"Louisiana "La-yers" Peeps"

[catdaddyfro]

Generally if you keep the chickens dry and the wind blocked off them they can pretty much handle most of the Louisiana temps the worst they usually receive from our cold temps could be frost bite on the tips of the roosters large combs and most of the time this is due to a too tight of a coop where moisture/humidity gets trapped inside along with the cold. so you must have ventilation just a little around the top edges of the coop will suffice as it will dissipate the humid air out chickens put off a lot of humidity through respiration and every time they poop its got pee-pee in it too. so you get the pic. LOL

On the eggs sitting out. It all depends on the outside temps, in hot temps not to long maybe a couple of day,s cool times like now I'd say a couple of weeks maybe a little longer but not worth the chance to take. A hen clutching up eggs to sit on can sometimes take up to 3 weeks and them still be viable, but I wouldn't consume them even if they seem good. there could be some bacteria and nasty stuff starting to develop in them that the ol' gut might not be to happy dealing with. Just sayin'

Jeff

Edited for spelling as I was tired last night when I was typing out-loud, LOL

Oh well I'm not doing much better this morning I hit quote instead of the little pencil to fix my spelling errors its not that I can't spell, I can't type LOL without staring at the keys so what ever pops up on the screen is sometimes very mysterious to me much less ya'll I'd imagine LOL

anyway I wanted to tell Roxanneinla that artificial incubation can be challenging at times I've been doing it off and on for 30 years and still don't have good results most of the time. It the reason I have these mongrel X-breeds running around they'd rather set than eat and they almost always have 100% hatch rate. I'm going to be using them to hatch my expensive heritage eggs this coming year so I'm not wasting them and time in trusting a man-made machine, much less me to do a good job with them.

You'll get better at it with time you must study up on exactly what may have caused this to happen and just carry on and learn from it.

Jeff

 

[Roxanneinla]

anyway I wanted to tell Roxanneinla that artificial incubation can be challenging at times I've been doing it off and on for 30 years and still don't have good results most of the time. It the reason I have these mongrel X-breeds running around they'd rather set than eat and they almost always have 100% hatch rate. I'm going to be using them to hatch my expensive heritage eggs this coming year so I'm not wasting them and time in trusting a man-made machine, much less me to do a good job with them.

You'll get better at it with time you must study up on exactly what may have caused this to happen and just carry on and learn from it.

Jeff

lol lesson learn i'll go find a sillki or a cross that will try to hatch a golf ball. All I can say lesson learn..the hard way. Thank you

 

[PrimroseMom1]

Oh well I'm not doing much better this morning I hit quote instead of the little pencil to fix my spelling errors its not that I can't spell, I can't type LOL without staring at the keys so what ever pops up on the screen is sometimes very mysterious to me much less ya'll I'd imagine LOL

anyway I wanted to tell Roxanneinla that artificial incubation can be challenging at times I've been doing it off and on for 30 years and still don't have good results most of the time. It the reason I have these mongrel X-breeds running around they'd rather set than eat and they almost always have 100% hatch rate. I'm going to be using them to hatch my expensive heritage eggs this coming year so I'm not wasting them and time in trusting a man-made machine, much less me to do a good job with them.

You'll get better at it with time you must study up on exactly what may have caused this to happen and just carry on and learn from it.

Jeff

Thanks for the information! That really helps me a lot. I think I'll refrigerate some of my eggs that are going on 2 weeks old. Also, I was thinking of incubating here at school where I teach for the kids to experience the hatching of little chicks, but maybe not, they're a little young to not see little chicks coming out of the eggs.

 

[catdaddyfro]

Thanks for the information! That really helps me a lot. I think I'll refrigerate some of my eggs that are going on 2 weeks old. Also, I was thinking of incubating here at school where I teach for the kids to experience the hatching of little chicks, but maybe not, they're a little young to not see little chicks coming out of the eggs.

I wouldn't get all dishearted by my post the only way to get better at it is to try and try again. The really main thing is to get Fresh good quality eggs and go from there. If you keep the temps within a couple of degrees and the humidity at a reasonable level usually some of the eggs will hatch, maybe not all of them. The worst thing on them is over heating Number one and jostling them around and this is worse in the early stages of development when the blood vessels are more liable to be damaged then. and after about day 18 do not open the incubator, move anything to those eggs as this time is when the chick is getting itself in position(orient themselves) to be able to pip the air cell then to start working on pipping the shell to get out it has to be in a certain position for this to take place at the right time or they will simply not be able to hatch out. Anyway don't give up but you may want to try with less expensive eggs for practicing instead of rare eggs that you know just might be a disaster to some. and shipped eggs no matter how many say they have had good luck with them it is an ODDS against you game already from the start. A lot of BIG TIME, high flutin' Breeders will not SELL you their eggs unless you come and get them yourself, they will keep them and hatch them for theirself rather than to waste a possibly super duper bird from it getting turned into an omelet in the mail bag. JFYI

Jeff good day to all.

 

[kuntrygirl]

Good morning La-yers!! OMG!!! 6 pages? You all have chatted sooooooooo much this weekend. I just read everything that I missed.

I hope that everyone had a great weekend!!!!!!!!!! It was chilly outside but nonetheless NICE!

My weekend adventure consisted of going to Alexandria to see Terri to pick up a trio of peas! e OMG!!! The trio are absolutely STUNNING! Beautiful and healthy birds!! I am so excited about having the peas. THANKS TERRI!!!!!!!!

Before making it over to Terri's place, we stopped at Petrus Feed Store and loaded up the truck with 10 bags of Game Bird Feed (26% protein), crumble, sheep feed, goat feed and rabbit feed. We had to leave room for the cage so that we could transport the peas back. We were loaded down. Petrus' feed store had some BEAUTIFUL chicks. I was tempted but not that tempted. After leaving the feed store, we traveled to meet Terri. Terri has the most beautiful peas. The colors are amazing! I love your set up Terri. I love that they have all of that grass to eat. I have to find a way to get grass, plants and trees in that flight pen. :/ We were talking on the way back and we have to come up with something. Terri, thanks for getting your babies from inside and bringing them outside to meet us. Ya'll, Terri has the most beautiful dogs EVER!!! They look like they should be in pictures. Dogs models for sure!!! They are so friendly!!!! Thanks for the treats that you sent back with us. The satsumas and lemons were a lovely gift. Ya'll, Terri has the BIGGEST pecans that I have EVER seen in my life! They are HUGE!!!!!!! We ate pecans on the way back. They were so big we got full after eating about 5 pecans each! What a wonderful time we had!!! It was so nice seeing you and Jim again. We got home and got the peas settled into a pen. My IB kept walking back and forth near the pen where the trio was. He noticed that they looked like him, so he had to introduce himself. They were calm as we switched them from their cage to their new pen. No fussing from them at all. Prince, my white peacock, saw them but didn't introduce himself yet. His is so arrogant.:/ I think he knows that he is "different" as far as being solid white and he is the only unique bird out there, cause he shows it. He only wants to hang out with us humans. He will find us and come over and talk to us. He really doesn't mingle with the other animals. Go figure.:/

Terri, I had to tell you this story.....You noticed all the feed in the back of the truck right? Well, when we got home, we unloaded the cage that the peas were in and put them in their pen. Then we unloaded all of the bags of feed but we just placed it inside the chicken yard by the gate because we had to rush to the rental place before they closed at noon to get an auger because we were building a summer pen for the sheep. So as we unloaded all of that feed, we took off to the rental place. Well...............after we got the auger and finished up with all of the errands, we went back home. Well, as we went into the chicken yard to get the feed and bring to the feed storage house, SOME SMARTY PANTS decided to open up 3 bags of feed!!!!!!!!!!!!! Some other SMARTY PANTS decided to rip 6 tags off of 6 bags of feed!!!!!!!!!! Another SMARTY pants decided to bust a hole in a bag of feed as well. I was SOOOOOOOO MAD! Because all of the paper bags looks the same, we didn't know what feed was what. Can you believe that one of those birds actually ripped the piece of thread from the seam and opened 3 bags of feed????? I'm glad that I know who did it! I have a turkey hen that can unchain a fence, open it and get out. :/ I have seen her do this MANY times. She has gotten good at it. She just hasn't learned to chain it back up. :/ So, I KNOW it was her who opened that bag of feed. She is the ONLY one that can do that. I had to put a pad lock on the fence so that she couldn't get out. She lets ALL of the animals out into the human yard when I'm not there if I forget to put the pad lock on the fence. I think the other turkeys and geese tore the feed tags off of the bag. We did a process of elimination and was able to determine the game bird feed from the sheep and goat feed. The sheep and goat feed had different type pellets. The game bird pellet was lighter in color and was a shorter pellet. I was paranoid about the sheep and goat feed because of the ingredients. Goat feed has copper in it and copper is deadly if sheep eat it. So, I was stressing out but we figured it all out. So that was our drama with the feed. I'll know what NOT to do next time. So, I have officially switched from being a Tractor Supply customer to being a Petrus feed store customer. We will make monthly trips and stock up on each trip. I'm thinking the 10 bags of game birds may last 2 weeks (mixed with crack corn) but not sure. If so, we will have to get 20 bags of game birds, so that it can last a month. I'm excited about this new feed.

The weather was so nice (chilly), we decided to make a chicken and sausage gumbo. You talk about GOOD! While the gumbo was cooking, we worked on the summer pen for the sheep. About a year ago, someone on Craigslist was giving away a truck load of white vinyl fence posts and I was able to get them free for my summer pen for the sheep. So that we don't have so much grass to cut, we built a pen in the back part of the yard behind the house. We were also able to score some brand new lumber that someone was getting rid of. We had a trailer load full of lumber. We inserted these boards into the slots on the vinyle fence posts. We will paint the boards white to match the vinyl fence posts. I'm excited about moving the sheep in there so that they can try out their summer pen - although it's not summer any longer. At least they will be able to munch down on some grass so that we don't have to cut back there.

Pic from online of what the vinyl fence post look like. I will post pics of the fence as soon as I take some pics.

I was able to rake up a LOT of leaves in the chicken yard and pick pecans. My pecans are in no way at all the same size as Terri's pecans. Terri, you put my little ole pecans to shame. I guess we will just shell ours and put in the freezer for pecan candy and pecan pie.

Anway, I hope that everyone had a great weekend. Enjoy the weather ya'll!!!!!!!!

Have a great day !!!

 

[kuntrygirl]

Good cold mornin' La-yers and BYC-ers too

It was 34* here this mornin' and I'm so not rready for this i don't care for cold weather at all

But anyway ya'll should've seen these 11/1 week old half breed game x whatevers out there this morning scratching and carrying on with their Momma and the big boys and girls like it was 85*.

There was frost on the ground!

Well, heck if that'd been $25 dollar a piece Roebuck Buff Rocks or $100 a head Citron DuCles they be frozen stiff by now.

These "ain't" worth a plug nickle to nobody but me, just for sheer entertainment and enjoyment. I loves my Xbreeds they are some go getters, you can tell they were brought up hard over in that Atchafalaya swamp for sure. whats that called "natural selection/survival of the fittest"  whatever it is they sure got it. LOL

Jeff

It was cold but I decided not to complain because I hate the heat and the skeeters, so I will take the cold weather with a smile and a cup of hot cocoa.

 

[kuntrygirl]

Generally if you keep the chickens dry and the wind blocked off them they can pretty much handle most of the Louisiana temps the worst they usually receive from our cold temps could be frost bite on the tips of the roosters large combs and most of the time this is due to a too tight of a coop where moisture/humidity gets trapped inside along with the cold. so you must have ventilation just a little around the top edges of the coop will suffice as it will dissipate the humid air out chickens put off a lot of humidity through respiration and every time they poop its got pee-pee in it too. so you get the pic. LOL

On the eggs sitting out. It all depends on the outside temps, in hot temps not to long maybe a couple of day,s cool times like now I'd say a couple of weeks maybe a little longer but not worth the chance to take. A hen clutching up eggs to sit on can sometimes take up to 3 weeks and them still be viable, but I wouldn't consume them even if they seem good.  there could be some bacteria and nasty stuff starting to develop in them that the ol' gut might not be to happy dealing with. Just sayin'

Jeff

Edited for spelling as I was tired last night when I was typing out-loud, LOL

Oh well I'm not doing much better this morning I hit quote instead of the little pencil to fix my spelling errors its not that I can't spell, I can't type LOL without staring at the keys so what ever pops up on the screen is sometimes very mysterious to me much less ya'll I'd imagine LOL

anyway I wanted to tell Roxanneinla that artificial incubation can be challenging at times I've been doing it off and on for 30 years and still don't have good results most of the time. It the reason I have these mongrel X-breeds running around they'd rather set than eat and they almost always have 100% hatch rate. I'm going to be using them to hatch my expensive heritage eggs this coming year so I'm not wasting them and time in trusting a man-made machine, much less me to do a good job with them.

You'll get better at it with time you must study up on exactly what may have caused this to happen and just carry on and learn from it.

Jeff

Jeff, I have to say that I really hated using my incubator. In my opinion from what was hatched at my place, the chicks hatched had more leg and toe problems and the hatch rate was pathetic. I prefer the old school way (broody hen). I guess an incubator comes in handy if you don't have any broody hens but I don't like the incubator hatching. :/ I have really never had a problem when my broody hens have hatched eggs. Go figure. :/

 

[catdaddyfro]

Funny story Kuntrygirl, and too on the pecans if you weigh out a known amount like a cup full or a gallon jug full you'll find the smaller pecans will out weigh the lager ones not just that they'll pack tighter into the same space but they also have a higher oil content to them which also ads weight. Just thought I'd throw that out there but yeah if I'm sitting around crackin' pecans to eat my fill of, I'd rather the big ol ones like Terri has, to get a BITE of sumpthin"lol

The smaller pecan will get up more money at the buyer than the big ones if you see when you sell the they'll keep them uniformly separated in the bins.They use those(smaller) for extracting oil from(very valuable/expensive)(more so than peanut oil) and the big ones are confectioners/eating

ok enough of pee-cans 101 this mornin got to go haul the trash down to the road for pick up bye

Jeff

 

[kuntrygirl]

No shipping charge to LA????????? WOW!! I'll have to check that out.

I love homemade bread. You go girl. That is such a nice gesture. Next time you want to run out of gas, please come to my road so that I can rescue you all.

i ate one loaf and i still have the 3 others too, they haven't been home all day! too bad you aren't a little closer. it is ridiculously easy to make! it takes about 15 minutes to mix it all up and then it is mainly rising time. let me know if you want to give it a try! after you get the feel of the dough being ready to rise, you can make rolls, brown sugar cinnamon braids, jalapeno and cheddar braids. or even parmesan garlic braids. i love to teach others how to make it. it's made out of yeast, water, flour, sugar, salt, and butter. basically add them in a specific order and work into dough! it is really cool that it all turns into edible fresh hot bread!

I will have to get the recipe from you. I enjoy homemade bread.

 

[kuntrygirl]

My new addition that I bought today. Drove 2.5hrs to east of Alexandria today to pick up
Bobby Boles Asils.

Nice!