Consolidated Kansas

[chicken danz]

Thanks for the info, Hawkeye. Actually they aren't new breeds themselves, but heritage breeds and/or new colors. By heritage breeds I mean some that have never been to the U.S. until recently and some that were extinct and have been imported again. I probably don't have the time to mess with it but it would be nice to show some. There are national poultry shows which have nothing to do with 4H but I would have to travel to those. I certainly couldn't afford that!
I really don't care that much because I love having something different and special. And if I can make some money off of chicks or eggs I will be one happy camper. This year has been a total bust. I have spent a fortune and sold very little comparatively. If it weren't for the ducks,guineas, and pheasant I would be in big trouble.
The people that were here yesterday immediately noticed how many fewer chickens I had. Yay! I guess that means I am making some progress!

 

[Hawkeye95]

Thanks for the info, Hawkeye. Actually they aren't new breeds themselves, but heritage breeds and/or new colors. By heritage breeds I mean some that have never been to the U.S. until recently and some that were extinct and have been imported again. I probably don't have the time to mess with it but it would be nice to show some. There are national poultry shows which have nothing to do with 4H but I would have to travel to those. I certainly couldn't afford that!
I really don't care that much because I love having something different and special. And if I can make some money off of chicks or eggs I will be one happy camper. This year has been a total bust. I have spent a fortune and sold very little comparatively. If it weren't for the ducks,guineas, and pheasant I would be in big trouble.
The people that were here yesterday immediately noticed how many fewer chickens I had. Yay! I guess that means I am making some progress!

Well, then, I'm guessing they would already have a class for those birds! I bet you could easily show them. Very cool!! And at the same time, good advertising for you! Especially if you won something. You could set up a Free-webs website for your birds and take pictures of them with their ribbons. Even if they don't win anything, just taking a picture of them at the show-- THAT shows people you are serious about what you are doing. So I'd still show a picture of them in their cage. I'm excited for you and these heritage birds!!!

 

[Trish44]

Danz, what do you feed your peafowl? Mine seem pretty picky as far as what type of feed they will eat. I'm between buying feed right now so they're going to have to eat what I have, but I was reading that some people feed them as close as they can to what they would get in the wild like bird seed & then supplement with peanuts, fruit & veggies. I have been looking at colors of peafowl & am really liking the opal, especially the opal black shoulder, so I'm thinking next year I'm going to try to get some of those. I have found a place online that I can order from & have them shipped. Pretty much nobody has any peachicks left at this point, they're all sold out, so I'm going to get the young one I know I can get next week & call it good for this year. The other lady never did catch the yearling, so I'm about to give up on her. At least if I get the one male I will have a trio & then next year can get some other color.

Wow this cooler air really feels nice, it got outright chilly here last night. It's going to warm back up again to the 90s for a few days & then cool off again. I guess this is the time of year we have that back & forth temperature variation for awhile until it just cools off.

I put my three little sick chicks in a rabbit cage in the garage last night since it got so chilly. I didn't think they needed to get chilled when they were already sick. I keep waiting for this Sulmet to get here, but it may take awhile. In the meantime I'm giving them Tylan again, I just didn't think the Denagard was doing anything to help them. At least in this cage they will be in a cleaner environment & they will have a little more room to move around, they were kind of crowded in that crate. I sure hope they get over this because all 3 are my imported birds. I just don't know what else to get them that would get them better quicker. I'm giving them vitamins in the water too. The ones out in the grow-out pen seem to not have gotten as sick, I'm still treating them until I feel like it's all cleared up, but they're running around like crazy in there, so I don't think any of them feel bad like the ones in the cage.

I don't know if we will have the chance to go to the State Fair this year or not, most likely not because we have things coming up in the next two weeks that are going to take money to do. It's been awhile since we've been there, but not as long as some. I would have liked to take my granddaughter, but with her having to have all of this dental work I don't think it's going to happen, maybe next year.

 

[chicken danz]

Well it is a very sad morning here at the bird zoo! I am ready to cry. I went out to feed and water and found all kinds of bad effects from the storm yesterday I failed to see last evening. All of my button quail drowned. They only have a half inch deep tray in their pens but that storm blew in from the northwest with 60 mph winds which put it directly in their pen. I think it was too strong for them. I also lost 5 baby guineas . They were in a pen on the west side of the hen house in the best protected area they could be in,but I guess the wind drove the rain right through the hardware cloth. It had a wood bottom and top but it was obviously too much for them.
I moved some young roos back into the brooder house cause they got wet and chilled and they were fine.
But the worst of all and I did check them after the storm was I lost one of my midget white turkeys. I think she must have got crowded by the others in their tiny house and gotten suffocated. It just breaks my heart. We are going to get those stinking pens up on that building if it kills me. At least my turkeys would have shelter then.
Then to top off the rest I have 600 pounds of feed that got soaked because the lids blew off the containers. We have it laid out on a trailer so hopefully it will dry and not mold.
Trish I feed my peafowl what the other birds eat. They aren't crazy about it. They love cucumbers and melons. And I am sure they would love bugs if some would happen to show up. I've given them some game bird chow but they don't seem interested. They totally love peanuts, bread, sunflower seeds, etc. So maybe giving them a little wild bird seed would work well. I also gave them some bean plants that didn't produce and they really enjoyed eating those. The guy I got my adults from fed his dog food and scraps but they free ranged all the time too.

 

[Trish44]

Danz, I'm sorry for your losses, especially the turkey, I know how hard you had to work to get those. Yeah I have read in several places that people feed their peafowl dry cat food for the protein & that was on big peafowl farm sites too. Mine really like sunflower seed & since I buy it for my chickens anyway I do throw them some about every day. Today I just cleaned out some old bananas & some older blueberries that were in the freezer, the end of the bread loaf & things like that & they & the guineas in with them had a feast. I need to do some more cleaning out the freezers, so they may get some more when I get the time to do that. They really seem to like the fruit, even the bananas. My chickens just love it when I have too ripe bananas I'm throwing out to them, they fight over the chunks I throw them. I cut up apples past their prime too & the chickens just go nuts.

I'm thinking I may just have to go back to the bagged feed like I was buying before. This bulk stuff just hasn't worked out well for me it seems like. My chickens have been acting like they're just starving & I used up 200 pounds in two weeks. I never used that much feed when I bought the regular layer feed, so if I'm going to have to buy twice as much that's not going to save me any money & they don't act like they're doing that well with the feed anyway if their hunger isn't satisfied. The ones that act so starved are the ones free ranging too, so I just don't think they're getting enough of what they need or something with that finely ground stuff. Gosh people used to just feed scratch & whatever table scraps they had left & the chickens free-ranged & they must have done fine on that. We worry so much now about what percent protein & what they get to eat & all. How did the jungle fowl survive on just what they found to eat? It kind of makes you wonder.

 

[HEChicken]

I went to see the chickens first (of course). The BO hens and pullets they were showing were double the size of my BO hen. They were HUGE. I didn't see a single Campine in the place, but there were lots of RIRs and BOs and Speckled Sussexes. Lovely birds. There was a little white silkie that was adorable (I understand he was a hatchery quality from an earlier post). I see why some of you really like them. I had never seen the porcelain coloring before, either, and it is lovely.

I saw the poultry there last year and was struck by the same thing - how huge they are all. I don't know how they do it! Any time I see someone with a backyard flock, they are about the same size as mine but you go to the State Fair and its like they're all on steroids.

Well it is a very sad morning here at the bird zoo! I am ready to cry. I went out to feed and water and found all kinds of bad effects from the storm yesterday I failed to see last evening. All of my button quail drowned. They only have a half inch deep tray in their pens but that storm blew in from the northwest with 60 mph winds which put it directly in their pen. I think it was too strong for them. I also lost 5 baby guineas . They were in a pen on the west side of the hen house in the best protected area they could be in,but I guess the wind drove the rain right through the hardware cloth. It had a wood bottom and top but it was obviously too much for them.
I moved some young roos back into the brooder house cause they got wet and chilled and they were fine.
But the worst of all and I did check them after the storm was I lost one of my midget white turkeys. I think she must have got crowded by the others in their tiny house and gotten suffocated. It just breaks my heart. We are going to get those stinking pens up on that building if it kills me. At least my turkeys would have shelter then.
Then to top off the rest I have 600 pounds of feed that got soaked because the lids blew off the containers. We have it laid out on a trailer so hopefully it will dry and not mold.

So sorry for all of your losses and the feed too.

How did the jungle fowl survive on just what they found to eat? It kind of makes you wonder.

My thinking is that they survived because they weren't expected to produce an egg a day. It is producing all of those eggs that makes them need to much nutrition. We could cut down on the calories but then they wouldn't have the reserves needed to lay eggs but every once in a while.

Hawkeye, I didn't know about Free Fridays. Not that it would have made a difference this year as I couldn't have gone anyway but I'll try to keep it in mind for the future. My kids are going Monday with school but I don't know if I'll make it this year. I had to go last year as I had to work a shift in one of the booths and I got to walk around for a bit during my dinner hour, but spent all of that time in the poultry barn.

What a gorgeous day today - if only the whole year could be like this. Cool morning, warm but not hot day, no wind.....

I just went outside and sat in my new chick run with the chicks where apparently I am considered to be a chickie adventure playground. There are 9 chicks but at any given time at least 4 of them were clambering all over me. I was wearing shorts and they were using their claws to keep from slipping and falling....'nuff said. It was worth it though.

 

[Trish44]

HEChicken, Yeah you're probably right, the jungle fowl survived, but nobody was there collecting eggs every day to see how many they laid. I know mine have severely cut down lately, so when I buy feed again I'm just going to go back to what I was doing before I decided to buy in bulk. I just don't think my chickens are doing that well on that stuff. I guess it was worth a try & I tried it & it didn't work out. I think if the CO-OP didn't grind their grain down until it was dust it would work out better, but all the feed I got from them was like that, it was just a meal type thing rather than feed. The only grain I could even discern in it was tiny, tiny bits of corn, all the rest was so fine it was dust. I saw that someone on one of the FB sites said they got their CO-OP to coarse grind the grain for them, but I don't know how much I would have to buy in order to get them to do that for me here. The turkeys won't even eat the stuff unless I mix water in it & mix it up like a mash & the peafowl just ignore it completely.

 

[chicken danz]

I moved the last batch of lavenders out to the brooder house. I need to move these Swedish flower hen chicks out too. My next batch of SFH are due to go into the hatcher tomorrow and hatch on Tuesday. I went and pressure washed all the feed troughs and then washed the waterers in hot soapy bleach water. Hopefully they'll all do okay out there. I worry a whole lot more about these expensive birds!!
I'm just really feeling defeated right now loosing those birds. I've been out raking the feed every couple of hours trying to get it to dry so I can safely get it back in the bins.
Most birds have been domesticated for a couple hundred years. The jungle fowl had all kinds of bugs and fruit and stuff to eat. A lot more so than our modern day birds ever have. People used to provide for all their own food and I am sure whatever they didn't eat went to the animals. There's a huge difference in what kind of scraps we would have today as opposed to what they would have had 100 years ago.
What amazes me is how chickens ever survived periods like the dust bowl.
Well I'm going to drag myself out and move some more birds around.

 

[MarcAustin]

Can any Kansan here explain to me the meaning /purpose of hanging large Catfish heads from barbed wire fences ?? Decor? Trophies ??

 

[Kansaseq]

Can any Kansan here explain to me the meaning /purpose of hanging large Catfish heads from barbed wire fences ?? Decor? Trophies ??

Wow. I've seen a few deer skulls on fence posts, and have heard of putting coyote carcasses on them, too (shudder),but never catfish. That's a new on one me!