Illinois...

[WhyDoILikeChickens]

@BReeder! Great idea on the carnitas style turkey. I also used this meat in a quesadilla which got eaten before photos could be taken, they were great.
Also tell my new neighbor if they turn left from caton farm a policeman will likely be waiting to extract some money. $125 lesson from me.

 

[WhyDoILikeChickens]

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! Mine was so-so. Got a bad case of the blahs. Probabky because I'm missing my eldest and missed his graduation from basic. I have been busy. Cooking dinner, cleaning, decorating the past 3 days.. and still not done.
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Today i cleaned the front windows inside and out so i could hang the wreaths. Just so time consuming. We also raked some of the front getting up the willow branches so I can do a final mow in the front sometime. I also shut down my smaller temp coop for the winter. The ultra handsome sweet slo and his new buddies are sleepung with the big guys. I hope they do ok tonight. He went right in and i scooped him up with his buddies to perch. They seemed to settle down ok. So now im down to just 3 coops. The big orp coop, the spitzie coop, and the serama coop in the garage. Speaking of seramas heres some adorable for you.
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Been thinking about naming these sisters Elsa and Anna, because, well, why not?

I decorate 1 tree (outside) but I decorate it heavily. I think I'll stop at 10 strands lol.

 

[Faraday40]

@homeschoolin momma


These two were my favorites from the September hatch and originally the ones I was going to keep. (But DD got attached to an older brown one and then we were given a black serama. Keeping 4 new seramas would be too many.) I love this white girl! She does look like a princess. She is 12-14 days older than her "sister." She's probably going to be size A

Thanks for the cuteness update. I really needed it today and understand the holiday blahs. We finally got the water blown out of the underground lines and most of the leaves up - via mowing the lawn. My bigger accomplishment was washing the inside walls of the coop. Flock is finally ready for winter.

The house looks very nice! No Christmas decorations up here, but a bit of house cleaning in progress.

 

[BReeder!]

@BReeder! Great idea on the carnitas style turkey. I also used this meat in a quesadilla which got eaten before photos could be taken, they were great.
Also tell my new neighbor if they turn left from caton farm a policeman will likely be waiting to extract some money. $125 lesson from me.

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Looks great! And I'm aware of that turn. 7am-7pm, and I will not risk even at 6:59 pm.

 

[BReeder!]

We finally got the water blown out of the underground lines

Do you have a hose spikot or sink out in the chicken run? I want to run a spikot in the garden via a buried line. I fear forgetting to blow out the line though and having it burst.

 

[cavemanrich]

Do you have a hose spikot or sink out in the chicken run? I want to run a spikot in the garden via a buried line. I fear forgetting to blow out the line though and having it burst.

I can always remind you when I do mine. I will do mine tomorrow. I no longer need the outdoor hose for some weeks now, so its time.
If I do need to use the hose,,,,,,,, I simply attach it to the laundry sink inside utility room, and run outside.

 

[Faraday40]

Do you have a hose spikot or sink out in the chicken run? I want to run a spikot in the garden via a buried line. I fear forgetting to blow out the line though and having it burst.

One night of freezing temps followed by a daily warm up is not a big deal. It's when I see a string of 20-30'F nights that we winterize.

We have a detached garage and a long, long 350' yard. Our only spigot was next to the front door, and the garden is as far away as we can get from the house. After a few years of gardening we added a second spigot to back of house and then dug a line from the house to behind the garage. Another was added from the garage to the far back by the garden.

We put the coop behind the garage, so for 3 seasons we have water. Nothing fancy like a sink or auto waterer. I have a hose and kids to fill waterers. In winter when the hose is off, I have a thermostatic heater in my home-made bucket waterer. We have a lot of minerals in our water and I feared they would ruin the heater.

So here's the funny part. I bought an inexpensive water purifier for the kitchen sink to remove minerals and make the heater last longer. We fill up some cleaned gallon milk jugs with filtered water and bring it out to chickens. The heater is 8 years old, so my plan worked. What's even funnier is that we don't like to wait for the filtered water, so we tend to drink it from the tap. Only our chickens get the purified water.

 

[SnootyHen]

I keep trying to figure out a realistic way to run water and/or power to the back of the yard. It would be so much more convenient.

My bully pullet is still stalking the chicks so they don't come out of the coop much unless a person is in the run or the big girls are in the coop. So they come out for breakfast with my Leghorn before the rest get up and for the last hour of daylight, the big girls roost and the littles run free. But today we had a visit from a neighborhood cat who suddenly seems interested in my chickens. She's been around a while and never came into my yard before (probably because of my dogs) but now she's been back a few times a day.

Well today she got chased out once and apparently didn't learn. Dogs were in the house and I hear Karen alarming. She thinks she's a rooster. I look out the window to see Karen up front int he run with the other 6 pullets behind her and low and behold, the babies too!!! 3 of them were up on top of the dog crate behind her and the other 2 were hiding behind the other girls. They must have heard her and come out to see what was going on and I'm proud of them for knowing she was calling them and proud of her for making sure they were safe. And then I chased the cat out again because if I hadn't, my dog would have knocked the damn door down to go get her. I feel like maybe this was a breakthrough because when the babies went to roost, I found only 4 on the middle roost so I start looking for the 5th to find her on the top roost with the big girls!!!

 

[homeschoolin momma]

I keep trying to figure out a realistic way to run water and/or power to the back of the yard. It would be so much more convenient.

My bully pullet is still stalking the chicks so they don't come out of the coop much unless a person is in the run or the big girls are in the coop. So they come out for breakfast with my Leghorn before the rest get up and for the last hour of daylight, the big girls roost and the littles run free. But today we had a visit from a neighborhood cat who suddenly seems interested in my chickens. She's been around a while and never came into my yard before (probably because of my dogs) but now she's been back a few times a day.

Well today she got chased out once and apparently didn't learn. Dogs were in the house and I hear Karen alarming. She thinks she's a rooster. I look out the window to see Karen up front int he run with the other 6 pullets behind her and low and behold, the babies too!!! 3 of them were up on top of the dog crate behind her and the other 2 were hiding behind the other girls. They must have heard her and come out to see what was going on and I'm proud of them for knowing she was calling them and proud of her for making sure they were safe. And then I chased the cat out again because if I hadn't, my dog would have knocked the damn door down to go get her. I feel like maybe this was a breakthrough because when the babies went to roost, I found only 4 on the middle roost so I start looking for the 5th to find her on the top roost with the big girls!!!

Awe, breakthrough in the pecking order!

 

[Justso]

Today's leftover: herb and cheese rissoto with peas and diced turkey breast. I also made cranberry sauce bars; a shortbread with cranberry sauce layered in the middle. At this point I don't care if I never see another turkey again. thank goodness I was able to unload most of it on the neighbor.
I had a very low-key Thanksgiving, carefully isolating, and it was the dog that got sick! I have never seen so much coughing and snot come out of a dog in my whole life. Thank goodness he's on the mend, still coughing and we still have to dodge him when he sneezes.