Michigan

[lilmstw72]

Wow, it's a bit windy out there this morning!

I have to share a funny story with my fellow chicken lovers... I live in a very rural area on about an acre with a fenced farm that backs up to the back of my property and a dirt road that in the front of my property that dead ends about 1/2 mile down the road. I allow my 7 girls to free range usually in the afternoon til dusk without any issues. They never wander far, if at all. Usually they hang out in the back of property not too far from the coop. Well... yesterday afternoon I'm on the phone actually in a phone interview for a potential job and I look out my front window to see one of my lt. brahmas across the street in my neighbor's yard and the other 3 lt. brahmas in the road or very close. I'm thinking, "what in the world are they doing and why right now!?!?!". So as I am trying to be professional on the phone and answer the questions appropriately I decide I can walk out there and slowly round them up while keeping my composure cause my birds are pretty good about running to me as soon as they see me. Of course, not yesterday! I have to ask the lady on the phone to hold on a second without providing the details so I can have 2 free hands to round up the girls and get them in the back before traffic comes by. We don't get a lot of traffic and fortunately people drive pretty slowly down our street but it was almost 5 so I knew it would be getting busy. After I was able to get them towards the back of the house again I got back on the phone and felt the need to explain myself praying that the lady would find humor in it and potentially even be a positive thing. Heaven knows I was trying to multi-task!

Well, she did find it funny and seemed to appreciate me trying to handle the situation professionally. haha. I said well at least you got a laugh and probably a much more interesting interview with me than any other candidate today. She said, why yes! Bottom line is I did get an actual interview set up for tomorrow and was able to get the chickens back to where they needed to be.

And boy oh boy will this be a good story later down the road especially if I get the job.

Too funny! Hope you got a laugh this morning!

 

[Olive Hill]

Morning, all!

I'm missing a Narragansett hen. She was here at 8am, gone at 8:30am. But the weird part of this is she's just gone without a trace. There's not one feather left behind, no spot that looks like there may have been a struggle, NOTHING. She weighs in the 16-18lb range, full grown adult turkey. What in the world would have managed to take her without a trace? Large bobcat... ??? Cougar, but we supposedly don't have those here (though there have been reports of one not far from here recently...)??? Coyote, I suppose, but the ones we've got around here usually keep their distance. There's not even a drag path so whatever it was would have had to been tall enough to carry her without dragging.

 

[Olive Hill]

Quote:
LOL! Roadtrip! I sent you another one after that so must be if you have a full inbox (I did) and it can't save it as sent it won't send it. Good to know! LOL! I'll shoot you a message today. I meant to call you last night but never got to it. Sorry about that.

Glad you got that gash glued up.

 

[Olive Hill]

You know what they say, never say never, but I will say both of those are highly, HIGHLY unlikely.

We're rural and I have three dogs who more than alert to any two-legged visitors, they never barked this morning. There is no quick in and out if you wanted to catch one of my turkeys, they keep their distance from people so it'd be incredibly difficult to do it undetected. It'd be a fun little rodeo to get one of them caught. 5 feet is about the closest I get to them and that's only ME and only when they think I may have treats, they stay back further from anyone else. And there were no gunshots this morning, so someone didn't shoot her and then take her.

She never goes far from her tom and they definitely never go far alone. Haven't seen a wild flock in a few weeks, they tend to retreat deep into the woods this time of year and when they were out and about earlier in the year my trio had no interest in them.

It's puzzling, for sure. I think, before the storms roll in, I'm going to duck out for a break, hop on the quad and go for a ride around the back fields and woods and see if I can find any evidence.... feathers, carcass, drag marks, something...

 

[keyt1969]

Quote:
If in that new batch there truly is 3 males and 1 female then my ratio is 5 females and 6 males. I am definitely going to be looking for a way to trade off two of those new males!!

OR, as Aric said, get another female since we are expanding the run this weekend anyway lol

I say trade of two males. I'd love to have some laying chickens but that's hard to find. I'm bummed because the female duck is laying eggs so I was hoping I'd have more than one female. The lady told me there were "at least" 2 females. But once I got them home and looked at their tails I started to wonder. They were so pretty though....

Anyway, it's funny watching all the chickens in this wind! Especially the pullets. The bigger ones seem to be hanging in and the ducks don't seem to notice. All the ducks are hanging out nicely in the pond. I'll go out in a little bit and let them all out to hang out in the grass. I'm trying to direct them to the field behind us. The neighbor next door owns many acres behind us and he's told me I can let them hang out back there!

I just have to watch that they don't go into the corn field lol

 

[chickflick]

Glad your hen came back, Olive Hill. Krisrose's and my chickens are on lockdown. So many hawks lately. Krisrose's hen is still hanging in after she got attaced. Poor thing. So sad to see them injured. Chickens don't like staying in their run at all. There's this huge redtail hanging around alot. Crows chase it away, but can't take the chance. These hawks are in MI year round, so I hope they at least move away from this area soon.
Nasty weather is heading this way.... Grand Ledge had tornado warnings, so hope all is safe there. Take care, be sure to watch the weather!

 

[keyt1969]

Storm wasn't much here (18 miles south of Lansing), just LOTS of rain and wind. Sirens went off twice but nothing. My poor ducks stood there like they were helpless so I went out in my boots and coat and led them into the chicken coop. They didn't waste any time going directly into the barn. I just let them all back out again. I think it lasted about 10 minutes thankfully!!

Olive, glad your hen is back. If I lost any of mine I'd be a wreck!

 

[Olive Hill]

Thanks ya'll. I'm glad she's back, I only have the two hens for breeders and I need all the eggs they lay for hatching in the spring. They shouldn't be laying right now, but I'm going to keep an eye on her tomorrow morning and see if she takes off again. I wonder if she's sneaking in a mini-laying season right now and went off to nest down and lay an egg. It's very weird for her to have wandered off without the tom. He usually keeps a short leash on his ladies.

 

[keyt1969]

It's offical, the call (no pun intended) has been put out for one more female duck. I sent a msg to the woman we bought the 4 calls from, she has a MASSIVE set up with all kinds of birds. I think she told us last she wasn't going to be letting anything go til Spring, but doesn't hurt to check. But, we won't be letting these new ones go. Aric is the one who found them and he doesn't want to let them go, and he's not the duck lover here. Looks like these new ducks are probably a saxony/runner type. I definitely see runner in two of them at least. Doesn't matter, they are super cool, very sweet and funny. Got our first duck egg today too!

Jax, Sadie and Opie seem to like them. It reminds me of high school...the big ducks in one corner, the calls in the other.

We're laying out plans for our expansion too. It's so exciting! It shouldn't take too much except moving some stuff. We weren't planning on doing this til spring, but adding a few more ducks as forced us to. We just won't make the pond any bigger til spring, that takes a LOT more work. We also plan to put cement or whatever in the pond too. The lady we got the calls from has 4 good sized ponds built that way so it gave us the idea how to do it. The pond is fine the way it is considering we won't be using it much longer. Well, Aric seems to think he's going to be heating the pond to keep it going for the ducks all winter. More power to him if he wants, but I'm outta that! LOL

All the birds out there seem to be doing ok in this weather. Quite drenched, but happy to be out of the barn. The pullets crack me up in the wind! We have 2 more days of this too, oh yay!

Well, so I'll just sit back and hope Shannon has a female duck for me. Meanwhile, perfect day for crocheting

 

[Mom 2em All]

Kate,
When you do a search here for 'drake to duck ratio' a whole kaboodle of threads come up..this one here
https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=409502

is the longest one. I really think you are going to need a bunch more than one female.

Regardless, good luck. If you don't mind female muscovy- search for Caprice Acres. She has a bunch!. Send her a message.

Storm was a fizzle here.

Im out now to try and figure out who was crowing in my backyard.