Michigan Thread - all are welcome!

[RaZ]

My condolences to Amy & Matt.
Also sending good wishes to those with family/friends in the hurricane hit areas. I have friends down there and I heard that they are all safe.

I worked a few extra days this week in the hopes of making a few extra dollars to put towards a new furnace. I've been working as much as they will give me but I'm nowhere near what I need to qualify for a loan from the furnace guy's contact. There is a county programme that I'm trying to apply for. It's complicated and I failed one of the check boxes they require. So back to square one. Meanwhile I have been having a fire each night. I need to cut and split a lot more firewood to get through the winter.

On the chicken front, most of my birds are going through a soft moult. Egg output has dropped off and there are feathers all over the yard. But none of the birds are completely naked.

 

[Folly's place]

Nice work Dreamz, but you do still need upper ventilation out there, so open up the upper foot or so for good air flow overhead.
Mary

 

[Folly's place]

Egg production is amazingly poor here! four to six eggs daily, and 27 hens! Molting, old, just not interested, or some combination, so not enough for our usual buyers. Not raising chicks this year has really made a difference!
Mary

 

[Dreamzchaser]

Nice work Dreamz, but you do still need upper ventilation out there, so open up the upper foot or so for good air flow overhead.
Mary

The plastic it not covering the top part, so air can go through, learned from Mrs Mary, do you know her?,lol

 

[Dreamzchaser]

Well, I am getting 4 to 6 some days. The 2 new have no clue when they'll start,lol Sophia has only given me 2 eggs this year. Poor girl is broken,lol The leghorns, ISA are top layers every day. But the EE and the RIR take turns. If one lays, the other rests,lol

 

[bigmrg74]

Egg production is amazingly poor here! four to six eggs daily, and 27 hens! Molting, old, just not interested, or some combination, so not enough for our usual buyers. Not raising chicks this year has really made a difference!
Mary

Yeah, my girls are down right now, and had to buy eggs this week. Going to have to get my tractor set up soon for winter so that I can get the girls on lights again. Do have some girls molting. Was locking up the girls tonight and I've got one Plymouth Blue rock that's been insistent on sleeping in a nest box at night unless I put her up on the roost. She saw me coming and was ducking out of the nest box, I tried to grab her, but got a big handful of tailfeathers. She's been needing to molt and thought that she was going to do it last fall, but never did and she's got some pretty worn feathers. Finally did get ahold of her and put her up on the roost, but did notice that she's got some new feathers in.

 

[1muttsfan]

Egg production here has been dismal with lots of molting, but my bantams are firing great guns so I've got lots of cute little eggs

 

[Sally PB]

I'm getting 2-4 eggs a day, except for the days when I get 0 or 1. It's enough for us, atm. I want to get more down in the water glassing bucket.

One of my neighbors asked me about buying some of my eggs. Another has expressed interest too. I think I'm going to either hatch or else buy 3 pullets for my broody next spring. I would like to sell some eggs, but by next summer, I'll have three 2 yo, and three 3 yo hens. So some pullets would be helpful in that regard. Ten birds in the space available is the max I want to have.

My next door neighbor (the one with 38 hens/pullets) must be selling a lot of their eggs at their church (?), but they can go through a dozen a day, easily.

 

[Dreamzchaser]

I eat at least 3 to 4 a day and in weekends, it's more like 6 to 8 with hub in omelets.

 

[RaZ]

https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/MIDARD/bulletins/32fcd27

This county is the next one south of me. Yikes.