Delawares from kathyinmo

[LeslieDJoyce]

I'm not a vegetarian, it's just that Dad went for dinner with his favorite daughter and her grandkids and I will be cooking some ham and stuff for us and my best friend tomorrow -- already have the Boston Baked Beans in the crock pot. Therefore I decided to take the day off from healthy food prep. The lovely thing about popcorn is you can eat it laying down. If only Christmas Day TV had been worth watching ... I did finally see The Princess Bride.

 

[Zanna]

Same to y'all and we expect some production with that equipment - Going to give Perdue a run for the money ?

One of the stores/fresh markets that I supply honey and excess eggs to wanted me to hatch them 200 chicks. Told them I did not want to do that but they still want 100 mixed of my Marans and Ameraucana/olive egger/easter egger chicks. They know they can't get as dark of layers from a hatchery and their customers love my dark eggs. Did not want to hatch in my incubator and the numbers were too high for my two hovabators. Don't think I will be hatching any numbers of that quantity for myself at once but it will be convenient to have a large, designated hatcher except for where to put it........ Definitely not going into the hatchery business!

 

[finnfur]

One of the stores/fresh markets that I supply honey and excess eggs to wanted me to hatch them 200 chicks. Told them I did not want to do that but they still want 100 mixed of my Marans and Ameraucana/olive egger/easter egger chicks. They know they can't get as dark of layers from a hatchery and their customers love my dark eggs. Did not want to hatch in my incubator and the numbers were too high for my two hovabators. Don't think I will be hatching any numbers of that quantity for myself at once but it will be convenient to have a large, designated hatcher except for where to put it........ Definitely not going into the hatchery business!

That sounds promising and good luck ! I love hatching I just don't like the time between 4 weeks and feather out,
I think I need to make other accommodations for that stage away from my work shop because they get to messy
in the enclosed area LOL

 

[Zanna]

I'll say!!!

I must have been naughty. That same hatcher was on my wish list.

Sure hope you got most everything else on your list!

The Stockton show, now in Modesto has changed dates to the next weekend so we may be coming down if I think we can deal with the 10 hour drive the weekend after our 25th wedding anniversary trip to Vegas. Honey bees did not make the grade so we are not shipping them down. If we do make the show I could bring you a cockeral although I am honestly not excited about any of them at this point. Will touch base as the dates come closer.

Sympathy hug, Kim. This was my Christmas Dinner.

I hope you have a fantastic dinner tomorrow night!! We just dont' do much for Christmas. My 75 year old boss decorates the barn and her house enough for 500 people (seriously!!!) and gets all stressed about it which transfers onto me. Being a 28 year employee and living on the farm where my job is you can't help but get pulled in. We had a great meal but a nice quiet evening as we like it.

The solar panels being installed on the property we own ("roosterville", where we will live some day) just got completed so we met the installer there on Christmas eve. The system is huge and looks amazing! So excited to have a retirement future of little to no power bill!! That was even a better gift than the hatcher!! There are fantastic rebates/incentives/tax breaks in Oregon right now. You have to pay a lot up front but for a farm/business install you get almost complete payback within 5 years! Really an amazing deal.

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

My mom used to over do Christmas so I got burned out and it isn't the same without her. Sister has to do it now as she has the kids. Huge relief for me. Farm-fresh ham (somehow "fresh" doesn't seem the right word, but you get my drift) is already cooking and smelling crazy good. Artisanal bread rising in the bread bowl. I get to learn to make Mac & cheese, which could be a mistake considering how much of it I can tuck away in one sitting. My friend promises to bring a juicy story and squash. Lots of carbs!

If you and Kim think there is one of my cockerels that might work for her, maybe you can take him down to her. Some of the younger birds are looking better over time. Mr Fatty is getting whiter, which is happy news. Big Brassy One is getting harder to pick out of the crowd. PapaDel has appointments. Those three still look like good choices to work with up here. All the rest are up for grabs. They all have too much black on their backs, but they are also nice and wide and have yellow legs. Some seem to have really good wing carriage. Tails could maybe be up a bit. I have two color types, the ones with gray & white tails, and the ones with black/green feathers in the tails. I'll be keeping at least one of each. Culling seems to be going nowhere right now ... but it would be good to know if I should spare more than just the three that are banded.

Zanna, I so envy you the solar setup!!! So cool how you are plugging away at getting the farm fitted out bit by bit. And you can feel good about using the electricty.

 

[rancher hicks]

My thoughts would be call the Treeman with a boom -
If there is enough room between fence and coop you might be able to push it with a LARGE tractor - hold up while pushing over fence
but that takes a chance on damage to the fence and coop
Good Luck Brother - Please don't hurt yourself

edit to add; This reminds me of a big tall thin pine w had that after a icy snow storm lean over our previous log cabin house . I was about a 45 degree angle
straight over the house; well I kept putting off cutting it because of the lean over. So I procrastenated until summer and along comes a hurricane .
We huddled in basement durring storm with our fingers crossed . We heard a tree hit the ground during the high wind.
Next morning the tree is laying sideways to the house on the ground- the wind had been blowing from the back of house and twisted the tree
sideways - No damage - Thank you lord !

It's so wet I'm sure they'd get stuck. Not to mention money is very tight. DW's disability ran out and we're not even getting by. We're trying to figure out how she will retire now. How to spend what we've saved to get the best benefit. Health insurance is number one. She still has weeks of treatments to look forward to.

We're talking with the DD and hers about moving in with us but that will take some doing for everyone to deal with it. There in an to small apartment anyhow so it's not like they'd give up a house. Though this house might be to small. Even with four bedrooms. The grandkids of course would love it since Gramma is Queen.

So you see things are tough. We've had tough before so I expect we'll survive. I'm just too old for this. They say God doesn't give us more than we can handle. I just wish he didn't have so much faith in me.

 

[finnfur]

It's so wet I'm sure they'd get stuck. Not to mention money is very tight. DW's disability ran out and we're not even getting by. We're trying to figure out how she will retire now. How to spend what we've saved to get the best benefit. Health insurance is number one. She still has weeks of treatments to look forward to.

We're talking with the DD and hers about moving in with us but that will take some doing for everyone to deal with it. There in an to small apartment anyhow so it's not like they'd give up a house. Though this house might be to small. Even with four bedrooms. The grandkids of course would love it since Gramma is Queen.

So you see things are tough. We've had tough before so I expect we'll survive. I'm just too old for this. They say God doesn't give us more than we can handle. I just wish he didn't have so much faith in me.

He does - and we do too - God Bless

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

It's so wet I'm sure they'd get stuck. Not to mention money is very tight. DW's disability ran out and we're not even getting by. We're trying to figure out how she will retire now. How to spend what we've saved to get the best benefit. Health insurance is number one. She still has weeks of treatments to look forward to.

We're talking with the DD and hers about moving in with us but that will take some doing for everyone to deal with it. There in an to small apartment anyhow so it's not like they'd give up a house. Though this house might be to small. Even with four bedrooms. The grandkids of course would love it since Gramma is Queen.

So you see things are tough. We've had tough before so I expect we'll survive. I'm just too old for this. They say God doesn't give us more than we can handle. I just wish he didn't have so much faith in me.

It sounds like it would be a big blessing to have the family come together. I hope you can keep the birds. I know when I don't feel well looking out the window at the birds in the back yard makes me feel so much better.

I could watch the Cockerel Colony all day. Yesterday they were "hunting" sparrows. So funny for them to think they are agile enough to make that work. They also had their eye on a squirrel. If I stick my head out the window, they all come to the fence looking for treats.

Mr. Finnfur ... question about removing spurs on your 1.5 yo cock ... did you wrap the exposed quick in anything? Did you segregate him in a smaller cage for any amount of time before he went back out with the females?

I'm considering removing PapaDel's spurs before breeding season, and wonder how long it will take for him to stop bleeding, etc. I think smaller spurs make it less awkward for them to mate. I've also got some hatchery birds we're going to take the spurs off of ... one is a Bantam Cochin who can hardly walk at this point (couldn't see the spurs under all his fluff). I have a small cage I can put the Bantam Cochin in until he stops bleeding, and a larger cage that will work for bigger birds. But I hate to disrupt the flock if it's not necessary, and I would prefer to get this project finished ASAP.

 

[rancher hicks]

It sounds like it would be a big blessing to have the family come together. I hope you can keep the birds. I know when I don't feel well looking out the window at the birds in the back yard makes me feel so much better.

I could watch the Cockerel Colony all day. Yesterday they were "hunting" sparrows. So funny for them to think they are agile enough to make that work. They also had their eye on a squirrel. If I stick my head out the window, they all come to the fence looking for treats.

Mr. Finnfur ... question about removing spurs on your 1.5 yo cock ... did you wrap the exposed quick in anything? Did you segregate him in a smaller cage for any amount of time before he went back out with the females?

I'm considering removing PapaDel's spurs before breeding season, and wonder how long it will take for him to stop bleeding, etc. I think smaller spurs make it less awkward for them to mate. I've also got some hatchery birds we're going to take the spurs off of ... one is a Bantam Cochin who can hardly walk at this point (couldn't see the spurs under all his fluff). I have a small cage I can put the Bantam Cochin in until he stops bleeding, and a larger cage that will work for bigger birds. But I hate to disrupt the flock if it's not necessary, and I would prefer to get this project finished ASAP.

My birds don't go after the squirrels and the buggers are scaring them out of the coop to eat the food. I've been dealing with them the best I could.

I bought a "dremel" tool to cut spurs, but have yet to need it.

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

My birds don't go after the squirrels and the buggers are scaring them out of the coop to eat the food. I've been dealing with them the best I could.

I bought a "dremel" tool to cut spurs, but have yet to need it.

Awwww. They shouldn't be skeeered.

We've done spurs before ... twisted them off with pliers. But we also wrapped the quicks in gauze & vet wrap, and I'd like to avoid that if it is possible.

This site suggests it is possible to not wrap up the quicks after pulling the spurs off. I think this is the method we'll try this time. ... https://sites.google.com/a/poultrypedia.com/poultrypedia/home/rooster-spurs-trimming-and-removing