Consolidated Kansas

[ChicknBaron]

We went to the city council meeting tonite and they all seemed kinda open minded (except for one stinker, that has never liked my dad) but they graciously extended the deadline to move them... I think we have a good chance!

We'll attend the next meeting to hear what theyve come up with.

P.S. sorry for the dumb question, but what is a DH?

 

[Chickies-duckies-etc]

Wheat bran for the meal worms is a lot cheaper by the 50 lb bag from a feed store. Maybe $8, don't remember for sure. And that bag is bigger than a bag of chicken feed. You could use chicken feed or any grains, but they do well in the bran. The way HEChicken did it works great - a plastic container, some substrate, mealworms from a pet shop, or anywhere, and potato or carrot slices for moisture. Keep the veggies fresh, mold is bad. The beetles do not fly, so they will not invade your house.

 

[sharol]

DH = dear husband
DS = dear son

You get the pattern.

 

[sharol]

When you read the horror stories of the awful lives chickens (for eggs or meat) being commercially raised experience, humane slaughter of well treated livestock seems like a good alternative.

Sharol

Okay, so just adding my 2 cents on the pasty butt removal procedure. I used to be a soaker but turned into a plucker. Either way, the poor babies do not look kindly on me.

I've had far less of it since raising my own birds but I had a case from the birds I bought this weekend. Not fun, but done.

I have also processed between 70 - 80 birds this past year. The first one was by far the absolute hardest thing to do. It took me about 45 minutes to get the courage up. The kids and I thought home raised was so much better than store bought but DH doesn't care for it. His attitude has improved slightly but I don't see him getting excited about my raising meat birds specifically. I will process excess roos, though, unless I've managed to get attached. I'm sure the dogs won't mind eating DH's share! Ha! Kidding. There are more than enough kids here willing to do that.

More than the taste, I like knowing the bird had a life before death and I like knowing everything about what went into growing that bird. I believe I'm teaching something really valuable to the children about where their food comes from and the realities of commercial production.

Who knew I would love the silly creatures so much. They are such a joy to watch and work with. I've also met lots of really nice and interesting people along the way as well!

 

[Trish44]

KarenS, that's a really cute little tom turkey! My tom is a big boy now, he has really filled out recently, but has been molting, so some of his tail feathers are missing right now. He kind of looks like a kid that is missing teeth right in the middle. Their pen looks like it snowed feathers in there since they're white birds. Aren't those little Wellies cute little things. I have 3 pullets I kept for my general laying flock & one of them is getting close to the size of my other young pullets now, the other two are still smaller. I just integrated the larger one into the main coop & today brought the other two younger ones over there. I'm trying it again, the last time they ran back to the grow-out pen & wanted in at roosting time, so I let them go, but they need to get moved over. I'm trying to get various birds moved to the correct pens now before winter as much as I can. I can't move the breeders until the new coop is ready. I moved my black Ameraucana pullet in with the others tonight at bedtime, so we'll see how much of a ruckus there is in the morning. I figured out I do have at least one black Ameraucana rooster, he is just starting to show his roo feathers around the neck area. It seems like I've been waiting forever to be able to tell what these black birds were. There is still one smaller one I can tell about yet. We'll see how this one feathers out as to whether I want to use him for breeding or not. I'm supposed to breed one of the offspring from this year back to the lavender hens next spring & then I have one black pullet to breed back next spring to the black rooster. I should get lavender chicks next year if everything works out like it's supposed to.

I have two young lavender Orpington roosters to sell if anyone needs one. I kept one for my general flock, but still have two left to re-home. I'll probably put them up on the Poultry Swap if nobody here wants them. They're going to be pretty when they're grown, I just love that color. I didn't get even one lavender pullet out of the eggs I hatched, they were all roosters. I have only one lavender Orpington/ Porcelain Isabel pullet from the ones I got from Chooks, I was hoping for more lavenders, but I guess it wasn't to be. Maybe next year I can get a lavender pullet from someone. I have one Buff Orp pullet that is almost ready to lay soon. I can't wait until all my young pullets start laying.

Here are my goofy guineas up in the tree, I don't know if something scared them or they just decided it would be fun to go up there.



They stayed up there awhile & then came down & picked around in the woods again. They stayed out all afternoon until I went out at 5 & herded them back into the pen. They're doing really well with going back in so far, I was kind of worried about that because they're not full grown yet & some of them are still pretty small. I counted them all when I put them back in & they were all still there. Jasmine showed interest right at first when I let them out & then I put her collar on her & she just went away from there. I think she has figured out what that collar means, she is a very smart dog. I never have after the 2nd shock had to use the thing again, that was enough for her. Lily listens to me, so I have not put it on her at all. Danz, the guineas I got from you are growing fast, I will be putting them out in the pen with the others soon probably. That one I got from Atwoods is twice the size of the others, it's just growing like crazy. These all seem to be marked a little different from the others I have.

Someone asked me how my turkeys are doing with free-ranging. I haven't had enough time to let them out since I like to stay out there with them when they're out because I've been so busy & then was gone all weekend. I had thought I would have time to let them out today, but then forgot I had promised to go to my granddaughter's soccer game at 6. I had to hurry & get all my birds fed before I left to go to the game. They hear the guineas yelling about being out & seem to want to come out too, maybe I can let them out for awhile tomorrow. They don't seem to go very far when they do come out, so I've been happy about that.

As far as the meal worms go, oatmeal works fine for them, they don't seem to be that picky about what material you use. I may still have some beetles out there in my storage room in the plastic boxes I had them in. I just got busy & kind of forgot them for quite awhile & was surprised awhile back to look & still actually have live beetles in there. I just haven't wanted to mess with them that much, so I need to just go feed whatever beetles are left to the chickens & forget the whole thing. I thought I would try it, but I just found that it was more trouble than it was worth to me. I know the chickens love the worms, but the ones free-ranging get enough bugs around here & I feed them sunflower seeds for extra protein in the evenings for their bedtime snack. That's how I get them to go into the coop at night. You can get those small plastic sweater boxes pretty cheap at Dollar General if you want to try it. I just cut out most of the top of the box & hot glued a piece of window screen to it. You really need to feed them pretty often, they eat more than you think. They seemed to like apple slices better than carrot, but I put them on a plastic lid to keep the oatmeal dry so it wouldn't get moldy. I got my starter worms from a gal on BYC that sells them, but you can buy them on eBay too.

Josie, how is Lucie doing? Have you heard any news yet? She is young, she will pull through I'm sure. Fern really healed fast & is doing great now. She has had a small limp, but I think it's getting better all the time.

 

[JosieChick]

Hi all,

I promise I will catch up on everyone's posts tomorrow. Just wanted to let everyone know that Lucie is at Kansas State University in their ICU and stable tonight. She is scheduled for surgery tomorrow afternoon with the orthopedic surgeon and they think she will make a good recovery. I am so glad she is doing well and on lots of good pain meds. She has several vet students that will monitor her overnight for stress and pain so she is in good hands. Thank you so much to everyone for all your kind words and support. It means more than you will ever know. I am so grateful to have such a wonderful group of chicken friends!

 

[Deerfield Acres]

Hi all,

I promise I will catch up on everyone's posts tomorrow. Just wanted to let everyone know that Lucie is at Kansas State University in their ICU and stable tonight. She is scheduled for surgery tomorrow afternoon with the orthopedic surgeon and they think she will make a good recovery. I am so glad she is doing well and on lots of good pain meds. She has several vet students that will monitor her overnight for stress and pain so she is in good hands. Thank you so much to everyone for all your kind words and support. It means more than you will ever know. I am so grateful to have such a wonderful group of chicken friends!

Great news! Thanks for the update!

 

[Deerfield Acres]

We went to the city council meeting tonite and they all seemed kinda open minded (except for one stinker, that has never liked my dad) but they graciously extended the deadline to move them... I think we have a good chance!

We'll attend the next meeting to hear what theyve come up with.

P.S. sorry for the dumb question, but what is a DH?

That's great news! So glad for you -- nice work!

When you read the horror stories of the awful lives chickens (for eggs or meat) being commercially raised experience, humane slaughter of well treated livestock seems like a good alternative.

Sharol

Well said, Sharol!

KarenS, that's a really cute little tom turkey!

Thanks! I just love the little guy. DS told me this evening Tom and Tookie were snuggling together when Tom began to get romantic ideas. Tookie calmly turned to look at him and then beaked him on the head! Tom got the clue. So funny!

 

[Trish44]

KarenS, that's so funny about your hen turkey pecking the tom on the head! I'm wondering what I should put in the pen next year for nesting material for my hens, I'm going to have to read up on that & build something for them. I'm hoping they can hatch out some babies for me next year. They're so darned hard to incubate, so I'm going to try to have them sit on their own eggs & see how that goes. I have been told that if you have guineas loose where the turkeys nest they will attack the nests, but I'm not going to have them out where the guineas can get them. I would really like to have another hoop house about the same size as the peacock/guinea pen for my turkeys so they could have more room. Maybe that's a project for next year, we'll see. I sure like the hoop coop a lot better than the dog runs though with the rounded top to keep water from standing on it.

Josie, thanks for updating us, let us know how the surgery goes for Lucie.

 

[chicken danz]

Thank you so much for the information. It is very helpful! Would you mind sharing the ratios for your feed, please? For example, is it 25% corn, 25% crimped milo, 25% whole milo, 25% oats/wheat or are the ratios different?

At 1100 pounds I get 100 pounds oats or wheat. I get 200 pounds corn (300 in winter and reduce the milo by that much), 200 pounds poultry supplement, 300 pounds crimped milo, and 300 pounds whole milo. Fish meal or soybean meal can be added to raise protein levels higher as well.

Hawkeye, yes my DH is running this weekend only he's just doing the half instead of the whole marathon this time. He didn't feel like he had trained enough this time to do the whole one. For once he used some sense! I'm not sure whether I will come or not. I hate getting up that early & he told me I didn't have to go if I didn't want to. Since he's only doing the half he should be in good shape to drive home, he runs that amount of miles all the time. He told me after this marathon is over he is going to concentrate on just working on the coop to try to get it done, yay! I was about to give him a talking to about it, he must have read my mind because I've been really aggravated about very little progress getting done on it. I told him this weekend we need to get it closed in before bad weather gets here. Speaking of that, we got OSB for the roof to use under the Ondura roofing, but I got two clear skylights in that material, so I will have to leave two spots without OSB or what good will the skylights do. Do you all think those two spots will be OK without roofing underneath them? I don't know what that will do to keeping the warmth in, but I need extra light in there since it's a very shady place where the coop is. Any ideas anyone?

Trish the Yates Center sale is this weekend too. I am planning to go because I have to deliver a turkey there.
Quote:

Does anyone here raise their own meal worms? I've been researching it and really want to do it.

Josie is the most recent one to start a meal worm project. I'm not sure how that is going. I keep thinking I will but I am afraid it is going to become too time consuming for me to stick with it. If I could just keep them outside in the chicken house I think I'd do better.
Quote:

Hawkeye, ha ha, if I posted a pic of our new coop everyone would surely laugh at me. We used old tin siding from another shed we are tearing down. We bought some new lumber to build the frame, but some of it is boards from an old bed frame. It has new shingles, and a recycled storm window. The door is actually an old window screen but it's plenty tall enough for a door. I will cover the door if necessary. The tin siding worked out great because this coop was built attached to the barn and it matches the siding on that side of the barn becuase that part is an addition. Talk about hillbilly, but it looks like it's supposed to be there. We did get the concrete on the floor, and it works and is quite functional. I'm happy it was done in 2 weeks. My entire family wants me to shoot but I tend to panic with guns, someone close to me was killed by a gun years ago and I think it stems from that. I start shaking when they ask me to hold it so they can do something.

I hit two puppies once. I saw one on the left side of the road in the ditch and I slammed on the breaks and of course my eyes were pretty focused on the puppy and then 3 more ran across from the right side. Two puppies died, I removed them from the road so they wouldn't be hit again, I was crying and shaking and I walked up to the house. All of my kids were in the van too, they were crying. I knocked on the door and explained what happened and apologized all over myself and the lady was yelling at me that I got her two favorite ones and she followed me back to the van and continued to yell at me and the kids were a bit startled. I do think it's the right thing to do to tell the owner, but geez. I'm so sorry about Lucie, that was just wrong to leave her there. I wish there were easy answers, I'm sure they didn't mean to hit her. I'm just so sorry.

I think with the butchering thing I'm really lucky, my boys have initiated it all without any prompting. They asked to do it, but meat has been scarce and I think they're just hungry growing boys.

Trish, what's OSB?

OSB stands for Oriented Strand board. It is actually wood chips glued and pressured together to form the board. Not to be confused with MDF (medium density fibreboard) which is actually made by breaking wood particles down into fibers and compressing them into a solid piece like what a lot of furniture is made of these days.

JosieChick and Trish44, thinking about both of you this evening.

So here's some pics to take your mind off things. Here is my new turkey "Tom". He's half Bourbon Red and half Royal Palm. Isn't he just cute? Oh, another silly piece of information. Did you know that hen turkeys will sometimes grow a beard like the males? Well, mine has a very small beard and the kids and I had no clue any turkeys grew beards! LOL! We freaked! I went to the internet and calmed down. It's like a long fibered brillo pad! It's totally ridiculous. At first I thought it was some major burr stuck in her but then I noticed it appeared to be growing from her. Anyway, I'm always learning something and laughing at myself for being so ignorant.
I noticed that beard on tookie last week. I thought it was a cuckleburr until I couldn't pick it off. I found an identical little prickly beard on one of my midget whites today.

If you want to see larger versions, just click on the pic.



Here are my new German New Hamps and Wellies I bought this past weekend.




Here are those plus the ones I hatched from my own birds all together. Aren't they cute little curious things?



You got German New Hamp chicks and you bought eggs as well? Lucky you!!!

JosieChick, here's Bertram perched in the tree after making a great escape! No problem for my Chicken Whisperers! He's back in the coop, safe and sound. We've kept him in the pet kennel until I can lower my rooster population. We don't want him getting hurt. He has calmed down considerably since we have easy access to him.




Danz, here's Lucy. She is the most affectionate little bird with DS. DS was so upset the other night because he couldn't find her to put her in. I told him not to worry, she was a very clever girl and had probably found a good safe spot. Sure enough, the next morning she was out and about just a perky as usual. They found her hiding spot so now she doesn't get by with spending the night outside.The kids love our Seramas!

I'm so glad the kids like the Seramas. This poor little girl had to live outside in a rooster pen with a make shift shelter. She just hasn't had life so good before now.

We went to the city council meeting tonite and they all seemed kinda open minded (except for one stinker, that has never liked my dad) but they graciously extended the deadline to move them... I think we have a good chance!

We'll attend the next meeting to hear what theyve come up with.

P.S. sorry for the dumb question, but what is a DH?

That's great news!

Hi all,

I promise I will catch up on everyone's posts tomorrow. Just wanted to let everyone know that Lucie is at Kansas State University in their ICU and stable tonight. She is scheduled for surgery tomorrow afternoon with the orthopedic surgeon and they think she will make a good recovery. I am so glad she is doing well and on lots of good pain meds. She has several vet students that will monitor her overnight for stress and pain so she is in good hands. Thank you so much to everyone for all your kind words and support. It means more than you will ever know. I am so grateful to have such a wonderful group of chicken friends!

So good to hear! Your such a good chicken, horse, doggy mama. You'll be a great baby mama too!

That's great news! So glad for you -- nice work!

Well said, Sharol!

Thanks! I just love the little guy. DS told me this evening Tom and Tookie were snuggling together when Tom began to get romantic ideas. Tookie calmly turned to look at him and then beaked him on the head! Tom got the clue. So funny!

Ha! Ha! I'll bet he ends up winning this battle eventually though! I love to watch the boys puff and strut!

Speaking of that I spent all afternoon working once I finally got outside. I got the roosts up and the gate finished and hung. I got one more piece of welded wire up that needed to be hung inside the building to divide pens. Then I carried over the turkeys two at a time. Did you know that turkeys will hiss like the geese do? I didn't know that until today. These guys are such sweeties I had to laugh. It's just not their personality to hiss. Obviously they didn't like being bundled in my arms and carried across the yard. I kept telling them they would appreciate their new home but I guess they will just have to discover it themselves. They got fresh food and water for the second time today and a nice half bale of straw in the building to lay in, plus a real roost to sit on.
I could have finished earlier but I am a bit anal about things and just had to be sure I had everything as close to level as possible. It was kind of hard to eyeball a board 8-10 feet away and try to set up support posts for a roost to go between them and keep it level in both directions. I had C clamps everywhere and still needed 3 or 4 more hands, but I finally got it done. I ran out of time to move the peachicks out. Their pen is done. I am just trying to decide whether to keep them off the ground for a while longer or not.
I still need to have a way to separate that pen though because I have another pair of yearlings that needs to go in there. I don't want the smaller peafowl getting picked on.
Once that was done I came in, changed jeans and shoes and headed to Ottawa to get more hatching eggs. Long day.