Homesteaders

[MoonShadows]

Quote:

 

[Loc20chick]

Mama Heating Pad...sort of the cheaper answer to the Eco brooders.  Here's a thread on it:  https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/956958/mama-heating-pad-in-the-brooder-picture-heavy-update

Thanks. Will look it up.

 

[rancher hicks]

@rancher hicks I was the "silver spoon baby" growing up. I never wanted for anything and never was told no when I asked for something. I was never made to clean, cook, do my laundry or any other self sufficient type thing. I come from a city life until age 24. The only country experience I had was one weekend a month with my aunt on her farm. At 18 I moved out and found that reality sucks. After losing a lot to stupidity I grew up.

Fast forward to 2006 I met my current husband and we moved to Binghamton. Yuck, it's to city. My kids were afraid to play outside and my dog turned vicious.

2013 we purchased, after many long years of working and saving and going without stuff for us adults. Now we own 9 acres with peace and quiet.

My point? Life changes daily. Never judge a person by their up bringing. A person isn't who they truly are until they have made mistakes and dug themselves back out of the rubble. I was spoiled @$$ rotten until the day I moved out of my childhood home. I fell flat on my face lost everything I had including my 1st husband to childish fun and games. Round 3 started the day I told my grandmother that everything was fine even though o was about to have car #2 repossessed. I decided , even though I was a single mother of a disabled 2 year old, it was time to do it on my own and make it work. So I hired a live in nanny worked 2 full-time jobs and came out on top of the manure pile. Now at 35 I rely on no one but my household. My kids have been taught if they won't work for it they can't have it.

I refuse to allow them to grow up like I did and realize to late that life isn't a game. When we pass the farm down to the kids (there are 4 that could potentially inherit it) it will only be split between the ones who choose to continue with our way of life. Otherwise we will sell when we are too old to run things here and travel .

Kids these days have a serious case of the " gimme gimme" syndrome and the reason is parents are afraid to say no. My kids hear "earn it" more than they hear "ok honey here you go".

Ok rant over. Yall have a great day. I'm off to lay another layer of paper in my garden. Its a soupy mess and my chickens are making it worse.

Oh hey!!! One last thing, happy leap day yall, hope the insanity ends soon.

With all due respect. I was not judging anyone because of their upbringing. I am sorry you took it that way. I'm an old man and I know quite a bit about life.

As for mistakes? I disagree. One doesn't HAVE to make mistakes. One CAN listen to the wiser person whether it be parents, aunts, uncles, teachers or friends. Wisdom can come from listening to those smarter than we are. Wisdom can come from observation. This is why many times I advise getting counseling. This is why I'm here. To get advice, listen to others methods and ideas and avoid some mistakes, in farming, growing things, raising chickens, crochet, canning, etc. etc.

For family matters I go to church and read my bible.

Pro 11:14

Where no counsel is, the people fall: but in the multitude of counsellors there is safety.

When I didn't listen to what I was told, get a clue by what I saw, I made bad choices and that was MY fault. I brought a lot of heartache and trouble on myself. I did it. No one else was to blame. I didn't have to make those mistakes. I know that some folks never learn, but I don't have time to type all the examples out.

As for your choices, I not interested in where you were but where you are now. Here with us talking homesteading.

Our past is the past. I have my own past to deal with and I think somethings are better left in the past. No sense crying over spilled milk.

Saw a sign once, "Don't look back, you're not going that way."

I'm sorry if I made you feel bad. You mistook what my point was.

Which is that not everyone who homesteads has a head start. It seems to me that many book writers and article writers do. It's not a bad thing, it doesn't make them a bad person. It's just something to consider when reading their book. It's also something to consider when one wonders why one has to work so hard. Some folks start out with less, it doesn't make us less than anyone else. We should not be discouraged.

I wish you well,

Rancher, I just look stupid, Hicks.

 

[jerrey]

It really lets them regulate their own body temps, that's for sure. Imagine you are in a desert....the sun(brooder lamp) is glaring down on you and you are a tender young thing that dehydrates quickly. The only moisture you have is the waterer and the only defense against the never ending sunlight. You drink a lot due to the heat and humidity you are losing....it causes you to have more liquid stool that gets caught in your fluffy down and dries there under the heat of that never ending sunlight from whence there is no shade nor escape.

What is commonly known as "pasty butt". I've never seen pasty butt in chicks raised underneath a broody hen and this is most likely why.

@ Paganrose...

Bee do you think we should use a heat lamp and if so what would you say the temp. should be
Jerrey Mae

 

[jerrey]

With all due respect. I was not judging anyone because of their upbringing. I am sorry you took it that way. I'm an old man and I know quite a bit about life.

As for mistakes? I disagree. One doesn't HAVE to make mistakes. One CAN listen to the wiser person whether it be parents, aunts, uncles, teachers or friends. Wisdom can come from listening to those smarter than we are. Wisdom can come from observation. This is why many times I advise getting counseling. This is why I'm here. To get advice, listen to others methods and ideas and avoid some mistakes, in farming, growing things, raising chickens, crochet, canning, etc. etc.

For family matters I go to church and read my bible.

Pro 11:14

Where no counsel is, the people fall: but in the multitude of counsellors there is safety.

When I didn't listen to what I was told, get a clue by what I saw, I made bad choices and that was MY fault. I brought a lot of heartache and trouble on myself. I did it. No one else was to blame. I didn't have to make those mistakes. I know that some folks never learn, but I don't have time to type all the examples out.

As for your choices, I not interested in where you were but where you are now. Here with us talking homesteading.

Our past is the past. I have my own past to deal with and I think somethings are better left in the past. No sense crying over spilled milk.

Saw a sign once, "Don't look back, you're not going that way."

I'm sorry if I made you feel bad. You mistook what my point was.

Which is that not everyone who homesteads has a head start. It seems to me that many book writers and article writers do. It's not a bad thing, it doesn't make them a bad person. It's just something to consider when reading their book. It's also something to consider when one wonders why one has to work so hard. Some folks start out with less, it doesn't make us less than anyone else. We should not be discouraged.

I wish you well,

Rancher, I just look stupid, Hicks.

I just read everything and God bless this person and her story

 

[Beekissed]

Bee do you think we should use a heat lamp and if so what would you say the temp. should be
Jerrey Mae

I've used the heat lamp and I've also used the heating pad brooder and I favor the heating pad. It's a much more natural way for the chicks to be warmed and nurtured in their first weeks of life and they tend to fledge out quicker, have less problems with pasty butt, pecking at one another, etc. They get longer periods of rest with the heating pad because they sleep all night long vs. snatching little naps underneath the heat lamp while other chicks run all over them.

I never, never measure brooder temps to gauge what the temp should be....I watch the chicks. If they are comfortable they are quiet, they have normal levels of activity (not sleeping all the time, nor moving frenetically all the time), and they are comfortable in all areas of the brooder. If you see them avoiding the area right under the lamp, you have it too close to the floor of the brooder...move it back and watch them. If you see them huddled right under that circle of light, you have it too far away or your brooder space is too large or too drafty, so make adjustments.

If I given the choice to recommend a brooder heater, the heating pad on a brooder frame would be what I would recommend to take the guess work out of brooder temps. That way you are not heating a space, but merely heating chicks...and that's easier to do than heating a space or the ambient temps in which the chicks live.

 

[MoonShadows]

I never heard of a MHP (Mama Heating Pad) until after I purchased my EcoGlow 30. Wish I had cause I could have saved a few bucks! I bought it because it seemed more natural, and because I don't like heat lamps. They get so hot, and I've heard some horror stories of people who had fires when using them. This Spring I will be brooding 15 chicks in the coop. No way I would use a heat lamp in there with pine shaving and dust!

 

[duluthralphie]

I've used the heat lamp and I've also used the heating pad brooder and I favor the heating pad. It's a much more natural way for the chicks to be warmed and nurtured in their first weeks of life and they tend to fledge out quicker, have less problems with pasty butt, pecking at one another, etc. They get longer periods of rest with the heating pad because they sleep all night long vs. snatching little naps underneath the heat lamp while other chicks run all over them.

I never, never measure brooder temps to gauge what the temp should be....I watch the chicks. If they are comfortable they are quiet, they have normal levels of activity (not sleeping all the time, nor moving frenetically all the time), and they are comfortable in all areas of the brooder. If you see them avoiding the area right under the lamp, you have it too close to the floor of the brooder...move it back and watch them. If you see them huddled right under that circle of light, you have it too far away or your brooder space is too large or too drafty, so make adjustments.

If I given the choice to recommend a brooder heater, the heating pad on a brooder frame would be what I would recommend to take the guess work out of brooder temps. That way you are not heating a space, but merely heating chicks...and that's easier to do than heating a space or the ambient temps in which the chicks live.

Everything you said and it is cheaper to run.... The initial investment is about double a heat lamp and shield but at 60 watts compared to 250 watts for a bulb, it quickly pays for itself...


For those of you living in the northern areas, how many of you grow peas in your gardens? Do you grow the type where you eat the shells or need to be shelled?


If you raise the kind that need to be shelled, how do you shell them? Is there anyway to shell peas without thinking you have wasted a whole day? I can shell for hours and have the bottom of the bowl barely covered with peas...

 

[Beekissed]

That's why folks used to visit with one another and shell peas together....that way you can talk as your fingers fly and you get more work done but don't consider it wasted time because by the end of it you've solved the world's problems.

I grow sugar snap peas~the kind you don't shell~in the early spring...should be planting mine this week, in fact. I'm not a big fan of the regular kind, so can't provide info on them but my granny used to grow them and she shelled them as I've described above...with friends and family, mouths moving a hundred miles an hour, rocking chairs just aswayin'.

 

[KlopKlop]

If you are looking to not shell by hand there are peas shellers that use 2 rubber rollers with a crank handle.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Pea-Sheller-Jr-Mr/dp/B000BTATUG

A handy person could probably make their own