandbaby. More than happy to oblige!

Here is a 5 generation photo that was taken on Tuesday. It was great seeing my grandma from Illinois and my mom came up from Inman, KS.
(For those that don't know - I'm second from the left, in the dark blue shirt).




My daughter swares this is her first smile - I think it was gas! LOL