My leukemia's back.

[hbhoffman]

LG, Welcome back!!! Sorry About the back end revenge issues. My dd had it too. She is wearing Depends 24/7 & on the B.R.A.T. diet. Feel somewhat guilty as she had just completely veggies on Netflix the last 2.5 days.
But WOW! What a trip of a lifetime! Where in Guatemala? Thank you foe helping the church. It is amazing to see the generics in chickens in other countries.

You are right about Rachel....
And anyone else have any other chicken stories? ;-D

 

[N F C]

@lazy gardener welcome back! Sorry to hear you're under the weather but that's great you were able to go and enjoy it. Love to see your pictures when you're up to it.

 

[seminolewind]

Quote:

I'm just glad for the things he doesn't notice because the rest of the time since he retired I feel like I'm under a microscope. I can't do anything without him turning around to see what I'm doing.

 

[lazy gardener]

Loved your stories about sneaky chickie counts. I came home to a hen who has been broody x 3 days, per hubby's account. So, today, I set up a broody area for her. It's about 2.5 x 3.5' with a wooden crate for a nest. Room for feed and water. The other hens keep driving her off the other nest, so if she's settled tomorrow afternoon, I'll give her 8 eggs to work on. And of course, I'll set a few in the bator at the same time. Of course, I'll be sure to let hubby know that it's standard procedure to incubate and broodybate at the same time. That way, if either option bombs, the other option can save the day.

I'm loving the way that Jack, my roo keeps order in the flock. He's sometimes a bit of a nincompoop, but... he does try! Today, one of my hens was doing a raised hackle stand off with an uppity cockrel. They finally made contact, and Jack rushed in to settle the dispute. However, he chose to chase the hen instead of the cockrel! Hubby says Jack has been keeping the peace between the cockrels while I've been gone. Can't wait to process them, to cut down the numbers! Egg count down with hot weather and change over to dry food while I was away.

 

[Outpost JWB]

@lazy gardener , you said they had dry food when you were gone. Do you normally give them FF?

 

[donrae]

I'm here, just a couple long days....

Thurs was Big Boy's 16th birthday, so I tried to spend a lot of the day with him. Then Friday we all headed to the coast for the day--how he wanted to celebrate his birthday. Well, we checked the temp and the tides, but not the wind. It was so winds, sand pelting us all over--just not doable. We hung out around the docks a little watching sea lions and basically just killed some time then came home. I felt bad for him, but he got to bring a friend and spend a lot of time with his buddy so he was pretty content.

Then last night I started running a fever. When I was neutropenic, a fever was an emergency and I had to head to the ER asap. Now that I've got some of an immune system, I just couldn't handle waking Honey in the middle of the night and dragging him down there, so I took an ibuprofen and went back to bed. This am I told him about the fever and knew I needed to call my Dr, but kinda drug my feet. When I was working, I would run into patients that would be sick but say " I just don't want to go back to the hospital" and I never understood that......now I sure do! The thought of being hospitalized again just brings me to tears. I finally called my Dr, thankfully my regular guy was on call today

and he asked if I would go to the ED to be checked out. He said my local hospital would be fine and that he really didn't think I'd need to be admitted. So, Honey and I headed down to the ED--everyone's favorite place to hang out on Saturday, apparently

. Lobby was packed and the staff very nicely gave me the "family room" as a clean waiting room so I didn't pick up anything funky.....however they apparently lost me when that happened

They went to the main lobby and called me twice, then decided I'd left. We waited 4 hours before Don was going to run home to check on the boys--he saw the charge nurse to touch base with him and they were so apologetic. got us right to a room and started a work up---three hours later I was released home

. No source of infection found, probably viral, continue to monitor temp and call if it continues to spike.

So, Lazy and I get to have a fluid intake challenge! Are you drinking at least 2 liters a day? Want to bump it to 3? How many times are you getting up to use the bathroom each night

LG, so sorry you got sick, that kind of ruins the trip. Sounds like you had an amazing time before that, though, and it's a wonderful ministry going on there.


JWB, I know LG feed fermented feed. It was probably just too much for her honey to manage while she was gone.

I've been trying ff for the last 7-10 days and think I'm going back to dry feed. I do think they eat less and I may have seen a slight boost in egg production, or the eggs could have been a relief of some of the heat. If production drops when I go back to dry feed, I may continue ff as a supplement, just running a small batch. My issue is I have 5 pens, plus the brooder, and getting each pen fed twice a day is sometimes just more effort than I feel up to. I also feel I need to have things as smooth and efficient as possible for my Honey and boys in case I wind up back in the hospital, and ff is too much to ask them to do in my mind. I'm thinking of making large no-waste feeders for each pen that can be filled with a couple days worth of feed. Getting an auto water system would top things off nicely. I hate to give up the ff as I'm always looking to save $, but my energy just doesn't seem to tolerate it. Plus, having a scare about possibly being sick, I couldn't help but wonder if I'd inhaled some spores or something from the fermentation, and I just don't want to take that risk.

 

[Outpost JWB]

Rachel,

Praying today is a better day for you. What a long day it must've been. Very sorry you had to go through that. Waiting rooms at hospitals....

Here, you don't get seen for HOURS AND HOURS unless you go by way of ambulance. DH had quadruple bypass and 5 days after they sent him home from his week long stay at the hospital he had bad chest pains & could not breathe. It was Saturday and his cardiologist office was not open until Monday. I took him to the ER, waited hours with him in obvious pain. They hooked him up to iv but said they had no rooms yet. 6 hours later, he told them to get the ivs out or he was going to rip them out. He was never seen by a doctor. I was scared to death that he was going to die. They stressed him out more & made his chest hurt worse.

Oh, and sent US a bill!!!



I tired FF for a few months. I didn't see an increase in eggs. There was a slight decrease in food, but I didn't feel my time spent mixing the stuff outweighed the cost of the extra bit of food. I tried to keep it up for the health benefits of the ferment, but it was approaching winter then & that's not feasible in Ohio. I'd like to find a good feeder for that stuff. One you could dump the food & water in and it ferments daily and they eat off of it-gravity type system so what they are eating has already fermented. Problem we have is inclement weather & bugs. I also have several coops/pens which is time consuming in itself.

We almost lost a 2 month old chick yesterday....poor dear. She was lying on the ground and the others were trampling her. DD found her 1st and let the others out to free range. The chick just laid there. DD got her some water & when I went out to see her, the chick was laying/sitting upright but would and could not walk. She was so weak but she was drinking. That group had ran out of water. She sat there for a good 10 minutes. We had to run to the store. When we came back, chick is up and running & we couldn't tell which one it was

 

[sourland]

Rachel, Happy Birthday to BigBoy. Sorry for your little set back, and hope that today is going better. About the FF we do what we have to do. Make life easier for now and go back to the way you really want things once you feel better. I do understand - I am not real patient with my body when I feel that it has 'let me down'. Irrational ? I know.

I flash back to Mom in her late 80's complaining about the aging process. "I can only work 2 or 3 hours and then I have to take a little rest before I can finish my work." My reply, "Mom, be glad for what you can do. Many your age can't work 2 or 3 hours a week."

 

[hbhoffman]

Rachel, because mine are at a friends' house I went with dry too. The feeder & waterer are a 5 gallon square bucket (like the kind from a grocery store bakery). The feed one has a 3" pvc elbow cut on a slight diagonal on one end then put through a hole so that part is about 2" from the bottom of the bucket. About 30 lbs of feed goes into it. It's called a zero gravity no waste feed bucket. It really works! For my 8 hens we put one hole in the bucket. You could put 2 or more depending on the bucket. For water I use the side saddle style chicken nipples. Drill a hole in, dab drop of silicone on, push into hole. There are 2 of those on the side of a bucket about 3" up. Having it a little higher than the bottom allows
1.for any junk to go to the bottom
2. Smaller chicks can use it if placed near the ground.
Having it be a larger bucket meant that it didn't freeze as quickly. At temps. below 20° it took about 24 hours to freeze. I kept it half full and alternated buckets.

 

[ronott1]

Rachel, because mine are at a friends' house I went with dry too. The feeder & waterer are a 5 gallon square bucket (like the kind from a grocery store bakery). The feed one has a 3" pvc elbow cut on a slight diagonal on one end then put through a hole so that part is about 2" from the bottom of the bucket. About 30 lbs of feed goes into it. It's called a zero gravity no waste feed bucket. It really works! For my 8 hens we put one hole in the bucket. You could put 2 or more depending on the bucket. For water I use the side saddle style chicken nipples. Drill a hole in, dab drop of silicone on, push into hole. There are 2 of those on the side of a bucket about 3" up. Having it a little higher than the bottom allows
1.for any junk to go to the bottom
2. Smaller chicks can use it if placed near the ground.
Having it be a larger bucket meant that it didn't freeze as quickly. At temps. below 20° it took about 24 hours to freeze. I kept it half full and alternated buckets.

I am working on one of these feeder buckets today. I have the bucket and a screw on lid. The pvc elbow is more of a problem though. Home Depot here does not carry the pvc version. It would need to be shipped to me or the store. I am going to check Orchard supply and hardware today to see if they carry them.

Fermented feed is very hard to use in my climate. Currently it gets near or over 100 every day. In the winter it gets fairly cold. I did try fermenting but did not notice benefits over using good non GMO feed. Most of the feed has pro biotics in it now so it is a wash I think.

Do not fell bad or that your are not a good chicken owner because you do not ferment the feed. It is not the best way to go for everyone.