INDIANA BYC'ers HERE!

[kabhyper1]

Awesome! I think I have a broody silkies again. I may let her hatch a couple.

 

[ellymayRans]

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

Congrats!

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

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.

That's pretty interesting. I never thought of them like that! I'm more like M2H with my want to identify with my pets and livestock on an individual level! I don't know if I'll ever get into bees, because we don't use a whole lot of honey as is, but then my dad had bees as a kid and I think he'd be interested in getting them again. As long as he takes care of them...

I don't have bees nor do I live in the city per say but I do live in a addition with about 10 houses on our street. .keeping in mind that we each have approx an acre give or take ..it varies from house to house but I do have a gentleman two houses down from us that keeps bees he rescued a hive from our house last summer after a tree fell they were in. That put him at 4 hives. Their backyard butts right up to his neighbors backyard with children and a dog and they are good friends. I don't think it's too much of a concern. I didn't even realize he had bees til about 5 years ago when I was chasing my dog to get home and of course he went there got too close to the box and after all the chasing came running at me! I appreciate them but am pretty darned fearful when they get too close to me. Needless to say when he came at me...me realizing that they were embedded in his ear, head and muzzle I took off running too! Quite a site I'm sure! ! Lol!

This was kind of what I figured. I think it comes with the territory, people seem more interested in what other people are doing in the city (no offense meant, of course, to those that identify themselves as city folk!). I like my harp teacher, but, well, she's a city person through and through.

[COLOR=000080]racin [/COLOR][COLOR=8B4513]~ Haha-- your TV analogy is so true![/COLOR]

[COLOR=008000]Pipd[/COLOR] [COLOR=8B4513]~ 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[/COLOR]  [COLOR=8B4513]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.[/COLOR]  [COLOR=8B4513]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![/COLOR]  

[COLOR=8B4513]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.[/COLOR] :/  [COLOR=8B4513]So, I agree that for me, it's difficult to really grasp feeling that way about bees.[/COLOR]   [COLOR=8B4513]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[/COLOR] The Food Literacy Project [COLOR=8B4513]where they use Oxmoor Farm to teach inner city kids about growing food. She's locating her bee project at the farm. [/COLOR]

Agree, agree, agree! Also, it's awesome that your sister teaches kids about growing food! I can't believe how uneducated about food some kids are--and watching some of the supposedly educational programing on TV kind of indicates how they may have gotten such misinformation on the topic! Yikes!

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Mice will get in coops and eat the ends of feathers and it makes them look a little raggedy and ruff(usually back feathers). They are a good source of protein......just a thought

Ah, thanks for the idea, but I don't think it's mice. Rangi always perches toward the top and I think with how I feed them (I use shallow pans and I have a bad habit of just leaving those pans on the floor of the coop) I'd have seen evidence of rodents by now.


Unfortunately, I did observe what was happening with Rangi. I don't know what she did, but she has Roha really mad with her. Roha keeps grabbing Rangi's feathers in her beak and then kicking at her. Poor Rangi's learning to duck and run whenever Roha's around. :/ I'm thinking of making a saddle for Rangi to help prevent her feathers from being damaged.

I have always had one hen, Freema, who is very jealous whenever I give attention to anyone else. Well, I think Roha might be the same. I was cuddling with Rangi and Roha came walking up, then froze a few feed away. I could see that bird get angry. I've never seen anything like it! You could see in her eyes that she was furious! And then she ran over and kicked poor Rangi away from me. The weird thing is she doesn't seem to be upset with anyone else when I give them attention, so I don't know if Roha is getting jealous like Freema always does or if she's just offended by Rangi at the moment. Either way, I may end up separating her for a while to see if she settles down. I hate to do it because Roha's my sweetie, but I also hate to see Rangi getting beat up by her for no apparent reason!

Such drama! Hopefully once the semester ends and the girls get more free-range time, everyone will settle down!

 

[BackyardBitten]

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.

i am oh so sorry to hear this! I'm sending you hugs!!!!!!

You always do everything you possibly can for your animals and i know how terribly upsetting this is. Sending you healing vibes. I'll never forget his sweet little face the couple times i have visited you. RIP Mr. Moo!

 

[leslea]

Miss Lily loves the computer. She is getting better. Her sinus and eye swelling has gone down considerably. Only on day 2 of antibiotics. 3 more to go. Everyone else in the coop are healthy little guys and gals, showing no symptoms, so Lily will be a house silkie for a couple of weeks. She has had this before and no one has ever gotten sick. I think its just her own little quirk.

She kept trying to get closer by stepping on the mouse pad. She had all kinds of things on the screen, so I just put it on BYC.

She really focused on the moving pictures of chickens.

Searching for expert answers on her sinus condition.

Now, that is hilarious.

 

[leslea]

Ugh, I'm not going to be able to catch up with the 370 missed posts, but I wanted to pop my head in and say hi! Just 17 more sleeps for me (I think). Then my chickies will be here!!!

Hope to do more work on the run this weekend. We'll see. Busy Saturday now that soccer has begun. Hopefully the weather stays nice through Sunday. I think DH is rested up from his marathon handyman session last week.

I finished another novel and it will launch on 5/2. Guess what the main character keeps in her backyard?

It's a historical romance so I figured that added a little more realism...back in the day, *everybody* kept chickens! It seemed only right.

And now I get to write off my whole coop as research, right?

In the future I think I will likely have a character in a contemporary who keeps chickens, too. Maybe make it more central to the plot. We'll see.

Okay, off to skim the last few pages of the boards.

 

[Minminme]

Oh I'd love some!!!

Me too, me too!!!!...oh darn...ok thats it Im relocating to Indiana. I hate missing out on all the fun and trading.

 

[leslea]

LOL I am thoroughly informed that nothing is happening.

I give my mom free eggs and she tries to pay. I don't mind giving them to her. Its the rest of the leach brigade that I have trouble with. Our friends always pay with no issue. Dumb family lol.

Btw hows the cricket man doing?

Maybe a sign on the door "NO FREE EGGS THIS WEEK."

Just curious, have you asked them to bring a bag of chicken feed on their next trip? If that's too inconvenient, they can just give you the $. And SMILE SMILE SMILE when you say it.

 

[ellymayRans]

Me too, me too!!!!...oh darn...ok thats it Im relocating to Indiana. I hate missing out on all the fun and trading.

hehehehe