Minnesota!

[The BlanchRanch]

I walked out and it was still dark this morning and the chickens were out already. That light seems to be working to well. Got one egg today too.

 

[Bogtown Chick]

Made some chicken dumpling soup tonight. DH has a horrible cold. So trying to get him better and fortifying the kids and myself against it. That soup honestly works I swear. My dumplings are the chewy kind not the puffy ones. Mmmm. It's a fave.

 

[The BlanchRanch]

Made some chicken dumpling soup tonight. DH has a horrible cold. So trying to get him better and fortifying the kids and myself against it. That soup honestly works I swear. My dumplings are the chewy kind not the puffy ones. Mmmm. It's a fave.

Oh no. I have had the sniffles and tearing eyes tonight. I can't be getting a cold. No way.

 

[KlopKlop]

I think all of your guys broody talk jinxed me! I have been fighting this old biddy for 3 days now! every time I go to the coop I am chasing this BA off the nest! I can tell she stays in there during the day a lot as i have found more eggs on the floor the last few days. which is abnormal. I hope i can break her before she really gets into it. I wouldnt mind if she got broody in the spring though

 

[aussiegal318]

Are you awake yet LaLa? Congratulations on the granddaughter! Baby snuggles!

20 pages in the last couple of days, I'm just skipping to the last 10 pages. If I missed anything important let me know.

Coffee Aspen looks like a cutie. You'll have to bring him by soon.

Ralphie, Frogs, Toads, Chickens, they're all the same!

Minnie I know what you mean about the gas mileage on trucks, but I still miss mine. It got 14 mpg, if I drive my son's 3500 it is closer to 14 gpm. Sorry about the insurance stuff.

Kloppers, thats a business I wouldn't want to be in. I can imagine the stories! How do you insure for stupidity? I think about some of the employees we have had & no amount of training helps.

My handyman came by today to get the coop & run done. I like that this guy is willing to use what we have here first. He is going to give me a list of what he needs & I can pull things out from piles & purchase the rest with DS military discount at Home Depot he even doesn't mind if I help out. Not sure that is going to happen with the surgery moved to the 27th & 2 wks of hospital time after that.

I now have a stat on DH, he is 1 in 20000. He has always claimed to be 1 in a million but we now know that's not true. We spent yesterday in the ER as he had a oxygen induced seizure near the end of therapy. When I got there to pick him up the Doc took me aside to tell me & was a bit concerned how I would react. No problem, I'm bomb proof. In the ER the Doc wanted to do a CT to see if anything was going on in his head. Poor Resident, all I could do was laugh & told him I could save him the trouble. Long & short of it , he's fine it can happen to about 1 in 20,000 people & may never happen again. The techs told me today that they had training last night after all the sessions & you know what they were going over, yep, O2 seizures.

I'm looking forward to getting something done this weekend. Nothing is ready for winter & DH still has another week of hyperbaric therapy, at least.

 

[aussiegal318]

I think everyone will have feathers for winter. The last 2 yrs, I've had at least 1 naked chicken when the snow flys. No house chickens this year.

 

[NikonD2xer]

Klop that old biddy of yours looks like she has feathers missing on her back. I have one just like yours. Mine is not broody. She is using the nesting box for protection from the roosters. I kick mine out of the coop and as soon as she sees a rooster she makes a B - line for the nest boxes.

 

[Minniechickmama]

Yeah but only 2 roosters for 53 hens! He doesnt seem like he is THAT passionate haha

Perhaps she is his favorite.

I have an inkling too that some hens just have looser feathers which makes them more likely to get bare backed from breeding.

The other possibility is you have a hen who likes the other ladies a little more than she should.

Two Springs ago, I got a message from a guy who got 5 pullets from me the year before. He was hearing crowing in the morning but couldn't find a rooster around anywhere. He was getting 5 eggs a day from 5 hens. I said to show me pictures. There was a Blue Orpington hen who had feathers in perfect condition, but all the others had their backs half de-feathered like a rooster had been in with then, even though he didn't own one. It turned out that Blue was mounting the other hens and crowing every morning, but she had not gotten so manly as to grow rooster feathers, but her behavior was definitely that of a rooster. So, what I said is plausible. However, some roosters just like to be discreet and don't do that kiss and tell stuff like some who will rape and pillage their way through a flock.

 

[Minniechickmama]

I think everyone will have feathers for winter. The last 2 yrs, I've had at least 1 naked chicken when the snow flys. No house chickens this year.

I had a Silkie hen who dropped her feathers in December, a couple of years ago when it was bitterly cold! She snuggled up with her roomies and did just fine. After seeing that, I don't get too worried over naked chickens when it gets cold, but I don't like seeing it just the same. Some of my birds who have just kept looking so nice, like my Black Silkie rooster, are finally starting to drop their feathers too. The have a couple of weeks and then they better hope they are done, but it takes a while for most of them to finish. My Cochin hens are looking good again now that they have grown in most of theirs. Weird thing is, I have birds that hatched this year who are molting too. I thought one of my Welsummer pullets was sick, but then her tail disappeared. Same thing happened to a New Hampshire in the same pen. Then some of the cockerels in the pasture. It is a very odd year, indeed. I had bearded iris blooming last month, and there are trees with buds on them that should have them. Goodness knows what I will see next. I posted a question about seeing some odd things happening and people around the Northern Region of the US are see things like plants and trees blooming that shouldn't be doing so until Spring and the like. Mother Nature needs hormone replacement therapy or something!

 

[lalaland]

I had a Silkie hen who dropped her feathers in December, a couple of years ago when it was bitterly cold! She snuggled up with her roomies and did just fine. After seeing that, I don't get too worried over naked chickens when it gets cold, but I don't like seeing it just the same. Some of my birds who have just kept looking so nice, like my Black Silkie rooster, are finally starting to drop their feathers too. The have a couple of weeks and then they better hope they are done, but it takes a while for most of them to finish. My Cochin hens are looking good again now that they have grown in most of theirs. Weird thing is, I have birds that hatched this year who are molting too. I thought one of my Welsummer pullets was sick, but then her tail disappeared. Same thing happened to a New Hampshire in the same pen. Then some of the cockerels in the pasture. It is a very odd year, indeed. I had bearded iris blooming last month, and there are trees with buds on them that should have them. Goodness knows what I will see next. I posted a question about seeing some odd things happening and people around the Northern Region of the US are see things like plants and trees blooming that shouldn't be doing so until Spring and the like. Mother Nature needs hormone replacement therapy or something!

The strange spring stuff happening now is kind of spooky, it makes me uneasy. I totally get how things like eclipses threw people into a panic way back before there was any understanding of what was going on. You just know, something is wrong.

It seems as soon as the weather drops in Nov, I always have a few hens that drop all their feathers and are half naked. Makes the molting season seem to go on forever.

Thanks everyone for the good wishes on the new granddaughter. She's my first and I am over the moon. They go home from the hospital this morning, and I was surprised that my daughter wants me to go down to mpls and hang out with them until discharge and go home with them as well. Think she has the new mom "what do i do" nerves. Her husband is a great guy and actively involved in baby, so there will be two adults to care for baby.

Course, I love getting to spend time with them and the baby. But....its the last day to get kindling out of the woods for the winter because I dont trust hunters not to be in my woods, and I don't go there even with blaze orange on once the deer season starts, which is tomorrow here.

so kindling or baby? guess baby wins out!