Illinois...

[Molpet]

Yes. I'll admit it's hard to process the boys who come running up for treats & pets every time they see you. When I need to get rid of a roo, whom I've had for over a year, I've always been lucky to find good homes. It's usually because I have a new handsome roo and not enough space to keep them all. Brownie, Prince, Brick, Moose, & a couple Mini Moose all went to homes with children. Brownie was trained, loved to travel, and excellent in classrooms. He crowed too much for a neighborhood, so he went to a teacher's family farm, so he could be still be used for school presentations. All the other boys went to families wanting a roo for hen protection & breeding but were afraid because of previous aggressive roo experiences. Once they saw how gentle mine were, it was a no-brainer. It also helped that mine were mature gentle giants, good-looking, well past those teen hormones, and already used to dogs & kids. Any aggressive roos would have been culled by me.

The family with Brick (now he's named Sarge) live nearby. They are so in love with him. He gets daily treats, snuggles and has 10 hens all to himself. When my kids go over for play dates, we of course visit Brick. He doesn't seem to miss us at all. I must keep reminding myself that it means Brick's new life is awesome. He's one very happy rooster.

So nice to find good homes.. I worry about selling pullets because I don't know how they will be treated.. but I am going to have to sell or eat some.. haven't been able to do in a perfectly good pullet.. especially when I have 11 cockerels from halloween and thanksgiving growing up.

 

[Faraday40]

So nice to find good homes.. I worry about selling pullets because I don't know how they will be treated.. but I am going to have to sell or eat some.. haven't been able to do in a perfectly good pullet.. especially when I have 11 cockerels from halloween and thanksgiving growing up.

It's doubtful that anyone would intentionally take poor care of a pullet. I charge a little more for pullets than chicks, because the gender is confirmed & all of the extra time it took growing her up. Your extra cockerels, however, would be better off feeding your family than a strangers'.

 

[Molpet]

Growing up parents sold St Bernards.. some horror stories there. and that was 50 yrs ago

When I started my meat bird project it was supposed to be "breed the best and eat the rest" .. hormonal boys are not a problem sending to freezer camp.. and I wanted to keep pullets and figure out who was the best...and now I have too many... I have to work on that subtraction LOL

 

[Faraday40]

That's the whole problem with "chicken math." It seems to only work well with addition. (or in severe cases = multiplication)

 

[Faraday40]

How time flies!
My winter chicks will be 8 weeks old on Wed.
Thankfully, these two never tried to hide their gender. I was able to predict gender at hatch and was certain by age 2 weeks.

Today.

Their silkie mama still cares for them - even though they're slightly bigger. It's so much fun to see the 3 run about together. The female is very outgoing & pecks at my boot to be picked up. The male is a little more shy & always stays at mama's side.

 

[Faraday40]

Been stuck at my computer since noon trying to apply for the "empowerillinois" scholarship. UGH! Every time I tried to open or occasionally submit, whenever I got to the 1st screen, the site's server would crash....but only after waiting for 5-20min of course. It's 1st come, 1st served, so what choice do I have but to keep trying? The farthest I got in 3.5 hours was to select the state & find that our city seems to not exist. Then of course it crashed again.

I finally heard from a friend that an update was posted (via Facebook) stating that the site is closed & now under repair.

 

[Faraday40]

BTW- I just saw a very funny sight outside. A big fat lav orp up in a tree.


She managed to get herself up there & seemed clueless about how to get down. I guess she must have followed another chicken up before realizing that Orps don't don't do trees.

 

[Molpet]

BTW- I just saw a very funny sight outside. A big fat lav orp up in a tree.


She managed to get herself up there & seemed clueless about how to get down. I guess she must have followed another chicken up before realizing that Orps don't don't do trees.

LOL they are so funny.. the big girls figure they can do what the skinny girls do.
I have 1/2 cx that jumps up on top of the 6' chain link panel from the ground and then over to a tree... she gets down but I worry about her feet.

 

[Molpet]

Been stuck at my computer since noon trying to apply for the "empowerillinois" scholarship. UGH! Every time I tried to open or occasionally submit, whenever I got to the 1st screen, the site's server would crash....but only after waiting for 5-20min of course. It's 1st come, 1st served, so what choice do I have but to keep trying? The farthest I got in 3.5 hours was to select the state & find that our city seems to not exist. Then of course it crashed again.

I finally heard from a friend that an update was posted (via Facebook) stating that the site is closed & now under repair.

pretty much anything w/the state is.... interesting
I am retired from a college and the health care I paid into, and pay every month for, is behind on paying bills.. was 2 yrs now it is 18 months

 

[Faraday40]

Been stuck at my computer since noon trying to apply for the "empowerillinois" scholarship. UGH! Every time I tried to open or occasionally submit, whenever I got to the 1st screen, the site's server would crash....but only after waiting for 5-20min of course. It's 1st come, 1st served, so what choice do I have but to keep trying? The farthest I got in 3.5 hours was to select the state & find that our city seems to not exist. Then of course it crashed again.

I finally heard from a friend that an update was posted (via Facebook) stating that the site is closed & now under repair.

It's official. The website's down & there's no info on when it will be repaired. It's past 5pm, so no one's available to answer ?s. Gotta love IL.
Here's the official response (posted on Facebook because the official empowerillinois site is down):
"We knew the demand for quality educational options was strong, but no one estimated the overwhelming statewide demand we saw today. Parents know they only get one chance at a quality education and they took every opportunity to make sure their kids were first in line. More than 24,000 families visited the application site within the first few minutes of its availability causing a technology failure. Our scholarship application has been temporarily suspended until we resolve the issue. This problem affected everyone equally.

We will continue to do our best to ensure fairness while maintaining compliance with the regulations imposed by the state.

We apologize for the inconvenience this has caused students and families."

How could they not expect a large volume? Last week I repeatedly asked, what will happen if the website server crashes? The only answer I was given is that the company handling it has done this before in other states and it didn't crash. ????? And what kind of website crashes with only 24K hits? I guess I took off work to sit at my computer all day, watch a website continuously fail, and stay in place awaiting the moment I learn it's working. That's such a valuable use of my time.

OK I'm done venting. Time to see if my legs still work and figure out what's for dinner.