Michigan

[taprock]

Sitting in the yard watching the chickens is my personal meditation, my zen.

So true! I also like to take a stale loaf of bread out and feed them like sea gulls. It's great to watch. However I have 66 chicken right now so a loaf doesn't go all that far.

This morning at 2:30 I sat up in bed and realized I hadn't shut up the chickens. They were all in the yard but my yard is not predator proof. A hungry raccoon could tear through the wire I have. So I got up and went and closed the pop doors and windows.

I have a girl with a swollen foot. There is no mark like bumble foot but it is just as swollen. I found her hiding yesterday morning and went to grab her only to have her limp away. I brought her in the house and put her in a cage with food and water. She just sat there unmoving, unresponsive just blinking. Is that how they deal with pain? After two BLUE poops and resting all day she was up on one foot eating and drinking last night. I put her on the roost last night but have to go check on her this morning. And then off to Petoskey

on a Friday. I was told the traffic wasn't so bad this week but seeing is believing.

 

[Mom 2em All]

taprock-

sorry about your sons d'uccle!!! I am so upset about my little porcelain. The lady who I got the eggs from doesnt have any more available either.

I told all the rabbits that its time they move outside. The weather is back to normal summer and my house is full of fur and hay and bedding and etc.
SOOO, I set up a pen outside with hutch, and put out two of them and a bowl of pellets...and I have been laughing at my poor slow Uggo...hahahahahahahahaha...she has been pacing back and forth back and forth trying to figure out how to get in to the bowl of pellets- totally oblivious that about ten feet behind her is HER bowl of pellets.


SillyChicken-

 

[SillyChicken]

Happy Friday!

I have some white (hatchery) silkies, I think most are roos.. but I will give them to anyone on here that wants them... I have 4, maybe 5 to get rid of. Just a bit over crowded at the moment. PM me if you're interested. I'll try to get some picts to post. I'll be putting an add on craigs list if no one shows any interest here.

 

[snowflake]

taprock-

sorry about your sons d'uccle!!! I am so upset about my little porcelain. The lady who I got the eggs from doesnt have any more available either.

I told all the rabbits that its time they move outside. The weather is back to normal summer and my house is full of fur and hay and bedding and etc.
SOOO, I set up a pen outside with hutch, and put out two of them and a bowl of pellets...and I have been laughing at my poor slow Uggo...hahahahahahahahaha...she has been pacing back and forth back and forth trying to figure out how to get in to the bowl of pellets- totally oblivious that about ten feet behind her is HER bowl of pellets.


SillyChicken-

chickens are crazy

So our younger daughter has been keeping some baby chicks(we got from Theron at CS, till last week when her Family went to camp with IL's, But there is 1 little hen they really want to keep, Aunt Peggy lives so far away (Grant) they won't be able to see it, So I had kept 3 (when we brought them home from CS) to put under a broody momma who's eggs didn't hatch. Now I am trying to put the" Favorite chicken" in with the momma and her 3 chicks. Momma is willing but she cuddled it last night and tries to mother (she is such a good momma) the sibs are not so willing to share the momma and the new chick is unsure how to respond to mom. Has any one tried this? will the chick imprint with mom if they are together? one of her chicks is a roo, can't keep him. We are going camping soon and I plan on keeping them in a tractor by them selves, hoping when we get back they will bee a family1 all alone with no buddys is sad

WOW that was scary, just had a hawk fly low over the yard. Rooster had most of the hens under cover,a couple slow pokes ran between the tractors real fast, no room for the hawk between 2 tractors and the coop....had to run out and check on the momma and her chicks,,he didn't get any thing from our hard.

...will watch for a while to make sure he isn't hanging in the woods....all are still in hiding except the rooster who has gone over by the coop to check on the hens there. he is such a good boy, I have seen him stand over a momma hen and her chicks as a hawk flew close before, had them crowded in under the coop steps and no one moved

 

[Bianca67]

sorry to hear about the loss of chickens.

And Raz, the saying "being neighborly" should be a good thing. Glad those folks have you there to help them out.

 

[ladyrsanti]

Fences make good neighbors. Our fist house in Jackson, MI, we were just starting out - totally naive. The old neighbor lady, she hated that our large and gorgeous norwegian maples dropped leaves on her property. She would drop hints when we talked and then one day asked if her lawn guy could trim the forsythia bush that draped over the fence. I said sure. We left town for a day and came home to find the bush completely removed. Then I started noticing areas of dead grass around the base of the maple tree closest to the property line. I suspected poison so I called the police and while I was showing him the evidence, a neighbor from across the street came over and reported that he saw her lawn guy pouring gallons of round-up on the base of the 100+yr old tree. SERIOUSLY??? She got off with a warning because she whined to the cop, something about having cancer and only having a couple months to live. I don't know if was true because we moved shortly thereafter. THANK GOODNESS.

Our last house in Samaria, MI, still apparently naive I thought the empty-nesters next door would be nice people. Not all neighbors are bad, surely. I went to the property line when they called me to it, smiled and hoped they liked us, pictured us helping each other out through tough times and sharing during the good. But they never answered their door when we needed help. We learned real quick that they hated us for moving there with our young children and busy lives that keep us from mowing the grass twice a week, etc. And I do not use the word "hate" lightly. The wife was a witch. One of the first things she ever said to me (while I was out starting my new garden) was, "I see you're putting in a garden. I used to garden, before I realized it was a waste of time.". She never did get my name right and would scream what she decided to call me "HEY BETSY!!!" across the yard with her raspy smokers voice and like an idiot, I'd go to her. She called the township on us three times while we lived there, like we needed to be kept in our place and taught a lesson in home ownership. We ended up installing a privacy fence which P'ed her off big time but I never saw her again after that and it made the remainder of the time we lived there at least bearable. The worst she'd do after that was to demean us loudly over the fence when she had company over.

Anyone who knows my husband and I knows we are very nice and responsible people, regardless of what these stories might make us appear. My kids are very well behaved too.

We've recently moved to the Grand Rapids area and are still meeting our neighbors. We live at the mouth of a subdivision-like road so everyone sort of knows everyone... except us. No longer naive, I haven't been too eager to meet people. I still feel like hiding when I see them coming over to chat, shell-shocked. I'm so self-conscious still about going outside in my own yard for fear of being scrutinized to the point of having the township show up. But so far we've had a farmer offer us 1/4 steer for farming our extra lot and the old couple across the street offered to plow my new garden for me when he saw me turning it over with a shovel. Then they gave us their family's fresh meat as well (lots of cattle in the area). So far so good but it's tough, learning to trust that neighbors can be good.

A good neighbor is a rare and beautiful thing.

 

[swampducks]

That just screams 'coon. Sorry for your loss. After I lost my guineas and set all those coon traps haven't caught anything since the one the night of the killing. And I know there are more because 5 of the 6 guinea bodies were missing. They are sneaky beasts.

Something killed my porcelain d'uccle..was only a week old at Chicken stock so how old does that make her? Anyhow...she still stuck with Mama Hen, but not all the time now. I just found her BODY- no head, neck, legs, or wings. Horrified me.

 

[RBahmer]

chickens are crazy

So our younger daughter has been keeping some baby chicks(we got from Theron at CS, till last week when her Family went to camp with IL's, But there is 1 little hen they really want to keep, Aunt Peggy lives so far away (Grant) they won't be able to see it, So I had kept 3 (when we brought them home from CS) to put under a broody momma who's eggs didn't hatch. Now I am trying to put the" Favorite chicken" in with the momma and her 3 chicks. Momma is willing but she cuddled it last night and tries to mother (she is such a good momma) the sibs are not so willing to share the momma and the new chick is unsure how to respond to mom. Has any one tried this? will the chick imprint with mom if they are together? one of her chicks is a roo, can't keep him. We are going camping soon and I plan on keeping them in a tractor by them selves, hoping when we get back they will bee a family1 all alone with no buddys is sad

I have done this with great success. My d'Uccle hatched out like 5 and she has 11. She has bantams and standards. It takes the chicks a couple of days to figure it out but they eventually get it. Of course she can't cover all these but they are all in my brooder house in a pen. But she owns them all and they are all different ages.

 

[RBahmer]

X2 on Randys set up. His are spoiled chickens definitely....even if the chickens neighbors are bees.

And the chickens are my zen, as well...
now on to chicken math...
I am not going to order eggs.
I am taking a trip out to Robins'.....gonna be like a kid in a candy store. Will probably have my husband with me, so thats adult supervision- of course, I may drop him off at his hunting grounds first...

My little Millie Fluer d'Uccle has a female that looks just like her if you want it.. If you want I will give you one of my Porcelain d'Uccle's. Both of mine are females and doing great.

 

[Stacykins]

Whew, some of you have such wonderful neighbors (or are wonderful neighbors) and some have some pretty awful neighbors!

My only neighbor issue came when I was living in Milwaukee. Our two houses shared the same driveway entrance, which then split into our respective parking areas behind each house. So...how do you think snow shoveling went during the winter? Seriously, the people who lived in the other house never shoveled. My housemates and I, so we could, you know, get our cars out, had to clear the driveway while they often watched from a window. If we knocked on the door to ask for help, no answer. Of course, we wouldn't touch their parking area, but we had to clear the actual entrance/exit, which was a lot of work. We also documented each time we shoveled snow, who did it, and how long it took.

I and one of the lads I lived with finally got fed up when a blizzard rolled through. Instead of shoveling the snow off to the side, we shoveled it into the other parking area. We didn't go out of our way to put it ALL in, but because there was a lot of snow on the ground, a very, very nice pile formed. We waited for the inevitable firestorm. It came, a few hours later. Actually, we learned they first complained to our landlady, but we'd already told her before that he was being a 'bit' lax on snow removal and had documentation. She essentially told him to get out and clear the snow. The rest of the winter, if my housemates or I went to shovel snow, he'd silently join us. Was piling the snow on his side mature? Absolutely not! Did it work to get our point across? Quite well!