Michigan Thread - all are welcome!

[naglady]

like the garden fence looks good..

one of my new hens is limping not sure what is up.. i see she can scratch with it.. wonder what she did..doesnt feel broke

 

[Amy PT]

My little SLW munchkin chillin with us

My little silkie man. Just started crowing. Sounds so pathetic LOL. Wasn't sure what the noise was at first!

How old is this silkie? One of our two is a suspected roo, but I don't know. He sure doesn't have a comb like yours. Your SLW looks just like our Hazel when she was that age. Sweet bird.
Next week, I will be done with my internship, and I'll be done with my Masters.

There are a lot of fun and interesting gardening things going on in many of your yards. Can we do a photo tour, please? I'm working on a walkway beside my flower and veggie garden. The path was so worn from walking, that the grass gave way to weeds. To do this, I'm using small pizza boxes to keep remaining grass and weeds away, covering with woodchips, and lining it with old bricks the neighbor gave me.

 

[gaitngirl]

I need to fence round mine, too. Like now, I could use the ducks in there... Later, not so much. I like this guy's fence.

I think RaZ's straw beds are quite similar to the Hugel beds, just the Hugel have the logs beneath the straw. This week is dragging, I'll be do glad when the long weekend gets here.
Have a good weekend everybody.

Gaitngirl, did you get eggs?

Nope - no eggs from either girl. I watched them from the house this morning to see if they went off and laid anywhere odd and they pretty much stayed with the younglings. They foraged a bit on their own but not long enough to sit and lay . The only duck egg I got was from my Scovy girl.

 

[Lisa and girls]

How old is this silkie?  One of our two is a suspected roo, but I don't know.  He sure doesn't have a comb like yours.  Your SLW looks just like our Hazel when she was that age.  Sweet bird.
Next week, I will be done with my internship, and I'll be done with my Masters.  e

There are a lot of fun and interesting gardening things going on in many of your yards.  Can we do a photo tour, please?  I'm working on a walkway beside my flower and veggie garden.  The path was so worn from walking, that the grass gave way to weeds.  To do this, I'm using small pizza boxes to keep remaining grass and weeds away, covering with woodchips, and lining it with old bricks the neighbor gave me.   

 

He's almost 3 months! He's a little sassy pants too. He loves sitting and being petted, but picking him up he thinks its the end of the world lol

 

[snowflake]

according to WEBSTERS, domestic is a" tame animal used to living with people, cows,dogs,horses,ect."
me thinks that includes CHICKENS

so RAZ, you are just keeping domesticated animals, why is that a crime?

 

[Opa]

It's a little on the damp side this morning so I'm not sure how much I am going to get done on the garden. I sure wish that I had gotten it tilled yesterday. Hopefully over the weekend that will be accomplished and I can start planting. I never plant anything before Memorial Day and I've found that my results are just as good, if not better, than those of friends who plant earlier. Soil temperature is the key to successful germination and growth not the calendar. Beans for example will not germinate until the soil temperature is at least 60 degrees. Planting too early often results in the seed rotting before it has a chance to start.

However, many crops are cold tolerate, lettuce for example, but I never seem to be able to get the garden ready to take advantage of that. Must be some ingrained tendency towards procrastination.

I was sorrily disappointed with the success rate of my current hatch. Of the 41 eggs placed in the incubator only 25 were fertile. This was not totally unexpected as I only have one rooster and having a rooster ignore some of the hens is not unusual. However, of the eggs that made it to lockdown only 6 hatched. I think I will open the remaining eggs to see what stage of development they quit at. Not sure that knowing will do me any good but at the least it will be interesting.

When news of the tornado in Oklahoma stated that it was a suburb just outside of Oklahoma City I immediately tried calling a friend. It took a couple of days to get in contact with him and I found out that he lives north of the city and the damage was south. He did lose 90% of the birds that he was keeping at a friend's place in Shawnee OK. He said the destruction was impossible to describe adequately. Fox, coyotes, mink, weasels, raccoons, dogs, cats, opposums and all predators that we know and deal with to protect our flocks but a violent storm is one "predator" for which there is no possible course of prevention.

 

[taprock]

Yesterday for the year end Story time for the 1st grade class I read them the book "Squawking Matilda" and took my four young cochins (the ones hatched from 1muttsfan's eggs) I named all four children's lit names, George as in Curious, Olivia, Skippyjon, and Arthur. The kids got to pet them all and ask questions. The chickens did great and so did the kids. Today I have the second grade class. Everyone has been fussing over the little guys as they spent the afternoon in the conference room in their cage.

On a sad note we lost our favorite button quail girl yesterday. She was eggbound and even getting the egg out didn't save her. My son couldn't stop crying. We have lost lots of animals and so he is used to it, but this little bird was his favorite and he carried her all over. Hopefully chicks arriving tomorrow will help him out.

 

[1muttsfan]

Tap, I would love to see pics of the little guys, I gave away the only two that I kept from that pen.

Amy PT,

 

[taprock]

Surprise.. My chicks showed up this morning. The nice thing is I can tell everyone apart.

 

[gladahmae]

well, temps are low again, and I'm back to worrying about my meat chicks. Everyone looks fine, and I WON'T be turning off the heat lamp again today so they have a spot to go warm up if needed. Of course, that's not going to help tonight when we have a FROST advisory on. Or tomorrow night.....same thing. This morning when I refilled their waterers and feeders they were all out and about in the tractor and not huddled up, but I still worry. They're only 2 weeks old.

I put leg bands on my Wyandotte chicks this morning. I'm hoping to be able to tell what's pullet and what's cockerel soon.

It's a pretty yucky day up here, so I think I'll make some muffins and sew straps for the bags I've been making. There's a big "doggiepalooza" that's going to happen in 2 weeks and the rescue coordinator has asked that I have bags ready for that event. I have 10 bags currently sewn that just need straps added. I think that sounds like PLENTY of work for one day.