INDIANA BYC'ers HERE!

[bradselig]

Glad everyone seems to be ok after the storms this weekend! Defiantly glad to hear Farker and Old Salt are alright! I'm thankful the wind has finally quit howling here today too!! Spent my morning playing Tetris with straw bales. Now I'm ready for a nap!

Janet- your babies cows are super cute! I'm so glad you were able to finally get some! Mine are no longer babies

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Beautiful cows! I think I would have a hard time raising a cow for meat (not sure what your plans are for these guys, I'm just generally speaking) due to them taking so long to grow. I think I would get too attached lol

[COLOR=008000]House Kat[/COLOR][COLOR=333333] [/COLOR][COLOR=8B4513]~ What a handsome roo and pretty flock! It looks like you have a nice range of coloring in your EEs. So you decided to keep one roo then? How is it going with the neighbors as far as his crowing? [/COLOR] [COLOR=8B4513]My cousin is still working on his second run then he's going to take the roo and three of the hens. I've only heard him crow once and it was a short, not very loud crow, so there has not been a problem...yet. I think he's gorgeous and I'd love to keep him if I could.[/COLOR]

i wanted to say your birds are beautiful!

Once these hatch, what are your plans or timeline for getting them outside? I have some chicks in my basement now and I can't seem to come up with a good plan to move them out anytime soon. Brad on our members list is it too late to add a looking for or in the market to buy column?

i can definitely add it to the list. I'll have to try and figure out the best way to do it...hmmm....

Okay Brad, here is a closer picture of the mystery chick.

pretty silkie! I'm going to say it will be a roo based on its comb, so let me know how it turns out and if I was right lol. I really don't know much about the genetics of porcelain but I believe it involves buff and lavender. Lavender is recessive, so any if your birds can be carriers. As far as buff genetics, I have no idea lol. I'm just basing my guess its a porcelain based off of chicks I've raised up.

First one is all of the way out now! Here is a pic just before it pushed itself the rest of the way...during this time I saw 3 more external pips. None of the silkies as of yet! Keeping my fingers crossed! Of course my phone died because I keep using my handy dandy flashlight app on it!

Woohoo! Congrats!

 

[bradselig]

Decided to take some pictures of my Marans today so figured I'd post them. There is a blue Birchen hen and roo in the group.

 

[Old Salt 1945]

On
.

On that note, does anyone know which breeds are better to eat if you prefer dark meat? I think the newer meat birds are more for white meat, but not sure.

Ducks. All dark meat.

John

 

[PeacefulWalls]

Ugh. Just looked at the weather forecast. Sunday is processing day for the Thanksgiving turkeys (and some roos that recently volunteered for Freezer Camp). They are predicting a high temp of 25....that doesn't sound fun at all.

I have a roo that has been volunteering for freezer camp for quite a while, too. Just haven't had the opportunity to get him there yet. He's a year and a half old -- I'm guessing at this point he's probably not good eating anymore (an orpington).

I have Seed math, too. MY excel sheet (HA! 2 Seed geeks!) tracks when and how many plants I sprout, and at the end of the season, I adjust the number of my started seedlings based upon our ability to eat/can/freeze all of our veggies.
Interesting to track the seed viability duration. I had started to think in that direction when some of my seed from 2010 had poorer germination in 2012. Since we now have chickens, I put all my leftover veggie seeds in with some grass seed and fenced off a small area in the chicken run to let the grass grow and old veggie seeds sprout. That gives me a reason to justify buying new seeds every year!

Did you have trouble with Squash bugs this year? Not only the usual squash borers, but this year I had TERRIBLE squash bug problems.

Another seed geek!! Ooo, I hadn't thought about tracking how many plants I sprouted. I just started my excel sheet this spring and was focused on my inventory. I guess I have more work to do to get ready for next spring. Every year I kick myself for not writing down when I started my tomatoes and peppers and try to remember when it was... I have kept all my seed packets of older stuff and things I didn't want to plant anymore and labeled that section as my chicken garden section. For some reason, though, those seeds never made it in the ground this year. Next year I will (hah! I've told myself that a few times before....!!)

I had squash bugs, but I don't think it was more than normal this year. I actually had more of a problem getting my zucchinis to sprout. I had to replant a second time and even then they didn't do too great -- some of it was older seed, though. Gotta check their viability!

Chocolate cake cookies use 4 eggs and if you turn them into sandwich cookies filled with icing they go fast. But there is effort in baking them. Sugar cookies also use eggs. If you like thin crust pizza you can toss a medium or large egg into the dough instead of the oil.
Lots of recipes out there for egg bread and I have heard that duck eggs do wonders for corn bread.
I have never made egg nog but the name sure sounds like there would be eggs in it.
Breakfast sandwiches that look like they came from McDonalds don't last long around here. Again the effort is sometimes not worth it.
Angel food cake will use lots of whites while homemade ice cream will take up yolks.

I need to check my whoopee pie recipes -- thinking pumpkin whoopee pies would be awfully good right now! I did use the duck eggs in my bread I baked this week. Put in an extra egg or 2 (the recipe makes 3 loaves). It turned out really, really good! Maybe I should just bake a ton of bread containing lots of eggs and sell it instead!

I long to be you and love that kind of organization. I've just started using the Vegetable Garden Planning tool on Mother Earth News because I don't know enough about what I am doing. Ignorance has never stopped us before, so this is the year. We had a little bit of basil in the area where the chickens can be and man does it smell wonderful when they just brush past it. Next spring I will have a lot more things growing in the garden and I'm so excited about it. Will you post more pics when it gets going? Also, do you ever buy any seeds from Seeds of Change?

I've looked at the Garden Planning Tool, but haven't taken the time to mess around with it yet -- it looks like it would be fun to use. One of my new varieties of basil I grew this year was licorice basil. It's not a strong licorice smell, but you can tell it's there. I used it to make some Licorice Basil Herbal Jelly and it's really yummy. I also like the lemon basil and lime basil. Next year I want to get my cinnamon basil planted and try the herbal jelly out of that. If it doesn't rain tomorrow I'll try to get pictures of my garden beds ready for the winter -- just need to finish one more section of hay mulch & spread manure/compost in the sections I mulched today. Always one more thing to do! I have the Seeds of Change catalog, but haven't ordered anything from them except my garlic a few years ago (now I just save my largest heads and use those to plant). I like their seeds, but I like to use Baker Creek. There is a flat $3.50 shipping fee no matter how many seeds you order. They are a non-GMO seed company and have collected hundreds of varieties of all kinds of heirloom, organic and rare seeds. The guy who founded the company started it when he was a teenager. He printed his first catalog in 1998 in his bedroom. It had about 70 varieties of seeds and was sent out to 550 people. Every year he added more seeds and more customers and now is widely recognized for his work as a seedsman -- very interesting story to read.

The alpacas

Your alpacas are so pretty! I wish we had more space in our barn to add to our herd of 3!

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I showed my daughter this photo and she asked "How much?" I told they weren't for sale -- just posted for us to drool over! Adorable

 

[CCCCCCCCHICKENS]

I have about 5 roosters that are really pushing their luck. two of which are bantams so they wont be ate but just culled and disopesed of. I have some on that process and bags them $3 a chicken (so that I dont have to do the deed myself, I know what a chicken!). 2 are "mixed heritage" that i was willing to keep as flock protector but it is a hassle to collect eggs with them around because they are starting to come at me. Another pecks me every time I try to feed him and flys at my legs. If they would just behave I would keep them

 

[ellymayRans]

Peaceful

Homemade egg noodles takes ooodles of eggs!! Wonderful time of year...make up a big bunch of them and have some chicken with noodles; it's a staple for our Thanksgiving feast here!

 

[hanakimi]

I have a question about eggs. I checked this egg today at 3 weeks and it doesn't look like the rest. The eggs are under a broody hen rather than in an incubator. Has anyone seen this before? Is it an early quitter? Any information you may have would be welcome. Thanks

 

[SallyinIndiana]

I have a question about eggs. I checked this egg today at 3 weeks and it doesn't look like the rest. The eggs are under a broody hen rather than in an incubator. Has anyone seen this before? Is it an early quitter? Any information you may have would be welcome. Thanks

Can you see movement at all? if so it is still alive. I can't tell much from the picture, I never can. Here is a chart of egg development that I like
http://wildliferehabber.com/candling-eggs

it is for duck eggs so you have to adjust the 28 days down to 21 give or take up to 3 days.

 

[hanakimi]

We didn't see any movement in our bantam chicken egg but it looks very much like the day 28 duck picture you sent us. Thanks so much for the reply.

 

[bradselig]

I have a question about eggs. I checked this egg today at 3 weeks and it doesn't look like the rest. The eggs are under a broody hen rather than in an incubator. Has anyone seen this before? Is it an early quitter? Any information you may have would be welcome. Thanks

As Sally said its hard to tell from a picture. But also, try candling it from the opposite end of the air cell. At 21 days, it should be completely dark. I'm going to say it is an early quitter as there is space between the dark mass and air cell, but very hard to tell