***OKIES in the BYC III ***

[mjgigax]

Buster52 you are a librarian? Me too. Good times. Sorry about your collection. When space is in short supply weeding older stuff is hard. We a pretty big place but even we can't archive or keep in storage everything we want. I know that LOC and most academic libraries do a good job of that. Land grant university like OSU keep a lot of good ag stuff. the EBSCO Databases keep a bunch of stuff too.
Access is the issue. Most of our customers would rather sit down with a paper copy, a cup of coffee and some chickens clucking contentedly in the background. i know I would.

Oh, Yes!
"THere is more to life than increasing its speed." - Mahatma Gandhi

 

[MacGuyver]

I never had that breed. I was just saying you clip duck wings just like you do chickens. I have only had Mallards in the past. Even they didn't fly away when I stopped clipping the wings.

Ah, I understand. Thanks for clarifying.

 

[emach0301]

Hi everyone, I have to share with you that I got my first couple of eggs yesterday! I am so excited! I am hoping they have more for me when I get home today! I am such a proud chicken mommy!

 

[our 5acre farm]

congrats

 

[MacGuyver]

I would think both would be a problem actually.

Both would be a problem if they both happened, but they don't. Antibiotics aren't like narcotics, they don't work by having a direct effect on the person or animal taking them, they target the microbe. So, you can't build up a tolerance to antibiotics like you can to painkillers or something. We get most of our antibiotics from funguses, like Penicillin from moldy bread because bacteria and fungi have been locked in evolutionary warfare for millions of years. They compete for resources and try to kill each other off by secreting various chemicals. The weak ones die, but the survivors are able to share DNA, and they develop methods of resisting the last method their enemy used. What happens in antibiotic resistance is that we use an antibiotic, but we use less than it takes to actually kill the bacteria. The ones that survived are able to share that resistance with all the others, and the next time you use that same antibiotic it won't affect the bacteria that have resistance. This is a problem when people get a prescription from their doctor and they stop taking it when they start to feel better, or when they take antibiotics for a viral infection. (Viruses can't be killed by antibiotics.) The huge problem that no one seems willing to confront though, is antibiotics in agriculture. Most antibiotics are used in subtherapeutic doses to increase weight gain, so, all of the salmonellas, e. coli, and everything else you can think of is swimming in low level antibiotic soup all day long, just passing around resistance to it like they were trading Pokemon cards or something. Then if a human gets sick from that bacteria it can't be killed with any related antibiotics. So we end up throwing hugely dangerous antibiotics at it like Vancomycin. Here's a decent paper on it. Some of the better ones are only accessible if you have privileges with a medical research library. http://www.aphis.usda.gov/animal_health/emergingissues/downloads/antiresist2007update.pdf

 

[jcatblum]

Thought I would do a fast "chicken" table cloth for DD eggs display. Serged 2 sides then my lovely serger ate the other side. Broke 2 threads. Tried my best to fix the serger, but it will have to wait until DH has time to look @ it. When the serger is working well it's amazing. All other times it is awful!

Doubt we will make the Blanchard sale. DH says he is coming home Friday after work & should be home for the weekend.

Cathie I understand on the corn taking up valuable space. DH is from Iowa so corn is a must. Plus most roadside corn is grown with cheap seed. I know sounds crazy, but the variety I plant is Sweetie 82-- takes 82 days to grow, but it has a HIGH sugar content & will stay fresh for 10 days after it is picked. I love heirloom seed for my tomatoes, but older corn varieties are only sweet for a few hours after you pick them then the sugar starts turning to starch very quickly. The seed I used I couldnt afford to sell the corn. It was $16lb, but will be so yummy if we get a good harvest & I will have a whole deep freeze of corn!!!

 

[Ksane]

i have not really sexed my little babies yet i have light brahama's got the eggs from banjoe. will feather sex them with the help of ellie. I was going by the males generally get the most color in the bird world. I have one chick that is yellow but has grayish black on it. the other three are all yellow and i just love love love there feathered feet. Two of the chicks still had not hatched from last night to this morning so upon helping them i found that there was no chance for them. Both had gastroskiesious( there intestines formed out side there bodies). Joe my blue red laced wyndottes and gold laced cochins are set to hatch on the 16th. I will let you know how it turns out.

Oh, I thought you had some new-fangled way to sex Brahmas

. Feather sexing only works on specific breeds and Brahmas aren't one of them. With Cochins the males grow their secondary wing feathers so super slow they look bald while the girls look feathered out but that's not technically 'feather-sexing' (which is comparing lengths between primary and secondary feathers). I don't know how to sex Light Brahmas but with Darks you have to wait until their wing feathers start growing in around 3 wks before you can tell.
About the ones you helped-that was probably their un-absorbed yolk sac and not their intestines. The 1st time I saw it I thought it was their intestines also. But it basically means they died in the shell for one reason or another and didn't get a chance to absorb their yolk.
I can't wait to see what you get with the Gold Laced Cochins!! I bought eggs from Arizona, had 15 Silver & Gold Laced LF Cochin eggs and out of that batch I have only 2 Gold Laced chicks to show for it. Thankfully they're both girls.

Been using DE in the coop since we built the chicken sauna. It hasn't seemed to help the roaches or the mites since I have both. I will try the boric acid. I know it helped when my mother lived in an apartment. Thanks

Hi everyone, I have to share with you that I got my first couple of eggs yesterday! I am so excited! I am hoping they have more for me when I get home today! I am such a proud chicken mommy!

I remember my 1st eggs from my favorite girls. I still have them saved.
Congrats!

 

[Poco Pollo]

thanks for the hatch update i hope they all do well

it sounds like you have fertale eggs that start to develop but dont hatch is this right ? there are lots of resons why this is happening but temp could be one of them i have notice that the bantam eggs seame to handel temp changes a littel better tham LF any way i hope you get all the kinks worked out and start having the hatches you whant

Thanks Joe,

I have two egg-o-meters in my incubator at all times. They store the high and low temperature so I can check to see if we have had power outages or problems with maintaining heat unrelated to electricity. So far, the temperature and humidity have been darn close to perfect for the hatches that didn't work out, so there's a problem I haven't identified yet. I'm going to eliminate surface contaminants as one possible problem after I remove the eggs from this last hatch. The space under a hen is not sterile, so I know some bacteria and surface yuck will not prevent eggs from hatching. I'm going to replace my wicks and the water tray in addition to disinfecting the walls, racks, trays, and screens. I've got pens producing fertile eggs (as witnessed every time I fry eggs from those pens), so I will set another clutch after I've made the incubator changes to see if the problem has been solved. Any thoughts about using a cabinet door with a glass insert for the front of my Sportsman? Waiting and wondering what's hatching is agonizing. I may just break down and order a glass door from G.Q.F.

 

[Greybear23]

Morning all, I got eggs to deliver today so talk to everyone later, have a great day!!! Lynn

 

[Poco Pollo]

Coral have you had humidity issues in the house since the basement flood? That could influence your hatches. This season I have done dry incubation & most hatches have gone well. Last yr it was so dry I had to work to keep the humidity up.
Our last hatch goes on lock down Sunday then I plan on bubble wrapping both sportsmans & the hatcher -- they will be stored in the shed until spring. We will keep the brinsea Eco out for any eggs we NEED to incubate.
My guineas have just about stopped laying. They are hating this heat. We are string about 1/3 of the chicken eggs we use too.
Kass I haven't pruned any other tomatoes yet, a few from last wk have began rooting. I need to prun more but life is busy! I did manage to plant 3 lbs of corn seed this AM while the kids picked for market tomorrow. I will go back out this evening & pick tomatoes & maybe a few other things. Forgot to look & see if the greenbeans we planting last wk were germinating.
Buster if they are going to send those magazines to the sale you should request they list them on eBay. Might as well get all you can out of them!

jcat,

I thought about that, but my hygrometer tells me otherwise. Actually, it could be broken and giving me a false reading. . . Hadn't thought of that. We have dehumidifiers running in one room in the basement (south west corner) where there is still a hint of moisture, but everything else is dry and free from bacteria and mold. We've had all the walls, floors, and ceiling tiles sprayed with fungicide and some other cide twice since the Big Flood. My hatching problems may be related to what you're describing in a sneaky way: If the humidity invaded my incubator, depositing mold or fungus after the basement flooded, I would have been oblivious to the possibility at the time. That's my primary reason for disinfecting every surface now, before I set any more eggs. I could have been incubating mold and fungi along with the last three hatches. Makes me feel like a complete dolt. I know I told our girls a million times as they were growing up, "Just because it looks clean and smells clean doesn't mean it's clean." They usually rolled their eyes and signed heavily, but now they both say the same thing to their kids when making sure they're practicing good hygiene.