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nbenevento said:
Well, when I went to close up the coops tonight, my count came up 1 short. One of my Australorps is missing. I guess there is a slight chance she is hiding somewhere sitting on eggs but if she is, I'm not sure she will survive with all the predators around here. Maybe she will be around n the morning or maybe I will see her with chicks in 3 weeks but I am not optimistic about that. I searched the property but didn't find any piles of feathers. Even though I have (had) 34 birds, I still hate losing any. Cross your fingers for me that she turns up!
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So sorry to hear you are missing one of your girls...
a horrible feeling and I hope she finds her way home!
 
wingstone said:
Quote: your's are 1 of the 3

those numbers will be knocked way back in the next month or so.....need to go thru the roosters and see who stays for the winter...also have a few layers that no longer lay any thing, not sure what I will do with them yet...of course the turkey will not all stay after thanksgiving, and I will be picking thru the quail before winter sets in..
Just in adult waterfowl I have like 60 birds, then add the 20 or so in the grow-out pen, another 5 in the brooder that aren't shipping. That's almost 100 birds before I even get to the non-swimmers. 25 in the layer coop, about 10 guineas left after yours ship, 6 banties in 2 breeder pens, 4 turkeys (1 is Thanksgiving), a few stray quail & about another 20 chicks that aren't headed your way. Think that totals around 160 or so. About 20 birds headed your way, so yea, close to 200 birds out there right now, plus 2 full bators still running. I need to weed several more roos out of my layer coop & grow-out pen & decide which of the rest of these guineas stay & where to send the rest of the surplus. I have a guy supposed to take the rest of the quail & some guineas & give me a snake for my daughter's birthday next weekend, so that should clear out another 6-10 birds depending on what he takes.

We have more pens to build this month. Trying to get everyone settled into remotely level pens before winter so we aren't falling on our butts every time we go in the pens this winter. That means a minimum of 4 more pens plus a goat shelter & a polish coop to build before the snow flies. Saving up feed bags to insulate the coop walls with. They have worked great in the big coop so far. I may winter all of the bantams together for the winter in the polish pen. That would save us 2 frozen water bowls this winter to deal with. Geese all get to share with different pens of ducks (4 breeds of geese, each sharing with a different breed of duck) to conserve pen space & limit pools.
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chippysmom327 said:
nbenevento said:
Well, when I went to close up the coops tonight, my count came up 1 short. One of my Australorps is missing. I guess there is a slight chance she is hiding somewhere sitting on eggs but if she is, I'm not sure she will survive with all the predators around here. Maybe she will be around n the morning or maybe I will see her with chicks in 3 weeks but I am not optimistic about that. I searched the property but didn't find any piles of feathers. Even though I have (had) 34 birds, I still hate losing any. Cross your fingers for me that she turns up!
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That's one of the crappiest feelings EVER. Crossing my fingers your girl comes back!
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I agree!

Stake: there will be no wins for us this time, 4 month old Orps do not do well at the shows (the competition would have to be non existent). I am just really excited to get to one of the biggest APA shows around here. Should be fun.
 
stake said:
Just a thought....has anyone ever cooked up a caught racoon and fed it to their chooks???? Would seem kinda fitting.....and a good cost saving idea....
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I would be careful handling racoons, they can carry a parsite that can be transfered to humans even if they are dead and you come in cotact with it. When i was in college we could bring in road kill for my one class for extra credit (werid and gross I know) but we couldnt bring these guys in for that reason..
 
For those with ducks. Our Pekin ladies have begun doing mating behavior, and I have seen (attempted?) mating between two of the pekins girls and one or more of the mallard drakes (two are nearly identical, lacking the white collar). Which has me confused considering I would have thought the pekin drakes would be attempting to get the girls' attention by now, but the drakes don't seem interested yet. Anyway, does that indicate the girls should be laying soon?
 
Blarney...good luck at the show even if you don't win anything it's all about the experience of being there...

Hope the missing chicken was found this morning,

Hopefully in another couple of weeks I will be able to catch up on here, Hello to all the newbies in the last couple of months, I only skim over the post in the summer time,life gets a little hectic


On a happy note....sept has a few things to celebrate...my birthday is the 30th (presents please). And anniversary on the 21...yep I have not killed him in 23years,,,amazing....?.I better get to go o Shady Maple for least one of those.
 
Yesterday my mother and I traveled down to the Dillsburg/York area to look at a horse. While I was gone, Dewey and the kids tackled my shed. When I got home I was ticked that my birds were out in the direct sun with no shade and only warm water to drink for over 3hrs. Considering 2 of those birds are my $100 pair from Jaime Matts really had me fuming. Once I took care of them, I could see that if I wanted them back in their pens before dark, I'd have to help. They weren't going to scrape the mess off the floor (Makenzie likes to dump 10-30lbs of feed a week and then never cleans it up and the rain runs in the door to make a stuck on, stinky mess). They weren't going to knock the cobwebs and dust down, either. My back screen was so caked with chicken dust there was no air going through and I had to tear that off. Dewey broke the bottom pane of the other window trying to close it without using the crank (crank is broken and barely usable), so I finished closing that and prepping for wire mesh. I don't care about it being broke, there is an addition on that side and the horse stall and hay is in there (stacking hay is why Dewey broke the window anyways). I pulled 3 nice replacement windows out of the garage that I plan on installing on the south facing wall in the shed since there is no air flow and no light. I also bought 2 new, bigger vents for the ends in hopes of better ventilation. Those 4x6 vents in in now do nothing to keep that 12x24 shed aired out.

All that's in my shed now is my 4 breeding pens, my brooder and my feed bins. I will be building 3 - 4'x6'8" pens along the left wall and a single 4x4 pen in the right back corner as a permanent brooder/grow out pen. I have another set of breeding pens I need to build the bases for to match the others, and they will go on the right side of the shed, right inside the doors like the others. I will still have room for some quarantine pens to be set up in the shed, either beside the breeding pen on the right or in the middle with aisles around them.

I'm excited! I may actually get all my chickens moved into 3 sheds with no more little coops all over! Ideally, I'd like 2 sheds, or one huge 14x50' some day. Only really bad thing about getting the shed ready was the fact that all the junk from inside the shed is now in my driveway or yard. Lovely.

I still need to decide whether or not I want to continue with my Mille Fleur bantam Cochin project. Of all the chicks I hatched and managed to raise past the 2 rounds of brooder related illnesses, I am keeping 3 MFC pullets and 1 MFC cockerel for sure. I have 2 pullets I am considering. I have 2 cockerels and I think 5 pullets from Byron (he's back with his breeder now, so I want to keep as many of his babies as I can) I am growing out. I have a couple dark mottled w/ red hackle leakage that I am not planning on keeping. But, I am waiting to see if two have good type - that's the only way I will be keeping any of them. So, in the end, I hatched over 400 chicks and I may end up keeping only 10 chicks. What a waste of space, time, money and feed imho.


Oh, yes, my mom did buy the horse. He'll be home on Friday unless things change!


ETA: No one on the Mille forum really answered me about a breeding/genetic question I had.
In horses, breeders line breed quite a bit. I have seen the same grandfather/great grandfather three times on a horse's pedigree (a QH filly I owned was triple linebred Leo and he was within 4 generations each time). Can I do the same in chickens without any defects?
 
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Been MIA for a little while now, hubbys "friend" from Oklahoma that he got a job for up & quit a week ago, so has been left without a helper for work. Hubby has had the past 6 days off as RDO's he was going to go back to work this morning but didn't as he didn't feel well, probably cause of stress.

So we integrated the girls a week earlier, while hubby was here. There were a few expected squabbles but over all they get along well now.

Fearless, one of my barred rock girls thought she'd like to free range this morning so she jumped the fence while we were sitting out near the run having coffee, nibbled on some grass then hopped back into the run. So hubby got up & opened the gate to the run & let them all out, they had a ball exploring the yard!!

I'll post some pics later as for some reason it won't let me do it from my phone.

Hi to all the new people & those with chickens missing, I hope they come back!!
 

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