INDIANA BYC'ers HERE!

[Old Salt 1945]

Any guess as to gender for my 11 week old sumatra:

It's hard to tell with that crow blocking the view of the chicken.

John

 

[Thunder Chicken]

If you hold the chicken just right, you will notice that you can see straight through from one nostril to the other. The cotter pin does no damage.

Installing it on a struggling chicken would be VERY difficult. I can see it being a 3 person task.

John

Hmm... maybe but I had a pretty good look at this chicken's nostrils and I can't see through them. I did a lot of reading about peepers before buying them and they are not legal in the UK. I know Wiki is not always right and you can't believe everything you read on the Internet but I will give you a link and let you decide.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blinders_(poultry)

Not trying to start an argument John. It's just the first I have heard or read that you can see through the nostrils and the pins do no harm.

 

[CCCCCCCCHICKENS]

i reLly need to come up with a farm name. I am terrible at these kind if things

 

[HouseKat]

She just hops right back out on her own!

 

[SallyinIndiana]

I don't know if anyone else is interested in something like this.

I am investigating making my own controller for heat and humidity in my incubator.


http://www.ebay.com/itm/271102636669?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649

When power is applied, it creates fog. Put it in a bowl of water, plug it in and pretty fog will soon spill over the edges of the water.
People that raise frogs sometimes use them to add a damp, humid atmosphere to their terrariums.

I saw a youtube where this was used to humidify an incubator.

So, here's the scenario.

I bought the fogger. I bought the controller.

My Little Giant is a still air unit with turner.

1. Set the LG thermostat to full on
2. Plug the LG in to the new controller and use it to turn the heater on and off.
3. I have an old computer fan that I installed in the LG.
4. Make a trip to Meyers to get the various pvc fittings to make a water sump and reservoir for the fogger.
5. Plug the fogger in to the new controller and use it to turn the fogger on and off.
6. Monkey with it until I get it to work.

Further posts will be made using the PM function, unless there is great interest in the subject. If you wish to be included, send me a PM.
If I get a bunch, I may post progress in the Indiana thread.

In any case, when (if) I get it working, I'll post the final results on Indiana thread. No sense in sharing it with the riff raff from other states, the running dog capitalist warmongering curs.

The controller won't be here from Hong Kong until October.

John

I'm interested, The main problem I have with my still airs is keeping the room temp constant. if the room temp goes up by 1 degree because I don't have the air on, then the incubator temp tends to go up a touch. Well in this kind of weather with cool mornings and warm evenings, I'm making adjustments all the time but not with my 1588. It knows not to kick on the heat. Still with the Christmas baking right around the corner a auto vent that kicks open when the incubator gets too hot might be something i need to look into. But I'm going to be getting a fancy chicken coop door before any more 1588's are purchased.

Quote: Last time my giant hawks were crows, now my tiny sumatra is a crow. John time to see an eye doc. This little one is about the size of a quarter crow. Although one day it will fly well above 6 ft. I'm hoping it will lay and sit on eggs too but the Sumatras have long tails and every time I see that tail I think boy.

i reLly need to come up with a farm name. I am terrible at these kind if things

My chosen farm name is Sally's Red Meadow. There is nothing red other than chickens in my yard and a couple of maple trees. I don't even have a meadow. Nothing close to it. But for yrs I have been partial to the color red and meadows full of lovely flowers, sunsets too. We also don't really live on a farm just a house with a lot of backyard chickens.
I recommend you pick a color, setting, animal, or place that you have loved for as long as you can remember and make it your own.
For example John sees crows in lots of birds so he might choose John's Crow Aviary

If my son could have picked a name it would have had to include superman. My girl might have wanted something along the lines of The Princess and the Egg with egg written like a correction over the word Pea. My little guy also likes Thomas the train, he might have chosen Thomas' Chicken yard. Even though there is not a Thomas in any of our family lines.
But overall the name needs to fit you, not the actual stuff or land you have.

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

Oh my goodness, I just can't keep up in the last couple of days. I tried and you guys were so kind to be busy this weekend and then BAM. I was lost. I just wanted to post some pics of progress and other things. I hope you like them.

When I was having a good time with our kids at the Indy Irish Fest, this is what my DH was doing. He finished all of the shingles on the roof (and posed like a goofball for me), put the door up on the run, added pergola boards to the top of the run, and finished the wire. WOW. I hope to NEVER see him up on a roof again. Gravity is not his friend.

On Sunday I added all the hangers to keep the dirt out of the food, added roosts, and finished some details. As you can tell, I hadn't cleaned the coop up yet. Sorry about that.

So I am not sure how I feel about the pergola-ish boards on top of the run, but I'm still thinking on it. My DH thought I'd love it, so I am working on it. Seems kind of busy, but now I can grow some grapes climbing roses on the coop ;-). As long as it also goes on the run extension, it should be good. I still need to bury that section of wire and plant some evergreens there.

This is the waspinator thing I was telling you guys about. Its working to keep away the wasps and bees, but the hornets are not bothered at all. I might need to move it to the other side of the coop.


This is the reason that I need to plant the wire!! His name is definitely MAX now and he wants my chickens BAD. I really like him though, so we are trying to figure out how to keep everyone happy.
I know I have told you guys that a lady down the street has the cutest coop. It looks like a very large dog house, but its been modified. I stopped and talked to her today and she got the plans out of a gardening book. Its got big wheels on the back and it holds her 5 hens just fine. CUTE

So, now that the roof is up and the trim is on, we decided that we hated the white paint because it showed too much dirt. Now the coop is light tan and dark burgundy/brown (ok, maybe purplish) trim. Its so much better. Once the paint is done, I have permission to start the extension. He just needs to finish the cupola and I think that's it...except for putting away the tools. That happens this coming weekend.

I hope you are having a great week everyone!
Cheryl

I just love the shingles, and how your coops looking, just flat awesome!
So glad you kept Max! Hope he doesn't cause you problems with your birds. If you work with him cautiously you can break the killing instinct he has.
Little steps. It sometimes doesn't work, my brindle boxer MadMax (no kidding, Max for short) never broke of it.
He was impossible to train too. If he even saw a bird, or cat, went nuts!
Chewing the fence and digging in the dog run, and tried to maul one of my old barn cats. Had the poor thing pinned! He was very bird aggressive too.
If I leashed and walked him, he all but broke my arm restraining him from the birds. He was a stray we took in last year, I tried for months to retrain him.
He knocked my Dad down trying to "play" and that was the final straw. I rehomed him with a young couple that owned a horse ranch.
No cats, elderly people, kids or chickens, ugh.

I posted about my feather pecking problem a long while back, I think end of July or first of August. I bought pinless peepers back then but never used them. I blue-koted the poor White Rock that was getting the most abuse and she has recovered pretty well since then. Still ugly but at least no red skin. I let the girls out Sunday as promised to see how they would do in the backyard and they loved it. Then my wife noticed one of the Red Sex-Links had a severe case of feather pecking that you couldn't see unless you looked really close. It was covered by other feathers and has since gotten much worse because it started to bleed and most of the flock was pecking her. I blue-koted her Sunday and put her in a cage with a roost, food, and water for the night and let her out Monday on her own. Later I let the rest out to join her to see how it would go.

I thought it was going well and then, when I thought I could trust them, they started pecking her again. I grabbed the worst offender, the White Rock at the top of the pecking order, and put her in the cage instead. This revealed a lot. For the first time, all of the rest of the flock stayed in the coop area together for the night, including the new EE's that I added. When I got home today, my injured one was still being pecked because the blood was attracting them. SallyInIndiana had already told me that I should keep the bully secluded but that wasn't going to fix the problem. I only have one cage. I read that you should keep the injured one secluded until they heal. So I decided to try the peepers on the bully and seclude the injured one. I put the peepers on the White Rock, let them all loose in the yard, and watched them to see how things went. The peepers seem to work. I saw the EEs attack the the peepered bird a couple of times but I don't know if it was retaliation or not. I am guessing it was. Those poor EEs deserved to give some payback.

It looks like I found my bully and have shaken up the pecking order. With the injured one in the cage, the rest are all still inside the coop area for the night with the peepered one on a separate roost (different). I am hoping that the injured one heals and they all behave. I will keep you posted if I have success. Now for your entertainment, pictures of the peepered bully. It took a lot of pictures to get a good one. She is a bad, bad girl.



See how nice her tail feathers are compared to her friends?



She has a new outlook now.



Love that she doesn't have a feather-pecked tail, like the rest of the flock.



Another good look at the new specks.

After a few days of uncertainty, I made a decision and I am posting this to document what I am trying. Maybe it will help someone else but it is not a recommendation. I think you have to try something different when nothing else seems to work. Btw, I am still getting 6-7 eggs a day. The injured one even laid an egg in the cage. Bully was not so generous.

Haha, love the peepers! Really changes the flocks personality when the bad apple is removed or corrected!

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

Quote: Awesome, I am hoping next year. I will be using the old hog pasture area for the garden. Plan to turn it before winter again in the spring.
Any suggestions to prepare the soil otherwise?

Quote: LOL! I was dancing too!!! We had got a few good drenchings but is weeks apart. All the corn is dry here, most of the soybean too. Nice not having to mow tho!

 

[Mother2Hens]

Originally Posted by danand
Kab- that is so neat about your roo!! Might be a new thing "therapy chickens"!! Sure helps me

kabhyper & danand~ Chickens have been great for my mental health, too (Don't listen to Old Salt's comments about that! haha)
Therapy Chickens are new-- just Google and you'll find lots of interesting stories.
Those are wonderful photos, kabhyper. I remember when you had to get Oliver back! He is quite a dude.
HouseKat~ My RIR Nene has also dived into the top of the feeder (not surprisingly). I made a lid using an aluminum disposable type of pizza tray. I poked the handles through the pan and just folded down the sides. The lid also keeps debris from falling in.
That's a great photo. Sometimes I will feed my hens in small dishes-- one for each so they "perhaps" won't fight. They end up moving from bowl to bowl to make sure someone doesn't have something better in their bowl.

hogster posted~ Then I took the meat birds outside for some foraging. I just put them in the 4x4 and I took the injured chicken over with me. She did a great job foraging with them and showing them what to do. Then she found my flower bed and all help was done lol. It was wonderful to just sit there for a few and enjoy them. They were a lot more active than was I was expecting. They we trying out those little wings of theirs, lol. It was a great way to end my day.


Mama and chicks in their run



Little meaties enjoying their first foraging.

hogster~ When I take my girls on field trips outside of their fenced-in areas, I always do yard work, but yesterday I was tired so I pulled up a chair and just watched them. Like you, I really enjoyed just relaxing and observing. My Jubilee orp Adeline took a dust bath for almost an hour and purred loudly the entire time! Of course I didn't happen to have my phone or iPad so I couldn't record it.

 

[Mother2Hens]

Any guess as to gender for my 11 week old sumatra:

It's hard to tell with that crow blocking the view of the chicken.

John

Hahahaha!

(Sorry Sally)

 

[Mother2Hens]

Sally in Indiana posted: My chosen farm name is Sally's Red Meadow. There is nothing red other than chickens in my yard and a couple of maple trees. I don't even have a meadow. Nothing close to it. But for yrs I have been partial to the color red and meadows full of lovely flowers, sunsets too. We also don't really live on a farm just a house with a lot of backyard chickens.
I recommend you pick a color, setting, animal, or place that you have loved for as long as you can remember and make it your own.
For example John sees crows in lots of birds so he might choose John's Crow Aviary

Hahaha -- That's pretty good, Sally.
I also loved your farm name and the description that has nothing to do with it. I guess you're saying to use an idyllic name that evokes happiness.