Michigan Thread - all are welcome!

[taprock]

For those of you who don't know, I am a children's librarian. I have been working on starting a program that will be similar to the Paws for Reading program that uses dogs. What gave me the idea is my son. Here is a picture of him from yesterday. He hates reading and has a hard time with it but give him a chicken and voila....

 

[snowflake]

almost forgot what I came on for, I am pretty sure I have some moldy scratch, (really think it came that way as it was bought in April) chickens had very runny butts, noticed what I thought looked a little like mold so I quit giving it to them. 2 weeks with out and I noticed their butts were clean almost to a bird, thought maybe it is just the cut of the corn, makes it look a little gray. Game them a small amt yesterday.....lots of dirty butts today. -----So I looked it up in my handy dandy chicken book, and it says give vitamins and protein, so I will put vitamins in the water and feed some kefir. fortunately they only got a small amt.

Got a load of top soil to spread on a small portion of the back yard, try to grow grass, the "top soil" the guy put on for me a few yrs ago wont even grow weeds in a lot of places. wont spread seed till the chickens are up for the night. will have it fenced off but i have a couple that will go under or over the fence. plan to cover with some dog run panels on 2x4's so they cant get at the seed. might use some wet sheets also, any one have any other ideas??

 

[snowflake]

For those of you who don't know, I am a children's librarian. I have been working on starting a program that will be similar to the Paws for Reading program that uses dogs. What gave me the idea is my son. Here is a picture of him from yesterday. He hates reading and has a hard time with it but give him a chicken and voila....

Love the pic, I always tried to get teachers to let poor readers read to younger kids, (worked in parochial schools but couldn't get the public schools to try. Kids that have a hard time reading feel good about them selves and don't feel stupid reading easy books to little kids. Good practice and good for the self image. smart kids don't need this but they would be the ones picked to read to the littles

reading to pets is the same thing, they are not judgmental

 

[RaZ]

Randy - I'm posting your news story on my facebook page - I'd like to include a blurb as a call to action with it. Do you have a donation page set up? Or anyone I can ask people to write/call?

Thanks.

I'm looking in to setting up some kind of fund raiser. It's a bit embarrassing to ask but I guess I need to.

 

[HollyDuckFarmer]

Don't feel embarrassed at all. !!!!

 

[19sarah90]

Hello Everybody!!! I'm BACK!!!

 

[NovaAman]

Uh-Oh

 

[19sarah90]

And I'm duck crazy! (I know... I know...)

 

[ladyrsanti]

Alright, I'm just reporting back after my hatching experience. I ordered hatching eggs from Cedar Creek Hatchery in Muskegon this year just to try it. I wanted buckeyes for their foraging abilities and black copper marans for the dark eggs. The buckeyes were unavailable because they weren't laying so we substituted with buff brahma. Initially I brought home a total of 12 eggs. 6 BCM, 6 Buff Brahmas. The marans eggs were not fertile 0/6. The buff brahmas weren't bad 4/6 but they have green and black legs and brahmas are supposed to have yellow apparently. They were kind enough to replace the marans eggs with wheaten marans (wheaten because the BCM had a new rooster-in-training) 5/6, pretty good hatch. But I've just asked about their feathering on a marans thread and they're saying a mix as well because of the patterning they had. So... It's been determined by the kind and not-so-kind folks on BYC that all of my hatches from them are potentially mixes and not pure breeds. Though I know the nice folks at Cedar Creek take their breeds very seriously, this is all I can say. This is the experience I've had. None meet the breed standards according to BYCers, for what its worth. It doesn't bother me because I'm not breeding them but I just thought I should pass that on since some people were asking about the place earlier in the year. That's what I've come away with, beautiful birds that are worthless to serious breeders but great for those of who aren't so picky (as long as those marans lay dark eggs that is). So that's that.

Oh, and I posted this elsewhere but I thought it was such a funny find that I'll share it again here. Chicken tracks in the concrete of the barn floor, proof that chickens once roamed the farm, many, many years ago. Chickenasaurus Rex.

 

[Lisa and girls]

My sister shared the story on her FB page (and she works for the state gov't, shhhhh). Saw this pic today, don't know who painted it so I can't give credit but thought it was pertinent.

That's great! And sad.