INDIANA BYC'ers HERE!

[bradselig]

Since ive been sellinh hatching eggs I dont NEED to sell eating eggs. I will bring in the extras to coworkers (who appreciate them) and most will make cookies, noodles, etc and give me some for the eggs. But what I dont like is when a coworker whos wife caters asks for the eggs, doesnt even offer to pay, and thrn I find out they were for a meal his wife was catering! So she just increased her proft and not even offering to pay for them.

Immediate family I tend to gve to them but they are always the ones who demand paying for them.

 

[bradselig]

Im so sorry hearng that Janet! I admire anyone whobis able to raise beef. Id get too attached to them.

 

[LonelyPageTurne]

I wouldn't keep giving that particular coworker eggs. That just bothers me so much.

 

[SallyinIndiana]

I thought of you, @Leahs Mom today. I was checking I thought i saw wrong with a duckling today. While in the run I did a nice slide and somehow ended up surrounded by ducks / ducklings. I thought it is a good thing I did not totally fall or they would not have delayed trying to investigate me with their bills. And in case anyone is curious my 8 week old ducklings look as big as my adult ducks. They don't weigh as much but they have the full grown look. And the one I went in to look at had ripped a piece of bird netting down and was tangled in it just like the environmental ads

 

[ellymayRans]

Oh I'd like some! I could pick them up when I come get chicks. PM me please
Oh Janet I'm SO sorry!! I knew what had happened as soon as I read yew! I don't think it affects goats like it does cattle though I'd have to look it up again. Let me know when you're ready and I'll make another call to the dairy!

By all means come have at them!
I will have them dug up and tossed in a couple of weeks. As for chicks every stinking one I hatched are boys! I'm ok with that to a point but hmmm... now the shipped eggs I just hatched I don't know what they are yet but out of the $100 I paid for them and only hatched out 8! That's what...$13 a chick! Haha. But I needed the new blood. Now even though their eggs were a good color I've read about crossed lines initially breed lighter eggs F1. I just hope I have some girls and are of good type. I am hatching a round this go starting today but are of my NN and Olive Eggers...and now crested legbars. We'll see how those turn out. I have got 3 broody outside I was going to break but they have close to 30 eggs under them. If they hatch Marans I will definitely be reaching out to you and a few others that had inquired.

I candled some of the broody eggs today and I would guess within the week they will have them.

 

[Mother2Hens]

Only a day behind now, so I am going to bed

Sorry guys wrote a book I think!
Have had a lot go on here lately. Lots of good, some very bad... no predators but a stupid, ignorant mistake on my part.
I am posting this to hope no one goes through this experience, its just ripped my heart right out.
DD and I cut the "uglybush" down to a manageable size fighting my dad the entire time.
It was a huge nasty evergreen type bush, overtaking one side of the house!
I think at one time it was an ornamental hedge type, now its ugly, embarrassing, harbored bees and needed to go.
Its become a haven for sparrows. I found out what the thing is, Japanese Yew.
Well.. I had a wagon load in my trailer, on the little tractor. Been hauling it to the big burn pile at the back of the property.
Parked the tractor next to the cow/goat pasture because a state cop came in. The path to the burn pile runs by their pasture.
Someones boat was stolen! We don't have those problems here, very upsetting.
Told DH to stop at the neighbors house this weekend to find out more, it was a small aluminum jon boat..
Anyways, I spoke with the Officer a good 20 minutes or so, turned around to finish taking the load to the burn pile.
My girls and baby moo were eating the stuff! OH NO! So I ran and pulled all the branches away from them.
Stupid

My baby cow was poisoned. He was dead the following day. I was just bawling like a baby over it.
Yes, he was meant for food. But still a baby, just a few hundred pounds at most, and would have been here several months before that bad day.
I asked Jack the neighbor north of us to please come, he came that evening and took some of the plant to his vet.
He has had cattle at least 60 years, his entire life and knows his stuff. Yup, sure enough it was this horrible plant.
Thank goodness, my girls are fine, and Bocephus is not in with the Sugar and Sophie. Painful lesson learned.
My girls only get hay and a cup of grain a day, Bo tethers out with me and eats weeds and grasses.
I have asked Jack to please talk more with his vet, and pass my phone # to her so I can look into this more. Concerned about my girls.

jchny ~ How heartbreaking! I am so sorry for you and the little baby.

I just googled Japanese Yew and found that it is toxic to many animals as well as other Yews (see link below). They are very common landscaping bushes that grow well and can be shaped or left natural. We have an overgrown yew bush at the corner of our house. Mine doesn't have berries, but that's probably a male/female thing like hollies. The unsettling thing is that the dirt under mine is very soft and powdery-- perfect for dust bathing. I even dug some up periodically and put it in a shallow plastic box for my chicks to dust bathe in when they were smaller. Luckily, chickens seem to know what not to eat, but I still wouldn't bet on it. Last summer, I dug out all of the yews in the front of the house that had been there for probably 40 years. It was a huge project, and I did 95% myself because I wanted to be a good female role model for my hens. lol There were huge roots that were attached in a million places. My DH burned all of the debris. Normally I would have put the cuttings and roots in the large leaf mulch pile in the "nature preserve," but maybe because of the amount, I asked him to burn it and I'm glad I did. I left one yew bush, though mainly because the chickens love to dust bath under it. I had planned to take it down this spring, so I think I'll expedite those plans.

Your little calf's mistake is helping the rest of us by making sure we don't have those plants in harm's way. Please post that on other threads, too. Here's a good, basic link: Yew, Japanese Yew - Pet Poison Helpline

 

[raisinemright]

Busy day, got the garden turned. It's a new area of our property. That hasn't been plowed for YEARS! The Plow was a struggling to get through it! It don't look pretty but it's turned. Next week I'll disk it and then till it for a nice seed bed. Still only one chick out but a few more external peeps and some have started to zip. Question kabhyper1, this chick is all black, and it has a black beek, and black legs?!? What is it lol?

 

[Mother2Hens]

Bee TV is just another channel, I think it's two clicks of the dial after Chicken TV.

My partner has bees, and I know beekeepers that live in downtown Indy with no issues at all. Bees are (almost) as fascinating as chickens. My partner refers to the hive (not the individual bees) as the organism. He regards the bees as more like cells. He also can sit and watch them work just like I (and everyone on here) sit and watch our flocks do their thing.

As someone who has been accused of being a bit 'crazy' about chickens, lol. I say live and learn. It took me a while to warm up to the bee thing, but now I think they are cool.

racin ~ Haha-- your TV analogy is so true!

Pipd ~ I ran into an old friend recently who like me has kids who've flown the coop, so she's been enjoying her new hobby of bee keeping. Her face lit up, and her eyes sparkled as she gushed about her bees being her babies and how much she loved them. I countered with the same enthusiasm in describing my incredible hens. lol

She said she's spent thousands of dollars and loves every minute of it. I pretty much said the same thing about my chickens! haha Personally, I like to interact with my flock and hold them even if they're not big on cuddling.

I treat them like my children, but it's hard to imagine feeling that way about bees when you can't tell them apart or name them!

For someone like racin who recently said that he enjoys watching his flocks, but doesn't care about cuddling as many of us do, I can understand that bees would appeal to those who enjoy studying behavior. But my friend called them her babies, and acted exactly the way I act when talking about my chickens.

So, I agree that for me, it's difficult to really grasp feeling that way about bees.

Meanwhile, my sister in Louisville has had her new bee boxes ready, but the bees have been delayed in shipping because of the weather. In her "retirement," she became President of the Board of Louisville's The Food Literacy Project where they use Oxmoor Farm to teach inner city kids about growing food. She's locating her bee project at the farm.

 

[kabhyper1]

Raisinemright she is probably a minorca mix. I have one too. She lays white eggs

 

[raisinemright]

One more just broke free it's one if the SLW eggs!!