Consolidated Kansas

[Chickies-duckies-etc]

HEChicken ~ Thanks for for the esnipe info. I knew about the site, but have never used it. Would be so much easier in some cases.

 

[sapphireblu76]

Good morning all. Still plugging along here, how have you all been? I just can't seem to get on here often enough to keep up, so I just don't even try anymore.

We had a rough week here. Sarge started killing chickens again. Long story short, I've done what could to keep him, but now he is living with a good friend of mine as an LGD for horses, goats, and pigs. He's doing really well out there and I can see him whenever I want. The night after he left, we lost one of the roos I hatched this spring to an owl.
On a good note, my Blue Coppers are growing out beautifully and I expect several Bantam Cochin, Red mix and Barnyard mix chicks to hatch soon. I will be getting some SLW, BLRW, and GLW in January. I will probably end up having to get some more EE's, but I will wait and see if the ones I have will ever start laying. If they do, I have EE roos to breed them with.

"Just keep swimming"

 

[chicken danz]

Good morning all! I am the new "Mom" of five juvenile brahma's - three light and two buff (she threw in the buffs for free). So I'm up to ten chickens, 2 rir's hens, 2 young buff brahma hens, 3 young light brahma hens, 2 mature lb hens, and one mature lb rooster. I am so so so excited. The young ones survived their trip from Georgia fairly well - were mailed on Wednesday and got here today. They were very hungry, and didn't even give me time to lift them out of the boxes, just pushed against the side, tipped them over and scrabbled out searching for food. Ate and ate before turning to water, and are now exploring. Going to keep them in the run for a couple days till I know they've recovered fully from the trip, before letting them out and about with the mature chickens. I'll tuck them into their little private coop cave before letting the mature ones in this evening. I know there will be an adjustment for them all. But these five new chickies seem fairly fiesty and will hopefully hold their own with the mature birds, though of course they'll be at the bottom of the pecking order at least for a time. It's a good day today!! Sara

Congrats on the new chicks.

maidenwolf, gonna be hard to stop them from roosting on the porch. Gonna have to put up something to keep them from being able to land there. Cattle panel or something.
Here are two my cream legbar chicks that hatched yester day. I think both are dark males. I was hoping for a female. Oh, well, they are cute babies!!


I know I don't need anouther breed, but if I get a few hens, would be a novelty in the hen house. They are so sweet and cuddly right now, wish I had a broody hen!!!

I hatched 5 earlier this week. I ended up with 3 boys and 2 girls. I should have separated them cause they look more alike every day. I hadn't planned to raise them but those eggs were gorgeous. If they are good layers as they say I will definitely keep them.

HEChicken ~ Thanks for for the esnipe info. I knew about the site, but have never used it. Would be so much easier in some cases.

I've never used Esnipe either. I used to watch last minutes of auctions really carefully but now I am always too busy. It's a good thing though. If I am watching I tend to bid too much.

 

[HEChicken]

I've grown basil for years and it takes over everything. I finally had to spray it with roundup. I like oregano much better. I use it in tons of stuff. Chives are super easy to grow. And sage is awesome. I have a patch of lavender that is awesome. I like to pick the flower stems and just put them in a container. If you want an air freshener you just reach in and crush some of it. My daughter in law uses it in cookies and other dishes. The ducks discovered it this year and ate it like crazy but it came back. I have some creeping thyme as well. I love just crushing the leaves on the herbs and enjoying the different smells even if I don't use them to cook with.

I love Basil but have had trouble keeping it going! It didn't seem to like the heat during the drought and it all died out so I didn't have any last year. I love to pick fresh basil and whip it up in the food processor with a little olive oil and garlic to make fresh pesto.

I tried the survey stuff but spent hours and hours and then nearly every time I would answer a bunch of questions then they would say I wasn't qualified for that survey. I finally just quit and never figured out to collect what earnings I had after months of answering questions.It was like $5 or something. I think you need to be a consumer of lots of products and read lots of books, watch lots of TV commercials, movies, magazines etc and be young for it to be worthwhile.

I am none of those things "consumer, commercial watcher, young" etc. There is a bit of a knack to taking the surveys that it took me a little while to figure out. I admit, I sometimes have to fudge a little. For example, if it asks "Have you purchased X product in the past 7 days?" and I haven't, but I purchased it within the last month, I figure I can still remember the purchase well enough to answer their questions, so I just say "yes" and it admits me to the survey. I never lie and say I've purchased something I haven't. I have answered questions regarding TV commercials and usually they will show the commercial (so you have to have a connection that allows video to play) and then if they ask if I've seen that ad on TV, I answer honestly "no", but I can still answer their survey questions which usually amount to what I like and don't like about it. Since they just showed it to me, even though I never saw it play on TV, I can still answer the questions. Another one recently was about current movies that are playing and I figured I wouldn't qualify to take the survey because I almost never go to movies. But it turned out they wanted to tell me what movies are going to be coming out in the next few weeks and ask which ones I was interested in seeing. Then they would ask if having Brad Pitt as the lead made me more or less likely to see it and so on. I was able to answer the questions honestly, even though I hadn't even heard of most of the movies they showed me.

It did take me a little while to get the knack for it and start to build up the dollars. However even if you answer their initial qualifying questions and they determine you are not the core group they are looking for, most of the surveys give you a 25 or 50c credit just for answering the first few questions, so I always build up the account even if its only by a small amount.

I cringe each time I read about Ramen noodles. MSG makes me violently sick. I have to check labels of everything I buy and ask restaurants if they use it before I can eat there. Ramen noodles is loaded with it. I only ate them once in my life. I was sick for days afterwards. They tasted great however. I envy people who can actually eat that stuff.

The MSG is only in the spice packet so if you just use the noodles and flavor with something else, you don't get any MSG.

We had a rough week here. Sarge started killing chickens again. Long story short, I've done what could to keep him, but now he is living with a good friend of mine as an LGD for horses, goats, and pigs. He's doing really well out there and I can see him whenever I want. The night after he left, we lost one of the roos I hatched this spring to an owl.

I'm sorry to hear about Sarge, but glad he is in a good place where he has a job to do.

 

[chicken danz]

Sapphire, so sorry about Sarge. He is the only pup I had that has had that problem to my knowledge. I think maybe being in that pen with chickens for that period, playing with the chickens must have become a means of entertainment for him. I hope you don't loose more birds. Even with the dogs here since they can't fly, the owl is doing a number on mine.

 

[Kansas Prairie]

sarajoy, don't get in to a big hurry to let your new babies out with the older birds. I don't know how old they are, but the hens will try to re-establish peck order, and most likely will kill the younger birds, or injure them. You are going to have to make a pen for them and keep them separate. You also need to quarintine them for awhile so you can make sure they didn't bring a bug in with them.

I have a cage/pen that my little ones go in for a few hours a day for several days until the new wears off, they get to watch, smell, hear and learn what goes on in the big pen, before I release them with the bigs. There is still some pecking order stuff that goes on, I also set up a place for the little ones to hide that the big ones can't fit in.

 

[sharol]

Premier Farm supply in Topeka has the 50 lb bags of food grade DE if you don't want to pay shipping. It was 2 years ago, so I don't remember exactly what it cost, but I think around $25 or $30. If you are there already, it is more reasonable alternative.

Sharol

That wasn't much of a difference in the price of electric if it was only $10. I'm guessing you're right about the kids going in and out. They can sure mess up a good system. This summer, they let in all kinds of flies and hot air coming in and out. I got so angry that I ended up locking them out of the house for a while each day-- because I swear-- every 5 minutes, the door would open again and it was making me ANGRY. I would feel another rush of hot air come in the house each time and another flippin' fly along with it. I would tell them In our Out, and then lock the door. So they'd have to knock and it would have to be a good excuse (like bathroom) to come in and not just run in and out for the fun of it.

My Dh buys DE here: http://www.amazon.com/Grade-Diatoma...1352473903&sr=8-1&keywords=Diatomaceous+Earth and then of course, mixes it in drinks and smoothies.

 

[maidenwolfx80]

Good morning all! I am the new "Mom" of five juvenile brahma's - three light and two buff (she threw in the buffs for free). So I'm up to ten chickens, 2 rir's hens, 2 young buff brahma hens, 3 young light brahma hens, 2 mature lb hens, and one mature lb rooster. I am so so so excited. The young ones survived their trip from Georgia fairly well - were mailed on Wednesday and got here today. They were very hungry, and didn't even give me time to lift them out of the boxes, just pushed against the side, tipped them over and scrabbled out searching for food. Ate and ate before turning to water, and are now exploring. Going to keep them in the run for a couple days till I know they've recovered fully from the trip, before letting them out and about with the mature chickens. I'll tuck them into their little private coop cave before letting the mature ones in this evening. I know there will be an adjustment for them all. But these five new chickies seem fairly fiesty and will hopefully hold their own with the mature birds, though of course they'll be at the bottom of the pecking order at least for a time. It's a good day today!! Sara

Congrats!! Isnt it so wonderful and exciting every time you get new ones? I agree with checoukan, keep them seperate to not only work out bugs but they also need to learn a new place. they are stressed to the max from shippment, dont add extra stress of older birds chasing and pecking. It is best to keep them well away from your exisiting birds for a few weeks because if they are sick you dont want everyone to get it. It is always better to lose a couple new ones than lose your already established flock.


Hawkeye- I agree with things being visual to pop attention. Also with the dog treats I make familiar shapes and types of cookies that we eat, like choc chip but no sugar and I use carob chips. There are so many variations I do. I make muffins and cupcakes and birthday cakes and breads. I make doggies main dishes also. I have done a couple bday parties with cakes and doggie icecream. It is fun I love to do it. The more it appeals to the people the more they want to buy. The dog doesnt care if it is a biscotti or a drop cookie. So if you market towards the owner it sells. I can do anything requested, does your dog have skin irritations or digestive upsets? I can make a cookie with herbs to help the issue. For a basic 1 pound bag of say peanut butter bones I charge $6. Other things like cakes and muffins and some of the medicinal ones are alittle more. I make them healthy and with as many natural ingredients as I can.

 

[cherwill]

We also make the laundry soap. My son loves to grate the soap bar It works well! I much prefer it to the premade, because I love adding lavender and mint oils to the dry powder and having my clothes smell so good! It is definitely a stress relief combo I crave I use a lot of essential oils, but lavender is my favorite. It goes in all my "beauty" products and I make my own perfume with it.


Danz, no.... I can't tell if any of them are roosters yet. They are so darn friendly. The one I hand fed for almost a week jumps out of the cage- a roosts along my sun porch wall- every time I open the door. She has to be held! Just funny. Maybe he will be really lucky and they will all be hens I hope that darned owl gets what is due.... I have a pic of Duke

We have a blue Ameracauna I love. The blue and lavender are my favorite color too

Josie- so glad Lucy is mending well! Please be careful- for you and her. Getting hurt is not an optimal activity for either of you
Is there a chicken event in Shawnee co in Dec? I think I remember reading something to that effect. What would it be? Should I plan on taking my kids ?
Exhaustion is overtaking me I hope it is a good restful night for all.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Very pretty.

Yeah, not feeling 100%, that's for sure. I still have twinges and pain, but NOTHING that those first two weeks. You make an excellent point about how my bones might have moved in the impact I had. Considering I was going between 50-55 mph.... esh. It doesn't bode well for my back and neck. I made one more appt with this massage lady-- she is a trained "deep tissue" massager and she's done a lot of whip lash. She said my neck is pretty messed up and actually told me I NEED to go see a chiropracter. So I'm going to make an appt here pretty quick! What she did-- it wasn't one of those relaxing sleep-thru-the-massage type thing. She was grabbing and pulling and rubbing out muscles and it was quite painful. She was recommended by someone who does injuries and said this lady had gone to school to learn this. I'm typing and my shoulder aren't up to my ears anymore, so that feels great. It might take several sessions with both the chiropractor and massager; if your bones were out of place long enough, the muscles will want to return to their tighter positions and may pull the bones back out. That's the problem I've been dealing with on my back because I listened to my regular doctor and ended up letting the sciatica and pelvic sprain go for two years. You were smarter than I was!

now the lighting on this picture is pretty crappy. I actually made an edit of this-- which I didn't save to BYC that brightened up the whites and took out the "dingy". If I had dragged over a lamp to aim lower under the car, the shadows would have been less and it would have been a cleaner shot. A desk lamp is usually the best-- you can set them on a chair or play with the level to get your lighting right. But by aiming low, you don't see that this was done in my living room, and who know what else mess what in there.

Major cuteness!

I always buy basil and it always bolts to seed, but this year I picked up something different, "chocolate basil" I think (I'll check when I get home -- I'm at Reno with my daughter and her family right now). It lasted all summer. I kept picking off the blossom ends, and it just kept growing. We had the best soups and pasta sauce all summer from it. I did water it practically every day during the extreme heat when I watered the tomatoes, though.

Basil is usually one of the first herbs that flowers for me, so I try to get out and pick the heads off regularly. You can actually use the flowers as well as the leaves, but the flavor isn't as strong and as you've experienced, once the plant produces mature seeds, it's mostly done growing. If you like mint, there are all kinds of flavored mints -- chocolate, orange, apple, pineapple and more I'm sure. Mint will completely take over a bed, though.

maidenwolf, gonna be hard to stop them from roosting on the porch. Gonna have to put up something to keep them from being able to land there. Cattle panel or something.
Here are two my cream legbar chicks that hatched yester day. I think both are dark males. I was hoping for a female. Oh, well, they are cute babies!!


I know I don't need anouther breed, but if I get a few hens, would be a novelty in the hen house. They are so sweet and cuddly right now, wish I had a broody hen!!!

Sweet chicks.

Good morning all! I am the new "Mom" of five juvenile brahma's - three light and two buff (she threw in the buffs for free). So I'm up to ten chickens, 2 rir's hens, 2 young buff brahma hens, 3 young light brahma hens, 2 mature lb hens, and one mature lb rooster. I am so so so excited. The young ones survived their trip from Georgia fairly well - were mailed on Wednesday and got here today. They were very hungry, and didn't even give me time to lift them out of the boxes, just pushed against the side, tipped them over and scrabbled out searching for food. Ate and ate before turning to water, and are now exploring. Going to keep them in the run for a couple days till I know they've recovered fully from the trip, before letting them out and about with the mature chickens. I'll tuck them into their little private coop cave before letting the mature ones in this evening. I know there will be an adjustment for them all. But these five new chickies seem fairly fiesty and will hopefully hold their own with the mature birds, though of course they'll be at the bottom of the pecking order at least for a time. It's a good day today!! Sara

Congratulations on the new chicks!

Oh - a question for all of those who make their own home-made laundry soap. This is something I've never tried and would like to but....does anyone know if the home-made soap is okay to use in front-load machines? Since you have to use the special HE soap that is low sudsing, I would hate to try a home-made recipe and have it break the washer....

I make a powdered version using bar soap (Fels Naphtha when I can get it), baking soda, washing soda and borax. I have a used front loader and have never had a problem using this formula. If it sudses, I haven't seen it. I only need to use about 2 T. per load, so the amount of actual soap involved isn't that much.

Good morning all. Still plugging along here, how have you all been? I just can't seem to get on here often enough to keep up, so I just don't even try anymore.

We had a rough week here. Sarge started killing chickens again. Long story short, I've done what could to keep him, but now he is living with a good friend of mine as an LGD for horses, goats, and pigs. He's doing really well out there and I can see him whenever I want. The night after he left, we lost one of the roos I hatched this spring to an owl.
On a good note, my Blue Coppers are growing out beautifully and I expect several Bantam Cochin, Red mix and Barnyard mix chicks to hatch soon. I will be getting some SLW, BLRW, and GLW in January. I will probably end up having to get some more EE's, but I will wait and see if the ones I have will ever start laying. If they do, I have EE roos to breed them with.

"Just keep swimming"

I'm sorry to hear about Sarge, but glad you found him a place to live. Especially one where you can still see him.

I love Basil but have had trouble keeping it going! It didn't seem to like the heat during the drought and it all died out so I didn't have any last year. I love to pick fresh basil and whip it up in the food processor with a little olive oil and garlic to make fresh pesto. I didn't harvest often enough to make pesto this year, but I have in the past and it freezes successfully, so you could do that if you have a particularly good year with your basil.

I lost the multi about whoever only saved $10 on their bill. It might not seem like much, but $10 can provide a homemade meal for 4 people. If you combine all the $5 here and $10 there savings you might use in a month, you might be surprised by what it all adds up to. If I cut my electric bill by $10 a month, the water bill by $5, cleaning products, grocery and personal product costs by $10, that's $25 right there. Don't be discouraged by little savings amounts because they can add up. It's just harder to see it because it's only a little bit in any one place.

With the baking soda tooth powder, it's definitely an acquired taste! It's very salty. I know some people add Xylitol to theirs to make it sweeter, but I just got used to the saltiness. I add cinnamon oil, others use peppermint oil. DH and I have been using it for a couple of years and neither of us has had a cavity in that time, and always are complimented on how we have so little tartar and plaque to scrape off at our cleanings. That was what finally convinced me homemade didn't mean inferior quality when compared to commercial toothpaste.

Some other thoughts I had about what we do to save money here and there:
- Salad dressings are expensive for the amount you get and are so easy to make at home. Homemade tastes better, too. DH hated vinaigrette salad dressings until I started making our own. He couldn't believe how much better it tastes. For 5 minutes of effort, we get a superior product without all the additives and preservatives. Vinaigrette lasts forever in the fridge, too.
- I wash and reuse baggies until they get holes in them.
- I do all the laundry in cold water unless I have some specific reason to use warm or hot. I was a little skeptical about that when I first started doing it, but I can't see any difference in the cleanliness of my clothes.
- DH trims my hair. That saves a ridiculous amount of money. Of course, I basically have Cher hair, so all he has to do is cut it straight across the bottom. My MIL used to cut her daughters' hair. I love her dearly, but I'd have to be pretty desperate to do that to my hair!

My chickens have been layin' fools lately. 4-6 eggs a day! I see a quiche in my near future ...

 

[lizzyGSR]

Basil is usually one of the first herbs that flowers for me, so I try to get out and pick the heads off regularly. You can actually use the flowers as well as the leaves, but the flavor isn't as strong and as you've experienced, once the plant produces mature seeds, it's mostly done growing. If you like mint, there are all kinds of flavored mints -- chocolate, orange, apple, pineapple and more I'm sure. Mint will completely take over a bed, though.


I make a powdered version using bar soap (Fels Naphtha when I can get it), baking soda, washing soda and borax. I have a used front loader and have never had a problem using this formula. If it sudses, I haven't seen it. I only need to use about 2 T. per load, so the amount of actual soap involved isn't that much.


With the baking soda tooth powder, it's definitely an acquired taste! It's very salty. I know some people add Xylitol to theirs to make it sweeter, but I just got used to the saltiness. I add cinnamon oil, others use peppermint oil. DH and I have been using it for a couple of years and neither of us has had a cavity in that time, and always are complimented on how we have so little tartar and plaque to scrape off at our cleanings. That was what finally convinced me homemade didn't mean inferior quality when compared to commercial toothpaste.

For Basil - would you mind sharing some recipes that you use it for? I have some growing that my mother-in-law gave me, but I honestly have no idea how to use it or what to use it in. I believe I have regular basil and a variety called purple basil.

On the Borax - if you haven't heard, there are places you should not use it. They say not to use it with newborns, if you're pregnant, etc. I don't currently fit in any of the categories that they say not to use it in, but if you read up on it, it sounds like pretty harsh stuff. I avoid it for that reason, but I know that there are a lot of people who use it in so many different places around the house. (NOTE: I did not, in any way, intend to sound mean on this, so please forgive me if I do. I'm just trying to let everyone know that there are quite a few people who refuse to use Borax because of all the situations that are listed in the "Do Not Use" category.).

Baking soda tooth paste/powder - can you share a recipe, please? I wouldn't mind giving it a try. Do you have to make some every time you want to brush your teeth or does it keep for quite a while?