Michigan Thread - all are welcome!

[Trefoil]

I hear ya here Yorkchick. I think maybe you should have Tap on down to give you proper shooting lessons and the proper clothes to wear for those lessons. LOL. All kidding aside, I am sorry about your losses. Those buggers are just a real... naughty word.

On a completely unchicken related note, I am having a dickens of a time with my jeep. Replaced thermostat, water pump, hoses, head gasket and the tappit (SP?) gasket. I am still having an seriously annoying cooling issue. Water is BOILING in the overflow, and out of the overflow. I have burped the engine too. All seemed to be fine the last 2 days I worked, then today, boiling over again and this time steam was coming out of the engine where the tappet cover gasket has been replaced. I use the vehicle for work... What in the blazes am I missing? I would gladly take any adivice/ideas/fixes into consideration.

Blown head gasket?

 

[kimmie6067]

I have been so busy with hatching chicks/keets, sewing, swapping on here, cleaning house mom is coming to stay for the summer being sick for the third time this spring/summer, gardening, moving chicks and young birds around, cleaning coops, helping baby sit grandbaby, had a pup for a week and decided she needed a family, etc.....I hatched a keet that could not straighten up it just stayed curled and would go around in a circle, now I have another that looks about the same, I wonder what happened? One hatched just fine. My incubator broke and it was in the 80's for hours before I noticed and put them in another bator. I didn't think anything would hatch. They were suppose to hatch today only one did but I don't think it will make it, one I culled. Can't wait till CS making a few thing for it, thats another thing I have been doing.

Kimmie

 

[kimmie6067]

Hubby hit a coon last week did more then $1200 in damage won't get the car back till Friday or Monday. I don't like the wildlife right now

 

[kimmie6067]

Unspoken for cockerels and roosters tend to be picked up by the Asian folks that come around Chickenstock. If this bothers you, best not to bring them unless they are spoken for. It is, though, one way of getting them out of your coop, and they are very likely put to good use in the stew pot.

That's what I am doing with my extra roo's I got two EE's and one mutt that are 14 weeks and 6 week old roo's not sure how many but I think four. I don't care where they go as long as they are gone.

 

[kimmie6067]

Anybody nostalgic for an old-fashioned long-winded yorkchick ramble/rant? ("yorkchick who?" you may well ask, because you've been here and I've been...not).

Sooo... After four years of owning chickens on the edge of a swamp with only widely scattered losses to predators (three chickens in four years, one to stray dogs, two to unknown animals), and no losses since I got the geese from Mom2 in October 2011, I guess I got stupidly overconfident. It started a few weeks ago when I began to find egg shells in the coop during the day that something had nibbled into and then eaten the inside. Not every day, not every egg, but pretty frequently. At first of course I wondered if I had an egg-eating chicken. But then I found one of the shells on the shelf perch outside the coop's pop door, and I knew a chicken didn't carry it there... Also, I noticed that some of the wooden eggs in the nest boxes had teeth marks in them. And I thought, "Geez, I should probably do something about that, eh? Probably not good, a predator coming right into the coop during the day.". But... I didn't do anything. Then I actually saw a raccoon eating the cat food I put out for the barn cats (and pick up every evening). It wasn't afraid of me at all, although it backed away from a hoe when I shook it at it. I'm sure it was also the same raccoon or raccoons that were dumping over the food I had out for the geese and turkeys (that I also pick up at night) and getting into the trash can in the barn, along with randomly dumping over other stuff in the barn. This all just started within a few weeks. But I persuaded myself that the cat food eating/grumble eating/egg eating/trash tipping wasn't urgent, although I should really consider doing something about that pesty raccoon (or raccoons).

Well, if anyone is still with me I'm sure you've guessed this is not going to be a happy story. (Also graphic descriptions to follow, so please don't read further if that might upset you, sorry!) Friday night I went out to the coop just after dusk, there was still a little light left in the sky, but I went later than I should have, and I found Elnora, one of my original hens (four year old Buff Orpington) dead on the coop floor, bitten through the neck and her abdomen opened, looked like the predator had actually been going for the eggs inside her, (Sorry again!) She was still warm so if I had only gone out a little sooner, I could have prevented it... There were only three other chickens left in the coop, which of course scared me (should have been 12). I went out looking and found all but one hen. Never did find Marigold, an EE I hatched last spring. Not sure if the same raccoon (going on the assumption this is a raccoon or raccoons) got her, or she scattered further than the rest and something else got her that night.

Two of the hens had roosted next to Percy, my Jersey Buff turkey. The rest were on top of a small coop/run combo; the two roosters that stay in the main coop were with this group, one on each end with the ladies in between them. Good boys. I hauled everyone back into the coop for the night and promised them it was safe now. I did a beak count and realized Marigold was missing, so I went looking. Round back of the coop and the barn, where the compost bins are and where the swamp begins, I saw an enormous raccoon up a tree. Like the size of a Springer Spaniel big. Okay, maybe I was freaked out by the ripped up chicken and the dark and the spooky swamp. It was a big raccoon. There was also a smaller one around. No Marigold, no feathers, but the brush/overgrowth is pretty thick and the swamp is big. Like I said, I haven't seen her so I'm sure something got her.

Then we come to the turkeys. My sweet Percy. He was raised by a 4H family who raised 3 Jersey Buff turkey poults. All 3 turned out to be toms. I met the kids' mom, Cathy, at Spring Poultry Palooza 2012 and we had exchanged emails, I of course told her about ChickenStock. Well it turned out that two of their toms weren't getting along and she offered me the fabulous opportunity to own my very own Jersey Buff turkey. We met up at ChickenStock last year and Percy came home with me, along with a Royal Palm poult from Silly Chicken who was supposed to be a girl named Dorothy and who stubbornly developed into a very handsome male named Gilbert. (Silly had generously offered to swap for a hen turkey.after CS if it became necessary, but of course I am a sop, so two boys it would be).

When I first had the turkeys, Gilbert would roost in the coop voluntarily with the chickens, and I would pick up Percy and haul him into the coop. Eventually I began to let Percy stay out at night. He roosted right near the geese and right near a motion-activated light, and also I really thought a raccoon would not go for an adult turkey. Yes, if anyone is still with me, sadly you do see where this is going (and warning of graphic descriptions to follow, sorry). The severe warning of losing two chickens--not enough of a lesson for me. Sunday morning I went out to feed the birds and saw a lot of Gilbert feathers all over the area the geese usually hang out. Gilbert was there, actually trying to strut but with only a few tail feathers left and with a bloody back, a big patch of skin ripped off his back. No Percy at all. At first of course again I hoped Percy was just spooked and hiding, maybe way up in a tree. Later I found a lot of his feathers in the brush on the far side if the barn, and even later his body even further away--bloody neck, breast eaten. I buried him where we've buried our dogs Walter, Abby, and Wendell. Percy was friendly, curious, and qiute the pet. He followed you around wherever you went out in the pasture and just wanted to be constantly admired. He deserved better protection from me, for sure.

Percy obviously fled to the far side of the barn. Gilbert's lucky break is that he stayed in the goose's night-time area. There's no other reason I can think of that the raccoon would have given up the attack, given how severe Gilbert's wound is. So, yay, goosers! They were doing their job, even if it was more, "I don't want you on Goose territory" than "I must protect my friend the turkey.". Gilbert is currently in isolation ( in what was a paint booth in what I call our barn, but was a workshop for the previous owners). He is getting injectible penicillin and the wound is getting sprayed with Vetericyn. So far, so good. He's eating, he 's drinking, he's gobbling, he makes little sounds of satisfaction when he snarfs the dry cat food, no obvious infection yet. But it's a big wound. We'll see.

Then yesterday when I was out to check on Gilbert at about noon, what do I see but a raccoon skulking around behind the coop? Okay, it was not the Springer Spaniel-sized raccoon (which I concede I probably inflated in my mind) but it gave me quite a bad feeling. So I bribed all the girls back into the coop. (Only one of the roosters came in, the other refused, then the first one popped back out when I was trying to persuade the second to come in so I said "Boys, you're on your own," and shut up the girls). What I could picture was the raccoon coming in for eggs, finding one of the girls in the nest box, and killing her. Nope. I'm pretty slow at this protection thing obviously, but even my self-delusion has its limits. I did not let the chickens out at all today.

"Well, yorkchick," says the one imaginary reader still hanging in there through all this verbiage, "Is that your final solution then? Just keep the chickens cooped up 24/7, never free range them again?". Well, I certainly hope not. On Sunday I ordered 2 Duke DP traps. The DH is going to teach me how to shoot his gun. I went back to the old Michigan thread and read a lot of the discussion from last year about the Duke traps because I remembered there were several people having a lot of raccoon issues this time last year. Can I shoot a raccoon? I certainly hope to find out. The DH and I are a bit of Jack Sprat and his wife in this regard. He has guns, likes guns, and knows how to shoot. I have fired a gun a couple of times at a firing range but don't really know how to do it, or how to clean a gun or any of that... but the DH has never killed anything. In fact, he's shall we say, a bit squeamish. Never even took biology, even in high school (calls it the "gooey science"). Whereas I have a couple decades as a vet assistant, plus almost four years at the Humane Society where I euthanized more animals than I want to remember. I am very aware that shooting an animal will be very different than euthanizing it with a needle and syringe. Still, it's my birds that need to be protected, and I think I can do it.

OK, I will now return you to your regularly scheduled thread. (oh, if you only knew how much I left out!)

I read the whole thing and I am so sorry see I hate the wildlife around my house I want them gone!!

 

[HollyDuckFarmer]

Nova-- PM me with specs on your Jeep (year,engine, etc) We used to Be all Jeep all the time around here, back before it cost a small fortune to fill up at the station. That being said, now I drive a car and last week I hit a groundhog and I was totally scared that I'd damaged my car. Thankfully I hadn't. DH told me its time for a skid plate. LOL

I really want these 2 Pekin ducks (only one pictured) and 2 drakes to get good homes. I don't feel right selling them for the soup pot. I guess if they've gotta go to freezer camp, then I can find a spot in my own freezer. None of these ducks are obnoxious or aggressive at all-- I just need to reduce the size of my flock. So who's interested?

 

[Opa]

Much too early to start the day, much too late to go back to bed. Guess I might as well start the coffee and wait for the sunrise. The temperatures this week should help everything in the garden start growing much better. I just hope that the rain holds off long enough for me to get the lawn mowed today.

I had hoped to be fishing this week but the new impeller for the outboard jet pump is a newer style that requires a different keyway to attach it to the motor shaft. The manufacturer is sending me new ones but I don't plan on them arriving until the first of next week.

 

[nluoma]

Ugh. Completely exhausted this morning. Spent 12 hours yesterday building a coop in the first chicken run I put together. It's supposed to be a tractor, but can only be moved WITH a tractor. Solid 2 by four frame reinforced ever three feet with braces and covered on all sides (even the bottom) with mesh. Have learned several things. One, I cannot keep numbers in my head long enough to go from the run (outside) to the cutting tools (inside) and ended up cutting things wrong many times. Two, I have NO idea how to use power tools. Should have taken shop in high school! Thank goodness for Google. Can find videos of anything.
Now I'm planning our winter set up and thinking I may combine it with a 20 by 30 fenced area and get some goats. The thought of putting in the fence is scary though.
And I'm going to start a new, PVC run. Would be nice to be able to actually move my mobile run!

 

[Nigellas]

Been reading along and felt like I should contribute to the conversation, but with only a few sips of coffee in me, the most I can manage right now is "blaaaaaaah"

 

[preciouskitty]

Good morning, all...
First time posting (to any forum for that matter), but have been lurking since early Mar to learn as much as possible before getting my first babies! And, yes, chicken math hit me hard. Was gonna get 4, went to TSC in Howell and walked out with 12! But, hey, they were 50% off!

I cannot even tell you how much all of you have helped me over the past several months in raising all of them from chicks, to the fun pullets, and, unfortunately THREE cockerels (I really only want to keep one). They truly are a riot! Thank you!

Opa...you and I can start having coffee together in the morning as I usually am having my first cup around 0315 before heading off to work at 0445!

Have a great day all, and I anticipate that I will be posting much more in the future. Also still debating Chickenstock as I have about 3 events that day; but Chickenstock is by FAR the closest event to my house!
(PS..real name is Kathy/Kat)