INDIANA BYC'ers HERE!

[Chaneys Ranch]

Just cleared the little chicken woods of poison ivy.

I'm so relieved! I haven't been able to pick up one of the chickens if needed since the beginning of the season without being totally covered and then scrubbing excessively afterwards. And, unfortunately, the 15 week olds are already covered in poison ivy oils.


I decided to put an "organic" spray on the leaves last night and try to dig as many of the roots out as possible today. I think I found most of it. Now trying to kill any leftover roots by salting them.

We shall see how long it takes before I see any new sprouts....

But I'm so happy that's done before I let the little Buckeyes run free. Maybe they can avoid becoming covered in PI oil.

Great news! Poison Ivy can be a horrible risk for us! I am lucky enough to not be allergic but several family members are.
Bocephus (our goat buck) is working the tree lines for us. We opened another 1/2 acre of pasture this weekend. Bo goes in first to remove the poison ivy and other plants that's risky for humans/other livestock. Goats are immune to it, and really love to eat it. He will not touch the pokeweed plants, poison to most everything but birds. I cut those out and pour salt on them before anything goes on new pasture. More info here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytolacca_americana
I have seen my adult chickens eat the berries and not get sick, but am not risking it. I had a turkey tom eat berries off a burning bush and die last year. Removed all of them! Same with Japanese Yew we have a few more to remove. Brings up a good point, will post more on that subject.

Who set off the chicken bomb?
The first time I saw my hens sun themselves, I got quite a scare!

Oh my, It had me so scared the first time I saw it! I was so new to heritage laying birds. My 6 lttle teen Wyandotte were flopping around in the dirt, and all sprawled out. Thats when I found BYC! I googled HELP MY CHICKENS ARE MELTING! And found so many fast answers on dust bathing and sunbathing too!

I know what you mean! First time I saw my girls do that, I panicked! Are they dying?? Phew....durned birds!

LOL see above, no kidding!

Been a very eventful weekend thus far!

On Saturday, I got to see @LonelyPageTurne and her family, chased chicks and ducks all over her yard, drove them to @jchny2000 , visited her family, gave her the chickies and duckies and loaned/possibly gave her my SLW and a Leghorn for her breeding pens, met her new kitties and her old kitty, pet all of her baby bulls (they're so cute!) and her donkey Daisy and her two nanny goats Cocoa and Sugar. I got to fetch some greens for the penned birds, caught a loose baby quail and stuck her back in the brooder.

I stayed later to meet @tmctlt and his lovely, super friendly wife when they stopped in to drop off roosters they'd received by accident: two fabulous EEs, Red and Nugget; three Dark Cornish (who were supposed to be EEs, but thank heavens for that mistake!); and Foghorn, a mystery boy disguised as a Leghorn! His spurs and comb were so cool! I'm wondering if he has Bresse with a bit of Penedesenca in him... although...

I met Dr. Mary ( @kittydoc ) to hand off poor Curly and the lame roo (with the biggest, prettiest rose comb I'd ever seen) so her and her DH could euthanize them for me ('cause I'm a wuss, and they're awesome people like that), and they gave me three little Bielefelder boys. I'm still pretty disgusted with myself about not being able to help those poor birds (and the poor kittens--four out of five have died so far, and the last one of the litter is looking terrible, too. Momma cat had been sick too long, I think), but the new Bielie boys are helping me a bit. I've cuddled the bigger two so far (even the big stinker!), and they're amazingly social, easy-going, talkative boys. One of them looks like he might have the same "horns" as Foghorn?! Can't wait to see what these little lads are going to be like later

Feeling crummy but nevertheless blessed

It was good to see you!

I am so sorry you had to let them go, but quality of life is certainly important too. Please know although hard you made the right choice. Thanks so much for visiting, I always enjoy seeing good friends.
Good to visit with @tmctlt and DW also but I understand both visit the thread as one. Bielie roosters are dolls, so big and sweet! Much like Brahma roosters personalty wise. Watch close, they are easily bullied by more dominant species. Hope @LonelyPageTurne is recovering well from her recent surgery, miss visiting with her very much. @kittydoc is an awesome, generous lady. We talk Orpington often, the breed is our favorites especially English.

 

[Leahs Mom]

@jchny2000
So far my goat boys pretty much ignore the PI. Seems there must be too many other things to choose!

 

[Leahs Mom]

PS: I didn't know what pokeweed was....thanks for the link @jchny2000 . We do have it in various places. I have seen the goat boys eat more than a little bit of it on occasion. Didn't seem to bother them...

I cut some of that out of the little chicken woods at the edges so now that I know it's poisonous, I'll go out and pour some salt on it's base today.

 

[Indyshent]

Great news! Poison Ivy can be a horrible risk for us! I am lucky enough to not be allergic but several family members are.
Bocephus (our goat buck) is working the tree lines for us. We opened another 1/2 acre of pasture this weekend. Bo goes in first to remove the poison ivy and other plants that's risky for humans/other livestock. Goats are immune to it, and really love to eat it. He will not touch the pokeweed plants, poison to most everything but birds. I cut those out and pour salt on them before anything goes on new pasture. More info here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytolacca_americana
I have seen my adult chickens eat the berries and not get sick, but am not risking it. I had a turkey tom eat berries off a burning bush and die last year. Removed all of them! Same with Japanese Yew we have a few more to remove. Brings up a good point, will post more on that subject.


It was good to see you!

I am so sorry you had to let them go, but quality of life is certainly important too. Please know although hard you made the right choice. Thanks so much for visiting, I always enjoy seeing good friends.
Good to visit with @tmctlt and DW also but I understand both visit the thread as one. Bielie roosters are dolls, so big and sweet! Much like Brahma roosters personalty wise. Watch close, they are easily bullied by more dominant species. Hope @LonelyPageTurne is recovering well from her recent surgery, miss visiting with her very much. @kittydoc is an awesome, generous lady. We talk Orpington often, the breed is our favorites especially English.

We have pokeweed, honeyvine milkweed and other milkweeds around, too. I won't let it grow near the run, but it's game to grow in most other places. I keep some types around because they're habitats for beneficial bugs and attract pollinators to my gardens (every little bit helps!). I've seen two monarch butterflies in the past couple years, so I figured they could use the help. After RoundUp hit, the monarch population fell 97%. The birds and kids don't bother the plants, and so long as that continues, I'm going to let some of the stay.

Planted some "butterfly weed" in my greens garden without realizing it was a pretty milkweed variant. Good news, is that garden is planted away from the birds so they're less tempted. Milkweeds also repel lots of nasties from the garden and will help provide shade to late-start greens.

On the far more established (even invasive) honeyvine milkweed plants, I'm getting bumper crops of oleander aphids (the trippy orange ones), but I'm hoping to nix those and get some honest-to-goodness butterflies this time around. Honeyvine is on both fences, invading all my gardens, and is crawling up the side of my house. It's such a strong grower that it's choking out the poison ivy. Stupid ivy has been there for years, but its roots are deep between the foundation of my house and the adjoining sidewalk, so I can't get to them at all. I clip it back, but that's about all I've been able to do so far. Honeyvine is at least a pretty, good smelling weed that attracts pretty bugs and pollinators.

Regarding Bielies and bullying, Princess (who's looking more and more like maybe she's a he after all) had briefly taken to bullying the new babies, but s/he seems over it now

. Princess and the two Black girls spent the night in with the "big kids" and none of them were happy about it, but it does seem to have distracted Princess from the Bielies, who are fine and pretty much hang with themselves.

Major Tom alerted me two nights ago to the presence of some sinister kitten-sized threat. I looked under the platform it had run to... and it was an opossum. So I set a trap with some kitty food and old eggs. Next morning, all of the food was gone but one egg... which had rolled directly under the trigger plate.

Last night, as I was wrestling repeatedly with Princess and the Black Dragons (who were quite adamantly refusing to stay where I put them with the big kids), the Bielie boys started chirping up a storm... and I realized the long, skinny snout of an opossum was inches from my foot. So, yeah, things got hectic. The Bielies refused to leave their guard post on the ground (just in case anyone could possibly forget about the opossum, I suppose), as I'm meanwhile still wrestling with the three older turkeys (Drogon had flown up to the very top of the coop and had somehow landed on an electrical cable, and she was merrily, somewhat confusedly, swinging on it).

I finally got everyone in place, but had to repeatedly put the Bieles back in because they hated leaving the opossum unguarded. I set the trap (being super careful about eggs). We all made it through the night, and *behold* the trap caught a young opossum, but I'm now at a loss as to what to do with him because I have no car with which to relocate it until DH comes home. I'm pretty sure there's more where it came from, however, and that they've probably figured a way into the quail/pheasant enclosure as well because I found some very clean quail bones.

So, what I've learned so far about the Bielies:
1. They're pretty capable about alerting others to threats
2. They work well as a team
3. They're very quick to warm up with a little handling
4. They're already clucking and trying to get girls over to food
5. They're much softer than I expected--more like Orps!

 

[Faraday40]

PS: I didn't know what pokeweed was....thanks for the link @jchny2000 . We do have it in various places. I have seen the goat boys eat more than a little bit of it on occasion. Didn't seem to bother them...

I cut some of that out of the little chicken woods at the edges so now that I know it's poisonous, I'll go out and pour some salt on it's base today.

x2. I never heard of it & had to see what it looked like. Looks pretty but thankfully, I've never seen it here.

We do have common milkweed (prairie kind with the deep roots) for our monarchs, but most of it is closer to the house. I've never seen the chickens interested in it. What I'd really love to get rid of is the Creeping Charlie in the grass & gardens. The oils on that weed cause me to wheeze & they stay on skin until thorough washing/scrubbing. (I must wear gloves when I weed & then shower right away.) The chickens want nothing to do with it. They love the various clover - but only seem to eat it if I pick it for them. Lazy chickens!

 

[Indyshent]

x2. I never heard of it & had to see what it looked like. Looks pretty but thankfully, I've never seen it here.

We do have common milkweed (prairie kind with the deep roots) for our monarchs, but most of it is closer to the house. I've never seen the chickens interested in it. What I'd really love to get rid of is the Creeping Charlie in the grass & gardens. The oils on that weed cause me to wheeze & they stay on skin until thorough washing/scrubbing. (I must wear gloves when I weed & then shower right away.) The chickens want nothing to do with it. They love the various clover - but only seem to eat it if I pick it for them. Lazy chickens!

Creeping Charlie's part of the mint family, so that's probably why the oil sticks to you. Plant it around your coop and see if it works for repelling mice (which hate mint). It's harmless for chickens (and people) if I've been researching on the right side of the 'nets lately. I'm rather a fan of the Charlie 'cause it's pretty (imho) but it doesn't like my house. I get mallow, wild potato, all kinds of milkweed, purslane and nutsedges like you wouldn't believe though

I'd never seen any of this at my parents' house, and it's only a few miles from me! We both have some yellow wood sorrel, however, which was Curly's favorite weed, but my parents get more vining purple-flowered nightshade, which we lovingly called "stinkweed". I get the other nightshades here, but at least they're less stinky and easier to pull up.

Apparently, certain stages of life and parts of pokeweed are edible--if picked young and boiled in several changes of holy
gwater. Prolly better not to play games with that toxic bad boy (but wild birds love it, and it is an important source of food for them).

 

[Indyshent]

Found little Smaug, my Bourbon poult in the alley behind my house. Looked like she may have been hit in the side by a passing car, a boot, or some other relatively large object. Still alive, but she's not going to make it. She's such a sweet, friendly girl, and she loves to cuddle, so I'm holding her for the last time now, and I'm bawling my eyes out.

*edit* At 6:30, she passed away. She was such a trooper.

 

[Leahs Mom]

@Indyshent
So sorry. Thinking about you and her right now.

 

[Finnie]

I'm so sorry for you. That's so sad.

 

[kittydoc]

@Indyshent, I'm so sorry about Smaug...sucks.

We have almost no possums here, but I have trapped one when trying for a cat. Our pens are predator proof, so we just stay vigilant. If I thought a possum was eating eggs or killing young or small birds, I'd drive it to the nearest wildlife park.

I am so glad you like the Bielie boys! Their dad is not much on warning calls. He has a soft voice and gave up trying to compete with my big mouthed Orp roos long ago.

It's very nice to have 5 chicks out the door in the last two days, with 2 more going to Mother2Hens on Friday. Three blue Orps, hopefully all pullets, and my 3 SGDs went outside over a week ago to my former Jubilee pen. I sure miss Placido's distinctive crow. It's also a lot quieter in the garage now between the moved juveniles and the babies rehomed or sold.

If anyone is interested I have one Bielefelder pair for sale, about 10 days old. I will have BBS Orp chicks by probable sex in a few weeks. I already have some cockerels identified. Dad is a massive blue English Orp and the two hens are Fancy Chick/Gisbrecht English girls. Very nice babies that I hatched for jchny2000 and myself with lots to spare! My last 5 eggs are about to hatch, more Orps, these out of Cogburn Junior and my best lavender hen. It's a genetics experiment to see whether Junior is split to lavender. I hope not, but need to know. Hoping for black and blue Orps split to lavender and no actual lavender chicks. Suspense!!