Illinois...

[Faraday40]

Chicken egg production dropped back down to winter levels - about 4 per day. (I was collecting about 8 per day during that springtime January weather. I even had extras to sell to the neighbors!)

However, the quail already gave me 3 eggs this morning. (I only have 3 females, so

)

Quail Update:
Because the white female quail had pecking injuries, she was a house quail for about a week. She's been in the garage next to the brown quail's cage for the past week. Every few days I try putting them together & she usually gets attacked. Today only the male was going after her, so perhaps we're getting close to my dream of only 1 cage of quail. He was too amorous for her, so as I was changing the water, she escaped through the cage door in a panic. Now with the garage door open I began to imagine all the different ways I'd be spending my morning chasing a frightened quail around the garage & possibly the yard & neighborhood. What if I never caught her? How do I explain to DD that I let her pet escape? I finished the changing the water & easily found the quail next to a bucket. I slowly bent down & picked her up. No running or even squirming. All that worry for nothing. She seemed happy to go back into her private cage.
BTW- The quail actually have names: The white one is Sunny, the male is Albert, and the other two browns are Sadie & Penelope - but only the kids can tell those 2 apart. I'm just happy the kids tamed them well. Albert still gets his daily house visits. DD made him a room in her doll house. He hangs out with Barbie while she does her math but gets some snuggle time when she does her reading. LOL

We don't do much with the eggs, but I do hard boil them for the kids' lunches. I know it's the talk of the lunch table, & after visiting, the kids' friends always ask to take one of those tiny eggs (or a blue egg) home. I also use quail eggs when I need to scale up or down a recipe. (IE- 3 eggs are needed, but I'm making a 1/2 batch. I can use 1 jumbo 3.8oz orp egg + 1 quail egg) I've been joking that we're saving up for a sandwich, but I doubt we'll ever get that many saved up. Plus, our quail do not free range, so their eggs taste more bland than our chicken eggs.
@chickendreams24 What do you do with your quail eggs?
@cavemanrich Do you eat pigeon eggs?

 

[ChicagoClucker]

Well, the bantam cochin buyer cancelled on Saturday, was suppose to meet her on Sunday. Uggg, so close, yet sooooo far. Hopefully I find homes for these boys before spring!

Also kind of worried about my Silver laced Orp boy. Apparently, my black Orpington, is acting like a tyrant all of a sudden. He is always putting the poor SL in his place if he goes by a girl. Now these guys have been fine together all this time and now this. Could it have been the spring like weather kicking in his hormones? I was planning on separating them in the spring for breeding, but not even set up for that yet. Hoping this colder weather cools things down a bit and I will have to start putting something in the works.

Also got some bird netting to hang in the LF run. I haven't seen the hawk since that day, but that doesn't mean he won't be back. I have to trim back bushes, but hopefully will get to that this coming weekend.

 

[Faraday40]

Well, the bantam cochin buyer cancelled on Saturday, was suppose to meet her on Sunday. Uggg, so close, yet sooooo far. Hopefully I find homes for these boys before spring!

Also kind of worried about my Silver laced Orp boy. Apparently, my black Orpington, is acting like a tyrant all of a sudden. He is always putting the poor SL in his place if he goes by a girl. Now these guys have been fine together all this time and now this. Could it have been the spring like weather kicking in his hormones? I was planning on separating them in the spring for breeding, but not even set up for that yet. Hoping this colder weather cools things down a bit and I will have to start putting something in the works.

Also got some bird netting to hang in the LF run. I haven't seen the hawk since that day, but that doesn't mean he won't be back. I have to trim back bushes, but hopefully will get to that this coming weekend.

Last year my perfect brother rooster team did fine up until April. They had a day of little spats & even had some minor scratches on combs & wattles. I was so nervous that I'd have to give one up, but shortly after I cleaned up their scratches, the #1 roo held his ground & the #2 went back to #2. They were 11 months old at the time & never fought after that day. I'm guessing you may see a similar thing.

I took a chance & gave away the #2 roo in order to keep Moose & Brick. #1 roo is still Mr Dummy, #2 is his son, Moose, and #3 is Brick - but the hens prefer Brick. Brick is a lover - not a fighter. I have seen Brick walk away from challenges. Moose is the biggest & most athletic, but I have not seen him challenge his dad.

 

[chickendreams24]

Last year my perfect brother rooster team did fine up until April.  They had a day of little spats & even had some minor scratches on combs & wattles.  I was so nervous that I'd have to give one up, but shortly after I cleaned up their scratches, the #1 roo held his ground & the #2 went back to #2.  They were 11 months old at the time & never fought after that day.  I'm guessing you may see a similar thing.  

I took a chance & gave away the #2 roo in order to keep Moose & Brick.  #1 roo is still Mr Dummy, #2 is his son, Moose, and #3 is Brick - but the hens prefer Brick.  Brick is a lover - not a fighter.  I have seen Brick walk away from challenges.  Moose is the biggest & most athletic, but I have not seen him challenge his dad.

I'd love to see a picture of Moose next to Mr Dummy!

Hard to imagine how big Moose is know how big some of our boys are from you and also just in general. The orp/legbar mixes from you and @Junibutt are huge. We will be snapping pics this week sometime. Weather willing. Lol and technology. We will be taking them with DH2B's phone since mine is worthless. Now I need to remember where I wrote down my password for BYC so I can log in on his phone. Lol

We are planning(again weather willing) to process as many birds as possible this weekend. Including the male quail that we never got to last weekend.

Missing the spring-like weather. It made processing so much easier last week.

Also random thing but for anyone that has ever processed spare cockerals have you ever seen or heard of a boy with three testicals? Two were normal sized and one was quite a bit smaller. It's was very odd. Everything else about him was normal, and other than being quite a bit smaller the third testical looked the same.

Getting excited for spring. And hatching! Okay so I believe you all know about the loss of my Mickey and my Ducky both of whom essentially crippled my OEGB breeding program for the year. I am hoping to find some(not replacements BC of course I can't replace them) but I think you know what I mean.

If anyone catches wind of any really nice Oegb especially black please let me know.

It's been snowing here all day. The cockerals have been out daily for almost a week and a half with no sightings or losses. Idk what to think is it safe enough to let our flock out? Will the fox be back? Of course they probably wouldn't go outside for the most part tomorrow since it's snowing. They have been having a great time with a flock block, hard-boiled eggs, wilted lettuce, and apples/or whatever else there may be. They got some stale whole grain cereal that we didn't like too
Every time we go see Mom and Grandma they send us home with chicken treats. Lol from overripe bananas to Alfredo etc. Grandma doesn't like leftovers and Mom can't always eat things. The flock loves it and it gives them something to scratch and play in the shavings for. Thus making them turn their deep bedding.

They're such hoots. I've been working with some of the "naughty" birds that like to fly onto heads to teach them to come to arms instead to avoid the problems associated with them landing on heads. Such as: is that poo in my hair? lol. Since I have a specific hoodie I wear for chores I don't care much if it gets dirty. I just throw it in the wash with bleach.

DH2B scolds me BC during chores I always end up snuggling one or more birds sometimes several at a time. Lol the other night I had three Oegb, and am EE on my arms a buff Orpington pecking my leg for attention and a chocolate Orpington on one foot and a silkie on the other. Lol of course this was right when we were leaving for the night. I was told I spoil them too much by DH2B when I told him I had to stay a little longer BC they wanted me to.

I know he thinks I'm nuts. Crazy chicken/cat/dog/animal lady suits me just fine.

Our Dane, Bella, was under the weather today all day. Projectile vomit across the kitchen this morning. Ick. So she skipped breakfast. We don't know what she could have gotten into as there really isn't anything available. I've never heard a stomach make those kinds of noises. I literally was looking around before I figured it out. Poor baby. Thank God she didn't have diarrhea too that would have just been too much. She also usually doesn't think to ask about going out if she has it so yeah that's never good.

Eventful day but not a terrible one.

What does everyone think about us letting out our main flock? I'm really worried we will let them put and then the fox will show and take my favorite birds which it always seems to to.

Also we need to order some chicken saddles for some of the girls for those of you that have them would you please mind pming me where you got them and how much you paid if you don't mind. Or if you've made them yourselves how?

I'm not sure what size to get for our mixed flock and I don't want to order them and not be able to send them back BC of biosecurity.

So we plan to order some and then if we need more I can sew them myself using one of the boughten ones as an example.

Thanks all.

Just wanted to again say sorry for everyone's recent losses and thanks again for listening. Also welcome to the newcomer(s). Hopefully it's an early spring.

One last thing idk if I mentioned it here or only on the WI thread but we started some cuttings of some apple trees at my grandparents' house. The trees are 40-50 years old in one story and over 80 in another.(My Grandpa has Alzheimer's and Grandma has dementia so I don't really know.) In truth it doesn't matter BC commercial apple trees don't have a productive life that long.

Sadly we have been slowly losing one of the trees and the other the wind blew it down during a storm this summer. Despite falling the tree didn't completely uproot or snap so although it's laying over in the yard it still produced a nice crop of apples this year. Not knowing the breed of apple and wanting to preserve these trees that I have always loved we heard about this on the Wisconsin thread. Well(sorry about the long story) but some of them are sprouting! We will start more to get quite a few as we are assuming we will lose a few along the way. The nice thing about doing it this way is we know exactly what kind of trees they will be(okay well not what kind) but unlike if we planted the seeds which would be cross pollinated (think biology class) possibly with the crab apple trees, making apples that weren't as large or as good. The trees grown from the cuttings will have the same characteristics as the parent tree they came from.

Interestingly and not to stir a pot or cause troubles but many of the "GMOs" grown today are nothing more than cross pollinated plants in an effort to get characteristics from both parent plants. I have learned this because of my DH2B. One of the many crops they grow is seed corn. They plant two types in a specific way/pattern in the same field and then before the corn tassles out and is pollinated by the wrong type a machine is driven through and cuts the tops off of the rows they don't want to pollinate the other ones. It's fascinating. A crew then goes through and makes sure none of the tops got missed by hand.

Again I'm not wanting to stir the pot only educate. I'm always trying to learn and understand more. I do know that there are some labs that screw with crops on a genetic level and personally I don't think this is a good idea, but I think the jury is still out. Now cross pollination I think is no different than that biology segment(our school did it idk if others did or not) where each student plants a whole bunch of bean seeds they then take a few pairs with distinct characteristics and cross pollinate them. Save the seeds and plant them then the process is repeated until the desired effect is reached.

In this way my class in a matter of a semester(less than actually) were able to grow bean plants that were larger, that were smaller(as a control) and that had broader leaves.

Sorry for rambling just some food for thought.

 

[cavemanrich]

@Faraday40 I never ate my pigeon eggs. I did hear that some peeps do and they are supposed to be nutritious. All the eggs that were layed, were brooded by the pigeon pair. Most times there were 2 eggs. Not always both hatched. The non hatched eggs I just tossed after I candled them. I did not want to break them open for the possible fowl smell??? One or two fresh eggs did break, and I seen a Teeeni Tiny yolk. I would have to collect for a long time to make a sandwich with those...

. With only one pigeon left, I will have to get one or two mated pairs again this Spring. They have to be Homing, variety and white. The last batch I suspect were mixed mutt mongrels.

Pretty, but not at all like the previous batch that Rocky raccoon had for dinner the previous year. Those used to fly formation like the Blue Angels. Their speed was also maybe 2 MPH faster than the hawks. I have seen them out fly the hawks.
@chickendreams24 . Those cuttings of your apple tree, are you grafting them onto young root stock?? I know from my mother that if you plant apple seeds, your result is not likely to be the apple that you removed seeds from. Grafting is the way to achieve the desired results. She also mentioned that it is a very high ratio to luck out getting a nice apple tree from wild planting. Most trees will be wild small undesirable apples. In the past she had an apple tree that was higher than a 2 story building, and had a trunk about 2 feet diameter. We estimated to be about 80 years or older. The apples were fair, good for baking. Size of apples was medium..

 

[Faraday40]

@chickendreams24 That sounds like a very cool bean sci experiment. Cross pollination, grafting,and how to select seeds for the next season are things I'd like to learn about some day. We never did anything like that in high school. The only plant labs I remember are the typical flower dissections so students could label the parts of a plant correctly & learn about types of symmetry. In fact, many high schools around here do not have a green house. Forget about learning about anything dealing with livestock - except dissecting a fetal pig in anatomy or biology class,

I do have a garden, but I learned years ago, that houseplants are doomed to a slow lingering death if given to me. Only the garden stands a chance because God can take care of it. Of course between the chicken manure & fertile black soil of this area, pretty much anything grows - except carrots. We do bring in a hybiscus plant for the winter. However, it's very, very grateful to go back outside. It always looks close to death by May. We have a few apple trees but they need a lot of help. Our dwarf Honey Crisp is 7 years old & never gave a single apple. Our 5 year old semi dwarf Cameo produced 2-12 apples the last 3 years, but we have yet to taste a bite. (An animal usually takes all of them before they sweeten.) I beleive part of our problem is lack of trimming, but I simply can't seem to grasp where /when to trim. Things in bushes or vines like raspberries do very well herel. The chickens are always eating the low ones as they weed & fertilize, but the berries that grow above 3 ft are all ours. Plenty for everyone. We also have a cherry bush out front that's an amazing producer. The neighborhood kids always stop their bikes, eat a few, then continue on their way. (Hey, they're at least eating something healthy!) It seems to be only our trees that need help.

I hope Bella is feeling better soon. We're also battling doggie digestive issues. In our case, DS got a new wooden building block set which Richter thinks is made of cookies. He's eaten 4 blocks. We find the splinters & smell his pain, but even when the kids clean up, the dog will find a stray block or else steal one from the box while they're playing.

BTW- The block set is very simple but fantastic. There are no connectors or specialty blocks. Every plank is exactly the same. Because of the precision, some very cool engineering can be done. Our 6 yr old first built tall towers. Next he began making them twist & curve to look like they're going to fall. Then he moved on to structures with more than 4 walls. He figured out how to make a spiral and also how to weight one side to make a plank float off center. I'm very impressed that something so simple made him discover all types of engineering concepts. (The bridge was a partnership project with DD & DS.) So here's the funny part: We got the set because our neighbor's grand daughter played with it for 5 min, then said it was boring. Rather than have it sit there, they donated it to us.

 

[Molpet]

http://www.motherearthnews.com/real-food/hybrid-seeds-vs-gmos-zb0z1301zsor

https://bonnieplants.com/library/what-is-an-heirloom-what-is-a-hybrid/
https://gmoanswers.com/ask/what-dif...d-and-gmo-neither-method-alters-genes-correct

 

[ChicagoClucker]

.

Also we need to order some chicken saddles for some of the girls for those of you that have them would you please mind pming me where you got them and how much you paid if you don't mind. Or if you've made them yourselves how?

I bought mine off of ebay. There is a women that sells them in like a pack of 6. You can also get them in a mixed sizes.

 

[Faraday40]

Another fun middle school moment at our house. Yesterday was crazy hair day. I braided pipe cleaners into DD's hair & here was the result:

 

[Molpet]

Another fun middle school moment at our house. Yesterday was crazy hair day. I braided pipe cleaners into DD's hair & here was the result:

LOL inexpensive temp perm