Consolidated Kansas

[JosieChick]

Glad to hear she is hanging in there! She is such a cute little bird and I know you said she kinda runs the show at your place if I remember correctly!

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.

Oh my gosh!!!! That is the most darling coop I have ever seen!!!! LOVE IT!

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.

Bummer lady. That stinks, tires are so expensive, hope you can get that squared away!

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.


Originally Posted by Kansas Prairie

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

Yikes, sorry I am sooooo far behind. I remember some questions that I couldn't get multied.

Lucie is doing well. Trying to hold her back because she really wants to run and she has five more weeks of cage rest before her first set of post op radiographs! Ugh! Everyone cross your fingers that she can go off cage rest at 8 weeks because I feel so bad for her.

This is my first baby! Which is why I am such a nut about it... I am sure after the first you calm down a bit but I am just beyond excited getting ready! Just got my first set of 10 gently used bumgenius insert diapers with velcro closures and LOVE them!

Danz- Porcelain is just a buff overlacing in the lavender orp. It is just a color variation. A lot of people are playing with colors that are "project" colors and the porcelain is still a project in the orp. I don't know if it will ever be recognized but it is fun to play around with. It is the same in cochins. Right now self blue (lavender) and mille fleur/calico are just project colors that don't breed true yet and are not APA recongized but they sure are pretty. I have one hen and one roo that are porcelain orps. The hen is really a pretty girl in person. I have a pic but I don't know if it does her justice. She was just a pullet in this pic and has really filled in. In person her lacing is beautiful. I am quite partial to her coloring.

 

[JosieChick]

Glad to hear she is hanging in there! She is such a cute little bird and I know you said she kinda runs the show at your place if I remember correctly!

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.

Oh my gosh!!!! That is the most darling coop I have ever seen!!!! LOVE IT!

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.

Bummer lady. That stinks, tires are so expensive, hope you can get that squared away!

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.


Originally Posted by Kansas Prairie

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

Yikes, sorry I am sooooo far behind. I remember some questions that I couldn't get multied.

Lucie is doing well. Trying to hold her back because she really wants to run and she has five more weeks of cage rest before her first set of post op radiographs! Ugh! Everyone cross your fingers that she can go off cage rest at 8 weeks because I feel so bad for her.

This is my first baby! Which is why I am such a nut about it... I am sure after the first you calm down a bit but I am just beyond excited getting ready! Just got my first set of 10 gently used bumgenius insert diapers with velcro closures and LOVE them!

Danz- Porcelain is just a buff overlacing in the lavender orp. It is just a color variation. A lot of people are playing with colors that are "project" colors and the porcelain is still a project in the orp. I don't know if it will ever be recognized but it is fun to play around with. It is the same in cochins. Right now self blue (lavender) and mille fleur/calico are just project colors that don't breed true yet and are not APA recongized but they sure are pretty. I have one hen and one roo that are porcelain orps. The hen is really a pretty girl in person. I have a pic but I don't know if it does her justice. She was just a pullet in this pic and has really filled in. In person her lacing is beautiful. I am quite partial to her coloring.

 

[Chickies-duckies-etc]

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!

Do the hawks bother my ducks? Over the years, no. But the muscovies are generally to big for them to bother, and that is all I had until the last couple of years. When I got some domestic ducks, they started to vanish. Everything is so hard to figure out here because of ALL of the different predators and the migratory thing. Never a clear answer it seems.

I did SEE a hawk ON a dewlap goose in the pasture one day. I was out and heard the geese alarm and start flapping to the gate. I went to where I could see and there was that hawk on a flapping goose. I ran (the best I can) out yelling at it, it flew to the fence and sat there until I got closer and then flew off. The goose was ok, just very upset and a few marks on its neck. I think it was a red tail hawk, but could not see it real well.

Another year, a red tail cought a bantam rooster that was out of the pen. I surprised it and was also surprised to see it. It let me get close before it flew off and at one point tried to take the roo with it, but could only drag it a short way. It could not have flown off with it.

I did find an owl eating a dewlap goose one day about noon. Again, I was totally surprised by that. It flew off. I have no idea why an owl was out at noon, and suspect that it may not have been what killed the goose. I and a neighbor that has poultry were having lots of problems with fox at that time. That was inside a pen. After that, all of the birds, including the geese were locked up in the barn at night. They were not a happy bunch. That was during a time that there was evidence of multiple types of predators including, fox prints around the chicken house. .
There are some hawks that live in the trees a block down. They have never bothered my birds. I do not know what kind they are, but they will circle my pasture hunting and then drift over the fields around. I have seen them drift low over my birds, but never act interested in them. Now that the red tails seem to be wintering closer to my place, the resident hawks leave for the winter.

But, with the hawks, owls, dogs, coyotes (that are so bold I had one come within inches of me to get the chicken I was holding), fox, coons, possums and probably things I don't want to know are out there, (I saw a juvenile golden eagle one day - That was a BIG bird) I get really paranoid about letting the birds out. But, they really do need the greens they get out of the pasture and I try to stay alert to what is out there. The real problem fox is no more, and for whatever reason the coyotes seem to be staying out further. I hope my dogs barking is helping to keep most of the land predators at bay. I do need to up the level of protection for the birds at night. That owl that was in my yard next to the pen the birds were in, while I was doing chores, has me concerned. I dream of 10 foot, non climbable fence with very good top netting. A donkey or two in the pasture and NO predators. And know it COULD be worse. There are NO bears or mountain lions here. Oops, Kansas does now admit there are cougars in Ks and there are some in this area. Hope they stay the few miles away where I know they are at.

 

[chicken danz]

There is no way I can multi all these posts so I am trying to remember what I read. Forgive me for all I forget.
First Cubysan that chicken house is the most beautiful coop I have ever seen. You have just got to enter it in some of the coop contests. It makes me want to go out there and start being creative.

Josie I understand that now. In my personal school of thought I can't imagine changing the lavender itself because these English birds are gorgeous. However if my plans go right I have a project in mind to breed to create an even lighter lavender which would be more of a porcelain without the buff influence. Just my own idea to play with genetics. Of course my projects don't often come to fruition so it's just a thing in my head at this point.

Hawkeye your insurance company should be fighting for a decent settlement from the other guys insurance company. No way should you accept their first offer. I did that once and really got screwed. Isn't your brother an attorney? He might need to do some work for you on this thing. I had a similar situation years ago when I had an accident coded wrong and really got screwed over because I didn't know how this worked. My own insurance paid but then dropped me as a client which automatically put me in a high risk category after paying them insurance for years. I had no traffic record, I had never made a claim before, and it wasn't even my fault. It cost me a fortune in insurance premiums for 3 years following. Even though it took a year to get it straightened out the fact that they had dropped me didn't make any difference. It was already on my record with Experian or whatever it is, that I had gotten dropped.
At any rate my point is that I had just put a new stereo in my car and I had to get permission from the insurance to remove it. It was like pulling teeth. They take every usable part off the vehicle and resale it to regain their money. I finally got permission to reinstall the original factory radio and take my stereo. It wasn't an easy thing to do. I still lost about $7,000 on the car before it was all over. Not to mention spending several thousand extra dollars on insurance. I had Prudential insurance and had had for years. I don't mind telling my story to keep people from getting raped by them like I did. A simple clerical error on their part made a huge difference in my cost. Call your insurance company and stress that this was not your fault and they need to be proactive in getting you a fair settlement.


Hechicken some how I missed your post about the heater. I have the same set up. We had some problems with ours switching back and forth. Still do every now and then especially when we switch seasons. We actually got the code from the installers for the thermostat and changed the temperature setting to 45 degrees for the propane to kick on which saved us money because the propane is cheaper than the electric. But even so, we still had problems with it every now and then. We would have to shut off the breaker and restart everything to get it to work right. Now we just set the heat to EMheat which leaves it on propane full time when it gets cooler. It is simpler than fighting it and warmer heat too.
I think ours has a wiring problem somewhere but I refuse to pay someone to come in here to recheck the wiring. It's only 4 years old but I hired a company I used in Council Grove to install it and they don't want to drive down here.

Well the saga goes on. It is either going to cost another $150 to have the power snake used on the lines to the septic tank or it will cost $65 plus another $40 in gas to go rent one from Emporia. Our stupid local equipment rental place has decided that they won't rent any more without charging $100 labor on top of the rent. Pretty stupid when we could do it ourselves. I am leaving this part up to DH. I just need to be able to take a shower and get back to using water in the house. My laundry is piling up and I need to clean.

Thanks to Trish I am going to Arkansas City to get some peafowl tomorrow. I owe you Trish! It is going to be a long trip, about 3 hours each way. But I am buying 3 of them. I'll probably end up selling one or two next spring but my goal is to end up with at least a pair and hopefully a trio. I was going to an estate auction tomorrow and probably would have spent a fortune. It is really tearing me to shreds when I would love to go to a good auction but I have just got to get these peafowl.

Medawinks, I love the mask. I do hope A continues her education in Art. She is so talented. What was your DS for Halloween? I sure hope he ends up with some hens out of his birds. Poor kid. I have some more sussex chicks but they are all looking boyish too. They are hard to tell.

 

[maidenwolfx80]

The hawk just killed again, a bigger hen this time. She was in a thin mass of trees under a thicket of blackberry vines. I was outside maybe 1000 ft away, and 5 mins before this I was shooting my 20 gauge to let off steam. He is not scared. I ran back there when I saw him swoop down ( I had been watching him in the tree) I was able to get within 2 feet of him before he back off of her. I could have touched him,he was letting out this low hiss at me, it was creepy. I hit him with a big tree branch and he looked stunned and I was able to grab my hen and he flew away. It angers me so that I cant do anything. If this were a fox or coyote or other dog anything, I could kill it because it was killing my livestock, but the one biggest threat which happens to be WAY over populated is protected? They should open hunting seasons on them like they do deer. Their numbers need to be lowered, and dont get me wrong I love animals and nature that is a huge religious thing for me but something needs to be done.

 

[chicken danz]

I agree whole heartedly. Hawks are a benefit when they keep things like mice and rats in check but they are learning to go for easier slower pray like our chickens. Regardless of the law I feel we should have the right to protect our livestock whatever it takes. Same goes for owls. I love owls;, I think they are awesome creatures but when they are taking my birds that becomes another matter all together.
I guess perhaps winter coming in might be a benefit in that some of these migratory species will leave. I think (don't know for a fact) that the red tailed hawks are the ones that stay here most of the year. I don't think our resident hawks pose as much threat as the migratory ones. I haven't lost any ducks to the raptors yet. I would think they would be slow easy targets because they are in an open pen and I never shut them up at night. I guess I have been lucky.
I haven't checked for carnage yet myself today. I guess I'd better get moving.

 

[maidenwolfx80]

I am going to get to work expanding my run on my coop, since all the danzsizing I have done since the build of the coop I need more space if indeed i need to coop up my birds. I think you should be able to have a permitt and everytime you have to kill a hawk or owl report it and if they see it being abused fine take it away so that person annot legally shoot one, but isnt that good info for our conservation dept, knowing of the areas in which we have hawk problems and reporting it to whoever it needs to get to?

 

[Trish44]

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.
HEChicken, your house sounds a lot like ours. The people who built this house brand new did some weird things here, absolutely strange. We had a leak come up last year through our kitchen ceiling downstairs. We traced it back to the shower in the upstairs bathroom & had to tear out the shower to find the problem. When the plumber came out he showed us the 'rigged" pipes & just kind of shook his head & said that wasn't up to code for sure. he fixed it the best he could, but had to be creative because of the way they had done things in there. We're sure there are many more things like that in this house, it's frightening.

Cubbysan, that is the most adorable coop I have ever seen! I just love that, wow I'm so envious of you.

Hawkeye, you go girl, you can't let that insurance company walk all over you like that. Sometimes you just have to get nasty with them in order to make your point. They will try their hardest to spend the least money they can, but you have to let them know you're not happy & you're not going to take it.

Danz, I'm so happy you finally are getting some white peacocks, yay! I'm so tempted to get in the truck & drive down there & get the last two if he still has them. I would have to talk my DH into buying them though because I didn't want to spend that money right now. I really don't have time to go down there today either.

I'm trying to remember everything I read, but there have been so many posts lately. The Red Tailed Hawks are the ones that stay in Kansas year round, so they're usually not as bad as the migrating ones I don't think. We have that type all around here, but knock on wood I have not had a problem with them. My chickens know to run under something if they hear one or see a shadow. We do have lots of cover here for them to get under. But after watching that video yesterday I just didn't realize they would go right into a coop like that & go after a chicken, I felt so sorry for that hen & the ones running out of there were terrified.

Well I just sat down for a few minutes to have coffee & I have to get back to work. I hope you all have a great day!

 

[chicken danz]

I'm suffering with my sewer delemna. I have no place to vent but here. I am even having trouble with hatching my ducks because I really need to scrub things out and get new fresh warm water in the hatcher to keep things going well. I have had some sticky ducks and they don't do well. So I've taken the trays outside and hosed them but that isn't like scrubbing them with warm water. And then they are too chilly to put the eggs back on.
I just put the campine eggs I got in the hatcher as well. Only 5 of the 12 developed. I do hope they hatch though. Should be day after tomorrow. I put another dozen or so ducks out in the pen with the others I had yesterday. I don't know if the sticky babies will make it or not. I dunked them in a bowl of warm water and tried to remove some gunk so they could move but in the past they don't do well like that.
I guess I'd better get outside and feed and water out there while I can. It still feels pretty chilly here today. Nothing like yesterday.

 

[lizzyGSR]

I'm suffering with my sewer delemna. I have no place to vent but here. I am even having trouble with hatching my ducks because I really need to scrub things out and get new fresh warm water in the hatcher to keep things going well. I have had some sticky ducks and they don't do well. So I've taken the trays outside and hosed them but that isn't like scrubbing them with warm water. And then they are too chilly to put the eggs back on.
I just put the campine eggs I got in the hatcher as well. Only 5 of the 12 developed. I do hope they hatch though. Should be day after tomorrow. I put another dozen or so ducks out in the pen with the others I had yesterday. I don't know if the sticky babies will make it or not. I dunked them in a bowl of warm water and tried to remove some gunk so they could move but in the past they don't do well like that.
I guess I'd better get outside and feed and water out there while I can. It still feels pretty chilly here today. Nothing like yesterday.

If it's just a sewer problem, you can still run water, right? You just can't let it go down the drain? Why don't you put some warm water in a bucket with some dawn dish soap to bath your ducklings in? Then, just rinse them off in a bucket of clean water. Dawn dish soap is biodegradable so it shouldn't hurt anything to dump it on the grass outside. You could do something similar with your trays... I hope you get something figured out, and I'm sorry to hear you're still having problems with your sewer!


I work from home, and my birds tend to hang out outside my office window. Every now and then, I'll take a break, look out the window, and count birds. I looked out just a few minutes ago and counted 10 ducks... I only have 9. Somehow I managed to count one bird twice, or maybe I am just so tired that I can't count straight?!?

Either way, I'm sure I'm not the only one that's done this, so I thought I'd share my funny story and let others laugh as well.