Minnesota!

[Minniechickmama]

any recipe recommendations @Minniechickmama ? i am thinking a nice stew, but i will just be googling for it otherwise.

Start with some sautéed carrots, onion, celery, garlic - in a generous amount of butter, of course.
Once they wilt a bit, pull them out. Use the same pan to brown the rabbit. I deglaze with champagne vinegar.
Put all of it in a cooking pot together with some potatoes. Add enough chicken stock to cover everything. Add rosemary, thyme, parsley, oregano, mushrooms too if you like that umami flavor in there. Cook it all for about 45-minutes until the potatoes are done and veggies are all tender. Serve with some fresh hot bread or biscuits.

My family enjoys in that way. It has a broth not gravy, but if you add a thickener at the end it would be good too, I think.

 

[jdk77]

This is Blanca, does anyone have an idea what breed she is?

Peppy and Queenie, my two blue layers

Dave Morris photo bombing (only her face and breast is showing. Peppy is the other one

Queenie

My Granddaughter named all 7 of them.

My daughters have named most of ours too!! The first one looks like a cinnamon queen. I have a couple of those too. The most friendly birds I have ever had. Will literally jump in our laps or even on a shoulder on occasion.

 

[Minniechickmama]

They hatched April 13 so they are 23 weeks old. 6 are laying good eggs, one is still laying soft shelled eggs (for two days now, tomorrow should be a normal egg if she does what the other six did). Two hens started laying at 16 weeks.
I have one hen that just started a strange behavior. She will sit on the nest for about half an hour, get out of the nest and hop over to a perch and drop her egg onto the floor where it breaks. I don't know how to stop her from doing this. Any suggestions?

They are right on target for laying. They sometimes need to work out the kinks in their system, so sometimes will lay shelless eggs or 'rubber' eggs. They need to figure out too what the nest box is for. Sometimes using fake eggs helps them to know they are supposed to lay in the box, or you can use golf balls for this. Remember, they are acting out of instinct and they don't know what the heck is going on when they start laying eggs, especially if they are all new to this egg laying bit.

 

[jdk77]

Don't worry we like lots of posts, keeps us at near the top of the most active threads; that & Ralphie needs reading material. BA? Looks young. I love the pretty black/green feathers. I take it she's a music lover with the CD in the backround.

 

[jdk77]

They are right on target for laying.  They sometimes need to work out the kinks in their system, so sometimes will lay shelless eggs or 'rubber' eggs.  They need to figure out too what the nest box is for.  Sometimes using fake eggs helps them to know they are supposed to lay in the box, or you can use golf balls for this.  Remember, they are acting out of instinct and they don't know what the heck is going on when they start laying eggs, especially if they are all new to this egg laying bit.

I have used the golf ball trick. Works wonders.

 

[NikonD2xer]

Hey everyone.

Been a little too busy to post with my chocolate lab pup Maizy. I have managed to keep up on the reading.

Maizy is a pretty darn good puppy. She helped me clean out the hoop coop yesterday. The division of labor was slightly lop-sided, but she was helping carrying out 1 feather at a time.

The ducks I ask everyone to identify are now mine until i get sick of them and they go to freezer camp.

Today she decided to help with the ducks. While i was getting the feed and water taken care of, she decided she needed to sniff the ducks.
Well they wanted no part of that and ran past me so fast i couldn't stop them.
Maizy didn't chase them at all, she looked hurt that they didn't want to be friends.
I spent the rest of the day trying to keep track of those 2 ducks.
They followed my RIR around all day even into the coop. Some feathers got ruffled as they were quickly chased out back outside.

I took some old bread end crusts out for chicken treats this afternoon. One crumb hitting the ground and the feeding franzy starts.
I didn't notice at first but Maizy was right in the middle of it quietly sitting and patiently waiting for her treat too.

It won't be too long and I will be able to leave Maizy outside alone with the chickens.
I either got really lucky with a very smart pup or I am just that good at training .

Time will tell. I have expanded my training to include big bushy tailed black and white cats that desperately some deordorant.

I just started. I told to sit but it didn't listen to me. I told it to lay down, still ignored. After a very loud report of disipline, it laid right down.
I then commanded it to stay. Wonder if it will be there in the morning yet ?


I am writing BYC to get the a word added to banned list. Everytime someone here mentions them I get a visit from one or ten.

 

[lalaland]

Maizy sounds like a swweetheart!

Mixedflock61, I wonder if the top pic is a red sexlink? hard to tell...but...has that look.

Ralphie, I'm thinking if today is freezercamp day you will be exhausted at days end. We could plan a different day and I could drive closer to you. Had to edit that, I first wrote something that could get misinterpreted! And knowing this bunch, it just might

I did load the car with a rooster carrying case just in case today works, so either way.


Anyone else notice how darned bright that moon has been? I keep waking up all night long thinking it must be near daylight. Living where I do, there are no curtains or blinds and daylight wakes me. Or moonlight when it is this bright.

Cold morning! Have a great day everyone!

 

[KlopKlop]

I tried something new last night and I'm pretty happy with the result. I usually refill feeders after work and usually they aren't empty. Well the last week or more the chickens have been extra hungry and the feeders seem to be empty all the time and they are always just laying in the shade of my asparagus plants all day. I let them all out to free range and then went to get the feed buckets and as I walked to the coop the entire flock followed instead of getting out and free ranging. I decided to hold the feed until bedtime and boy did that help! They free ranged further than I have ever seen them go last night and came home with mostly full crops. A bunch of them still hopped off the roost when I filled the feeder at lockup but I really think they did a better job of free ranging this way.

 

[duluthralphie]

Good Morning all!

Nikon. You should team up with Cyrus and become professional bushy tail cat trainers. I almost ruined my baby sized keyboard when I read that, it caused a coffee eruption here.
I think you should check on the cat this morning. Try scratching it behind the ears.


Lala Lets call it off tonight. It is not Camp Day here, but I forgot to get the rooster into a cage last night. I had a bad evening, when Aussiegal was here yesterday her friend noticed one of Ethel's babies and I told her there should be three around here somewhere. I did not think much about it, as they are always getting separated and one is crying for the others. I had some things I had to get in Elk River so I made the trip, I got more game bird feed as I was out.

I am feeding game bird feed to my birds right now because of the molt. My yard is loaded with feathers. Anyways, I did my things and went looking for the babies. I am surrounded by the Sherburne National Wildlife refuge on three sides by land stolen from my family by eminent domain. The area is open for hunting, many of the hunters have no ethics and are what I call slob hunters. I walked all my land then I made a walk around my property, on the government land, searching for my babies. These are the guys that were so far from home the other day. I found a spot where there was a puff of feather and a tail feather. I had heard shooting earlier. It appears one of the slob hunters shot my rusty baby.
It was obvious it was not an animal kill. Another reason for me to hate the wildlife refuge.

I did not see any sign of the other darker bird. I know if the person was using a dog or got close to these guys and startled them they would have flushed or ran. My guess is the rust one ran and the black one flushed. The black one was a jumpy bird. So I am down to only one of Ethel's five babies left.

As I told everyone the other day, I wear socks with sandals a lot. I happen to have them on when I went looking for the turkeys. After finding the one I was searching the area for the other one, I blew out my sandal, the toe strap broke. Have you ever walked 1/4 mile through sandbur infested wild grass? It took over an hour, take two steps, pick sandburs off, two steps, sandburs. It took 45 minutes to get home!

Then when I got there the other guy was out in the field! So I changed shoes and had to go out and get him/her. I moved her to the turkey coop, not sure how that will work out, her friends are road running Creamettes.


I dropped some corn for the CX's yesterday morning and the CX's ignored it to go foraging, when it came time to lock them up, they were all surrounding the corn piles and refused to go inside. We had to chase them, or pick them up and carry them. I got to lift some of them and carry them. I am very disappointed in having all hens. I like raising the big birds that dress over 12 pounds. I cannot do that with hens, I needed roosters, I tried to call Hoovers to witch at them yesterday morning but got no answer, I will wait until after 9 to try today. I am in a surly mood so it is a good day to call.

Klopklop, I think I am going to change my feeding techniques too. I use hanging feeders. I am going to put a second hook on each rope the feeders hang from about 4 feet off the ground. When I let them out in the morning I am going to lift the feeders and hook them high so the birds cannot feed from them during the day to make them forage further.

I am tired of the turkeys not going more than 20 ft from the deck. I build the deck for my enjoyment, not so they had a nice place close to the house to roost and hang out all day.

 

[duluthralphie]

You are all letting me down today. From 6-9 am is coffee time for me. I need more posting otherwise I am forced to watch TV and get into an even more surly mood.