***OKIES in the BYC III ***

[mjgigax]

Nana the rhodebars you saw on CL are the same as the new chicks I have. When I saw the listing a wk or so ago I thought it was Joes, but I may be wrong. I love my RIR so when greenfire first announced the rhodebars I instantly fell in love. However, I waited a few months after they began shipping them for the price to go down.
Don't worry about me over doing it in the garden, I have lots of free labor that sleeps here. This yr I will be the garden educator only.
I tried toe punching on one hatch & didn't like it. Imagine if DH would have been home if would have went over better, but with 2 kids thinking I was going cause great harm to their precious birds it was a rough experience. Think our toe punch came from smiths poultry.
The wind today is brutal!!! The family is out stretching fence for the new duck pen - the dogs & goats appeared to be helping. We didn't need a new duck pen, but Taron wanted more room for guineas. Fat ducks that can't fly can live in a chainlink pen. Found 75ft of chainlik link with hardware & gate for $40 on CL. That was all the materials needed to ajoin it to the goat pen. Sometimes I love Craigslist.

Jack toe punches and gave me a punch to use. I have done it a few times and it bothers me a little. I got small, colored rubber leg bands but they can be hard to change out when the birds outgrow them, especially on feather legged birds.

 

[rodriguezpoultry]

You could get a wing bander. SUPER easy to use and it stays with the bird for life.

 

[mjgigax]

Anyone know where one can get some spangled Hambergs? Pat Drew, of the Harrah auction, is looking for some. Also, Jack is looking for a Welsummer rooster. Not young one, he has some of those, but he lost his older rooster that is in with the hens now.

 

[Cjarvis]

Anyone know where one can get some spangled Hambergs? Pat Drew, of the Harrah auction, is looking for some. Also, Jack is looking for a Welsummer rooster. Not young one, he has some of those, but he lost his older rooster that is in with the hens now.

Carla and Jerald had hamburgs.. you might check with them.

 

[clfromok]

HI OKIE BYC'ers,
Wanted to share the surprise I got this morning. One of the new pullets I got from a neighbor, laid her first egg today. A bullet shaped BLUE egg! I'm so tickled!

 

[erinszoo]

Well ... started on a new chicken coop and yard Friday and worked some more on it today. The house is a hexagon 2 story and we're trying to build it out of things we have - recycled pallets, huge branches from a crepe myrtle we had to remove after it died in that horrible freeze from two years ago, and cob and cord wood walls from all the tree branches the neighbors gave when they cut down a pecan tree earlier this year. We'll have to buy new chicken wire and netting for the top. We sunk the floor by 2 feet to help keep it cooler in the summer so the turkeys will get the lower floor and the chickens will be on the upper floor. The biggest challenge will be the green roof we want to do. Anyone else ever built one?

Baby turkeys doing great. They've gained 50% of their birth weight in a week. We put them on straw today and hung their feeder and waterer so they can't scratch in them so much. So far so good. I was nervous about putting them on straw bedding as we've lost some in the past we think from sour crop but this bunch of straw is really long so hopefully they can't swallow it. We've been putting them under a red light at night but man do they scream when we turn out their other light. What a ruckus!!

Kass, that's a LOT of raspberries. My hubby would love to have some raspberries but he's the only one who would eat them so we're compromising and getting blackberries instead. We're looking at getting a thornless one.

I would be enjoying this weather more if 1)I wasn't worried that the temps in July would follow suit and 2) if the stupid wind would let up. The noise of it makes me tired. Glad for the little dampness we got though.

 

[Kassaundra]

With a 2 foot sunken floor how are you going to keep the water out especially in spring?

I would like to get a start of thornless black berries too

 

[erinszoo]

With a 2 foot sunken floor how are you going to keep the water out especially in spring?

I would like to get a start of thornless black berries too

I had that thought as well but our last house was sunk by a foot and we never had a problem in it. The west side of the coop will be earth bermed to help on heat as well so I'm thinking I'll slope the ground away from the sides. Our yard already slopes from west to east so hopefully we can just adjust a little to keep the water from running in. Fingers crossed ... the hole is already dug.

We're looking at getting either Chester or Arapahoe Blackberries, I think. We tried both when they were first bred at the OSU botanical gardens on a field day years ago and have wanted some ever since.

 

[shelbydog]

I've done Arapahoe and another variety of thornless blackberries and had them produce big fruit. Was very happy with them. They got a fungus or something and eventually died a few years ago. I would like to start a new batch of them this year.

 

[Elbert Garrett]

I love Blackberries!

Good morning friends and neighbors! It`s a beautiful morning here in NE Oklahoma, 65°F/18°C, awesome temps for January! I hope y`all have a great day and week ahead! 50 daze until Spring!