Maine

[MustardTiger]

Pamspets welcome! The folks in here a very helpful. I have had chickens for two winters now and I have learned so much in here

 

[lazy gardener]

Welcome Pamspets! What kind of chickies do you have??????? This site is a wonderful place to learn.

I expect to be posting pics of my doms on that thread soon, as I suspect that I have at least 2 of 3 roosters. This is disappointing to say the least, and right now, I don't have much nice to say about the hatchery that supplied these birds. How hard can it be? I'm suspecting that their sexed birds are straight run. Grumble... grumble... rant! Ok, done now... for the day!

 

[pamspets]

2 red pullets, 2 white/yellow pullets & 2 RCA tites (?) from Tractor Supply but believe one of the little brown ones might be a rooster.

 

[Widget]

2 red pullets, 2 white/yellow pullets & 2 RCA tites (?) from Tractor Supply but believe one of the little brown ones might be a rooster.

Darn those roosters. They like to sneak in when you least expect it.

Or in my case they like to run away from home and move in with the next door neighbor.

 

[pamspets]

Guess I better get acquainted with my neighbor, he had 3 free range hens.

 

[Widget]

My African Gray parrot, Apollo, is learning to mimic the calls of the turkeys and ducks. He has yet to attempt a rooster crow but I fear that is only a matter of time.

And my bantam birchen Cochin roo got out of the bantam pen and has managed to somewhat integrate in with the big birds. He hangs out away from them but when it comes to feeding time he is right in the middle getting his fill. He also comes running when I go outside. Close enough to say hi but not so close that I can catch him and put him back in the pen.

 

[pamspets]

Who says chickens are not bright, he just wants to be one of the big guys. Too cute.

 

[yankeehill]

Hmmm. I think I need to have a talk with the chickens.They are laying like crazy

but are letting the other birds do all the work. I have a broody Sebastopol goose sitting on her two eggs and a broody Royal Palm turkey sitting on her eggs and any chicken eggs that were laid in the same spot. Guess the chickens prefer to run around being care free instead of being good mama birds.

On another note anyone know much about peonies? They were the favorite flower of my mother and I have one that I planted years ago but would like to add more. Can they only be transplanted in the fall or can I plant some once the weather cooperates. I want to do a peony/rose garden around my flag pole along with a million other projects this year.

Are you talking of moving the peonies you already planted, or planting more? If you transplant peonies now, you risk not having blooms this summer. It is best to transplant in the fall, when they are ready to go dormant. You can buy new peony plants for about $5 at many stores this time of the year. I would LOVE to have entire rows of peonies. I planted 2 last year, and 2 the year before. I'm thinking though that the ones I planted 2 years ago were either too young to bloom, or planted too deep, since they have not yet bloomed (they are in full sun, and all the other plants in that garden bloom well). My mom just bought me one more to plant, though I am not yet sure where I will put it.

 

[Widget]

Are you talking of moving the peonies you already planted, or planting more? If you transplant peonies now, you risk not having blooms this summer. It is best to transplant in the fall, when they are ready to go dormant. You can buy new peony plants for about $5 at many stores this time of the year. I would LOVE to have entire rows of peonies. I planted 2 last year, and 2 the year before. I'm thinking though that the ones I planted 2 years ago were either too young to bloom, or planted too deep, since they have not yet bloomed (they are in full sun, and all the other plants in that garden bloom well). My mom just bought me one more to plant, though I am not yet sure where I will put it.

Buying new ones. I placed an order yesterday to get some root stock this fall. Figure that gives me time to prepare the bed and I can at least plant the rose bushes that I got at Mardens for $3 ea.

 

[lazy gardener]

I also bought rose bushes at Mardens. I bought 2 earlier, and potted them. One is doing fine, the other one got chewed down to a little stick nub by one of my cats.

Got the lumber primed for the new chicken tractor. The final dimensions will be 6 x 7, with skis on the bottom, and lawn mower wheels on the back. It will be covered with 1" chicken wire, so will have to stay in the electronet fenced area to make it more predator proof as I don't trust chicken wire at all.

Hubby is rolling plans around in his head for the new coop/storage building. If we make it big enough to store the lawn mowers/troybilt, garden carts... it may end up being about 12 x 16.

Widgett: I do hope that Apollo does not practice his crowing at 3 AM. Perhaps you need to get him a nice mellow sounding set of wind chimes, so he can work on that instead.

Baby chickies have been getting an egg every morning for the past 4 days or so. The first 2 days, they were very cautious about it... this morning, they were on top of it before it even landed. so I ended up giving them a second one just so they could all get some. Hubby says there's something very wrong about chickens eating eggs!