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Welcome to the thread and to BYC
meri
Welcome jransmith. Don't worry about Mojo her avatar is just somewhat cynical. She's okay. What kind of chickens do you have?
Mojo! How the heck are you doing? With all the kinfolk goings on I hope you are doing okay.
Oh! and having never been a parent let me give you some good advice on how to raise your youngin's.
First stop feeding them or leaving scraps of food around. Like all ferrel critters, if you stop feeding them they will eventually leave.
Second, Don't give them access to money, other than help wanted adds and a way to get to work. Money equals food, see above.
Third, start filling their den with your stuff. Your stuff has enough of your scent on it to let them know you are reclaiming that territory for yourself again. (I don't recommend urinating on things like other pack animals do, that is overkill.)
Fourth, Start packing their thing up and storing them, (for safe keeping
) When they cannot find things that have been packed away, point out that their just isn't enough room for
their stuff in
your room.
Fifth, Tell them you are so proud of them now that they are starting their own life and that you are willing to support them in their future endevors
now that they are on their own..
Sixth, watch out for the puppy eye tactic that they will pull on you. ignore the eyes as an out and out dirty trick.
Tough love, just keep saying "Tough love", "Tough Love".
Eventually, you can celebrate having your home to you and your hubby's selves again.
I miss chatting with you.
It's been a LONG long (long long long) couple of weeks (or has it been three weeks? feels like a month, at least).
Mom and stepdad are going home tomorrow - and I am putting my foot down - No More Company for awhile!!! I just want my routine back (and my house!).
Hubby finished the half of our hayfield he had mowed (it's all baled, so now it can rain all week, like it says it is supposed to). The other half he has to fix the rake, before he can do it. Simple fix, I think, he had a wheel off to be fixed, and the tines stopped spinning like they were supposed to - probably something in the hub just needs adjusting.
I need to get some sand for the top chicken run still, and we're gonna put gravel on the top part of the duck pen, and outside of it, to stop the flooding (and stink and flies) when I dump pools. I need to get ahold of Spydertoyz to set up a day to go get sand, cause I want to stop by her place and get some chickens. I'm gonna wait to call her, though, until I am sure everyone is gonna stay in their own darn state for awhile and not come and visit me
- sometime late next week,maybe.
I need to get pics of all the critters. The ducks are adorable - the babies that are old enough to be out in the big duck pen are a hoot - every morning they are hungry, so they mob me when I come out and quack like mad til I put food in their dishes. The goslings are getting BIG and they come out of the pen every morning, and go in after dinner every evening - all I have to do is pick up my "herding stick" and they know it's time to go back inside the pen.
Today they all took a bath together in one of the pools, while the ducks (who they had chased out of said pool) looked on with sadness for losing the best of the two pools. (it is the best pool because it is the most level
- that will be fixed once the gravel is in place - both pools will be level.)
The geese follow me around the yard, still - I hope they are just as nice and sweet when they get big and don't turn into monsters. Ethel, with her funky bill, looks pretty idiotic - but she eats just fine and seems to be the smartest of the bunch. They like to hide in the woods, in the shade, so they can lie down and eat grass yet still keep an eye on "their ducks" in the pen.
I am down to 7 baby ducklings in the house - I put the 5 bigger babies out in the top cell of the lower coop - so they can get accustomed to the new digs and move over into the duck pen next door when they are big enough not to squeeze out of the pen.
I still haven't butchered the cornish crosses. The roo is starting to walk funny - like his legs are not keeping him up very well - I really need to go cut off some heads, but with company, well, I wasn't sure they wanted to see the deed done.
Hubby wants me to keep a quad of black australorps to breed, too - I have them, but had planned on selling them. If he wants me to keep them then that means he needs to build me THREE more coops before fall.
Small ones, but it'll be money and time spent, all the same. I already need coops for the barred rocks and the buff orpingtons. I had planned on not adding any other breeds into the mix until I had the four that I already have going well - then seeing what else I might have time for.
We'll see, I guess. I have someone coming over who wants a dozen hens this weekend, maybe he'll take the BA and leave me off the hook for now (until next year, at least).
I am actually running low on Chick Starter
- I must have had about a dozen bags of it, I am down to two - and I opened one of those tonight. Looks like I need to go get more soon.
As soon as Dennis gets his hens out of the top coop, I can move the Columbian Rocks up there, and leave just my keepers in the lower coop. Oh, and those Golden Comets can go in the top coop, also. I have 5 or 6 GC pullets left down there, yet (and about 20 Columbian Rocks).
I am seriously hoping that my Delaware pullets get a lot prettier than they are right now. As they are right now, my Mutt babies look prettier when they are hatched than the Dels do at almost a month old. Maybe I've just been looking at Columbian Patterned chicks for too long.
Right now the prettiest chicks on the farm are the buff orpington pair that I have - the barred rocks come in a close second.
Oh, speaking of barred rocks, did I mention that Gump is a Roo? He is getting the loveliest tail. George seems to be cool with it, for now, though, so he's fine in that coop. We'll see what happens when Gump actually discovers that he is a roo, and starts to crow and look for girlfriends. Being that his deformity is a accident of hatch, and not genetic, he might make some pretty babies.
I have a dozen or so quail eggs due to hatch anytime now. The three that I hatched before (that lived - two of them died from various things - one drowned in the water dish, and one died from the heat in there) seem to be a male and two females. I am still not sure what sex the button baby is - he's so small.
I guess that's all the catching up for now.
Maybe when I have a day to myself and room to breathe I can think of all the things I forgot to add in here.
meri
