EDUCATIONAL INCUBATION & HATCHING CHAT THREAD, w/ Sally Sunshine Shipped Eggs

[daxigait]

Part of what I am putting up this weekend is Alfalfa for the goats. Then a lot of prairie grass for the horses. You can't feed them anything but first cutting Alfalfa around here because once the grasshoppers come out then we have blister beetles and it only takes one to kill a horse.

 

[room onthebroom]

You guys keep saying its Fall... Where?... Where is it??? ...I CANT SEE IT! Its midnight here & finally down to 84* in the house. The chocolate chips I'm putting in my ice cream are melty.

Beautiful dog kajira. I hope it works out for him! I double-dog-dare you to post that first close up pic of him in the 'other' calendar thread & ask if dogs are considered 'other poultry'

 

[hippiestink]

I've been taking time to think about how best to help out my fellow Texans despite being 5000+ miles away and unable to physically help. Since I own a small business, I've decided that for every order of 2 or more bars of our soap I will donate $5 to local charities helping with relief. I picked charities helping Houston as well as Rockport, Port Aransas, and other badly-effected areas.

http://hippiestink.com/2017/09/02/helping-hands-hurricane-harvey/

The link will provide more info on when this will be implemented. Stay strong, Texas! Texans all over the world have you in our thoughts and prayers.

 

[Akrnaf2]

Beautiful dog kajira. I hope it works out for him! I double-dog-dare you to post that first close up pic of him in the 'other' calendar thread & ask if dogs are considered 'other poultry'

This ones are!

 

[mlm Mike]

Congratulations on getting that done. If you're done, do you want to come stack the 225 bales of hay I'm supposed to get tonight after work?

Wow, that's a lot, most I've gotten in a day was about 120.

Not done yet...several more fields to go. But if it rains...and you're talking round bales...then I can come.
(I can't lift squares anymore. My back is toast...I'm just able to lift small pails of water for the chickens now. I had to ice before I could do my chickie chores this morning).

Sorry about your back. Earlier this spring I messed up my left forearm. Straight it was ok, but twisting it, like making turns driving or rolling logs over when I was splitting the logs earlier this spring, would cause pain and I would loose strength. It's finally healed, but was taking so long I almost went to a butcher, I mean doctor.

Where is Abi now?

Good question. @MotorcycleChick

We've had more birds drown themselves, get stomped by horses, or tangled in fences, then to predators, our Greay pyr, her puppy, our horses/goats, do a pretty good job of scaring off intruders.

Our pig sure makes a heck of a racket, too, if anything that doesn't belong comes near any of the pens.

Good to have so many animals to scare off and alert you.

I finally decided that mine would be much happier if I let them out of the run during the day even though they have quite a bit of space. So unless it is storming over there is other bad weather I just let them out and take my chances. I closed the run at night and they have an automatic door on both coops. I did not leave them out though while I was gone I had my caretakers keep them penned up so it might be that she just stayed out too long since it was only the second time they have been out since I got back.

Has she been going in ok now?

It is a good exercise. .......I am just trying to look at the bright side. ..

lol, it is, and a good feeling when it's done.

Rancher hour south of us lost 27,000 bales to fire last Thursday as of the weekend it was still burning.
Used to sell bales for my boss loading trucks as customers came. No fun.

Wow, do you know the source of the fire, did the bales ignite themselves?

 

[BullChick]

ft

anything

x 1,864,939 I was praying so hard for you!

You guys keep saying its Fall... Where?... Where is it??? ...I CANT SEE IT!

"Yeaaaaay! Look look look! Look! Look, Aunt Abi! Leaves! They're red! They're going to fall! Look! Leaves on the ground! Can I have my rake?! I wanna rake them!

Multiply her plea times a million.
And for laughs,

 

[BullChick]

Oh. And it's up to 48*, with a high of 59*. Summer is over.

 

[Pensmaster]

Wow, that's a lot, most I've gotten in a day was about 120.



Sorry about your back. Earlier this spring I messed up my left forearm. Straight it was ok, but twisting it, like making turns driving or rolling logs over when I was splitting the logs earlier this spring, would cause pain and I would loose strength. It's finally healed, but was taking so long I almost went to a butcher, I mean doctor.



Good question. @MotorcycleChick



Good to have so many animals to scare off and alert you.



Has she been going in ok now?



lol, it is, and a good feeling when it's done.



Wow, do you know the source of the fire, did the bales ignite themselves?

Not sure yet they were still investigating
Good morning Mike

Oh. And it's up to 48*, with a high of 59*. Summer is over.

Good morning Abi. Lucky you with summer over. 112 yesterday supposed to be 110 today. Smoky from all the fires.

Good morning everyone

 

[mlm Mike]

Hi

Shalom Benny!
We have not tried the green manure. It would be much too costly to sow seed to do that, plus the wear and tear on our machinery plus fuel. The closest we get to that is summer fallowing a field. That means we work the weeds down to kill them. We're finding some of the weeds are requiring this since it's been so wet.

1.+2. We do grow legumes...it never occurred to me to mention it...lol. I believe we have two fields in soybeans this year. VERY expensive input costs...but hopefully the crop will bring good returns. We've only grown soybeans once. I really like them. They're nice to work with. Peas are a pain in the backside. They make very good tasting lamb meat but every time we grow them, they lodge (lay down flat on the ground, usually caused by high winds) and are almost impossible to pick up. We stopped growing them for this reason. We haven't found a variety that meets our expectations.

Our fields are in constant rotation and we also change variety of the crop...one has to do that to keep from getting plant diseases occurring. We also have hay crops sown, consisting of alfalfa/brome and separate fields of green feed. The hay fields are rotated every so many years. We only get one hay crop the majority of the time...it's expensive to establish hay so it's left down for a few years before it's put back into crop production.

3. We do leave the plants and they are worked back into the ground. That's what the chopper on the combine does. It's like a large mulching lawn mower. If I drop the straw that means my husband round bales the straw behind the combine for bedding for the cattle. The straw wouldn't get worked back in. I assume we'll be baling the oat straw for bedding for the cattle. The guys will be swathing that whole quarter down tomorrow with two swathers while the the boy and I combine the wheat.

4+5. Both fertilizer and chemical cost as does fuel and equipment wear; farmers here don't put anymore on than they have to and we make as few passes as possible. These input costs easily reach six figures.

It's like that old joke, How do you make a million dollars farming? Start with 10 million.

Morning everyone! IT'S FINALLY FALL.

Nope, three more weeks of summer!

Isn't it beautiful??

Nope

How many alfalfa cuttings do you get per season? Guys here routinely get 3 in a good year. Mainly Holstein here; largest county in the state, & largest (but dwindling) dairy county.

We get three, and sometimes a fourth.

Hey guys I missed a good one on my phone this is the Grand canyon of Yellowstone.
View attachment 1126148

And there are a bunch of elk on the ridge if you can see them that I saw on my hike. Better pictures with my camera with 30x optical zoom, but I have not figured out the wifi feature yet
View attachment 1126150

Beautiful!

Nope. Not at all, Benny. Some of those things work very well in some places.

You couldn't pluck me from here and drop me in Ohio or California. It would be a huge vastly different with how they do things there; different varieties, different everything. Even farming here since 2011 has been a huge learning curve to adapt to being flooded. It's completely different than the 25 years we farmed prior to that...lol.

We still use horse teams here, so it might be a little different.

You guys keep saying its Fall... Where?... Where is it??? ...I CANT SEE IT! Its midnight here & finally down to 84* in the house. The chocolate chips I'm putting in my ice cream are melty.

Beautiful dog kajira. I hope it works out for him! I double-dog-dare you to post that first close up pic of him in the 'other' calendar thread & ask if dogs are considered 'other poultry'

84! I want to be there.

x 1,864,939 I was praying so hard for you!


"Yeaaaaay! Look look look! Look! Look, Aunt Abi! Leaves! They're red! They're going to fall! Look! Leaves on the ground! Can I have my rake?! I wanna rake them!
View attachment 1126846
Multiply her plea times a million.
And for laughs,
View attachment 1126847

Awww, such a big help.

Oh. And it's up to 48*, with a high of 59*. Summer is over.

Nope, Monday 82 here, now I'm at 53*F

 

[mlm Mike]

Not sure yet they were still investigating
Good morning Mike

Good morning Abi. Lucky you with summer over. 112 yesterday supposed to be 110 today. Smoky from all the fires.

Good morning everyone

Hello Pensmaster!