***OKIES in the BYC III ***

[Poco Pollo]

Evening Okies,

Just caught up reading posts. I think the Okie thread is picking up speed again. We're having PT conferences this week. It's hard to believe we've had kids in the classroom over four weeks.

My capons are growing fast. They love fermented grain, and the grasshoppers are still thick in the grass, so I expect them to continue to fill out this fall. Thanksgiving and Christmas will be my target dates to sell the largest groups. Chase, if you're lurking, there will be three plucked and bagged for you : ) for helping me fill my brooder.

 

[bardies]

We have spent four hours last night in the dark looking for a first calf heifer that's was having a lengthy delivery. She kept running back to her chosen spot or into the pond or hid in a brush pile when we tried to move her to the barn lot where we had equipment to pull the calf. She was showing a lot of blood and we knew we had to get her up and try to help her. At 11:30 pm we finally got her to follow the other cows from the back forty thru the gate and then up to the barn...or so we thought. In the dark we lost her in the Johnson grass along the way. We searched both forty acre sections with two vehicles but she was too well hid. At 1 am, we called off the search until daylight.
This morning, we searched the back forty, thinking she had to have returned to her chosen spot. When we didn't find her there, we searched the front forty. We just knew she had either bled out or had a dead calf that she could not deliver and we would have to load her out to the vet. Well, Lo and behold! we found her and her calf nestled down in a huge section of very tall Johnson grass...both just fine and the calf had suckled and was still a little damp. We have checked on them several times today and both are doing great.

Chicks and mommas are doing great also. Have six hens broody but only two are sitting on eggs. The grasshoppers brigade has expended their extermination to the front and side yards as well as the livestock lot in front of the barn and the front forty to the south of the house and the hay lot to the east....we still have huge grasshoppers! Thousands of them!

Worked a bit in the garden today and then mowed around the boxes. Looks a whole lot cleaner. the boys have been moving hay from a pasture they cut in Prague and from pastures a friend has cut. With the drought still on-going, we are buying hay to be ahead for a while. We fed over 600 bale last winter and will need at least that again.

So very glad to hear about the 'new' pair! We had a cow deliver about a month early ... I had taken her in thinking there was an issue only to find that she had already delivered (like a day or two earlier). We looked for hours for something, anything.... Never did find the calf or remnants. I know in my heart that cows can be depressed. Poor thing...

 

[Kassaundra]

I'm going to process 4 of the slips tomorrow. I've never done 4 at one time, and I am going to try and pluck since they are all NN instead of skinning. The new crew are growing up it will just be another 2 ish weeks I think and they will be ready to caponize, I'm going to try them younger this time and hopefully get both "jewels" w/ one cut.


Mj, I don't know of any dietary fix for bursitis, that is more of an inflammation process so maybe an anti-imflamatory diet, I forget what all is on the no no list for that but you could google it. Diet works well on gout b/c it is caused by a build of a uric acid in the joints that comes from food.

 

[NanaKat]

Just came in from checking a cow in labor in the lot. It is her first calf and she has been in hard labor since about 7 pm. Feet presented at 10 pm. The calf is now standing and they are doing the circle dance until she decides to hold still for the calf to nurse. Her maternal instincts are good, she is mooing to the calf to bond with it, nuzzling it to encourage it the stand and has been licking it to dry it off.

 

[PeasChisGuis]

Does anyone have a Buff bantam rooster for sale or a trio?
I have a friend that is looking for a gentle Buff bantam rooster or trio, maybe of the Cochin persuasion.
Needs to be in Oklahoma please

Thank you

 

[ChknObssd]

POOPS was in Newcastle this year and Choctaw last year.


Are you not concerned about a LF Barred Rock rooster breeding your bantam pullets? The size difference could cause problems for your little ladies.

I wasnt no...but I also didnt realize that I had bantams. I thought that they were going to grow to regular sized chickens. Now I dont know what to do. I have had such bad luck getting chickens/pullets and now I finally have 5 and 2 of them are super small. ugh :/

 

[Kassaundra]

Two goals for today, 1) turn 4 roos into food, done. Next 2) clean the kitchen, guess I'll try and tackle that after I get something to eat, just not chicken!

 

[dandrews1971]

I have the opposite issue. I have a little bantam roo that actually gets my big white rocks down & goes to town. I have to say IM quite impressed!!!
That would make for some interesting babies!

 

[erinszoo]

Two goals for today, 1) turn 4 roos into food, done. Next 2) clean the kitchen, guess I'll try and tackle that after I get something to eat, just not chicken!

I have to agree. The last thing I want to eat on processing days is CHICKEN. Lol.

We ended up with two goats. They're Boer goats but we're thinking they've been cross bred with something else because they are pretty small for five months old. They might weigh 50 lbs each at this point. The boy isn't colored right for a Boer either. He's a khaki tan color with a darker line down his back.

He's already eating us out of house and home, too. We haven't found anything he won't eat. Cabbage, carrots, broccoli, apples, soaked grain (what's left from the chickens and turkeys), cantaloupe, crab grass, bermuda grass, leaves, sticks, etc ... The chickens aren't very happy about it and have already figured out how to steal what he's eating on.

I'm pretty darn sure they have a much better home now. They had been left out in a pasture without any contact with humans for most of their lives. Pretty sad. Plus I'm pretty sure they were eating whatever they could find without anything else. Oh well, they'll be spoiled at our house. The little girl Artemisia climbed into an area we keep seperated off in the chicken house so the turkeys can't get into it. The chickens like to lay their eggs in there and one was sitting on the nest when Artemisia just climbed in and laid down and watched. Of course she couldn't get back out again so we had to pick her up.

Then both of them decided that it would be fun to explore the garage when my daughter (ahem) left the door open to the coop. (The coop is half of our old garage.) Luckily they were well behaved and went back in the coop when we moved them that way.

It's going to be a long fun winter with these two added to the flock!

 

[OKchkman]

Alright so here's a pic of the cabinet thing I'm gonna convert to a chicken house...


It is almost 4' tall, 80" wide and 2' deep. There's gonna have to be worked over, but I'll keep pics of what I do. My wife and I are beginning our discussion of ideas. Plus, we talked this morning about getting about 6 more chickens next spring.