Our introduction to keeping chickens, the high's, the lows and pics of our journey.

[Fancychooklady]

Did your grandmother ever tell you never to go out without undies on, mine did. When I was airlifted to the hospital with the handle bars impailed in the top of my thigh I was wearing thick Lycra bike tights, didn't see any need for knickers. That was until the paramedic started cutting my bike pants off so the SES could get a better look at the Impailment . I was mortified! Thankfully the morphein kicked in not long after that. Should have listened to my grandma!

 

[vehve]

Fancy, bikepants are meant to be worn commando. I have a pair that can only be described "not decent". They're fine on the bike, but once I hop off, everyone is greeted to a view of things that normally aren't supposed to be displayed publically outside a sauna. Would of been nice to know they're see through before, say, the tenth time using them. Explains a few looks in the elevator, thanks honey.

Ben, you just have to own the look. Hobo couture.

And Uggs. Ugh. Why do people think they are appropriate for finnish winter? People pay 300 euros for a pair of glorified slippers, only to slip and break an arm. And the 'shoes' do get pretty rough looking when used in wet weather. Uggs were probably fine before the hipsters found them, now you get exposed to things like a grown, overweight man sporting a turqoise oncie and uggs. Gaah.

 

[Bens-Hens]

I love my ugg, but they have their place..in my living room.

Well, another turn in our adventure.

Sal was off the nest again this afternoon, for longer than expected. I stuck her back in the coop and she just walked back out. Been off about half hour before I decided not to risk much longer. I put the eggs into the standby incubator and put fake eggs back in her nest box.

Half hour later she was still out walking around. I don't know how she feels about being a mum now, but at least the eggs are warm. If she goes back to doing a good job she can have some day olds, if not we will raise them in the brooder box in my office.

Just going to have to see how this goes from here. We so wanted her to do all the work too hahahaha.

I did get some pics to upload later too, need cable first.

 

[vehve]

I love my ugg, but they have their place..in my living room.

Well, another turn in our adventure.

Sal was off the nest again this afternoon, for longer than expected. I stuck her back in the coop and she just walked back out. Been off about half hour before I decided not to risk much longer. I put the eggs into the standby incubator and put fake eggs back in her nest box.

Half hour later she was still out walking around. I don't know how she feels about being a mum now, but at least the eggs are warm. If she goes back to doing a good job she can have some day olds, if not we will raise them in the brooder box in my office.

Just going to have to see how this goes from here. We so wanted her to do all the work too hahahaha.

I did get some pics to upload later too, need cable first.

Well, let's hope she's up for the challenge of raising them even though she doesn't want to hatch them.

Are you taking pics with your phone or a camera? You could look into some cloud service. I'm using OneDrive, I can take pictures and once the phone is connected to wifi, it automatically uploads them to cloud storage, and also my laptop. Only annoying part is that it doesn't want to upload full resolution images automatically over mobile data. Newer cameras have cloud functions too, but I'm not willing to update my DSLR just for that feature.

By the way, I did the chase the chicken dance this morning again. Forgot to fill their water bucket when I cleaned the run, and only noticed it after I had let them out of the coop. It is of course not possible to open the run without having a wave of poultry wash over your feet and spread around the yard. I was running around the coop with a rake in my hand for 15 minutes again, trying to herd them in. I'm really considering building that chicken funnel.

 

[Bens-Hens]

The other method which I have employed is the 'two rake method' It's the same as the single rake version you used.....but twice as wide!

I mostly use my phone for pics as it's nearly always with me. I don't use cloud tech.....I know it's handy but I am just not a fan of sharing everything to that level.

So, Sal went back to the wrong nest at dusk, she would have been off her eggs for well over an hour. Only the second time I have seen her off at that time of day and last time was because she was dragged off. Glad I had the back up running.

Day 9, After dark I candled (with fresh batteries) the remaining 8 and removed 4 clears and opened them up to find no blood rings or early development. Three of the last four are going great guns with pretty solid development, but there is still a question mark over the last Coro.

Remaining, 1x silkie, 2x BLRW, 1 Coro(?)

So those pics...

Sal...before.


Summer and her quite large wattles coming in to find a quiet nest to lay in.


Rosie and her "What have you done with my daughters' look.


Our 'not so' Olive.


The original Black and yellow passionfruit vines, just about due another prune.


A yellow's fruit.


Marrie the Maran forming a new trench.


Luna has not laid for a couple of days....gone pale in the face, expecting her to start her molt anyday now.


While Cleo the LS is nearly finished hers. Still not laying but has a tail again!


The naughty corner. Since we don't have fertile eggs in the coop now I let them back in with the flock at bedtime.

 

[vehve]

Ben, Olive is really pretty, but what has happened to her comb? Rosie looks like a caring hen. The inhabitants of the naughty corner resemble our mutt cockerels a lot, although now they have started to show some gold around their necks, radiating towards the hind part of them.

I would not recognize that as a passionfruit. The one's you get here are all shriveled up, like this:

My first guess on yours would have been "weird mango". Most imported fruits are picked raw so that they can be transported here, so we sort of miss out on the proper taste experience.

It would be lovely to be able to grow fruit here, but due to our climate the only things that can be grown are apples (boring), cherries (yuck), plums (I'm not 70 yet) and pears (badly). We have more luck with berries and stuff that grow on bushes, and because they grow slowly, they often taste a lot better than in other countries. I've never had better strawberries than the ones grown in Finland. Everywhere else they taste watery to me, same with (bush grown) blueberries. Wild blueberries we have an overabundance of here, only about 4% are picked annually. And raspberry bushes seem to be taking over our yard, so I'm hoping for a rich harvest. The blueberries that have started developing in our yard are all eaten horribly raw by the chickens. And if any of them are allowed to ripen, the dogs will eat them. Luckily the forest is full of them, I just have to convince Karin to go pick a cubic meter of them to freeze for winter. Usually she just prefers to pick mushrooms by the bucketload, which neither of us eat. So we're just giving away mushrooms to people in fall. I can't understand why the same energy can't be used on picking blueberries, which both of us find delicious.

*Edit* Oh an Ben, I actually tried the more advanced "rake and a brush" method, but it was completely useless. I'm contemplating a large funnel shaped net structure leading into the run, with a sign that says "Free corn" on top. Those little cluckers go bat-**** crazy for the stuff. But if I just throw it in the run, they keep slamming into the net, so I still have to chase them. Of course they can't try the door, because it's loads more fun running into hardware cloth repeatedly. The term "bird brain" truly is based in truth.

*Edit #2* Apparently I used a bad word, which seems to be censored by the forum. I apologize for almost exposing you to the horrors of using a word for an evil jedi with the h jumping back a bit. But somehow "bat-poop" crazy looses something... guano or feces don't really work either.

 

[Bens-Hens]

This forum is very G rated, understandable considering the amount of younger kids often asking questions.

Olive has a Pea comb, she is our home grown attempt at an 'Olive Egger' A cross between our former Lavender Araucana 'Smudge' and our current Barnevelder 'Curly' A first generation cross of dark layer with a blue egg rooster. Everything went perfect except the olive shell bit!

Our Black passionfruit (on the left) is just like the picture you posted, fruits in Spring, the Golden version on the right fruits late autumn to winter and looks as below. Will probably still shrivel up to a degree as it's supposed to be sweetest then.


Have you tried to make acorn trail for the flock..kind of like the ET scene where the boy uses Reese's Pieces to lead ET into the forest? Other than that, you could find a nice dry seed scratch mix and put it in a bright coloured tub. When you want them in, shake and call from inside the coop, share the treats and they will soon come running back in. Our's go nuts for black sunflower seeds, one shake of that tub and you have everyone's attention!

 

[vehve]

This forum is very G rated, understandable considering the amount of younger kids often asking questions.

Olive has a Pea comb, she is our home grown attempt at an 'Olive Egger' A cross between our former Lavender Araucana 'Smudge' and our current Barnevelder 'Curly' A first generation cross of dark layer with a blue egg rooster. Everything went perfect except the olive shell bit!

Our Black passionfruit (on the left) is just like the picture you posted, fruits in Spring, the Golden version on the right fruits late autumn to winter and looks as below. Will probably still shrivel up to a degree as it's supposed to be sweetest then.


Have you tried to make acorn trail for the flock..kind of like the ET scene where the boy uses Reese's Pieces to lead ET into the forest? Other than that, you could find a nice dry seed scratch mix and put it in a bright coloured tub. When you want them in, shake and call from inside the coop, share the treats and they will soon come running back in. Our's go nuts for black sunflower seeds, one shake of that tub and you have everyone's attention!

You joke, but you should of seen me placing single sweet corn kernels on the ground in a line trying to lure the last Alho in a couple of days ago... Maybe I should get a hold of some sunflower seeds. I keep reading about black sunflower seeds in the forums, is there some other kind I should be careful with? The ones sold here are usually black and white, slightly striped. I'm not sure if the seeds would work very well though, our girls could care less when we throw them oats. Somehow, the blueberry bushes are more interesting. I think we give them too good leftovers, spoiled little brats they are.

I'm hoping our mutt pullet will produce some olive colored eggs. The cockerel was a Marans, and the egg she came in was a blue color, pretty light, but still clearly blue. I'm also hoping the pure Marans pullet got proper chocolate egg genes. She came in a slightly darker than average brown egg, which had some intense dark brown spots all over.

I learned to curse at age 6 or 7, I knew some pretty bad words already at that age. I also learned when to use the bad words (or more so when not to). I personally believe that at the age a child is able to operate a computer decently enough to get this far, he or she should have a grasp of reading situations as well. But these are again my uninformed and unconventional views and opinions on childcare, mental development in adolescents, and discipline. I probably can't mention a female dog here either, I'm guessing. In some situations it's funny when you censor something that isn't dirty at all, I saw some American late night show where they had taken something like Obama addressing the state of the union and put loads of bleeps over it. Made it pretty funny to watch.

On age restrictions on movies and TV, when I grew up K-15 meant that you could show genitals at a glance. For some reason it's always male genitalia in Finnish movies though. That, and topless females. Nowadays they've raised the limit to 16.

 

[cwrite]

I quite like the g-ratedness of the site - it's a breath of fresh air compared to what you get on most social network sites. As for that rating Vehve - WOW!
I'm also used to the more wrinkled variety of passionfruit, or granadilla as I knew them growing up. Ben, did you also have a grapevine planted along the fence? How is that doing? I finally planted my grapevine outside my run & am waiting for it to take off. I was experimenting with growing plants in tyres because when it's not flooding, it's really dry & had a heap of papaya trees self seed in a tyre. The tyres just happened to be in the space needed for the run so I left them & as it turns out the chickens love papaya leaves. I've had to fence around them to give them a chance to get a bit higher without being decimated & they have recovered nicely. The other tyre turned into a raised dustbath. : )

 

[vehve]

I quite like the g-ratedness of the site - it's a breath of fresh air compared to what you get on most social network sites. As for that rating Vehve - WOW!
I'm also used to the more wrinkled variety of passionfruit, or granadilla as I knew them growing up. Ben, did you also have a grapevine planted along the fence? How is that doing? I finally planted my grapevine outside my run & am waiting for it to take off. I was experimenting with growing plants in tyres because when it's not flooding, it's really dry & had a heap of papaya trees self seed in a tyre. The tyres just happened to be in the space needed for the run so I left them & as it turns out the chickens love papaya leaves. I've had to fence around them to give them a chance to get a bit higher without being decimated & they have recovered nicely. The other tyre turned into a raised dustbath. : )

Oh no don't get me wrong, I don't mind the fact that this site seems to mainly be used by people who know how to write, and the amount of profanities is kept low. I'm just saying, that maybe this site wouldn't even need the censorship. This isn't maybe a first choice topic to troll about.

You might be interested in my potato towers, there's a pic of them in my coop build article. Basically peat, dirt and potatoes inside a round fencing cage lined with straw. The taters grow outwards, and you can grow about 30-40 kilos in the space of an oil barrel.