Marans Thread - breed discussion & pictures are welcome!

[gilavina]

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I agree with you about the post office changing a lot. sometimes things take forever to get here...only to find out that they were in the main post office in Lincoln sitting for a few days. This is why the dock boys in lincoln know to call me asap even if its three in the morning for eggs or chicks...and know I will be there within the hour knocking on their dock office to pick it up. I think they might think i'm nuts...and also think they might be kind of intrigued with all my treasures. They always ask a million questions everytime about the breeds and etc

 

[Cadeau]

I hear you Debbi - the last time I ordered eggs, It took them 11 days to get 4hrs....
and NOT ONE hatched...

 

[gilavina]

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wow...now that's truly pathetic! and so sad not one hatched....

 

[Cadeau]

I was REALLY bummed - they were special eggs.

I swear my PO must drop kick the egg boxes....I've had very poor hatches, overall, with shipped eggs.
And it's not my incubator b/c I've been having 98-100% hatches with home bred eggs...

 

[gilavina]

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yeah...here it depends what part of the country they came from....anything coming out of kentucky i have to prepare mysef for nothing or if they are funneling through the kc hub....ive had terrible luck thru there

 

[Debbi]

Oh Cadeau, that's sad! I used to love that job. There were a lot of very interesting people on my route. I had quite a few older farm widows, that refused to go live with their kids, and wanted to stay on their farms. One gal, Sadie, was 90 the last time I saw her. She was very leery of me the first time I showed up at her box. She had chickens that would run across the road to the other part of her farm, and she was very concerned that I would run over one of "her girls". I sat and talked to Sadie for probably 20 minutes, oooing and ahhing over her Buff Orps and Barred Rocks. That was the ice breaker for her, and we became friends. I would check on her if she wasn't out there standing in the front yard when I pulled up to her box. She wasn't there one day, so I drove over to her son's place, about 5 miles off my route to have him go check on her. He assured me, it was Wednesday, she was at the hair dresser's, so not to worry.

After that, I always had a lemonade in the box on the hot days, and got some great Christmas gifts from her. She was a sweetie, and I loved that part of the job, but all of that is gone now...

 

[Debbi]

Quote:
yeah...here it depends what part of the country they came from....anything coming out of kentucky i have to prepare mysef for nothing or if they are funneling through the kc hub....ive had terrible luck thru there

That seems to be where the trouble lies, in KC. They used to ship out of St. Louis if coming from the east, and out of Springfield when coming from the south and west. Now it seems everything funnels through KC only. Also a lot of automation now up there, and so the human/common sense stuff has gone out the window. If they could only see to it that the service came back, so may a lot of their customers. I still have a dear friend plugging it out up there where I was, and she has nothing good to say about the place any more. All the carriers are so sick of their jobs, but can't quit due to mortgages, families, and stuff. I upped and quit, opting to keep my health and sanity, rather than doing something that I hated. It wasn't easy going from good job to nothing, but it made me re-invent myself, and I get along ok, without all the stress.

 

[gilavina]

Quote:
yeah...here it depends what part of the country they came from....anything coming out of kentucky i have to prepare mysef for nothing or if they are funneling through the kc hub....ive had terrible luck thru there

That seems to be where the trouble lies, in KC. They used to ship out of St. Louis if coming from the east, and out of Springfield when coming from the south and west. Now it seems everything funnels through KC only. Also a lot of automation now up there, and so the human/common sense stuff has gone out the window. If they could only see to it that the service came back, so may a lot of their customers. I still have a dear friend plugging it out up there where I was, and she has nothing good to say about the place any more. All the carriers are so sick of their jobs, but can't quit due to mortgages, families, and stuff. I upped and quit, opting to keep my health and sanity, rather than doing something that I hated. It wasn't easy going from good job to nothing, but it made me re-invent myself, and I get along ok, without all the stress.

good on you Debbi! i left my corporate job for the same reason. yeah....i still have stress but its totally different. not the kind that makes me feel like im not me....its the kind that makes me more creative and more determined

 

[Cadeau]

Great story, Debbi!!
I bet you have tons of them!
We used to have a great post lady, too!

Things sure have changed - my mother put a birthday card in the neighbor's mailbox, so her little boy could receive mail of his very own. We were REALLY surprised when she got a nasty note AND a bill!!

When I was a girl, we could put change in the box and the mail lady would put the stamp on and take it!

 

[flgardengirl]

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I dont know about all turkeys. I have the Bronze turkeys. I got them from the feed store so they are probably hatchery stock. I really expected them to be mean like dh said his were when he was little. I didn't expect them to be smart and sweet and clingy lol. Our male broke his neck somehow recently I think he must of ran into the boat trying to get away from a predator or else something else did it to him. Anyhow, I really miss him he followed me around like a puppy dog even worse than the two turkey hens that I have left do. They are really sweet. They like to be petted a little and talked to but not picked up. They are too fat too fly now and grew pretty fast. They are smarter than our chickens and will not drink nasty water...they love fresh water coming straight from the faucet best.
I think we majorly traumatized one of the hens the other day when we culled our male muscovey ducks. Dh had one butchered and draining in the killing cone and this hen came up and started the worst sorrowful call at the top of her lungs. She had a horrified look on her face too. She stood there and watched us skin him out etc and cried the whole time!!! They are not dumb she knew exactly what was going on- poor girl.