Michigan Thread - all are welcome!

[bigmrg74]

I figured out who my newly vocal rooster is. It's Rudy.

We put a garden in today. The chickens have decided this is their own all you can eat buffet. I'm off to get some wire fencing tomorrow to keep them out.

Lots of tomatoes, lots of peppers, a few lettuce plants, and some hot peppers. I also still have a few things left to find a place to plant them, including cabbage, potatoes, onions, and garlic. We're out of garden space!

I'm going to have to do that soon myself. Mom has most of her garden in now and it was in and around where I had my chicken tractor at a lot last year. Most of this week I've been keeping the flock mostly penned up because I'm integrating the Iowa chicks that are 11 weeks old now. Had been marrying the puppy play pen up to the front of the tractor to let em at least have some extra space to get to know everybody with. But one of my white hens kept on insisting on jumping out of the pen, so I decided to not do that anymore. I've already got a big role of 3 foot wide chicken wire for the fence around it, but that's about as high as what the puppy pen is. Kinda thinking of just getting some full sized T-post and stack the wire with that to keep somebody from hopping into the garden whenever I do let them out for some free range time.

 

[aart]

Quote: @HollyDuckFarmer not sure why you quoted me here......
......as my comment about drama was certainly not aimed at you or anyone else here and wasn't even specific to the AI thing, just life in general.

But thanks for the iodine info.

 

[1muttsfan]

Think about taking time at 3 pm today for the National Moment of Silence to honor those who served in our military.

Theron, Hi and welcome back!

Tap, they are pretty, hope you get nice blue eggs from them. My 2 and 3 week olds moved to the little coop yesterday, hopefully the Dels will turn out to be 3 boys for you and 2 girls for me. Happily I got my 2 each legbar and welsummer pullets, and 5 Arkansas Blues of undetermined sex.

 

[Stacykins]

Think about taking time at 3 pm today for the National Moment of Silence to honor those who served in our military.

Theron, Hi and welcome back!

Tap, they are pretty, hope you get nice blue eggs from them. My 2 and 3 week olds moved to the little coop yesterday, hopefully the Dels will turn out to be 3 boys for you and 2 girls for me. Happily I got my 2 each legbar and welsummer pullets, and 5 Arkansas Blues of undetermined sex.

Oh, Arkansas Blues! Very nifty!

 

[flufssilkies]

I just got done camping. I can't wait to go home and as if my silkie Bob's eggs hatched.

 

[gladahmae]

Well I got the rototiller from my brother on Friday with the intention of getting a majority of the gardens ready for planting on Saturday. We went in on the cost with him and my parents, and he has a garage and is a mechanic so he can clean up the carburetor and such in the spring. Well. I went down the edge with the first pass and wouldn't you know that when I turned it around to come back the wheels won't turn (as in, it won't go into gear.) Now we have to drive it back out for him to look at it and hopefully fix it and then get it back out here to finish getting he garden ready. Hopefully this happens before mid-June.

It appears that my free-ranging barred rock (who would follow you around everywhere like a little puppy) met her demise in the woods out back as we haven't seen her in a week now. We also haven't seen the rooster she liked to hang out with (no loss there since he wasn't a particularly nice one).

I've been saving eggs from one pen to incubate, and happened to have one of my hens go broody (she's a great sitter but a horrible mother) only to realize the the toddler has let the dog out too many times in the past month to run around the pens and bark his head off and the freshest eggs are now 3 weeks old. And they aren't laying because they are too stressed out from said dog.

And, thanks to those who have served our country, past and present.

 

[wannahomestead]

Well I got the rototiller from my brother on Friday with the intention of getting a majority of the gardens ready for planting on Saturday. We went in on the cost with him and my parents, and he has a garage and is a mechanic so he can clean up the carburetor and such in the spring. Well. I went down the edge with the first pass and wouldn't you know that when I turned it around to come back the wheels won't turn (as in, it won't go into gear.) Now we have to drive it back out for him to look at it and hopefully fix it and then get it back out here to finish getting he garden ready. Hopefully this happens before mid-June.

It appears that my free-ranging barred rock (who would follow you around everywhere like a little puppy) met her demise in the woods out back as we haven't seen her in a week now. We also haven't seen the rooster she liked to hang out with (no loss there since he wasn't a particularly nice one).

I've been saving eggs from one pen to incubate, and happened to have one of my hens go broody (she's a great sitter but a horrible mother) only to realize the the toddler has let the dog out too many times in the past month to run around the pens and bark his head off and the freshest eggs are now 3 weeks old. And they aren't laying because they are too stressed out from said dog.

And, thanks to those who have served our country, past and present.

That's a bummer about the roto-tiller, hope you get it up and running.

We tilled our 11x9 plot by hand with a manual tiller... hard work. We will definitely be getting something with an engine next time since we plan to expand our garden area.

 

[gladahmae]

Yeah we have 2 gardens...one is about 30x40 and the other is about 30x30. NOT doing those by hand. Especially since I put ALL of the fall coop clean out litter in the one.

 

[RaZ]

Interesting read.
http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2015/05/ongoing-bird-flu-crisis-stumps-experts

 

[HollyDuckFarmer]

Y

Yeah we have 2 gardens...one is about 30x40 and the other is about 30x30. NOT doing those by hand. Especially since I put ALL of the fall coop clean out litter in the one.

You could transition to Back To Eden Gardening... (Sheet Mulching)