Consolidated Kansas

[HEChicken]

Call the co-ops around you and find out how many pounds their minimum order would be.

Okay, next dumb question. How do you find a co-op? Everyone always talks about them but I've never seen one. I have access to Atwoods, Orschelns, TSC, and I used to go to a feed store in Wichita that wasn't part of a big chain, but I've never seen anything calling itself a Co-op. I tried looking in the white pages but didn't come up with anything.....

 

[tweetysvoice]

Josie, I'm so glad to hear that she's doing great after the surgery. I miss a couple days on the forum and followed the story through the threads, so I'm glad it's having a much better ending than what I first expected! You'll do fine with a baby - just shows how much you care!

Wow, Trish - you've been busy!

I've been busy trying to potty train the new pup! LOL. She has her good hours and her bad. She'll get the hang of it. She's very curious about the chickens too. Got up close and one of them pecked her nose and now she's scared to death of them. LOL. She wants to watch me feed them, but won't get within 5 feet of the fence. I have no problems with that!

Thanks for all the kind words about Kaylea. As a grandma, I'm kinda partial to her, so it's good to know that It's not just me that thinks she's adorable. hehe

All of my birds are getting along just fine. We winterized the coop a couple days ago and packed it full of straw. That's kept the birds busy rearranging it from how I had it. I've also been buying up cheap squashes and halving those to throw into the coop to keep them busy. It's funny to see the new "clicks" that are being created. One of the GLOrps is now with the "old timers" and is begging at the gate right along with them. My silkie has sided now with the new girls and is hanging with them all the time. It's probably because they don't pick on her as much. LOL

 

[HEChicken]

Josie, thank you for the update on Lucie. It does sound like recuperation will involve extra effort on your part but I'm so glad to hear she is eating - that is half the battle with animals, it seems. If they won't eat, its like they've given up but if they have the will to survive, they are also willing to eat. I hope she gets to come home on Thursday, and that her recovery is fast and smooth.

 

[ChicknBaron]

I thought i was at the bottom, and things could only go up... then a hawk got another one of my hens today

 

[sapphireblu76]

Oh my, so many posts

I raised them for years. I used a variety of substrates, from wheat bran to oatmeal to corn cob bedding. They did best on the bran and oatmeal - they are, after all MEAL worms

. I never separated them, as there isn't a very easy way to do it. The worms and larva and beetles were all in together and I really didn't have any issues with doing that.

Awesome, thank you. I was considering oatmeal since I can't seem to find the wheat bran in bulk.

Hawkeye, to answer your question about where I learned about the life cycle in a bucket, it was so long ago I really don't remember now. I read a blog and the guy described something similar and I thought it sounded like a neat idea, so I tried it and it worked like a charm. I've been doing it on and off ever since. If we found fresh road kill (rabbit, squirrel) while driving along, we'd stop and pick it up and set up a bucket. I used to use a coffee can for the smaller animals - it was easy to drill a bunch of holes in the bottom and I'd hang it from a tree limb by an old shoe lace. After I shot the fox, DH and I looked at each other and said "well, should we?" and the next question was "But in what? He's too big to fit in a coffee can". That's when I hit on the idea of drilling holes in the bottom of a 5-gallon bucket, and the rest is history.

Rather than increase the fly population, I think it actually decreases is marginally. I figure the flies are going to be attracted to road kill and lay their eggs in it regardless. But this way, since the chickens eat the maggots, there are that many fewer flies around because they never get a chance to morph into their adult form.

So doing this! Now to find some dead stuff, lol

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.

Sapphire, it seems easier to not know where it came from and just eat and try to ignore that you know nothing about it. It feels safer and more responsible to know what we are eating and where it came from. One thing for sure, our family has wasted much less knowing and appreciating it.

That was just wrong of her to yell at you And I agree, we appreciate it a lot more.

Sorry, I don't have a source for how-to's for mealworms - I tend to just dive in so I set up a plastic sweater box with bedding, bought a couple of tubs of mealworms at the pet store, cut a potato in half and put it in there for moisture and then sat back and waited to see what would happen. One thing I did learn is that they like it warm, so they do best when they are at about 85 degrees. I don't keep my thermostat anywhere near that in winter but DH's office was kept uncomfortably warm so for awhile they lived at his office in the winter and I brought them back home in the summer. In Australia wheat bran is dirt cheap. At the grocery store, you by a kilogram (2.2lb) for about 46c. Here, the only place I could find it was in the organic section and it was over $4 for a tiny little bag - like maybe half a pound. I've heard that some people buy wheat bran by the 50lb bag at the feed store and its not that expensive that way, but none of the feed stores near me carry it. I actually had my parents bring me over several kilos of wheat bran on their last visit, just for the meal worms LOL. When I ran out of the wheat bran they brought me, I switched to oatmeal but any more its not that cheap. It used to be about $1.80 for the big canister at the grocery store but the last time I looked it was $3.65 for that same size canister. But no, there is no inflation. Grrrr.

Can't wait to try it.

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!

Exactly, and yes, me too. I can't imagine not having chickens around 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! I hope you get the verdict you're hoping for!

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.

Thanks for the info!

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

Yes

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.





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.

Nice pic and what a sight! Thanks for the input on the mealies, too

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.


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.

I can understand that, you are a busy lady! Wow, you get so much done in a day, I'm ashamed by how little I seem to get done.

Those are awesome pics Karen.

Thanks HEChicken, I will look for a source for wheat bran and update.

Karen, all I can say is Amen.

Looking forward to hearing if/where you find wheat bran!

For now, here is a picture of the coop with the storm windows installed and the gutters. I was surprised what a finished look it gave the coop, to add the storm windows. On the gutters, I wanted to make sure I sloped it enough to be sure all the water flowed down to the rain barrel. Do you think I succeeded LOL???? The barrel that is sitting under the spout now is an old barrel I found in the hedgerow. It has holes in it so isn't good for much and I thought if I could put the rain barrel on top of that, it would prevent birds trying to fly up to the rain barrel and end up pooping on the screen. Over the winter I plan to build a platform for it all to sit on using pavers and cinder blocks, so that it won't just all sink into the ground when it is muddy.

Nice coop!

Well, Lucie is scheduled to go into surgery right about now. She remained stable over night and her chest x rays looked good this morning. Her ECG was also good. They were a bit concerned that she had not urinated overnight and so they were going to repeat abdominal radiographs to be sure her bladder was intact and if everything looked ok place a urinary catheter to keep her from having a giant bladder right after such a major surgery. Once she is able to be sling walked and can urinate on her own she can come home. So I have lots to do today to get the living room ready as Lucie's recovery pad. DH and the surgeon both think she will make a very quick recovery and should be eager to get back on her feet. I am nervous about trying to keep her quiet because she won't be able to run or jump for several weeks so I am going to have my hands full!

So relieved to hear she's doing well!

I went over to my sister's to help her finish her pallet chicken pen. We spent most of the early afternoon at the store figuring out what she needed to get to do the top of the pen. She decided on PVC to do an arched top over it. It was less expensive than many of the other options we priced, but I think it's a lot more work. We got back to her place and started to fit everything together to see how it was going to work before we cemented anything. Glad we did, because one of the fittings broke and some of the other fittings were threaded, when we needed unthreaded. SO...we just ended up running the finer mesh fencing around the inside of the pallets and existing chain link fence. We needed to do it anyway, but she was really wanting to get the top on today. I'll go back over Friday to see if we can finally get this thing knocked out. She like to do things the hard way sometimes But this is HER project, so I'm keeping my mouth shut until she asks for an opinion, lol. I think it will end up working out just fine, but we just have to do it her way, and that's okay.

Two more days until my Blue Coppers are due! I only have one person interested in 2 chicks. I think I want to keep the rest, since I probably won't be getting anymore eggs from my hen until who-knows-when. This is the first time I've ever dealt with a chicken in molt. Ahhh, my greenhorn-ness is slowly falling off, lol!
I'm sooooo tired today. Had issues sleeping last night, so didn't really fall asleep until about 8:30 this morning, then had to make a phone call at 9:30, but they had to call me back, so fell back to sleep until about 10:30, when she called back. By then it was time to get up to go with mom and sister to Nickerson for meat, stopped at the co-op on the way back to get rabbit and chicken feed, then went to Lowe's to get my sisters supplies, mentioned previously, ran back to her house to meet hubby there, so I could take him to work, ran back to our house to pick up my oldest son from the bus stop, back to sister's house, worked on the pen, got the kids home in time for bath, stories and bed by 8. Now I'm exhausted and just want to go pass out, but I have to have my internet time, lol. Checking messages and what-not. BUT, now I am done, love hearing what all everyone else has had going on today, have a great night and tomorrow, all!

 

[maidenwolfx80]

One of my little SLW chicks is having trouble standing up. She is still interested in eating and drinking but is wobbly when she does stand and would rather lay. She seems to twitch or shake her head alot. When she tries scooting herself along she seems unstable and uses her wings to steady herself. She was fine this morning, any suggestions?

 

[Trish44]

Maidenwolf, you might try giving her vitamin E caps. Just break open a capsule & squirt it into her mouth. If it's a neurological thing it should help. I give them to chicks daily until they improve with the ones that seem to have issues like that.

Does anyone remember the discussion last winter about gloves for working outside that are water proof & insulated? I was trying to remember the brand of some of them & can't for the life of me. What kind of gloves do you all use for going out to feed & water when it's really cold?

 

[JosieChick]

I can't remember who asked about mealworms, was it sapphire? Anyway, I had a ton of beetles for the longest time and I decided last week that I would pitch the bin out to the chickens and just give up on the project. Well I haven't gotten around to it and tonight I thought I best just do it and get rid of them. When I pulled the bin out it was like a horror film! The whole bin was just writhing and crawling with baby mealworms!! I mean, you could hear them all crawling around in there, it was crazy. So I chopped up some potatoes for them and put them back! maybe its not as bad as I thought!

 

[mommahen10]

I'm so tired!!!! I've been so busy today, not anything hard but constantly running. I feel my heart rate slowing down as I read and type/write.

Danz, I like your inhaler idea. I think I'll do one for my daughter, and if I add rhinestones she'll be sure to carry it

HEChicken, I checked our your My Coop page last night and it looks great. I was so super busy today, I thought about the pics but not until I was already outside. I was hurrying because I left the pressure cooker going inside and that makes me really nervous. Oh, my 13 yo ds drilled our bucket and hung it up from a branch in the coop today so its ready when we need it.

maidenwolf, I don't know about the buff orpingtons, I'm just not an expert with breeds. I have what I thought were buff orpingtons but from what checoucan said they're probably not. Ours are more of a light red, with whitish underneath, the tips of their tail feathers are darker but I don't think they're black.

We bought some buff orpingtons from Orchelns a few weeks ago, they are this beautiful light color and so solid, no noticeable color variation. I knew these were just a little older than the ones I hatched last, but now they are twice the size of mine. These little birds, they have sooooo much character. They come to greet me and I have to be careful when I open their little brooder pen because they'll just right out. Shhhh, not saying that happened or anything. They are at the door greeting me and the ones I hatched at are hiding in the corner trying to get away. I don't get it. The BOs would prefer to eat the same feed from my hand rather than their feed tray. They will seriously come right up to me and look me right in the face. They're so fun. The little one 'rainbow layer' I got, she's fiesty. I put them into a 5 gallon bucket while I cleaned up their pen and she totally flew out and she gives me a run for my money. When I catch her, she freaks out chirping and flipping all around. She's fast too. They're all so fun, and so different it's just amazing. I love my chicks.

I found my missing chicken. She happens to be from my 3 mo old group but I found her in the the 2 mo old group. I don't know how that happened. I noticed she was gone the evening after we finished the new coop, we were out there all day and didn't notice her getting out. She was found directly next door in the 2 mo old coop, they are now sharing a fence between them. There's nothing for her to get on top of in that pen to get out so she had to have gone through the gate while it was open as we were going in and out, and someone must have thought she belonged in the other pen. I don't know how it happened. I left her there though, she seemed to be doing fine with the younger ones. Which makes me think, can I just put the 2 and 3 mo olds together now that they are closer in size? Our big coop is pretty full, could I remove the cockerals and add the 2-3 mo old pullets in the big coop with the layers? I really want the extra roosters out of that coop, there are several that need to just be fattened up.

I don't know what an invisible collar is but I'm assuming it's something zaps them to train them to stay within certain perimeters???

Josie, I'm so glad that Lucie is expected to have a good outcome. You do have a long road ahead of you. It's never easy stuff when these things happen but caring for your dog like this will prepare you for caring for your baby. Especially thinking about the round the clock care she will need. You can do this, I know you can, and it'll make your pregnancy go by faster too. It will feel good to love and care for her and watch her get better. I like your soup can idea, my dh is going to come home and I'm going to have things hanging all over the place.

cherwill, That was an amazing dog story. It's always terrible when things like that happen but it's quite beautiful how you and the dog owner reacted. The good outcome makes it all the sweeter, it made me cry.

I tend to think of things way after the fact sometimes but I had an experience I wanted to share. Be careful using clear plastics as tarps or coverings in the summer time. I know it's not summer time. I may have already posted this, I don't remember, or maybe it was a post I lost. I was caring for newborn kittens, they were in a clear plastic tub, we were camping, I left them under a tree in the shade. They were just fed and made to potty, I took the kids swimming and came back and they were panting terribly. The inside of the tub was warmer than the air temp, like a greenhouse. So, this may work to our advantage in the cooler months with chickens but don't forget to remove it in the summer. I'll never EVER do that again. I thought the kittens were going to die, I put them in water to cool them down they were so hot, they did do fine, thankfully.

Danz, it sounds like you are having another amazing hatch, you rock!!! I'm sorry about your missing eggs, it would drive me crazy too. I want to see your couch when you get it finished. I've uphostered before but I got a bit too scared when I needed to do a couch and we threw it out and it was as old as I am. It was hard to throw it out, but I was too scared to dive in to something that big. So???? When are you going to write a book about your feed mixture and hatching and everything? You could add the wiring for your coops and heaters, maybe some info on how to scope out the best deals on feed and hatching eggs, breeder sources, and all of your other talents and knowledge. I'd like to be put on your waiting list please.

Lizzy, you got so lucky on that. I wasn't looking forward to figuring it out but if they sell by the pounds you don't really need the percentages then. I was going to make it our math assignment for the day for real, it's a real life math assignment that the kids can actually see the purpose of so it makes it stick with them better. We could do it anyway, or maybe I'll go ahead and do the percentages and ask them to figure out the pounds since that's the part we will need. I need to go copy/paste that post.

The stuff about the guns, I held a gun for the longest time ever that night my ds and I rescued that calf. He left the gun in my hands, basically shoved it at me because I was to stand there with the calf and he went to get the truck. The coyotes were going crazy and they sounded so close so I was already very scared, but I was too scared to notice I was holding the gun the entire time. That's the longest I've ever held a gun. It took me over 10 years to get in the chicken coop so it may just take me a while to get used to guns too. I feel like it will be important that I am able to at some point, probably when the boys are grown and gone. So in the next 5 years I need to learn to shoot it, but if I just hold it sometimes, or maybe I'll just go outside and watch when they shoot next time. I won't let the boys shoot when my dh isn't home unless it's somemthing important. This summer my then 12 yo ds shot 2 5 ft long snakes 'dancing' in a very close tree. He got them one at a time but without any trouble at all.

ChicknBaron, I'm soooooo sorry!!! You so didn't need another loss on top of all of this stress. What are you going to do? I wish I could help. Can you keep them inside for a while until they hawks are gone? I'm so sorry.

maidenwolf, someone will surely help you with your chick but I think it was Danz that advised, on using Vitamin E and it really worked a miracle on another chick. Correct me if I'm wrong, I 'think' it was Danz. It kinda gets hard to keep everything straight.

Awww, shucks!!!! I still have to go turn eggs and here I am all comfy. I better go get that done.

 

[mommahen10]

So maybe it was Trish about the Vitamin E. I'm so glad you all know this stuff, I'm so glad I get to learn from you pros.

Josie, eeeewwwwww. That's so gross, but hey, it'll make your chickens happy. That's amazing, they must be more sturdy than thought. I can't imagine though, it makes me cringe. I don't know if I can do it. The dropping maggots from the can won't involve me having to go over there to actually look at them. I don't know how you stomached that one.

Hi sapphire, I know I means to say something but I don't remember what.

Tweety, how are you feeling?