i think i'm burning out....

[blue90292]

i was thinking about that, how ya'll need the rain. i'll be praying, a gentle knudge of the system to go your way.

 

[blossom hen]

Blue, it has finally stopped raining up here in NE Tx where we are. But, we had rain everyday except one (I think) in a six week period. My whole yard was flooded to some extent (I live in town) and really a part of the chicken coop was all that was not under water at one time. My chicken house floor is about a foot off the ground or they would have had to learn to swim! Anyway, my son told me he didn't want to offend me, but that my yard smelled like a hog pen! After the rain stopped, I got a truck load of sand to put in the chicken coop area (to replace some of what had washed out of it) and that immediately helped the odor. Then the above ground pool sprang a large leak and flooded the yard again! Always something, huh? But the rain will stop and things will get better. And God bless you for having 75 babies in your house at once!!! (I thought 15 was bad before time to move them out to the coop!) Hope the rain has stopped by now.

 

[jackiedon]

Blue,

I'm glad you feel better. I think it would be really neat to do it full time.

I hope you enjoy your few days without rain.

jackie

 

[Bubba]

The problem with ants. Have you tried using boric acid? It will kill the birds if they eat it, so you need to put a border of it away from where they are. Ants won't cross it and the ones that do die shortly there after. You could also add some diatomaceous earth to that border. Throw hot peppers, black peppers, garlic, neem oil, vanilla, cinnamon and marigolds into the blender. It won't even hurt the birds unless they gorge on it. Don't sprinkle it make a trail/border with it. If you think your birds will eat it leave out the boric acid. PS Boric acid doesn't work when wet....

Not much you can do about the mold unless a space heater or dehumidifier would work. You are in the south thou so its like opening the windows with the AC on blast. If your coop is enclosed it will drop the level of humidity to an acceptable level for your birds.

Forget the fogger and start a couple small ponds (Fishtanks and kiddie pools work fine). If you can't fight them, join them comes to mind. Instead of attacking them outright, DIRECT
them to an area then attack. You want to attract them to a specific water source, you can put dunks in the water, add Bti (Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis) or even put barley straw in the water. I use only barley in my outdoor fish (snail) tanks and have no mosquito problems. What you don't need are bug zappers, CO2 machines or the like. They don't kill enough and only attact more to your property. If the ground is truely soaked you can just shread barley and toss it everywhere, doesn't hurt the birds. Also plant marigolds around the edges of your property and wherever you don't want them. Marigolds repel alot of insects.


Have you thought about putting some bat boxes on your property? Bats are awesome for insect control and make great fertilizer for the garden. Make a tea from it or put it in your compost pile. Like chicken poop, it'll burn plants when raw.

Hope this helps ya out,

Love the Bubba

 

[allen wranch]

Michele,
I am so sorry you are having such problems. The rain is constant here too. I don't know how, but so far everyone is staying well...

Please don't give up.

 

[mom'sfolly]

darn rain! I can't believe I just said that. Three years of drought and now it won't stop. Hang in there Michele, it will get better.

Karen

 

[Judymae]

We live east of Dallas in the Greenville area and the rain has stopped for now. My ground has all dried up and we were even able to have the pasture shredded! I thought it would never dry up but it did. I've even been able to dry clothes out on the line for the last week! My coop doesn't have a floor so it was soupy mush inside. The poor chickies just stayed on the roosting poles the whole time. All is better right now but I've heard the rain is coming back at the end of the week. But I have to admit--when I drove over the lake the other day it was finally full. Last summer it had cows grazing in it because the water level was so low you couldn't even see it from the highway!

 

[BantamMom13720]

Glad you're feeling better.... don't give up, you'd be so sad about it and you just KNOW it's going to get better, after all how much worse can it actually get?

Did you create your page yet? Maybe if it continues raining working on your page so we can all see, will bring back to you a lot of the really happy times you've had with your babies and help you pull through this low point.

You could always build them a small Ark.....LOL.

Praying for you in VA

 

[blue90292]

judy, i know what you mean. i remember last year, my friends telling me how they had to get a new well dug because it was so dry and their well dried up!!

and carla, thank you. i'm not giving up. poor guys, though. they don't have shelter like yours yet and so they have no place to sand bath and so some of them, i've noticed, have mites. ugh. so this weekend, rain or shine, both the junior pen and the adult pen will be getting wormed.


bubba, thank you for your suggestions. i think i'll try some of them. the problem with the ponds...well, my whole back 2 acres is currently a pond or errrrr, lake. LOL

and bantam mom, that's funny about an ARK!

and thank yous! to every one else for their encouraging words. ya'll are awesome!!