Consolidated Kansas

[cherwill]

Lucie is doing well. She is out of surgery and getting pain meds every four hours. Her bladder is intact and she has a urinary catheter in place to keep her clean and her bladder empty. She ate well for them tonight so they are going to start her on oral antibiotics and pain meds as well. She will start sling walking tomorrow every four hours to get back on her feet. She has a pin and a plate in each hind leg and they think she will do well and recover well. I am so relieved. Wish I could go see her but have to work tomorrow and she is two hours away. Hoping if they pull the urinary catheter tomorrow and she can urinate on her own she can go home on Thursday. I have a sling ordered to walk her and we are going to crate her in the living room. I am worried about her having to up and down the stairs to go outside but hopefully we will get the hang of it fast. She really can't afford to slip and fall down right after surgery. Sigh. I don't know what I am going to do when we have a child if I am this much of a basket case over the dog.

That's great news about Lucie; you'll do fine with her even though it's going to be a bit of a challenge. You're going to be a great mother; look how much you care about a dog!

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

That's too bad.

Quote:

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?

I'd like to know about the gloves, too. My regular gloves are not going to cut it. I had some cheap gardening gloves from Wal-Mart that were almost waterproof but not quite, and they're falling apart.

 

[JosieChick]

Ohhh! I haven't done it yet. I haven't gotten up the guts to do it yet. I don't want to steal HEchicken's thunder since she did it with a whole FOX! Now that is gutsy. I keep thinking I should do it because we always have so many flies and they drive the horses crazy when its hot.

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.

 

[maidenwolfx80]

Ok vit E, I have a vial of vit E oil is it the same stuff that is in the capsule?

 

[mommahen10]

I would think it's the same but I just don't know. Read the ingredients very carefully. I think I'd rather get the known good rather than taking the risk in this case, I'd wait and get the capsules.

 

[maidenwolfx80]

Yes I will wait it says external use only. Darn it. I have no moeney until fri. any other siggestions? I have been giving Vi-tal a vitamin electrolyte and mineral supplement in their water the last 2 days.

 

[HEChicken]

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

So sorry for another loss. Were you able to make any progress on putting together a tractor for them?

Oh my, so many posts
Awesome, thank you. I was considering oatmeal since I can't seem to find the wheat bran in bulk.
So doing this! Now to find some dead stuff, lol

I should have mentioned that this time of year isn't the best because the flies slow way down in the colder weather. There are still some around but perhaps not enough to adequately dispose of a whole dead animal. Plus, I think this time of year they aren't in "breeding" mode, but instead preparing to hibernate for the winter. I have had the best success with doing this in the warmer months.

Yes I will wait it says external use only. Darn it. I have no moeney until fri. any other siggestions? I have been giving Vi-tal a vitamin electrolyte and mineral supplement in their water the last 2 days.

Hopefully the supplement in the water will help. Does the packet say what the Vit E content is?

 

[ChicknBaron]

No progress on a tractor... no time. Poor hens have to sit in the coop all day

 

[lizzyGSR]

I'm still trying to find a CO-OP that will sell me less than a 1000 pounds at once of bulk feed. I just can't store that much & can't afford it all at once. If I could get them to sell me 500 pounds I could probably do that. It's a matter of talking one of them into doing it. I need to get some of those barrels too that some are getting with the screw on lids to store the feed in. I'm checking around to see where I can get some of those.

My co-op said that their was a 1000 pound minimum for custom-mixed feed. They said that that was because their mixer couldn't handle anything smaller. However, they said that they could measure smaller amounts of individual grains and give them to me in a bucket and let me mix it myself. It would probably be worth it for you to ask if your co-op can do something similar for you. I talked to their feed salesperson. No one else seemed to know prices and such. The feed salesperson I talked to was pretty knowledgeable on nutrition (for everything BUT birds that is).

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.....

At least for me, co-op is a general name for a grain elevator. Our local one is called Frontier Ag. To find its name, I got on google and typed in grain elevator and the name of the closest town.

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.

1100 pounds of feed total. If it helps someone else, here are the percentages (rounded to the nearest 100th):

100 lbs of oats or wheat = 9.09%
200 lbs of corn = 18.18%
200 lbs of poultry supplement = 18.18%
300 lbs crimped milo = 27.27%
300 lbs whole milo = 27.27%

I'm glad that my feed predicament can be a good math tool for you kids. I'm a software engineer, so I took LOTS of math in high school and college. I even met my husband in Calculus...

(yes, I know... I'm a nerd.

) and he convinced me to take Calculus III and Differential Equations with him even though I didn't need them so he wouldn't have to study alone

(if I hadn't taken them, it would've been him and one other guy, and the other guy was really smart and hadn't had a partner in any of the calculus classes). I justified it by saying that I'd dual major in math and computer science at KSU... only to discover that they didn't have a math major (only a minor) at KSU. Then, I looked at the classes I'd have to take without my study partner and changed my mind AFTER I'd already taken the extra classes with my DH.

 

[maidenwolfx80]

Hopefully the supplement in the water will help. Does the packet say what the Vit E content is?

It has it has di-alpha Tocopheryl Acetate which is a source of vit E activity. They have been getting that today is day 3 on that. Maybe it is not what she needs or isnt enough vit E???She is still the same no worse which is good but I just have to find a way to help her. This just suddenly hit within a 2 hour period.

 

[checoukan]

lizzy`` No better than my birds eat milo, that ration would not work for me.