***OKIES in the BYC III ***

[Oakieridge]

Cathie do you offer your free range birds food at all? I say only feed them in the coop at night. They will come in. If we go outside anytime after 4 the free range birds come asking for dinner. We have a few guineas that even peck at the patio door. We have noticeably lost 2 guineas this wk, one was injured & in 2 days it disappeared, the other we found tore up. And these are guineas that go in at night.
I began seeing owls about dusk, they don't wait till dark here.
We have been seeing baby grasshoppers for about 2 wks-- insane! Their favorite food last yr was okra, wonder if I should plant an okra patch way away from the garden?

CNN news headline states price of chicken flocks record high.

Generally no I don't feed them, sometimes we will offer a sprinkle of feed in the yard while we feed all the pens because that keeps them from trying to eat from the buckets we are using to get feed to the other birds in, lol. BUT they do forage in the compost pile ALOT so I think I need to fence that off from them. We are going to try again tonight, I really hope we can get them in the pen before it gets dusk. But alot of times I get home and ask if birds are put up and get a blank look from the 15 year old,grrrr. I haven't seen grasshoppers yet but finding that tick yesterday brought the reality of this summer home real fast. Not sure I will put a garden in this year. I have worked myself crazy the last two years and got maybe a handfull of veggies for my efforts. We have been buying most of our fruits, veggies and bread from Bountifulbaskets.org lately and it is really paying off. So I may just keep doing that, lol.

 

[jcatblum]

Cathie I imagine if the guineas come for buckets of feed you should be able to transition them to coming in for a treat. But I know it is hard to train them while you are at work. We use old mayo or similar containers, just shake them & call. I use to have a call that I used, but once I got sick they transitioned to Tarons call quickly.
I have considered ordering from bountiful baskets, but that means I would have to leave the house to pick it up.

 

[audiomilk]

Still looking for a Welsummer rooster, can anyone help?

 

[Oakieridge]

Cathie I imagine if the guineas come for buckets of feed you should be able to transition them to coming in for a treat. But I know it is hard to train them while you are at work. We use old mayo or similar containers, just shake them & call. I use to have a call that I used, but once I got sick they transitioned to Tarons call quickly.
I have considered ordering from bountiful baskets, but that means I would have to leave the house to pick it up.

I am going to work with the guineas this weekend and see if I can't get them into the swing of coming into the coop. If you do order a Bountiful Basket (we didn't order this week since we have so many apples and what not from the last 4 weeks) you can get someone else to pick up your basket if you need to. They just have to have a copy of your order they send you in email. It can be on their phone or an actual printed copy.

 

[mjgigax]

Generally no I don't feed them, sometimes we will offer a sprinkle of feed in the yard while we feed all the pens because that keeps them from trying to eat from the buckets we are using to get feed to the other birds in, lol. BUT they do forage in the compost pile ALOT so I think I need to fence that off from them. We are going to try again tonight, I really hope we can get them in the pen before it gets dusk. But alot of times I get home and ask if birds are put up and get a blank look from the 15 year old,grrrr. I haven't seen grasshoppers yet but finding that tick yesterday brought the reality of this summer home real fast. Not sure I will put a garden in this year. I have worked myself crazy the last two years and got maybe a handfull of veggies for my efforts. We have been buying most of our fruits, veggies and bread from Bountifulbaskets.org lately and it is really paying off. So I may just keep doing that, lol.

Why don't you want your birds in the compost? there was a BYC article about chickens foraging in compost piles. One benefit was that they turned over the layers when they scratch and the helps speed up decomposition.

 

[mjgigax]

Still looking for a Welsummer rooster, can anyone help?

So is my neighbor. He has some young ones coming up but lost his mature roo last week.

 

[BetsyOK]

Cathie, do you have some way to separate your birds within the pen so that you can leave the outside door open for awhile? If you can get one or several of the guineas into an inner chamber, the others will eventually come in the outer one and you can shut them in. If you'll start by feeding them a treat about the same time every evening, with a call of some sort, as already suggested, they'll get used to that. After you get them all in, you'll need to keep them penned up completely for maybe two weeks or a bit more to get them used to this being their "safe" place and the place they go every evening for treats and bedtime. If you have perches as high as possible for them--mine are about 6' above ground--they'll take to that fairly quickly. Once they get this pattern going, it is generally pretty easy to get them in each evening. I've retrained a flock of birds that were several years old, and though it took awhile to get the wiley old male in, once they got established, they continued to come in every evening.

However, once they start nesting outside their safe pen, you'll have to be vigilant to keep the hens from being taken off the nest by predators; often the very first night they start brooding the eggs.

 

[spunkychickenmomma]

A few pics from last week...
Colored egg layers doing what they do best!

Cutest chick ever! Barred rock x banty buff brahma cross.

Juvenile Cream Legbar Roo

Juvenile Isbar roo

Beautiful easter egger roo in the making


Barred Naked Necks in the bator due to hatch in the next few days! Super excited!!

 

[rodriguezpoultry]

Please pray for us guys...we just put an application on a house to rent. It would be absolutely perfect for us.

 

[erinszoo]

I'm with you all. Love the warmth, but scared it will be boiling in the summer. Also, if we don't get hard freezes then none of the bugs die off.
It will be a buggy buggy summer.

Yep, I found a squash bug in my greenhouse today!

It's January and I don't have any squash planted except in my seed flats that are just coming up. Jeepers. My chickens were happy to dispose of it for me, however, if I let them in the greenhouse they will also help me dispose of all my lettuce, spinach, kale, and broccoli rabe that's growing too. Hmm???