Michigan

[keyt1969]

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Strangely as normal as that is (my sisters had theirs out), I haven't had mine removed. Just my gall bladder, appendix, right kidney and female parts lol.

I'm seeing specialists for several things in the next month. Turns out I have 3 more serious conditions to add to the multiples I already had. It's a bit depressing, but people with Hydrocephalus are usually pretty sick individuals. I guess I just need to consider myself lucky to have lived this long when I wasn't supposed to!

 

[Chickmate]

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His name is Jerry Canfield and his number is 616-284-7098.

 

[Opa]

Sitting here waiting for the sun to come up and all is quiet and back to my normal routine. Mornings haven't seemed quite right since I hadn't been able to read and respond to the various posts on BYC. Coming to this site, reading everyones posts while drinking my morning coffee had become such a comfortable habit that the inability to do so had made the waiting for sunrise quite lonely. It feels good to be back. So the coffee is hot and strong, pour yourself a cup and we can sit here together a wait for the sun to herald the start of another wonderful day.

 

[babigyrl22]

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His name is Jerry Canfield and his number is 616-284-7098.

Awww thank you guys!

 

[Mom 2em All]

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So glad you are back, Opa.
Along with your friendship, and your wisdom, comes a comfort and a sense of well-being to see your morning posts. It creates a sense of 'something missing' to not read your morning posts. You are like a lighthouse in the early morning hours when the rest of the world is asleep.

I hope everyone has a wonderful day. I am completely out of feed- and I have to work, so all my honkers and whatnot has to wait until evening to be fed. Its an awful thought that they are going to have to actually catch bugs and eat grass and weeds. and spilled feed around their dishes, until this evening. I am sure they will starve to death- or at least think they are.

 

[babigyrl22]

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Glad to have you back Opa.

 

[M.sue]

Good Morning everyone.....I'm sitting here sipping my coffee & waiting for it to sound like Fort Knox being under attack or something like that. Officially duck season has opened. My house is surrounded by open farm land and I have seen numerous flashlights lurking in the dark out in those fields. Those big beautiful geese will come in honking their hearts away and I know the minute they are in sight the shots will fly. Maybe I should stand out in my field with a couple big flags, waving, singing and doing a dance? Not....I would never hear the end of it from my DS and his friend plus I think I would have everyone of those avid hunters pounding on my back door. Sighhhh.....and just my luck, I don't have enough coffee for everyone!

 

[fifelakelooper]

GotChicken? :

I haven't posted in a long time, but it has been such a crazy last few days, I had to share. And sorry about your computer troubles, Opa. Tech can be a real pain in the keister.



Friday, my psycho game hen Fiona hatched out the two BBR OEGB eggs I gave her; and didn't kill one by booting out of the nest like she did with her last brood. Both littles are very cute, and seem to like their freakshow of a mom.

Saturday afternoon, I heard a commotion out in the yard. My banty roosters were raising quite the ruckus, but by the time I put on my boots and got out there, everyone was milling around like nothing had happened. So I sat down to watch them play around, and five minutes later, the two-month old banty mutts in the front yard started squawking. I looked in their direction, and saw the two little roos of the pack flanking a dark brown furry thing. I ran up to them, the hairs on the back of my neck standing up, only pausing long enough to grab a hoe out of the shed. I got up there - it was a mink. It was just laying in the grass, looking up at me, which in hindsight was very strange, but at the moment all I wanted to do was beat it to death with the hoe. I've lost two flocks of chickens to these things (and a six-week old crested duckling to a weasel two months ago; it got a face full of bird shot when it came back for the seven-week old). I wasn't in a merciful mood.

It was only after I got rid of it that I realized it's behavior was very bizarre - it should have ran as soon as it seen me, and it wouldn't have had any problem grabbing one of the little banty roos, but it didn't even react to them. Then I remembered the commotion I heard earlier, and realized what had happened. The mink had gone after the adult birds, and they knocked him silly. So he must have come up front to get away from them and try to grab one of the younger birds, but was in no shape to do so. I re-checked my adult birds, and one of my OEGB roos had a drop of blood on his beak, but it was obvious he hadn't fought with another roo. I have very good boys!

Sunday I lost my Royal Palm turkey poult. It seems like Blackhead (I lost two other turkeys last month that had similar symptoms), but this boy had shown symptoms less than six hours before dying, and was the picture of health when let out earlier that morning. I'm worming my flock ahead of schedule to try and keep my last poult from dying, but I still have doubts that this disease is the culprit. I truly believe it's something else, but will take the necessary precautions just in case I'm wrong.

Monday night (technically 4 a.m. Tuesday morning), I was awakened to the familiar shriek of my AWOL hen, and peeping. She went broody and disappeared, and I had believed she had her nest hidden somewhere in the front yard. I was wrong.

I got outside as fast as I could, and saw a stray cat I've never seen before next to my father's plow. When I went looking for her nest, I had checked all the tarp-covered equipment EXCEPT the plow because I though it would be the last place the hen would lay her eggs.

Duh.
I chased the cat off and checked the nest to find five little fuzzies and five unhatched eggs. Unfortunately, one of the chicks was been badly hurt by the cat and had to be put down. I rushed the hatched babies to crazy girl in the spare coop, and the eggs to another hen that had gone broody. Then I heard AWOL screeching in the yard, but each time I tried to catch her, she would fly into progressively taller tree, so I gave up. I started walking back to the house - PEEP! I stopped, began looking around, and found a chick in the grass. I gave it to one of the broody's, started back to the house - PEEP! PEE-PEEP! Looked around again, found another chick. Gave it to a broody, went back to the house - PEEP! AAAHHHH! So I found that one, and looked around intently for any more, but only found a dead one the cat had dropped. Finally went back to bed.

The next day I check on everyone, to see if they were okay, and if goofy had gone back to her nest. She had, but ran off squawking when I tried to grab her. A few hours later, my dad came into the house and asked me if the hen in question was a little black one. I said yes, and he told me she was in front of the coop - with ANOTHER CHICK! WHAT THE ???? So I went out there, and sure enough she was out there with a little, so I was able to scoop them both up and put them in a cage. Walked back to the house, walked past the plow - PEEP! PEEP! Unbelievably enough, another chick was there, and I gave it back to mom.

I originally wanted to put all three moms in the spare coop together, but all they did is fight over chicks, and one of the babies got trampled. So today I separated them, divvied up the babies, and then they were happy (finally).

Two of the eggs hatched, but the last three were abandoned and cold. One was damaged, one was a dud, and one was pipped (and had been since Tuesday morning) and the chick inside was alive. However, I didn't know that until after I opened the egg and had ripped the membrane. I knew that was an instant death sentence, and mournfully put the egg in the burning barrel when the peeping stopped.

This evening, I walked past the burning barrel - PEEP!

You've go to be kidding me! Sure enough, the chick I thought I killed had hatched! We had burned papers in there Tuesday afternoon, and the residual heat must have given the little one the energy to hatch out. It was covered with ash, but seemed to be okay. How crazy is that!

So it's been interesting, to say the least.

Geez...I feel exhausted from reading all the stressful happenings here! Sounds like all is well for now?​

 

[fifelakelooper]

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Not that I know of...this came out about 1 1/2 months ago. Aunt lives in Ada with her grandsons family.

 

[Opa]

One of the things I missed as a result of my coffee mishap was the ability to respond to questions or comment on a particular post. One thing I remember reading was about want to feed warm food to birds to help them better endure the cold. I feel this would be a waste of time. As long as your birds are given adequate water, and are kept in a dry, draft free enclosue they can overwinter quite well. Since your birds will spend more time in the coop during the winter, one of the biggest problems they will face is the build up on high humidity in the coop. This makes in much more difficult for them to stay warm and often increases the chances of frost bite.

In our desire to provide our birds with a warm enclosure we often overdo it and less the ability of the coop to ventilate. As long as the birds are in a well ventilated draft free enviornment to can handle surprizingly low temperature without any additional heat.