Minnesota!

[holm25]

I am sooo glad the weather was nice today!! My broody mama and her 2 day olds were out all day

 

[jbenson]

I love Ramsey farm and garden. I get my feed there - very high quality.

 

[Bogtown Chick]

@rainin22 sorry about your salmon faverolles. They're beautiful chickens. I've often thought if getting some of those. The roosters are beautiful.

I haven't been to L&m for a bit. I'm afraid to go in there. But nowadays I'm pretty settled with just getting birds from breeders directly. Just for general health and longevity of the birds.
Good sign that Bert is acting rascally during his treatments.

I've gotten a creamette egg two days in a row now. I think they're settling in... I gave that fish the other day, other food is layer and all flock mixed. Plus free range grasses. A bug or two when it's warm enough, frogs I suppose. But I've just noted these last week or so they are fully integrated and accepted by my flock. One is a tidge independent but she's more and more with them.
And these longer days...I get a bang at their drooped and sleeping faces when I go to tuck them in at night. The rooster especially. He can't keep his eyes open. Such full busy days. Love it.

 

[goose4]

Drea07- It sounds like he was dust bathing. It can be alarming the first time you see it, with all the kicking and flailing it can look like some sort of seizure!
My hens peck at each other when they're rolling around like that too.

Last week i had a hen that decided to take a dust bath in front of the Schwann's truck. We have plenTy of suitable places for her to do this. I think he was a little nervous. All of the girls came running up expecting treats. He said he didn't carry chicken treats. He only carries dog treats. They were fascinated by all the doors opening and closing. Then to top things off we had Bernice flopping in the dirt. I explained what she was doing so he wouldn't think we had bird flu or something. Those girls were a little bit too comfortable around a truck full of frozen chicken.

 

[destiny_56085]

we lost 3 baby salmon faverolles last night =( I think they had a sour crop, there's one faverolle left. So sad, they were around 3 weeks or so. 2 of them died in my hand while throwing up water

I have over 60 bantam salmon faverolles out of the shell since 4/10. I have a guy in Maple Lake scheduled to get handful of them on Monday. We had been booked via Speedee, but I just heard today that they can no longer take live birds. I have relatives in Buffalo and it might give me an excuse to be up in that neck of the woods. We'll just have see how it plays out with this AI scare and if they let us transport birds at all for a while.

 

[lalaland]

thats a lot of banties - if you get the chance to take some pics and post, I would love to see the salmon favorelles.

with AI, I am upping the frequency of offering free choice fresh chopped garlic - garlic being an immune booster and especially for viruses. I'm already adding tumeric to the feed although I notice the chickens aren't as happy with the feed on the days the tumeric is added (every other day right now) but they still do eat it, it just doesn't disappear as frequently.

keeping my fingers crossed that all of our flocks stay AI safe!

 

[nordicacres]

Last week i had a hen that decided to take a dust bath in front of the Schwann's truck. We have plenTy of suitable places for her to do this. I think he was a little nervous. All of the girls came running up expecting treats. He said he didn't carry chicken treats. He only carries dog treats. They were fascinated by all the doors opening and closing. Then to top things off we had Bernice flopping in the dirt. I explained what she was doing so he wouldn't think we had bird flu or something. Those girls were a little bit too comfortable around a truck full of frozen chicken.

Haha, that is cute!

I have over 60 bantam salmon faverolles out of the shell since 4/10. I have a guy in Maple Lake scheduled to get handful of them on Monday. We had been booked via Speedee, but I just heard today that they can no longer take live birds. I have relatives in Buffalo and it might give me an excuse to be up in that neck of the woods. We'll just have see how it plays out with this AI scare and if they let us transport birds at all for a while.

Speedee won't ship live birds anymore? Forever or just because of the AI scare? I couldn't find any information by searching . . .

 

[rainin22]

I have over 60 bantam salmon faverolles out of the shell since 4/10.  I have a guy in Maple Lake scheduled to get handful of them on Monday.  We had been booked via Speedee, but I just heard today that they can no longer take live birds.  I have relatives in Buffalo and it might give me an excuse to be up in that neck of the woods.    We'll just have see how it plays out with this AI scare and if they let us transport birds at all for a while.

Please let me know if you do end up coming out this way! I love faverolles and it was so hard to find the 4 chicks and I'm not sure if the one we have left is a chick or a rooster =\ I'm glad at least one is alive though!

 

[lalaland]

this is a message I received to day from Wayne Martin, u of m:
An outdoor flock of mixed poultry (not sure, but likely a combination of turkeys and chickens) has been confirmed as having Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza. There were 151 birds in the flock, located in Pipestone County.

This is the first outdoor flock to be infected in Minnesota. So far 46 farms in 16 counties have been affected, with a loss of over 2,600,000 birds, all turkeys with the exception of the birds in Pipestone County.

On our UMN Extension website we have a link to a page with fact sheets on biosecurity for urban/backyard poultry keepers, and for pastured/organic commercial poultry operations.

The website is at:
http://www.extension.umn.edu/agriculture/poultry/avian-influenza/index.html

 

[destiny_56085]

Speedee gave notice yesterday morning that they quit shipping birds at least til this scare is over. Hopefully they continue later on! I will let you know Rainin. I still have to get in contact with my guy up there as to our change in plans. He just had surgery yesterday so probably hasn't checked his messages yet. If not you are welcome to drive down here.