Consolidated Kansas

[Trish44]

tnt & HeChicken, glad you're both OK! That must have been scary tnt! KarenS, that gave me a laugh picturing all of you, chicks & bunnies in the basement! I'll bet the kids will remember that as an adventure.

Hawkeye, I'm so glad you're OK too! I was worried when they were talking about those tornadoes over there.

 

[Ivywoods]

Danz-I'm so sorry. I hope you have some supportive people to be with you. I know we are all thinking of you on here...just not there to give you a real

Glad everyone made it through the storms. Sounds like some of you had quite the adventuresome night. It's good to see how many folks are taking warnings seriously and making sure their families are prepared in the event of a catastrophy. Hats off to you!

Well, folks, get ready for an IVY OVERLOAD. What a day I had! I totally escaped all of the bad weather. I don't know how we did it. Here's the story.

We had some folks drive up from the Tulsa area to pick up our tracking dog, Digger. I was very happy after visiting with these people. They will give Digger a wonderful home where he can do more of what he loves to do.... Track... as well as being a beloved pet.

After they left we did chores and then took off to get my new royal palm turkeys. 2 1/2 hours away. I remarked to my DH that these were going to be expensive turkeys by the time we pay for them and all the gas it was going to take to go get them. I told him if he saw a place he wanted to stop just for fun he might as well in order to enjoy and get more out of our "turkey trip." I was sitting in the back seat with my leg up so I could be half way comfortable. I couldn't see out very well. I knew Mike had turned off the highway, but I had no idea where. As it turned out, he pulled into a winery for a wine tasting. I love wine, but Mike does not touch any alcohol at all....hasn't for over 30 years. It was such a nice surprise. I accused him of trying to get me really loopy with wine and the pain pills I was on. He bought me a bottle of the wine I liked the best during the tasting.

We hit the road again and arrived to pick up our turkeys. He had several hens and toms and they were all running loose, so it took a little bit to corner them and catch them. They were beautiful and they were a bunch of gobbling fools.... exactly what I wanted. Before we left he loaded me up with a few hatching eggs... some black tailed japanese bantams and some more guinea eggs. Those will be going into the incubator today.

We looked at the radar per our phones and decided if we headed home we would be driving right into some of the storm. Instead, on a whim, we turned the opposite direction and drove down to Checoukan's at Columbus, KS. We decided we were already over half way there, so why not drive down and surprise her? She had no idea we were coming down, even though I sent her several texts (so I could be sure they were going to be home.)

We had a wonderful visit, and Mike said he would drive back during the night. He would rather drive at night anyway. While at Checoukan's she had a really nice surprise for me. She sent me home with a trio of young rosecombs out of her new trio, a little blue-red old english that I am going to give to a friend, and a bunch of hatching eggs from rosecombs, brown red and BBred old english.

We said our goodbyes and left her place about 10:30pm. I was afraid we were going to drive into some pretty nasty weather on the way home, but other than lots of strong wind, we avoided all storms. Once we turned west from St. Joseph we started to see lightning, but got home and unloaded just before 3:00am. We were in the house just a few minutes when it started to rain. We got some heavy rain and a little hail, then that was it, so we really lucked out.

It was a wonderful day.

 

[Ivywoods]

Now for today. We got a late start because we got so little sleep. We clipped the wings on the royal palms and turned them into their new digs. Other than a little chest thumping, I think everyone in there is going to get along fairly well.

These guys are gobbling like crazy. They are even getting my quiet blue slate to gobble some! Here they are in their pen. This is a pen I used last year as a grow out pen for my chickens. It worked great. I let the weeds get really big in their and they hid under the weeds a lot. I watered the weeds so they would have a cool place to dig in the moist ground. It was so hot last summer I think they did really well in my "weed pen."

The RP's feathers are totally messed up from their long trip in the carrier that was just a little small. Also, the wind was blowing so hard it was just about to blow me off my unstable feet while I took pictures.

 

[Ivywoods]

After getting the turkeys to their new pen we went into the barn to put the new little rosecombs and OE in pen. Upon entering the barn we discovered the broody wheaten ameraucana hens had hatched some chicks. I had 10 eggs under them, and I could count 7 chicks, without moving the hen remaining in the nest. I had been taking the eggs out from under her at first, then I decided to just go ahead and let her hatch some since I wasn't setting any in the incubator because of my upcoming surgery. At that point I put whatever ameraucana eggs I found that day under her. There were wheaten, lavender and black.

Not the best pictures, but I try my best not to disturb the new mama's at all. One hen is tending the chicks on the ground, and the other hen is still in the nest with the remaining nest. I am thinking I will let them try to raise them, at least for a while. As soon as I rest up a bit (I already feel like I've overdone it today) I will go out and be sure the chicks have food and water they can safely get to.

 

[averytds]

Prayers and

Hope all is well & stays that way.

 

[Trish44]

IVY, wow you had quite an adventurous day, how fun! I'm glad you were able to get your turkeys & had a good visit with checoukan. Those are some pretty turkeys, I'm looking forward to hopefully hatching some of those. I have had some in the incubator for about a week so they have awhile to go yet. I'm going to get about 8 more eggs on Weds. of the Royal Palms, so out of those & the ones I already have hopefully I will get a few. I'm hoping when mine get big enough they will call in the wild turkeys too, we have quite a few around here. Those are some cute chicks with your hens! If that is a lavender chick on the ground they do look totally different than my lavender/black splits. I have told a couple of the people that have bought chicks from me to send me pics when they get feathered out so I can see what colors they end up. I figure some of them will end up being black & some will be lavender, but whether they will be as light as the hens I have, that remains to be seen, it will be interesting.

 

[Deerfield Acres]

Ivy, I wondered how your trip went, sounds great! It's good you could prop your leg up. I was really busy with everything going on yesterday and my ankle is complaining today. The pain meds don't seem to work for me so I'm just taking ibuprofen but will have to give it a break today. Those RP's are just beautiful and the chicks! That's awesome. I want those lavender chicks very badly but really don't need them. I got 25 free Ameracauna/really EE's from Mt. Healthy with my 50 SSX. I love them. I just realized I have 3 EE hens for sure and possibly 4. I'm going to keep one of the roosters so I can hatch chicks. Two of my EE hens are goldenish and one is silver. They're far plainer than the roos but still pretty.

This one has the golden carmel neck with a chocolate colored body. She's really pretty in the sun.



This is my grey/silverish pullet. She's really friendly and sweet.

This next bird is a puzzle. I thought it was a roo but now I can't decide since the comb is much smaller and paler than the other boys. What do you think?



That's the same bird from the side. It's also smaller than the other boys. I don't know. It's awfully pretty for a girl. Just for comparison the white EE on the far right of the pic has one of the smallest combs of all the EE's but it's bright red.

Let me know what you think.

 

[Ivywoods]

The one silvery colored one on the ground is a lavender. The one on the ground by the hen (yellow chick) is a wheaten. In the bucket nest, where you can see 4 chicks in front, from left to right it is black, lavender, wheaten, lavender.

I just finished putting eggs in the incubator. My incubator is almost totally full! That's the most eggs I've ever had incubating at one time. If I get a very good hatch at all I'm going to have chicks coming out my ears in 3 weeks!

Guess I better get busy setting up some more brooder space. I know what I have would be inadequate for that many chicks for more than one or two days!

 

[Ivywoods]

Karen-the comb on that black and white one sure looks like a pullet. It is hard to tell sometimes, though. I've had ameraucanas that were almost completely mature before the roosters started getting their "rooster feathers" and their comb looked like a rooster. I almost got myself into trouble selling last year because I thought I had more pullets than I did when several of the "late bloomers" turned out to be cockerells.

 

[Deerfield Acres]

The one silvery colored one on the ground is a lavender. The one on the ground by the hen (yellow chick) is a wheaten. In the bucket nest, where you can see 4 chicks in front, from left to right it is black, lavender, wheaten, lavender.

I really, really like the lavender ones. I had a couple soft gray chicks and they sure are pretty now, except one has tons of rust on his wings, the other is just getting a bit of rust and is the prettier of the two.


Karen-the comb on that black and white one sure looks like a pullet.

That's what I thought, too. I'll just have to wait and see. If it turns out to be a pullet, I'll keep it. I'm going to choose one roo after HEChicken chooses a couple. She'll take this one if it's a roo to cross with her beautiful Silkie/EE hen. They will make some beautiful chicks! Either way, I'll be happy because I fully intend to con her out of a couple hatching eggs from that beautiful hen!