Kristen’s Chickens and Farming Ventures

[rjohns39]

Good morning Kris

 

[Kris5902]

Good morning Kris

Morning Bob

Yes @Blue and @Ribh, my hatch is still going. Mostly the eggs just sit in their little styrofoam boxes and turn, so I suppose it’s going well. I forget if I updated here with my candling. Andrew was grumpy and tired so the first candling pics didn’t turn out at all. I got one decent picture on my first Candling

I candled again on Friday night, but didn’t get any pictures. I am now down to six eggs from the “other” farm. I found out he bleaches his eggs routinely, and the “unwashed” ones I got were mostly covered in yolk and poop, so no big surprise on those. I did wipe them up with a damp cloth (because there was no way they were going into my incubator “as is”). I lost one more Ameraucana egg from the guy who had the Raccoon problem, it was one of my ? Ones from the first candling, as well as one more of Sammy’s. So far all my issues seem to be egg handling or egg problems (I collected the eggs from Sammy’s girl with the prolapse from before it happened).

I will do one last candling on the 13th when I stop the turning and set up for the hatch, which is due on the 16th-18th. I’m hoping for a less drawn out hatch this time as I rotated the eggs from the outside to the center when I candled, but I’m not betting on it. This week I’m going to be setting up my brooders and getting everything ready in the barn. I’ve been having “integration troubles” and nest box issues...

My hospital tractor can fit 3 chickens and Sammy, snugly. I tried to let Croppy back in with her crew and Chickie Hawk, as she so desperately wanted, and nope that didn’t go well. She hid in the roosting box all day then got beat down at roosting time and fled back into my arms, and she isn’t a cuddly chicken. Fine... I’ll put Missy (Sammy’s bully girl in with them instead) turns out she’s only a bully to rehab girls and got pecked on badly as well. Chickie Hawk was happy to meet/mate her, but the other girls were pecking her mercilessly while he was busy with her... they drew blood and I pulled her out, somewhat cowed.

With Mrs B basically fully recovered she’s buddied back up with Missy, and last night when I went to put Hoppy in with them for the night they both started pecking on her pretty badly, so I opened the door back up and Hoppy bolted out and hid between my legs (I have to crouch down to get it open). So we are back to Hoppy and Croppy In the barn, and Missy, Mrs B, and Sammy in the hospital tractor. I’m going to set up a proper roost for Hoppy and Croppy to hopefully control the poop a bit better.

I’m a little worried about overwintering two chickens (underweight and hard molting) and 3 chickens on their own like that, but I’ll figure something out I’m sure. Good news is Hoppy is now roosting normally, or was roosting, when I had her, Croppy, and Mrs B in with Sammy, and was putting Missy in later at night to prevent Roosting abuse. (The roost in the hospital tractor was a late addition, as when I built it for the first three rescues nobody was in any shape for roosting, they were all ground sleepers).

Which brings us to the other issue “put the eggs in the nestbox (or human approved nest box alternative, like that corner they like or the sedge bale) and don’t eat them!” Missy started it, Mrs B continued it... they now want to lay under the barn... in the middle of it where it’s about 10” off the ground. I am going to buy some chicken wire and skirt the barn with it, but until then no one is free ranging until all the eggs have been produced and collected. I’m a horribly mean chicken mama!

 

[BlueBaby]

@Kris5902 You have enough work to do around there, without having to go through an Easter Egg hunt every day to get those egg's that they are hiding on you.

 

[Kris5902]

@Kris5902 You have enough work to do around there, without having to go through an Easter Egg hunt every day to get those egg's that they are hiding on you.

Lol! I could live with an egg hunt, but The barn is almost 20’ wide and over 30’ long. The largest gap is about 18” high on the one end and 4” on the other... the little buggers are laying right in the center, no way am I getting those eggs! Add in the “construction” debris like broken glass beer bottles, cans, rusty nails sticking out of boards and the spiders and nope! We are in full confinement until those eggs are laid!
BTW I run a clean job site, and pick up my spilled nails!

 

[Aussie-Chookmum]

Lol! I could live with an egg hunt, but The barn is almost 20’ wide and over 30’ long. The largest gap is about 18” high on the one end and 4” on the other... the little buggers are laying right in the center, no way am I getting those eggs! Add in the “construction” debris like broken glass beer bottles, cans, rusty nails sticking out of boards and the spiders and nope! We are in full confinement until those eggs are laid!
BTW I run a clean job site, and pick up my spilled nails!

Well of course they have to go under the barn Kris. You keep taking their eggs otherwise!

I hate, hate, hate ""builder's debris". Why can't these people collect their rubbish and dispose of it properly like decent human beings? It's just inconsiderate and bad manners ! Ok, rant over. Can you tell that littering is one of my pet peeves?

 

[rjohns39]

Good morning Kris and all

ETA: I candle and lock down my last hatch of the year today...

 

[BlueBaby]

Good morning Kris and all

ETA: I candle and lock down my last hatch of the year today...

I hope that they all hatch for you!

 

[Kris5902]

Well of course they have to go under the barn Kris. You keep taking their eggs otherwise!

I hate, hate, hate ""builder's debris". Why can't these people collect their rubbish and dispose of it properly like decent human beings? It's just inconsiderate and bad manners ! Ok, rant over. Can you tell that littering is one of my pet peeves?

Most entertaining “builder debris” stories from our city house reno... the interior walls were uninsulated, unless you count the debris that was tossed into the wall cavity! Scrap wall board (we call it drywall), 2x4 offcuts, the occasional beer can, empty caulking tubes, so much random stuff!

Granted it is a pain to dispose of even clean drywall here, there’s a ton of paperwork, extra fees at the dump. And if it’s painted? Like from your demolition? No way! You have to drive it hours outside the city to a special disposal plant. So, as you can imagine, most people just double bag it and declare it as household garbage, and hope they don’t get caught! There’s some hefty fines involved. They just finallyremoved the extra fees on refidgeration appliances, reducing the illegal dumping of those... but mattresses are still a big problem here. $10-15 extra each, so they usually end up in an alley. We had 14 dumped in our driveway over the time we owned the house!

Here on the farm though it’s mostly the family to blame. “No, that’s still good, we can find a use for that twisted metal chunk of mostly rust” I’ve done two scrap metal runs since we got here, covered the ferry fare both times and even made a slight profit on one of them! Tip of the iceberg. Also took in 32 bad automotive batteries, 18 expired propane tanks, 4 broken refrigerators, two washers, one dryer (the other is also “still good”) and over $200 in empties (at $0.05 to $0.10 a can that’s about 3000 cans!) from cleaning up FIL’s cabin while he was in Cuba. Not going to mention the automotive oil situation, but let’s just say we always have some explaining to do on our recycling/dump runs. “Not we aren’t a junk removal business, this is over 50 years of not dealing with the recycling/garbage on a family farm”

We drove out to the beach to check the grass in the clearing there. FIL had some friends over “pest controlling” goats (they got 6, also tip of the iceberg) they made a nice curry with one and had a little fire and social out in the clearing where they camp. BIL also joined them... there were no fortunate hunting accidents, but many beer cans met their demise as targets. I know this because they were still decorating the trees and bushes they were stuck on when we went out several days later. Only consolation there is maybe it will detertresspassers?

 

[BlueBaby]

@Kris5902 I know what you mean. It seem's that everyone say's that we should all recycle, but the recycling places don't always accept everything, or they want to charge you to dump it there. Some people do not want to pay, so they dump all kind's of trash out in our desert down here. It's nothing to find a big pile of old tire's, that kid's will come in and make a fort out of (until someone get's careless and catches them on fire), or old appliances that are used out there for target practice.

 

[Kris5902]

Good morning Kris and all

ETA: I candle and lock down my last hatch of the year today...

Yes! Good morning Bob and Best wishes on your hatch! I’m sure it will be awesome. Are you planning on any holdbacks, or are they mostly going to be sold again?

I was thinking about switching up my roosters and trying to get *just one more* hatch in for the year. I’m just having trouble reorganizing the girls. I know who needs to move where, it’s just getting the bachelors to all be nice to their new lady friends, and figuring out winter housing for everyone. And maybe negotiating 4-5 weeks of indoor brooding space, so unlikely. But I’m aiming to hatch out more blue layers next spring, and may as well sort the girls out now.

Mrs B has decided she doesn’t want to be with Sammy anymore after all and put herself up with Hoppy and Croppy in the barn last night. She also had just laid another massive egg with a rough texture (in the barn, not under!) when we got home for dinner, and she looked like she was going to pop the prolapse back out. It is amazing how quickly everyone disappears now at the phrase “where did the preparation H go?” Almost as effective as “can you hold this chicken for a moment?”