***OKIES in the BYC III ***

[mjgigax]

Poco, so sorry to hear of the loss. I can understand snake dreams after that.
Did y'all hear about the new Newcastle "Queen of the Auction" (think 'King of the Lab' from "Bones")?   It is our very own @mjgigax
! Blue is the new black apparently!
Hope that everyone is enjoying the cooler weather!

yes, there were three different parties that really wanted the three Blue Copper Marans hens that I bought to the auction. The final bidder payed 115.00 for each hen! They are nice hens but that is crazy! I had been wishing that maybe they would go as high as 40.00 each since their Blue chicks had been selling well this year. I am getting out of Blue Coppers and will raise Wheaten and Blue Wheaten Marans next year. I will have Lavender Bantam Cochins, Chocolate Orpingtons and Showgirl Silkies next year.

 

[mjgigax]

I went to the doctor early this morning for blood work and creaky joint complaints. Swelling, stiffness, pain, and popping noises now have a name: a torn meniscus. I get to wear a fashionable knee brace and have been told to use ice packs to bring the swelling down. Were my parents falling apart is early? Maybe I just wasn't paying attention. I had a horrible shock when I took the tarp off one of the baby pens (25 cuckoo marans chicks). There was a huge black snake coiled up inside the pen, and there were 20 slimy, dead chicks on the ground. Five were missing, so I assumed they were inside the snake. I used my Samuri shovel and turned the snake into eight uneven pieces. Goodness what a horrible stink! I've never know a snake to smell so bad. One of the little ones make a gasping noise when I was collecting the bodies, so I rushed her into the house and did my best to revive her, but she didn't make it. I hate snakes.

Oh Coral! All of them! I don't know why the snake that killed my chick left after trying to eat only one but I guess I was lucky and I hope the snake I killed a week later was that one. For joint pain I love Salonpas patches. They are better than Icy Hot. They don't cure the problem but sure take the edge off.

 

[mjgigax]

Just got moved into my place this year, late spring, so I didn't get a garden going. The neighbor and I have worked a barter though eggs for vegetables. Think we are both happy which is the basis of a good deal.

The girls reap the reward from the scraps and ends which I've been cooling in the fridge for them to help with the heat. They don't seem to like the peppers though.

my birds love peppers but turn up their noses at strawberries- ? Go figure?

 

[Ironsights]

@Poco Pollo
I'm so sorry about your babies, Coral. That's awful. We all deal with an occasional death, but, to have a bunch all at once, is a terrible loss. Stinky snake, huh? I was always under the impression that it was Copperheads, that had the awful smell to them. I have been told, since moving here (we never dealt with Copperheads in SoCal) that if it smells like something is dead and rotting, and there is nothing dead and rotting, nearby, then, it is likely a Copperhead, nearby. I had no idea that the black snakes did also.
About 1/2 mile from my place, I ran over a timber rattler, last week, pulling my boat. By the time I got stopped and backed up, to shoot the thing, and end its misery from being run over by truck and boat, it had slithered off, into the woods.
It was FAT. Looked like it had just eaten a rabbit or chicken, or something with some girth to it. I was looking forward to skinning the thing. Oh well.

@Ironsights,
Change every day? Yech!! I read that they don't really need a pond, just enough room to douse their head and beak, regularly. Maybe if I just put several 5 gallon buckets in the pen? I wanted to let them free, but, my dogs played a bit hard with one (I'm guessing the duck) because I found a BUNCH of white feathers strewn around the yard, Tuesday morning. The birds are okay, but, if my 1/2 pit bull, 1/4 Rottweiler, 1/4 boxer puppy gets ahold of one, even to play, it will be the end of that bird. So, since they don't seem inclined to flight, in the very large chicken pen, seems the safe place for them. After they get used to it, for a week or so, I will try letting them out, in the daytime, and hope they will go back in, voluntarily, at night. Otherwise, they may be permanent residents, in the pen.

my experience has always been that rat snakes use have a really disgusting smell and copper heads smell like cucumbers. I watch for copperheads in particular since I was 16 and stacking square bales in a barn in southern Kansas. I felt something hit my hay chaps, looked over and it was a copperhead on a bale beside me. He looked really pretty hanging on a hay hook.

 

[margaret8]

I went to put my guineas and peas in their coop last night and there was a 6' long bull snake in the coop! My DH dispatched the snake! That is the 4th snake we have had this year and the biggest!! I pick up the eggs about 5:00 pm so he didn't get any! My guineas were surrounding him and he couldn't go any where! They took a rather dim view of the gun going off in the coop!

 

[BetsyOK]

Nana, I'm interested in the "small peach" that you're preserving. Someone recently brought an ornamental peach to the Sr. Center, asking if it could be used for anything. I have several ornamental peach trees that produce very small peaches that are edible, 'though a tiny bit bitter. Is this what you're referring to? or could your recipe be used with them?

 

[Poco Pollo]

I went to put my guineas and peas in their coop last night and there was a 6' long bull snake in the coop! My DH dispatched the snake! That is the 4th snake we have had this year and the biggest!! I pick up the eggs about 5:00 pm so he didn't get any! My guineas were surrounding him and he couldn't go any where! They took a rather dim view of the gun going off in the coop!

Six feet! That's an enormous snake. I found a snake skin in the shop yesterday. I'm wondering where the owner is. I'd like to find him before he finds the clutch of babies one of my broodies just hatched. She's really good about hiding the babies from me, but there's no way she'll be able to hide them from a snake. I know they eat mice and other pests, but I still think it's too bad snakes aren't sweet-natured herbivores.

 

[Ironsights]

Poco arthroscope is pretty easy, much better than a rebuild. And you can get some "chicken grease" put in,

. Its actually a substance made of rooster combs and sort of fills in the rough spots for a while. I had one dose and it worked really well.

 

[Kassaundra]

Poco, the queen of the teste stealing group, the teacher of teste stealing to countless others across the country, getting rooster combs injected in her knee!!!!!!!

 

[Kassaundra]

@Adorkable how did your chick w/ the hernia do?