INDIANA BYC'ers HERE!

marigolds repel insects. chickens do love to eat the flower though. I am wondering about sun flowers ? there are so many different ones. different heights. hollyhocks are bug magnets but a lot of them are biannual .
I can believe marigolds repel bugs they stink..lol...very pretty though. I do have hollyhock planted around my shed and they are biannual but should reseed themselves. There are Zebrina malva and blanket flowers nearby too that will help attract insects. After reading the link... herbs for healthy chickens that Janet provided , I am convinced those nasturtium are gonna go around the base of my run and it won't harm my birds if they eat em
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. Sunflowers will always have a spot in my yard too.
Thank you all for the suggestions. I have to get ready for work 2 more 12hr nights before switching back to days. Have a great night!
 
@leslea This woman's Sikie was 3 months old, so way to young to be sleeping in a nest box on the ground in this weather. My three month old English Orpingtons have TONS of feathers, but not much (relative) body weight or any fat, and even they stay in the henhouse when it's below 20 except to eat and drink. They were happy it warmed up today so they could be out a lot more and be comfortable. I can't imagine a little 3 month old Silkie out in 7 degree weather like we had in Indy last night (not counting the wind chill, either).

I do not equate animals with people, but nobody makes you own a chicken or a cat or a dog. If you do, you owe it humane care for life. If it's a pet, that means until it's sick or old AND suffering. Even livestock must be treated humanely until they go to into the freezer. People mistreat animals and get away with it far too often, and the extreme cases are common among people who wind up being mass murderers or with all their kids in foster care for neglect. I'd like to see how that woman would like being dumped like so much garbage if she got cancer...

Some of it is ignorance. Some people STILL think animals don't feel pain like we do, but physically, their perception of pain is virtually identical to ours. Some idiotic high school science teacher in Georgia recently neutered a cat in class with no anesthesia. Now I ask any of you men--would you like to have your testicles cut off by a schoolteacher without any pain relief? Back in the day people neutered cats with no anesthesia, but they were barn cats and the people who did it probably didn't much care whether they lived or died, let alone whether they felt it. Pigs are castrated that way, and they sure as heck feel it. A small number die from bleeding to death or infection--but that's the "standard of the industry." You can't band them like calves, sheep, or goats, so this is what's done to keep pork prices low. I didn't like it, but I learned how to do it, so I know how to castrate just about anything put in front of me. Periodically I reminded old boyfriends of that fact.
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[COLOR=900000]Hey, all, thought I would check in again. I've been pretty sick lately with whatever my niece brought home from kindergarten, ended up with an ear infection and a ruptured eardrum over the weekend but I think I'm recovering otherwise. :th I have close to 20 pages to read, which I may or may not at this point... Sorry if I missed anything!



Mainly, I wanted to stop in and post pictures of the babies, who are 6 months old today. :) They are taking the weather like champs--not even slowing down! Well, except the diva of the group, Poppy. :rolleyes:

Miss Elda the Silver Gray Dorking and the obligatory Elly cuddles pictures: [/COLOR]

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[COLOR=900000]Kit-kit the SGD:[/COLOR]

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[COLOR=900000]Georgie the Black Copper Marans, who began squatting in the past few days!! :D [/COLOR]

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[COLOR=900000]Lovely Louise the BCM:[/COLOR]

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[COLOR=900000]Miss Mabel the Welsummer:[/COLOR]

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[COLOR=900000]And the slightly older two girls from Brad.

Here is pretty Poppy the Cream Legbar. She is the only one completely opposed to the weather--everyone else is running around outside, but Poppy would rather sit inside. She also would not pose for anything, so here's what I got: [/COLOR]

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[COLOR=900000]And Violet the Bielefelder, whose face, I think, sums up my feelings about the recent weather. :lol: [/COLOR]

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[COLOR=900000]And just because, here's Mabel, Louise, and Georgie in the snow. These three seem inseparable sometimes![/COLOR]

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[COLOR=900000]In other news, I have been keeping a close eye on my oldest hen, 9 1/2 year old Cubby, who I fear may be on her way out. :/ She has been struggling with the cold since we hit about 60 F and lower, which is definitely not a normal temperature to be struggling at for an adult chicken. She was having balance issues yesterday and was blue in the comb, so I went ahead and brought her in. Looks like I have a house chicken for the winter.

She seems okay now, although she has lost a lot of weight since the summer and appears to have a lot of arthritis in her poor old feet. However, the first thing she did when I left the room was try to fly back outside through the closed window, so... :rolleyes: Not sure what to think on her condition at this point, so I'm just making sure she is comfortable and has plenty of food and water. Here she is complaining about her new digs: [/COLOR]

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[COLOR=900000]I think that's about it from my neck of the woods. Hope that wasn't too many pictures! :)


...Anyone else looking forward to the warmup forecasted for the weekend? :fl [/COLOR]
 

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