Maine

[buckabucka]

I wallowed out to the coops twice yesterday. All of them have snow that blew in, but there are plenty of dry places.

At first, I was baffled that they called off school for a second day, since it is no longer snowing. The city plows out the school parking lots though, and the roads get priority, so I imagine they could not keep up with the late ending and all the blowing and drifting.
While DH would have plowed me out of here, it is really nice that I will have the day to shovel paths to the coops. I think there's two feet of snow out there!

So glad this storm did not cause many outages.

 

[lazy gardener]

Planned on getting more soon. Maybe some speckled sussex or some ameraucanas. What do you guys think?

I think you should get some of each. You might want to throw in a couple of Dominiques, and while you're at it, some Silver Spangled Hamburgs and some Buckeyes. Hey, a girl can always dream!

SCG: I'm guessing that your chickies weathered the storm without loss of power?

I'm guessing we got about 15" here. Hard to tell with all of the blowing. We removed total of 20" from the deck. (shoveled it 3 x.)

 

[superchemicalgirl]

Power stayed on, everything is good so far. I haven't shoveled out to see my animals... just got home and will eat and then do that. Hopefully they didn't murder each other while cooped up.

 

[IZZYBELLA]

I'm guessing we got about 15" here. Hard to tell with all of the blowing. We removed total of 20" from the deck. (shoveled it 3 x.)

I can't tell how much actually fell either, the wind did such crazy things with the snow! We have drifts as high as my shoulder and yet right next to them is bare ground (literally bare... I see grass!). Unfortunately, one of said drifts was right between my garage and my coop and another was in front of the pop door! At least the path for the oil man and to the water spigot was totally clear... didn't have to shovel that at all.

I threw some dirty shavings on the partially shoveled run so the girls could get out today. They seem pretty happy all things considered. I, on the other hand, can feel the knots in my back tightening already!

 

[dodochick92]

No idea how much we got in Portland. So glad i brought my hen in the house cuz my coop is half buried in snow.

 

[superchemicalgirl]

It only took me about 2.5 hours to get everything shoveled out... goat haus, duck coop, chicken coop, front stairs, spigot. Not bad, and certainly there's been worse.

I might have been aided by the fact that BF attempted to do it earlier this morning and broke the snowblower and went out and bought a bigger, more powerful one.

 

[Widget]

Planned on getting more soon. Maybe some speckled sussex or some ameraucanas. What do you guys think?

I like the looks of the Speckled Sussex. Have had some in the past and they were great.

 

[buckabucka]

Yesterday, I bought rancid feed. I'm starting to think there is a large section of the population that can't detect rancidity. Sometimes I'll be at someone's house, and they will be happily enjoying some crackers or chips, and I taste one and can't believe they are eating them. I'm glad DH is with me on this, or I'd think I was crazy.

I noticed a smell soon after I put the feed in my car, but tried to convince myself it was fine. When I got home, DH came out and moved the feed for me, and the first thing he said was, "this smells rancid". I opened the bag and it smelled so nasty I knew I couldn't feed it to the chickens. My first impulse was to dump it directly in the compost, but with our rat troubles, I decided to drive it back to TSC.

The first thing the guy did was try to check the date, but Blue Seal writes a code. Surprisingly, he did not know how to read the code, (I do and I should have told him but I just wanted to get new feed and go home). If the other employees can't read the code, they can't be rotating stock very well. I didn't try to figure it out until later, but the feed was from September, which is starting to get kind of old. Anyway, the guy got the supervisor. She did not check the date, but smelled the feeds, and said,"it just smells like grain". Maybe she just didn't want to refund me, but from the look on her face, I think she honestly couldn't smell how nasty this feed was. I made a mental note not to go to her house for chips and crackers.

I was willing to swallow the cost, but they did refund me and I bought a different brand dated January of this year. Most of my feed I've been getting in New Sharon, but I always go to TSC for a bag of pellets, because that's what my Crossbeak prefers. When this bag runs out, I'll be checking to see if New Sharon has pellets. A lot of their feed is in 88 lb. bags, which seems excessive for one hen, but if the pellets are fresh, maybe the other hens will eat them!

 

[Cknldy]

I recently switched feed stores from TSC to a local place. Cracked corn (for the hogs;-)) is cheaper and I noticed that it doesn't have as much powder. Picked up the first bag of layer feed from there out of convenience. It reminded me of vomit when I opened it. Feed looked good and had a good date though so I began feeding it. Chickens devoured it and had very healthy poos! Like when moistened or fermented feed is given. I don't know what the big difference is but it seems to me like there is more grain/plant products in it. I bought another bag and although the smell still reminds me of vomit all signs from the chickens are that it is excellent! I collected the tag from each type of layer feed that I have used in the past to compare labels- the new feed doesn't have as many big chemical/nutrient additives as the others I've used over the years. Wonder what makes the it smell like vomit though? It's great that you can instantly tell when feed is no good. Glad they let you trade it out but I'll bet they just taped the bag for resale..

 

[lazy gardener]

I use TSC occasionally, but don't like their feed as much as Blue Seal. TSC is about 50 cents cheaper, but it does not ferment well at all. When I use BS, there is a nice healthy SCOBY on top. Not so with the other. My girls don't seem to care, one way or the other. I've taken bad feed back to BS before, and they've happily refunded. IMO, no customer should keep a bag of feed if it is not acceptable for your animals.