Consolidated Kansas

[HEChicken]

HEChicken-- Do you know how long it takes it for them to go away? I dont remember not seeing them in winter but then again I usually didnt have a problem with them before either..

No, sorry, I know very little about hawks. I thought someone had said they were migrating through but then chickies-duckies later said that they are moving here for the winter so I dunno....

OK, here are a couple pics of the new coop progress: The first one is the front facing out where the pens will be. You can kind of see the roofing on this one on the right half. The open space in the middle is where he's going to put the skylights. It's not exactly how I told him I wanted it, but he already did it that way.


And this is the back with all of the people door openings & my DH getting down off the roof to quit for the day.


So, there's been a little bit accomplished since the last pics.

Its looking great! I bet you're excited to move birds into it.

Any chance you are still under warranty? Our high efficiency system had a multiple year warranty.

Unfortunately....the previous owner worked for an HVAC company, so he installed this system himself and did not leave any warranty info for us. Grrr. I'm not even sure if he's licensed or if he's just an assistant, but if he's not licensed they probably wouldn't have honored any kind of warranty anyway. And, based on the way he did a bunch of other stuff around here, we've lost a lot of confidence that he does "quality work" so I'm not that surprised this isn't working right either. Put it this way, we had to do some work in one of the bathrooms and when the contractor got the floor up and looked at the plumbing, he took a picture to send to his buddies saying "Hey, look what I found". The guy had put in this network of pipes that literally wound around each other with a bunch of 90's and elbows and that kind of thing. It was a marvel to see and needless to say, we're glad our contractor put in the time to fix it.

OK. Ya'll need to slow down on the posting volume. Granted I haven't been on for a while, but over 1,000 posts to catch up on. Sorry...skipping ahead to the end.
Welcome to any newbies that may joined the list in the past month. I still try to pop in on occassion to see what's going on. Hopefully everyone is doing well. Stayed home from work today a little under the weather. It was a nice afternoon here in Wichita so I sat out on the deck & soaked up some fresh air & sunshine. Started thinking back to when I had my birds. *SIGH* Still trying to put that chapter in life behind me, but my will to get back into the game this coming spring is growing. For those who know the story, a brief update. The owner of the dogs was able to get one of their dogs back. Not sure what happened to the other one; honestly don't care. Decided not to press charges for a variety of reasons. Decided it was better to just move forward. BTW-Heather-how is Betty doing? Hope she is doing well. Did she ever lay? I've read that some birds who experience trauma never lay again. Not sure if that's true or not. I'm sure there are many more conversations I'm missing out on. Someone please remember to email/PM me when the next lunch get together is. I had fun at Karen's the last time even though I didn't get to stay very long. I'll try to weed back thru some of the posts to see if I can catch up when I get a chance. Need to wrap this up before the laptop dies. Low battery warning keeps popping up.

Hey David, so good to see you online! Betty is doing great. Her injuries are long healed and she is looking round and fluffy and pretty

I don't think she's laying yet - I've never seen her check out the nest box or show any interest in what the others are doing in there. Oh well, she's eye candy even if she never gets around to laying.

I keep on saying I'll post pictures of my coop, here it is right before move in day. Since these pictures, he has added railings to the ramp, so it looks like a ship plank, and is making flower pots and a mailbox.

That is beautiful - your DH does great work! I think the curve to the run is fantastically smart - you shouldn't get any water pooling on the top this way. Ha - water? Where would THAT come frome. Still no rain in the forecast. Sigh.

Another Scout update:

I am in Reno for 2 weeks, and my DH is looking after the girls and Butch. Scout's leg is still pretty much useless (actually worse because it gets in the way of the other foot. On the bright side, though, her spirits are good. We brought down the hen hoop from the shed, and set her up in there. She can get out onto grass (and is doing so). She is able to get up into the nest boxes (about a foot and a half off the ground) and is sleeping in one of those), and she seems to be eating some.

Thanks for the update on Scout - enjoy that grandbaby!

Well the hawk is back and sitting in trees in the edge of my property making his hawk call. He is waiting,, so am I.... For real I have big plans today to beef up a "no predators welcome" security measure. No more of my birds are going to be taken..

Oh dear, I'm so sorry. I hope you are able to find a way to take care of it. I did watch that video that Kansas Prairie posted a link to yesterday, and found it very distressing. I had to turn it off rather than listen to the end.

 

[LoriO]

Thanks for the welcomes! One of the reasons I sometimes don't post much on message boards, is because I can't remember what everyone has said!

That is an impressive cape cod style coop! And yeah, it's going to get dirty!

Also, the cute ladybug baby in the graveyard cracked
me up. I have an odd sense of humor.

Predators : I was home with my dd yesterday and so the chickens were out. I heard the rooster make his warning call and all the girls headed for cover. I looked up, and sure enough, there was a hawk. Good rooster!

Medawinks, that mask is gorgeous! I'm glad I introduced myself, I thought it might be odd if I recognized your kids at school. I work in the preschool hallway so I probably won't see them. We don't see the big kids much.

I need to get going. I have Friday a.m. off, but I'm taking dd back to the dr. Long story, she has a spider bite that went bad. Lots of antibiotics, leg up for 24 hrs., and missing trick or treating, the swelling is down and we're going for a recheck. Hoping she can return to school today!

 

[HEChicken]

I'm still angry-- my insurance has given me a money amount for my minivan and I am refusing to accept it. I just put $800 tires on the van 3 weeks ago-- and they wrote out that they are buying them for $87, well, I'm about to call them today to tell them they can darn well keep their flippin' $87 and I am going to go take my horse trailer down and go get my $800 tires off my minivan. I HATE insurance and I have been paying a premium and full coverage for years to get treated like that. Also, I'm going to be arguing some other points too. NO WAY am I signing for the cash until they REALLY pay up. UGH. OKay... sorry, that had nothing to do with chickens, I'm just still very angry.

So sorry - I know dealing with insurance is the pits. I would go and get those tires too, if I was you - you can save them until your new minivan needs tires and then you won't have to spend the money to outlay for new ones then.

 

[maidenwolfx80]

Hawkeye- I agree about insurance companies. They will swindle you out of money even though they are supposed to be there for you when an accident arrises. I would keep on pushing until satisfied they are worse than lawyers

( I appologize to any lawyers on this thread

)

 

[HEChicken]

Thanks for the welcomes! One of the reasons I sometimes don't post much on message boards, is because I can't remember what everyone has said!

And this thread moves so fast it can really get hard to keep track! One thing the site designers did that I really like is to add the ability to multi post. What I do, when I'm reading through if I see something that I want to comment on or respond to, I just hit the "multi" button at the bottom of the post. Then I can temporarily forget while I go on to read the subsequent posts. At the end, hit "reply" and the reply box will come up pre-filled with all of those multi posts, and then in reading back through them, I can remember what I was going to comment. To keep the post from getting outlandishly long, I usually snip out all but the part of the post I am specifically replying to.

I don't remember if you told us about your flock - what kinds of birds do you have and how many?

 

[Kansas Prairie]

Hawks ~ usually the red tail hawks winter here. They sit on power poles, etc along the highways, and I am sure other places also. There was one that claimed the mile of county road between me and the highway last year. I often saw it sitting on the power pole in the field next to me. I was NOT a happy camper and neither were the birds because they had less freedom than they were used to. They are showing up sitting on their look out posts along the highways again. So far, I have not seen the unwelcome one here. They arrive in the fall and leave in the spring.

Chickies-duckies, do hawks bother your ducks?

For a few weeks, from my porch where I drink my coffee and watch my birds for entertainment, I could see from 3 to 20 hawks at one time. Not a welcome site! We are surrounded by Cimarron National Grasslands and only have trees where people live and water them. Our river is dry and we've been in drought for 2 years. Many of the ranchers have sold off their cattle and shut off their wind mills. Most days we can see grain elevators that are 20 miles away. Water isn't easy to find.

When the hawks that migrate come through here they seem to be concentrated near homes, power poles, and on top of irrigation sprinklers. We have many hawks in the summer, then during migration it feels like an invasion, then it calms down and a we have some that winter here. We have some of those huge hawks too! Sometimes they are on the highway eating road kill, I've never had them get near my chickens, they seem to be over the open fields. Our problem is the smaller hawks.

I hope the lower number of hawks the last two days means the masses have moved on, I saw one on the power pole this morning, but the numbers are down. We had many doves here that head south a few weeks ago, a few get to fat to fly and winter around here, hawks like to eat the fat dove. I don't feed wild birds, but that seems to attract the hawks who want to eat those birds.

Sorry to go on and on about HAWKS, they are on my mind all of the time.


Danz,
I hope you get your predator soon! I'd also love to have some night vision!

 

[sharol]

I thought about that, but that is her ONLY symptom. The vet attributed it to getting her leg caught on something and pulling it free. The problem happened from one moment to the next. She was fine, and then she wasn't 30 minutes later. She was immunized for Marek's before I got her, but of course that doesn't mean much.

Sharol
Quote:

 

[Kansas Prairie]

I'm still angry-- my insurance has given me a money amount for my minivan and I am refusing to accept it. I just put $800 tires on the van 3 weeks ago-- and they wrote out that they are buying them for $87, well, I'm about to call them today to tell them they can darn well keep their flippin' $87 and I am going to go take my horse trailer down and go get my $800 tires off my minivan. I HATE insurance and I have been paying a premium and full coverage for years to get treated like that. Also, I'm going to be arguing some other points too. NO WAY am I signing for the cash until they REALLY pay up. UGH. OKay... sorry, that had nothing to do with chickens, I'm just still very angry.

Hope your insurance company will be fair! We have State Farm and they have been WONDERFUL!

 

[Kansas Prairie]

Scabies has hit our school and small rural town. Oh dear, I feel sorry for the school nurse, she is so busy!!

 

[lizzyGSR]

I'm still angry-- my insurance has given me a money amount for my minivan and I am refusing to accept it. I just put $800 tires on the van 3 weeks ago-- and they wrote out that they are buying them for $87, well, I'm about to call them today to tell them they can darn well keep their flippin' $87 and I am going to go take my horse trailer down and go get my $800 tires off my minivan. I HATE insurance and I have been paying a premium and full coverage for years to get treated like that. Also, I'm going to be arguing some other points too. NO WAY am I signing for the cash until they REALLY pay up. UGH. OKay... sorry, that had nothing to do with chickens, I'm just still very angry.

I'm sorry to hear that your insurance is being stingy. I'm curious though. Why is YOUR insurance paying for your van? Didn't you say that the other guy eventually took responsibility? Doesn't that mean that his insurance should be paying for it?

I have Farm Bureau Financial Services for my insurance company. A few years ago, I was T-boned by a lady. The officer ruled it no-fault because I had gone diagonally across an intersection (there was a road, and then there was a driveway right next to the road. I went across the intersection and into the driveway. She stopped at the stop sign and proceeded to turn into me). There was a possibility for a while there that the other party was going to sue me. My insurance company got their lawyer working on it to make sure that nothing would come of it. I was VERY happy with my insurance company then... I guess the moral of the story is that not ALL insurance companies are stingy. I hope you get everything worked out.