***OKIES in the BYC III ***

[Ksane]

Haha! Yea, I haven't mastered the whole "selling" of poultry yet. But I'm getting real good at the whole "poultry buying" thing lol

 

[mefordz]

What Day in June is the NEOCS? I may be able to hold madison's birds till then, but really need some space..

if you can throw em in something send with oakridges husband to me and i will take them the rest of the way.

if you have extra shipping boxxes you could load themin, we can get em back to you sometime mabey pretty quick, just make sure you can spare them for a little while.

 

[okracefan]

This thread sure is hard to keep up with-- miss two days and I'm about 200 posts behind! I didn't read everything, but I sure do enjoy following everyone on here.

Okieridge, I hope you catch your snake. Tell that varmint that those eggs have my name on them and I'm not willing to share! LOl I really appreciated the eggs the other day. They are in the incubator and on their way. I got a new (to me) incubator Thurs. and am anxious to fill it up. It has a 216 egg capacity and is miles ahead of those little styrofoam jobs I've been using. But, the good thing is that I've figured them out to the point of getting about a 90% hatch rate with good eggs, so this new one should be a cakewalk.

Went to the sale at Perkins yesterday and it was pretty sad. Chicks were only bringing from about $.30 to $1.25 for bigger ones fully feathered for standard breeds like barred rocks or rhode island reds. Marans brought a fair amount, but not nearly what I've seen them sell for. Big roosters only brought between $1 and $3.50. It was not a good day to sell.

I came home to 29 out of 31 eggs hatched in the little incubator. I had two of my grandkids here this weekend and they were so excited to get to see baby chicks hatching. My granddaughter would go check about every 20 min. Friday evening and she would come out excited that another one had zipped or hatched out. She learned some chicken terminology this weekend and my 6 yr. old grandson told me he is going to be a chicken farmer when he gets big.

Something got into one of pens last night and killed 8 of my youngsters. One of them was completely torn apart, but the rest were all intact. When I went out this morning I thought the rain had did them in because there were a couple laying out in the pen. But, when I checked in their little coop, there about 5 in there and that's where the torn up one was. The opening into their "box" is only about 6 or 8", so it couldn't have been anything big. Of course, whatever it was got some of my best LF cochin chicks. I had one that was a beautiful dark blue and its feathers were all laced almost black. Prettiest blue cochin I've ever seen and it was definitely slated for the breeding pen. Of course, it was one I lost. I felt like sitting down and crying, but tears have never solved anything that I could see. I just can't figure out what it could have been. All of my pens are inside a bigger enclosure with 6' chainlink fencing with solid metal sheeting around the bottom. I have shade cloth over the top, but I guess whatever it was could have climbed over and squeezed between it and the fence. I just don't know what would have torn only one up like that and left the rest. I am totally bummed right now, at any rate. I guess now I'm in the market for more blue and black cochins. .

Sorry to hear about your loss. I lost LF Lavender Cochins last fall due to my neighbors dogs so I hot wired my pen. Ran a line about 8" off the ground and another one abut 12" above that one so if anything tried to climb it would get bit.

I am going to get a LF Black Roo to put with my Splash girls and see what colors I get out of them. I am hopping to get some Blue's and Lav's. What colors do you have?

 

[tgperg]

First big storm came since I put the bantams in the ark. They all stayed nice and dry up under the roof even with all the driving wind, rain and hail.

 

[tgperg]

Finished my brooder yesterday. Well, last night, really. Yep, I'm a wild child, party animal, up till ten pm every weekend building chicken pens!

It's 7 feet by 4 feet. I built it out of a shipping pallet that our neighbors gave me. They put a ginormous stained glass window in their bathroom when they did a remodel. (Personally, I like my brooder better than their stained glass window, but to each their own, right?) It's sitting on a base that I made out of 4x4 redwood posts and 2x8 lumber left over from another project. My husband and I built a loft bed when we lived in our last house, but it wouldn't fit in our new house because the ceiling is lower. So, we had to cut off the legs and make a platform bed. Anyway, those pieces were just laying around and I used them to make this table. I put plastic sheeting underneath the brooder and it slants from the sides to the middle, and from left to right so the poop falls through the hardware cloth and rolls down into the bucket on the right. (I hate changing litter. Hates it!)



There are three sections in the brooder. My guinea keets are in one.



My Dominiques are in another. The third section is empty waiting for the chicks that are due to hatch today.

 

[Ksane]

TGPerg-you ARE McGuyver! I know you are! That's an awesome brooder! I love it )
How long do you all normally keep chicks inside anyway? 6 wks?

 

[Oceanseve]

Finished my brooder yesterday. Well, last night, really. Yep, I'm a wild child, party animal, up till ten pm every weekend building chicken pens!

It's 7 feet by 4 feet. I built it out of a shipping pallet that our neighbors gave me. They put a ginormous stained glass window in their bathroom when they did a remodel. (Personally, I like my brooder better than their stained glass window, but to each their own, right?) It's sitting on a base that I made out of 4x4 redwood posts and 2x8 lumber left over from another project. My husband and I built a loft bed when we lived in our last house, but it wouldn't fit in our new house because the ceiling is lower. So, we had to cut off the legs and make a platform bed. Anyway, those pieces were just laying around and I used them to make this table. I put plastic sheeting underneath the brooder and it slants from the sides to the middle, and from left to right so the poop falls through the hardware cloth and rolls down into the bucket on the right. (I hate changing litter. Hates it!)



There are three sections in the brooder. My guinea keets are in one.



My Dominiques are in another. The third section is empty waiting for the chicks that are due to hatch today.

That is a great looking brooder

 

[tgperg]

TGPerg-you ARE McGuyver! I know you are! That's an awesome brooder! I love it )
How long do you all normally keep chicks inside anyway? 6 wks?

Thanks! This is new to me. Last year I let broody hens hatch them and keep them with them outside and I lost almost all my chicks and the broody to predators. I'll probably overcompensate this year and keep them inside till they're eight or ten weeks old. I am going to use electric poultry net to deter ground based predators, but I still don't want them to end up as to-go meals for the frickin' hawks.

 

[tgperg]

That is a great looking brooder

Thank you!

 

[tgperg]

TGPerg-you ARE McGuyver! I know you are! That's an awesome brooder! I love it )
How long do you all normally keep chicks inside anyway? 6 wks?

Ha! I just like building stuff. Here's the loft bed. I had to take the ceiling fan down because it was too high.



I built our dining room table too.



Then I scrounged some old desk parts from a private school that closed down and threw stuff out. Bought a recycled door at Habitat for Humanity and made a new desk.



Next on my project list is finishing the new coop, building a bookshelf for our bedroom, and building a half-scale TARDIS cat tree.