Consolidated Kansas

[pikeman94]

Most of you know I had surgery last week.......

Well last night I developed a fever.....

It is official....

I am INSANE! or rather CHICKEN INSANE!

Since I haven't been able to get a new coop/my current coop expanded, my pullets have been in the garage. It was rather hot yesterday and the poor little birds were all panting. So, Insane-man here turned the AC on in the garage to cool it off a little. I didn't let it run too long, just long enough to take the edge of the heat off. I am happy to report they are all not panting and gave me a sort of thumb up/wing up signal.

Did I mention I am INSANE?

 

[tweetysvoice]

What does that mean for the TSC that is down the street? Are they not in the city limits? If so, then ****! This is where I go get my chicks. The Olathe TSC strictly adheres to the 6 chicks per purchase. The Lawrence TSC doesn't care and will sell the chicks on a per chick basis. I guess the biggest difference is the Lawrence TSC can move more volume than the Olathe TSC.

I believe that TSC is literally just a block outside of city limits, so so-far I don't think that they are affected. I actually liked TSC's set-up better, but Orschlens had a much larger selection.

 

[HEChicken]

Guess what everybody!!! I went to check the hatcher this morning and I have ONE LITTLE BOURBON RED TURKEY already hatched!!!!! there are also TONS OF PIPS GOING ON!

Wow, I'm so excited for you! We need pics though.

Trish - you too! I can't wait to see pics of your RP's that hatched yesterday.

I wonder if I could name this chick (if he makes it..) "Crack"? ...

Why not? Years ago when I worked as a vet tech, we had a client bring in a pup she had found wandering on the side of the road. She had 2 yorkies so couldn't keep the pup and brought her to us to find a home for her. One of the vets gave the pup an exam and discovered she had a huge maggot growing in her eyelid so had to put the poor little thing under to remove it. Ten days went by and we tried to give that pup to every client who walked through the door but no one wanted her. In the meantime, I was caring for her and grew very fond of her so at that point I decided to take her home myself. She wound up being the best dog I've ever had. Anyway, as I was walking out with her, the vet who had done the surgery asked what I was going to call her and I told him I hadn't decided yet so he said "You should call her Grub" (because of the maggot). It was a joke and I laughed but.....her name was GRUB from that moment on!

 

[cherwill]

I apologize in advance because I know I'm going to miss somebody or something; I'm too far behind on this thread.

First off, congratulations to all of you with new hatches. I'm loving this, but I want more pictures! Speaking of which, Hawkeye, the pictures of the chick hatching were awesome. I never get to see that part of it, althrough right now I'm hearing the egg-laying song from my back yard. I'm looking forward to turkey baby pictures, too, because I don't think I've ever seen any.

Trish, are you going to get the knee injection? I think it might be worth a try at this point. Sa-weet score with all that free wood. I hope your DH is happy about it. Mine would drool all over a deal like that, even if we had nothing in particular planned. Eventually something would come up and there it would be, just waiting to be used.

Tweety and Hawkeye, I hope you're feeling better. For some reason, being sick in the summer feels so much worse than being sick in winter.

Hawkeye, I avidly look for updates on your eggs and chicks. I'm sorry when you lose one, but what great news about the waxed egg.
Danz, I'm always looking for your incubator posts, too, because I know I'd be just as nuts as you are, worrying all the time!

RVRoman, I don't believe hens crow. When we got our first chicks a couple of years ago, one started crowing. I had done a lot of research online since we were total newbies to chicken raising, and I kept running across people claiming that, in the absence of a roo, a particularly dominant pullet or hen will sometimes take over roo responsibilities and will even crow. The only person with chickens that we knew at the time thought it was built more like a pullet than a roo, but had never in her life heard of a female crowing. I got my hopes up that the stories online were true. Of course the bird turned out to be a roo. In the couple of years since then, I have not yet met anyone IRL or here who has experienced a hen crowing. You cracked me up with your forgotten order of chicks! That's something I could probably do. I also enjoyed the nerd binary humor. I agree with your DH, that bird should be named Foghorn! I love it.

Ivy, I got a kick out of the firecrackers and underwear story. I can only imagine the goats' horror!

Karen, I have to laugh at your possibly having dreamt the conversation. I do that sometimes. I'm certain I've had a conversation with DH or my mom, but when I reference it, they have no idea what I'm talking about. Then I'm never sure if the original conversation was a dream, or if I'm just taking that last step off the edge ... In your case, it probably doesn't matter since your DH is just going to go with it!

Josie, the goslings are so pretty. I don't get to see those very often, either.

Pikeman, AC in the garage for a bunch of birds. Sounds normal to me.

Tweety, that's insane about Orscheln. The article says this all stemmed from a citizen's report about the number of chicks at the store, then goes on to talk about the loon who was going to display and then kill all those chickens. I wonder if it's related and she's the one who filed a complaint. You know they're going to end up granting an exception or writing in a clause about different rules for commercial zones, but first they're going to spend a lot of money on lawyers and whatnot, and cost Orscheln some revenue in the meantime. Ridiculous.

HEChicken, I think you're right. I don't think it's right for a roo to crow when he's still in the peeping stage. You need to give him a talking to!

My day yesterday was not so good. My back has not been right all week. I think I ruined everything the doc did Monday by going right out and kneeling on the ground for a couple of hours at the garden. Then yesterday, I just had a minor meltdown. My nephew is still here. He and DH and my FIL are planning to try to fix one or both cars Saturday, but no one seems at all concerned with seeing whether or not the parts are available or need to be ordered. I'm stressing out over what to feed him because he's sort of picky and critical. Even if he generally likes what I make, he always finds something to criticize. I know DH and I eat a little differently than most of our family, but I'm trying to keep it to basic food I think he will like. It would be nice not to hear, "It's good BUT ..." The constant talking, when I'm used to spending half of my days and evenings completely alone except for dogs, is wearing on me, although we've had some very good conversations. It's just all wearing on me and the final straw was when I realized we'd have to cancel our movie weekend. I have a friend in Wichita and a couple of friends in Topeka. We try to get together regularly for a weekend and catch up with each other and watch some movies. Because of DH's schedule, there are only 13-15 weekends a year where we're available for the whole weekend. Those get whittled down because of various other obligations among all of us. We'd planned for this weekend, the first one that worked for everyone since before Halloween last year. Now it's blown apart by cars on Saturday and my SIL just now deciding the only day we can celebrate my brother's birthday is Sunday.

And we had to mow yesterday and my back hurts so much I can barely bend forward and now I have some problem going on with my right ankle. I lost it yesterday. It wasn't pretty.

Today's better. Everything still hurts, but my mood is better. This morning, before we'd gotten outside, Gypsy started barking like mad. I looked out back and there was a man, two dogs and several kids (middle school age, I think) walking down our alley. They went by, turned around a came back, looked in the yard and wondered among themselves, Where are the chickens? For some reason, DH and I got a kick out of that. Who knew people were looking forward to seeing our chickens on their walk?

Sorry this is so long, but I had a lot of catching up to do! One last thing: Air conditioning (houses, not garages, Pikeman!). Some of you have mentioned you haven't turned yours on yet. We haven't either. Do you like it hotter, or does your house stay cooler? I think it's both in our case, plus I try to put off the expense for as long as possible. Maybe it's all the mature trees, but our house stays much cooler for much longer than almost anyone I know. We open the windows at night and, if it's going to get too warm during they day, close them to keep the cooler air in and the warmer air out. We also don't like to cool it too much because we work so much outside. It'd be hard to make ourselves go out in 120 degrees (I only slightly exaggerate) if we kept it at 70 in our house.

So it's 10 now and I'm still in my jammies, typing away. I'm going to call my aunt and see if she'll go pull the radishes that are ready (I noticed quite a few when we dropped off grass clippings at the garden yesterday), and do some laundry so I'll feel like I got something done today. If I'm really ambitious, I'll weed the beds here at home and maybe pick and wash some arugula and a few herbs. Have a great day everyone!

 

[pikeman94]

I believe that TSC is literally just a block outside of city limits, so so-far I don't think that they are affected. I actually liked TSC's set-up better, but Orschlens had a much larger selection.

I agree, TSC's select was no where as good as Orschlen's.

 

[HEChicken]

My day yesterday was not so good. My back has not been right all week. I think I ruined everything the doc did Monday by going right out and kneeling on the ground for a couple of hours at the garden. Then yesterday, I just had a minor meltdown. My nephew is still here. He and DH and my FIL are planning to try to fix one or both cars Saturday, but no one seems at all concerned with seeing whether or not the parts are available or need to be ordered. I'm stressing out over what to feed him because he's sort of picky and critical. Even if he generally likes what I make, he always finds something to criticize. I know DH and I eat a little differently than most of our family, but I'm trying to keep it to basic food I think he will like. It would be nice not to hear, "It's good BUT ..." The constant talking, when I'm used to spending half of my days and evenings completely alone except for dogs, is wearing on me, although we've had some very good conversations. It's just all wearing on me and the final straw was when I realized we'd have to cancel our movie weekend. I have a friend in Wichita and a couple of friends in Topeka. We try to get together regularly for a weekend and catch up with each other and watch some movies. Because of DH's schedule, there are only 13-15 weekends a year where we're available for the whole weekend. Those get whittled down because of various other obligations among all of us. We'd planned for this weekend, the first one that worked for everyone since before Halloween last year. Now it's blown apart by cars on Saturday and my SIL just now deciding the only day we can celebrate my brother's birthday is Sunday.

And we had to mow yesterday and my back hurts so much I can barely bend forward and now I have some problem going on with my right ankle. I lost it yesterday. It wasn't pretty.

One last thing: Air conditioning (houses, not garages, Pikeman!). Some of you have mentioned you haven't turned yours on yet. We haven't either. Do you like it hotter, or does your house stay cooler?

I don't really like it hot but I don't like high energy bills either so I put up with it. At this time of year I can handle it because even if it gets hot in the house, it cools off enough at night that we can open all the windows and start the next morning with a cool house again. It will stay comfortable through about 2pm and then start to heat up again. In mid-summer when it stays hot all night is when I finally have to break down and turn on the AC. But the other thing I do like about keeping the house that bit warmer is that I spend a lot of time outdoors doing chores. If it is 60 in the house, and 90 outside, the heat really blasts me when I go outside and I wind up feeling hotter than if it is 80 in the house. Then it doesn't feel that bad to go outside and work.

 

[chicken danz]

Boy you've been chatty this morning.
My air conditioner has been running for weeks. My bills are ridiculous anyway because of heat lamps and incubators, or multiple fans going in the summer. I see it this way. I suffered when I was younger, but at my age I just want to be comfortable. I hate humidity. I don't mind heat but the combination with humidity is unbearable. So to eliminate the humidity the AC gets turned on. I run a dehumidifier too but it is noisy so I shut it off if I want some peace and quiet. .
I've been messing with my hatcher all morning. Something is fowled up. I have had all these great hatches for months and all of a sudden I am having trouble with birds getting out of the shell. I had tons of guinea eggs but many of them pipped and didn't make it out. Many others haven't pipped. Oh I hatched some but obviously I have something going on. I had a group of chicken eggs that didn't hatch well either. Now I have some duck and pheasant eggs I really need to hatch.
So I took the back off the Hatcher and checked the fan, cleaned out all the fuzz, and am trying to get the temperature stable again. My problems began when my auto water system stopped flowing. I fixed that problem but am still having hatching problems. So much for being an expert.

I now have two thermometers and hygrometers in there and I'm trying to regulate the thing to perfection. I'm about ready to start cracking guinea eggs myself to see if all the chicks died. Ugh!
We have to go to Topeka here after bit to get some more things for the building. I need to run to town to take care of some business but haven't even thought about doing that yet.
I sold some baby ducks this morning and the buyer is wanting to bring his kids over for a bird outing. He said when he gets his pens done he wants to come buy chicks.
I have someone coming Sunday to take some of my excess breeder drakes to use for fly control.
I'm still waiting for the guy to come buy all the chicks he said he wanted.
Checoukan will be here Sunday with my K-State pullets.
So I'm thinking about maybe ordering some chicks just to check quality of this hatchery I can buy wholesale from. I am guessing I will try for maybe 3 weeks down the road. If any one wants anything I can order for you. I am supposed to re-sale these chicks to be legal so I really would like to have some for someone else. I certainly don't need any more birds but I'm thinking maybe I could add some new blood lines to my existing breeds.
I am supposed to have some Mille Fleur D'Uccle eggs coming from Rhode Island on a trade for pheasant eggs. These are top quality birds. So since I potentially will have one more breed of bird added to my ever going menagerie, I thought I might order a few of those chicks just to compare quality.
See all of you, this is true chicken algebra...not math.

 

[chicken danz]

Oh I forgot....That crap about not selling chickens is ridiculous. If I were a Lawrenceonian (people who live in Lawrence or near by) I would be at the next city council meeting raising a ruckus. Who elects these stupid uninformed people?
And RVroman, yes you can breed bantams to LF. You just wouldn't have purebred offspring. A Houdan isn't a large bird. It is a small framed medium bird that would have smaller sized chicks.

 

[Trish44]

KarenS, congrats on the little turkey! Did you say you're hatching these for someone else? Be careful with that sunburn. I have to be extremely careful in the sun, I'm so pale skinned, it goes back to my European heritage.

Well I have 6 baby turkeys today, 5 Royal Palms & a Black Spanish, that's what I found out the baby is, you'll see it in the photo. The lady has offered to send me 6 new eggs since somebody messed up. I'm not sure if I want 6 more or not. I have those others in the incubator, I may candle them again & see how many I think are growing. They still have two more weeks to go yet before they're due to hatch, so they're only half-way there. I don't think one of the little Royal Palms is going to make it, it doesn't look like it's doing well. All four of the others are doing OK. It just takes the turkeys a lot longer to get going than the chicks, they're really unsteady on their feet & they tend to get flipped over & not be able to right themselves. I go down there & look in every once in awhile & find one laying on it's back with it's feet in the air. My DH has not figured out yet that these aren't chicks, he has looked at them & not noticed they look different than all of the other chicks I have hatched. Anyway, I don't know what I will do with the Black Spanish except sell it, it's not something I wanted & doesn't fit into my plans. Anybody want a black spanish turkey poult? I guess this is a heritage breed & kind of rare now from what I'm reading. Here is a pic of them in the hatcher, (other than the one not doing well) they're not all dried off yet:


This pic shows the black spanish one really well.


Here is one of the first two that hatched. They hatched yesterday, so they're a lot fluffier than the others now.

Wow, it took me awhile to catch up on reading. There is no way I can remember all I read, so I'll just say congrats to those who are hatching & we want pics! I hope you all have a good day, it's going to be hot & I have so much to do today it's not funny.

 

[Hawkeye95]

Pikeman-- you're not insane, but you ARE crazy. Now, you can be Crazy Chicken Man, because you know darned well the majority of us are Crazy Chicken Ladies! LOL I don't think it's strange or wrong at all that you turned on the AC. If I'd had one available and my chicks were cooking in the garage, I'd have done the same thing! I did have a chuckle over your supposed "fever" though. You can tell your DW that is what happened! hehehe! But I'm with your birds-- I give you a feathery "thumbs up".

HeChicken-- I LOVE your story about Grub, and what a great name-- so fitting for him. Okay, yeah, IF (that's a great big IF) this baby in wax makes it-- I'm calling it Crack. hehe!

Cherwill-- so sweet that you are interested in my chicks. I mean, I am always excited about other's too, but it's not the same when they aren't yours.

I'm so sorry about your back, and that probably (with everything else you do around there) is likely why you are getting really annoyed and frustrated. Personally, my rule of the house is, if you don't eat it, you starve. I make a lot of casseroles. I do that because then I don't have to cook the next day!! (left overs) The neighbor kids used to want to always eat dinner with us, and finally stopped asking! LOL I don't make chicken nuggets and corn dogs like their mom's do. I don't even have soda in the house, and I try to cook as healthy as I can within reason. I'm not stupid about it. I'm not one of those crazy health freaks, but I do try to cram veggies in what I do make. Honestly, I think he should be feeling pretty lucky that you cook at all. I'd just keep cereal, and bread and cold cuts available when he's not in agreement of your dinners. But otherwise, I don't think you need to make a lot of concessions if you don't feel up to it. And you know what? It makes me angry FOR YOU that you are having to give up your girl time to be with your friends when that was planned in advance. I have a GNO (girls night out) every single month, and I put it on the calendar and I know I've come off as rude to my own family, but that is MY time, and I don't get a lot of ME time. Nothing interferes with it. I think you should still do your girls thing and ask for the birthday party to be at lunch or in the evening-- basically in a slot that won't interfere with your time out with your friends. Ive done that a lot. IN fact, that is what is going on this weekend. My oldest son was invited to a friend's birthday party like 3 weeks ago. I said we'd come. Then my MIL calls me and tells me that she's going to have my brother in laws party on the SAME day/time. I politely told her that we had already scheduled a previous party to go to and that I'd be more than happy to work with her and asked if she could do it before or after our own event. She was NOT happy. But I got a call this morning from her, that after she'd thought it over and realized that HELLO-- last minute events don't work for us, that she was willing to have the party in the evening so we could make it. It really wasn't that hard, but you need to stick up for yourself and make yourself happy too.

Danz, I'm with you! We've had our AC on for WEEKS!! I can NOT handle being hot. I just don't do well in heat. I get sick, I faint, I am worthless. I am a hard worker until it comes down to really hot days. Even then I can work in the am before the heat and in the evening after it. I'm so sorry about your hatcher! That is terrible that you are having such a hard time with it! I have no clue how to even help you or offer advice on that one. I'll just pray that you get it figured out and can get it back and running quickly! That is awesome that you got your birds being sold! And what a neat idea to check out the hatchery and see what kind of quality you get in birds. If I ever get rid of my white silkie roos-- I'd love to get just one pretty LF Polish rooster! And what an excellent idea you have about showing up at a council meeting! Everyone should band together on that one!!

Trish--- OMGosh!!!!!!!!!!! They are so stinkin' cute!!!!!!!! I really love that black spanish one! I don't need another turkey, but man oh man, I could see him running around gobbling in my yard! Except that I obviously have no good place to put him, since my coyotes are stalking my place. My "plunkers" are all getting cleaned and spiffed up. (evil laugh) And I do not want to go thru seeing anything else die. But I wish I could talk my DH into it.... I might mention it anyway just to see his reaction. With all my chicks I'm hatching, he'll probably come unglued! LOL Anyway, I sure hope they all make it and they get strong and you don't loose any of them. Be strong turkeys!!!