Consolidated Kansas

[Kansas Prairie]

Karen S
I hope you've heard from your daughter.

 

[Deerfield Acres]

Tweety, I am so sorry you're still feeling so poorly. I pray the Botox procedure will work for you and these recurrences will just become bad memories. What a long time you've had to struggle with it all.

cherwill, I haven't heard yet but I'm sure there's just so much chaos she hasn't had a minute. She lives in Bridgeport, CT, which is situated behind a barrier peninsula on the bay so I'm fairly certain their house was flooded. What a mess for so many people.

Danz, hope your sweet bird shows up this morning. We have owls out here too and it's just so nerve-wracking between them and the wretched hawks, howling coyotes and yipping foxes. All of them are looking for a nice chicken dinner and it seems the odds are stacked against us winning every time. What a bummer.

Hawkeye, I'm still so thrilled that you had such a great time at Nationals! Your birds are incredible.

Mikeksfarmer, glad you're here! I love this group.

JosieChick, that house sounds heavenly! I sure hope you get it that one. I'm like you in that I like to have things done well in advance. No need to wait till the last minute to get things together because the last minute always seems so unpredictable!

My DH took to the cloth diapers really well and he'd never changed any kind of diaper. Maybe that's a plus!

Trish44, your turkeys sound like they're having a blast, but it's not too much fun for you worrying if they'll just take off! Silly birds.

HEChicken, do you see hawks at your place? The hawks have stopped hanging around here -- maybe they see me out there too often or something. I don't know why they stopped hanging around. They were swooping down and really scoping out the birds on a daily basis but I rarely see them even over the neighbor's yard lately. They nabbed my Red Star but only injured her and she recovered quickly. After that they just didn't come around much anymore. Makes me wonder what exactly happened.

I've been fighting a virus for a couple days now and hoping to have a better day today. My kids are out of school the next two days so that will be fun. I'm so happy at how much they love these birds. My younger sons are in the same grade and at conferences the teacher asked if they would do a presentation on raising and caring for the chickens. They are all kinds of excited about it!

 

[chicken danz]

Chicken gender... I'm working on reading this but it's a little tough to read.
http://www.nature.com/embor/journal/v2/n3/full/embor459.html

Very interesting read for my biology loving mind. It sound to me like no one knows, but they are leaning to believing that both genders may play a role in determining sex. so the mystery goes on.

Karen S
I hope you've heard from your daughter.

Me too!
Maidenwolf you are too sweet. I would love to get together with any of you. A few of us have gone to the Wichita area a couple times for a get together. It's been so much fun. Josie lives in between me and you...for now. Sharol lives a little further West and so does Chickes,duckies etc.

I am sitting here chuckling to myself. My oldest cat who is 16 has been showing up wet. The last couple days when he jumps up here to sprawl all over the keyboard and my hands his tail, his feet and his whole underside have been soaked. The cats have a water fountain to drink from and love it. So I am thinking to myself the only other place in the house he could get wet like that is the toilet. He has no need to drink from the toilet so do you suppose he is trying to potty train himself?

 

[Kansas Prairie]

OXINE Oxine or activated Oxine will it harm clothes? Bleach spray will sure mess up clothes. How careful do I need to be spraying or using a fogger?

 

[Kansas Prairie]

Cochins are awesome!! They are also great for kids!! Did you get bantams or LF ones? At the shows, it's either a Silkie or a Cochin that will win the featherleg and usually go on to win the entire show! So they are a GREAT all around bird! SO neat that you got to see Danz! Wish I lived closer to her-- I think we'd be hanging out a lot! LOL

Are Cochins good layers or good meaties?

 

[cherwill]

Me too!
Maidenwolf you are too sweet. I would love to get together with any of you. A few of us have gone to the Wichita area a couple times for a get together. It's been so much fun. Josie lives in between me and you...for now. Sharol lives a little further West and so does Chickes,duckies etc.

I am sitting here chuckling to myself. My oldest cat who is 16 has been showing up wet. The last couple days when he jumps up here to sprawl all over the keyboard and my hands his tail, his feet and his whole underside have been soaked. The cats have a water fountain to drink from and love it. So I am thinking to myself the only other place in the house he could get wet like that is the toilet. He has no need to drink from the toilet so do you suppose he is trying to potty train himself?

LOL! It would be awesome if he did potty train himself, as long as he learns to flush!

 

[Hawkeye95]

Yes if you were a couple hours closer I'd be darkening your door. If no other reason to play with your daughter. She is so cute! But you know if you were closer I would enable you to become a danzsizer!!

Soooo funny!! I'm already adding to my flock without anyone's help! I was supposed to sell 3 birds at the show last weekend and then bring home 2 new birds I had picked out a few weeks back from another breeder. BUT... I only sold 2 birds (which is fine) and then brought home 4 new birds instead of 2. I already need like 4 more pens! I'm improvising with xpens. I do have a new (new to me) chain link dog run I need to get set up this week to move silkies into. Sigh.

I made a run to Orschelyn's this evening to get some extra feed & pine shavings. I got back & just got out & went to the garage & started pulling all the trays out from under all the rabbit cages, dumped them all & then sprayed them down with the hose. I left them to dry while I did all of my chores & then went back & carried them all in the garage again & filled them back up with fresh pine shavings. That's the biggest downfall of having to keep the rabbits in the garage over the winter. I wish I had a building just to put them in, even an old shed with a dirt floor would be nice, but I don't have one. I'm going to have to invest in some lighter plastic trays though, those big metal ones really get heavy when you have to carry them out to empty them. My back is feeling what I did already. After lifting feed bags out of the trunk & carrying them where I needed them & then carrying out all of those trays full of rabbit droppings my back is done for tonight.

I let my two extra lavender Orp roos out to run around with my general laying flock this afternoon. I'm trying to move as many birds out of the grow-out pen as I can to try to make it not quite so crowded in there until I can get the breeder coop done & the pens. I have one more Ameraucana roo in there that I'm trying to find a new home for. I brought that one back home for breeding that my friend had, so this one is an extra & needs a new home. He'll probably be a nice roo, but I don't need another one. That one lavender Orp roo is going to be another huge one, he's just growing like crazy & is about 3 times bigger than the other one I have that needs a home too. I thought they might as well free-range with the others until I find someone to take them or whatever I end up doing with them. I was hoping I could find new homes for them, they seem like nice roosters.

I let the turkeys out this morning for awhile & they were still acting really wild today, just flying around all over the place. I don't know if it's the time of year or what has gotten into them. They pace back & forth in front of the door to their pen until I go let them out & today the hens were flying up on top of the hoop coop & getting in the trees, they were just all over the place. Has anyone else seen their turkeys acting like this? The tom is still doing his mating dance, I didn't know they got so crazy this time of year. It makes me a little nervous to let them out for fear they'll get crazy & fly off.

Well I was just supposed to take a break, but it got extended, so I need to get busy again. Have a good night all!

Oh, I wanted to tell you that you don't have to order the Ivermectin injectible-- Atwoods has it up front in their locked cabinet! I ended up being in such a big hurry, I forgot to get it on the way out. I walked in and asked for it and they said they had it. They won't let you take it until you get to the register to pay. But by the time I got all the stuff I went in to get, I forgot to ask for the bottle. Sigh. I'll have to try again. Hope you get that rooster sold. I need to list 2 more boys myself. Do they make plastic trays for your hutches? I would have thought the metal would be more ideal... but not if they are going to weigh a ton.

Hawkeye, my thought is that the gender is determined before the egg is laid but the incubating conditions could influence which ones actually hatch.

There was a production study done (which I couldn't locate again) but said something like after 3 or 4 days of incubation, they dropped the temps significantly for a certain amount of time and then raised it again. It led them to hatching a very unusual high amount of either boys or girls... or forget which. I wish I could remember where I read that study from. They were able to do it consistently with the first generation, and after that, the test failed if they used birds FROM those incubated eggs. So you had to go back to parentstock that did not result from the incubation to have the same results again. Their theory was that fluxuating temps at a certain point in the embryo's growth could (and in their case, did) effect gender. But dropping the temps too late resulted in a typical 50/50 hatch. So the timing had to be right on.

Did anyone else read that?? Anyone remember who conducted that experiment? It was really interesting.

Right, right. I would never leave a wet diaper on for sure!! I have a friend who has a little girl who is over 3 years old and still in diapers and she is having a tough time with potty training. I remember both my little sisters learning to start using the potty when they started walking and were definitely potty trained by 2! I think the article mean't that a baby in a super duper absorbent disposable diaper that wicks all the urine away from them may not "know" as well when they have soiled their diaper and they have a harder time telling when they "need to go" because of that making it harder to learn when to go to the potty to begin with. I just like to find reasons to justify to DH why we are going to do something that is a bit more work for him than something that comes out of a box and gets thrown out! I think I already had him convinced when I showed him the price comparisons between cloth and disposable for the first two years!

cloth diapering really isn't a lot more work, other than the laundry. It's just something you get the hang of and create a working routine for yourself. I never thought of it as putting myself out. OH-- and BTW, I have really cute WetBags, too when you are on the run and need some place to put dirty and wet diapers in. For my wetbags, I don't use the laminated poly fabrics, I use the medical barrier fabric called ProCare. I order it in from Canada-- it's the only place you can buy it. I buy in big quantities at a time to get a discount. NONE of my diapers have shower curtains on the inside! LOL I have special ordered all of my fabrics and prints from a laminating company that will laminate anything you send them. Of course, they don't do any runs under 50 yards at a time. But the PUL is very nice and stands up to constant washing and high temperatures. Just a word of warning-- I try to avoid the dryer on my pockets. I throw in all the inserts into the dryer, and will put my "shells" (the pocket without the insert) into the dryer for maybe a few minutes... but then, I hang them. And in the winter, I just hung them over the shower curtain rod. If you avoid heat on your PUL, they will last a lot longer. Drying on high heats constantly will eventually make them delaminate and ruin their leg elastics. Polybraid elastics are the first to go-- they can't handle heat at all. I use a clear rubber elastic made for swimsuits--- so it handles the insane amount of washing and wearing.


HAPPY HALLOWEEN!! I hope it's a nice day today! I don't want to freeze the kids out going trick or treating tonight at my inlaw's neighborhood.

 

[mommahen10]

I'm with you Sharol, the cloth are definitely worth it. Although, my oldest was born in 88 and I never knew they had cloth with tabs. Now that I think of it, my cloth diapers were used and given to me. I wonder how old they really are.

Josie, I've never looked at a price comparison. I bet it's a huge difference. But if you consider potty training later it would make it even more.

Danz, I love bio too but I'm way out of practice. I need to be able to read without distractions to follow but with what I read too I concluded the same, that nothing is confirmed yet.
Which is crazy thinking of how much is known in our modern world. And it's not even X and Y, who'd have thought?

 

[Hawkeye95]

Hawkeye -- they are LF and just gorgeous. My daughter had been wanting a Cochin so this blew her away.
danz- I think the little fluffy yellow chicks may be light brahma? They have pea combs. We were playing detective last night trying to figure them out it is something my daughter is very interested in and something I am still learning. It makes it harder when you dont know what are mixed or pure but I cannot wait to see what they turn out to be .
mommahen - Danz is super sweet and down to earth and very easy to talk to. I wish we could all get together for a potluck or cup of coffee, thank would be great.

Ah ha! Well, the LF will at least give you better eggs... when they decide to lay!

Hawkeye, I'm still so thrilled that you had such a great time at Nationals! Your birds are incredible.


HEChicken, do you see hawks at your place? The hawks have stopped hanging around here -- maybe they see me out there too often or something. I don't know why they stopped hanging around. They were swooping down and really scoping out the birds on a daily basis but I rarely see them even over the neighbor's yard lately. They nabbed my Red Star but only injured her and she recovered quickly. After that they just didn't come around much anymore. Makes me wonder what exactly happened.

I've been fighting a virus for a couple days now and hoping to have a better day today. My kids are out of school the next two days so that will be fun. I'm so happy at how much they love these birds. My younger sons are in the same grade and at conferences the teacher asked if they would do a presentation on raising and caring for the chickens. They are all kinds of excited about it!

Thank you so much!! You know, the hawks are still hanging around here. Yesterday, I ran out because I had some silkies out in the yard uncovered and there was a hawk circling up above them. I ran out there and stayed out there until he moved on. Then I started gathering stuff to put over their pen. I came up with some really ghetto ideas! LOL I grabbed a baby gate and put it over the pen on one side. I really need to get some poultry netting. My DH came home and raised an eyebrow at my assemblage of "crap" over the pen. He didn't even ask. Before, he would have thrown a big fit that I was making the place look bad. I think he gives up... for now. I told him I want him to drill those holes for my new pens. I'm like Danz-- -I'm waiting for him to do it, because honestly, I'm not that great at making the auger go down into the ground at the correct angle and getting the posts set right. SO anyway, instead of arguing about my genius idea of covering the pen... he didn't say anything because he didn't want to get out there and drill my holes. hehehe I hope you are feeling better soon! I HATE being sick!!

Me too!
Maidenwolf you are too sweet. I would love to get together with any of you. A few of us have gone to the Wichita area a couple times for a get together. It's been so much fun. Josie lives in between me and you...for now. Sharol lives a little further West and so does Chickes,duckies etc.

I am sitting here chuckling to myself. My oldest cat who is 16 has been showing up wet. The last couple days when he jumps up here to sprawl all over the keyboard and my hands his tail, his feet and his whole underside have been soaked. The cats have a water fountain to drink from and love it. So I am thinking to myself the only other place in the house he could get wet like that is the toilet. He has no need to drink from the toilet so do you suppose he is trying to potty train himself?

OH my! I think I'd investigate what he's up to! LOL I'd hate for it to be toilet water!

And yes, our group gatherings have been SO MUCH FUN!

Are Cochins good layers or good meaties?

I have not heard that cochins are good layers, no. Danz could answer that question better as she is raising them. But to me, they sort of act like silkies-- in which case, they'd make terrible layers and probably terrible meat birds, too. Although, I have seen some BIG cochins! I bet they do have meat on them, but it wouldn't be my first meat bird choice. I've also heard people say they are broody-- Danz would have to tell you how her's act. We talk to the cochin people at the shows-- they are always right next to the silkies because they are in the same group-- Featherlegs. They are really laid back and have great dispositions. They also don't look like typical chickens-- they are round and short to the ground. Or at least, the nicer ones are. They should look like big round basketballs with lots of feathers. Very cute!

LOL! It would be awesome if he did potty train himself, as long as he learns to flush!

 

[mommahen10]

Yay for making diapers Hawkeye, I have the big snap press but I haven't used it for diapers. Maybe I will have a good reason to since my oldest dd is going to have a baby. Is PUL and laminate the same thing? I've never thought about the elastics, I ususally use braided because it's softer but swimsuit elastic is soft too. I've never seen it before though. I want to sew sooooo bad. I have a table covered with clothes I'm sorting right in front of my sewing area that I need to get cleaned up. Thank God those darned clothes are moving out of here quickly. It's one of my most dreaded jobs, I dislike it so much but I have to do it twice per year. Now I keep telling myself that every time I do I have 2 less tubs becuase I don't have to keep the clothes the youngest girl and boy grow out of .