Sdwd

[kathyinmo]

Ya know ..... you can get salvage lumber lots of different ways. Have you ever done that? Brock and I tore down an old garage and a shed that someone offered. Another thing I am gonna try ..... I read this somewhere ..... when you see someone building a house or something, I guess they have to pay to dump their scraps, and they would rather give it away! Go ask them for their scraps! I am gonna do that, too!

 

[NellaBean]

As a young single lady, it is probably not very safe for me to go to random places to find salvage stuff! LOL. Actually I just don't have time. I can run to Home Depot and get a load of lumber nice and quick.....I work full time and have a million animals and since its just me, NO HELP at all taking care of everything. Sigh. Whine whine whine. I've seen people advertise on craigslist abour leftover lumber or scraps.....one time I saw someone giving away those glass oldtime display cases. Would have made AMAZING brooders with some minor modifications. If I saw that now, I would be all over it!

 

[Braclin]

Hi All! Been a crazy week here.

LH did y'all get rid of any birds at Paris today?

Kathy I use alot of re-usable lumber and such in my pen projects. Currently working on a single brooder to move Peep and her pals into. It's about time for them to move out of my kitchen,lol

 

[Serrin]

Good Evening y'all!!

Kathy!! KathyinMo!! Front and center young lady!!! I got a bone to pick with you, woman!!!

Those little hooligans you sent me are gonna be the death of me YET! Care to guess at what this afternoon and evenings antics included? I'll give ya a hint. Before they left your excellent care, I am thoroughly convinced that Lisette and Cosette spent every waking moment hanging on Floozy's every word!

Those two are trying to give me a stress heart attack, I swear to God!

Shortly after about 1:30 this afternoon, we arrived back home from a wet and miserable opening morning of Elk season. More about that later....Everyone appeared to be where they were supposed to be. Chief and all of the girls were in the coop and main yard. Check! Good there. The boys were in their covered run. Check again. Good there too! Looked in on Maggie and the girls. Yup, there they are. All being good little girls and keeping put where they belong. Since everyone looked fine, water buckets full, food dishes half full, and everyone where they belong, I headed off to check on Abby who has taken a turn for the worse. I kept her in the pump house today as cold damp weather wouldn't be good for her at all right now.

She was [and still is] hanging in there but looked totally exhausted. Poor old thing. She had spent the entire day Friday, out in the rain, despite my best efforts at encouraging her to stay either in the coop, or to come into the pump house where it's warm and dry. But, I digress. So there I am in the pump house, doting over Abby when DH pokes his nose in the door to inform me that I have two little black and white escape artists roaming around outside of their yard!

WHAT?!?!?!?

So of course I go tearing out of the pump house and around to the chicken compound. Sure enough! There they were! Lisette and Cosette, acting for all the world like this is the most perfectly natural place for them to be: Outside of their yard, scratching and pecking in the meager grass outside of the fence line.

Now how the heck did they get out of their yard??? **Picture me scratching my head at that moment over that one** Naturally, since they haven't been handled all that much as yet, these two weren't exactly beating feet to have me come to their rescue. Pfffft! On the contrary. I think right then and there I was elevated from a person to be regarded with a certain level of suspicion and possible ulterior motives, to an outright threat!

Do you know, those two little imps actually ran away from me!

So much for trying to take things slow and low key. I wanted them to come to their own realization that I'm the good one who will always cuddle them and bring them good things! Not the one who is going to be chasing them around, trying to get them back to the safety of their coop and yard!

*sigh*

In the interests of getting them back where they belonged as quickly as possible, I went and grabbed my butterfly net. Hey! They're still small! Certainly small enough to go into a butterfly net and less likelihood of being injured than if I tried to use the big salmon net!

Kathy? Did you ever try using a net of any kind to corral those two? They seemed to know exactly what that meant when I came back from the pump house with it in my hands.

Well, upon catching sight of the butterfly net, those two then did some feet beating...straight through the fencing of the main yard, past the whole flock of girls and Chief, made a bee line for the gate into their yard, hopped up on it briefly and continued on to land in their yard! Hmmppfff! Well! That answered that question, I suppose. Mystery of their escape route solved. And my oh my, but doesn't that carry a hint of Floozy's influence?

Naturally my plans for a nice afternoon nap vanished into thin air, at least until I addressed the problem with their gateway and gap between it and the upper row of fencing. Remember, this setup was originally intended to keep roosters confined. Not a couple of supposedly sweet little half breed Dellie babies and their mama!

My mistake in thinking that they would be content to stay put despite having an easily surmountable gateway as their only true barrier to the great outside world!

So half an hour later, and much scrounging around in the scraps pile, I found a small section of chicken fencing, and tied that into the existing upper section. HA! Escape that little Miss's Lisette and Cosette! Mama, by the way, was clucking her head off the whole time they were outside.

They seemed pretty content to be back inside with Maggie after that. And I figured things would be just fine for the rest of the day. And Hey! I had fixed their escape route. Nothing more to worry about, right? Right?! Don't you bet on it!!

I laid down around 4:00 and slept much longer than I had intended. Woke up around 6:15 ! OMGosh!

I have to put chickens to bed! It's way past their bed time! So, out I go. Check on Abby...still kicking, good.....checked on Chief and the girls. Nose count just where it should be with three of the four pump house princesses in there instead of the pump house. Good. Next, go through the small troublesome gate to tuck in Maggie, Lisette and Cosette. But wait! Where's Cosette??? EEEEKKK!!! OMG! WHERE IS COSETTE?!?!?!?! PANIC!!!! I run back to the house to get the flashlight. Yes, it's full on dark by this time. Run back with the flashlight after telling DH that Cosette is missing. Much to my surprise, he was hot on my heals. These Del's, regardless of pedigree, have remarkable powers, so they do!!

So, I'm running the flashlight into every nook and cranny of the main yard, outside of the main yard to the unprotected outside world. And I'm near tears, because I can't find Cosette! OMG! How am I going to explain this to Kathy? Huh? Huh? Good grief! I'm a terrible chicken mama! I can't even contain, control or keep alive one little Del X baby for a full week! Kathy is surely gonna kill me!

Just as I began to run out of hope of finding even one shred of her, I happen to play the flashlight over the boys, in their covered run, up on their roost pole, waiting for me to come get them and put them to bed. And who's white fluffy little butt should I spot in the center of the flashlight beam? Yup! You got it! Cosette!

There she was, just as pretty as you please, snuggled right up to Brutus!!

And the boys were being perfect gentlemen the whole time! I know darn well that she had to have pulled this silly stunt while there was still plenty of daylight. Probably liked to give poor Maggie a heart attack the whole time too.

I was amazed at how calm she was when I came into the covered run to retrieve her. The boys all gave me a look of: Come on Mom, can't she spend the night with us? We'll protect her!

I'm so proud of them right now, because they really did seem concerned for her welfare. I think had anyone but me come into the run at that time, they would have put of quite a fuss to protect her!

So, long story [of which you've just read] short, {impossible for me to do} I put Cosette back in with mom and sis. For their part, they seemed quite relieved to have her back home where she belonged! Cosette just ploughed herself under her mother and went to sleep. Maggie accepted that as being the end of the discussion, pulled Lisette closer to her and snuzzled down for the night.

I don't really have a bone to pick with you Kathy dearest!

I just wanted to get your attention. And I did, didn't I??

I just love them to pieces. And every moment of heart racing panic is worth it just to have them with us. Someday, they'll grow out of this stage, and then I'll miss when they were little. But I know I'm going to love them just as much, possibly more, once they become full grown ladies. And someday, next spring, with any luck, Maggie will go broody again. I wonder how Denny is going to feel about a half dozen or so more little mutts running around loose in the yard??

 

[kathyinmo]

OMG ! ! ! I am crackin' up here! Laughter with tears runnin' down my face!

Those girls ..... I TOLD YOU! That is what the Delawares do! Plain and simple .... it is the Delaware in them! Oh, my dear sweet Maggie must be beside herself with those 2 girls!

 

[Cetawin]

Brandon...we did not get rid of a one in Paris because we did not go. Instead, we did a surgical procedure on her camper which will, by this time tomorrow, be housing her birds here on my property. She loves her birds and does not want to give them up sooooo they get a home on wheels, literally. Sarah has made arrangements with the Rooster Behavioral Specialist (aka Cheyenne) to pay her weekly for caring for them throughout the winter. So Sarah gets to keep her birds and Cheyenne makes a little spending cash for feeding, watering and letting them in and out daily...well on good days to go out. Meanwhile, they have the security of the bumper pull camper to reside in. Cheyenne did tell Sarah that they would all be cuddled, especially the boys, so she would have to suck it up if she collects spoiled birds in the Spring.

Then in a very short time (hopefully just a couple of weks), I will bring her older Thoroughbred Mare, Zen, over here to spend the winter across the aisle from my Joleta in my barn. So that will take some pressure off Sarah because I can focus on Zen's care and monitor her more during the day than Sarah can right now with her schedule. Zen is 21 years old and has begun getting cancerous tumors popping up here and there plus dropping weight, and I did not want her outside this winter. So, I volunteered to bring her here and work on her diet and such...all Sarah has to do, is provide her food and gut that stall and make it ready for Zen. I am gutting Joleta's and getting ready for her to come aout Nov. 7th. But Sarah's hubby is on his way home now from Wyoming so he will be free to do it very shortly. She has 2 foals on the ground now pushing 6 - 8 months old and one Mare due in February and another due in March, so I can help by taking Zen into my care for awhile and give her a break.

So it looks like my DH will probably never go away for a weekend again because he is coming home to a camper with about 20 birds in it and plans for a second horse in the barn. That'll learn him to leave me alone.

And he has no clue of the FUTURE 2 additions coming from NellaBean.

ahem yes well.....what can I say they are cochins and they are cute.

We need current pics of Peep and pals you know.

I am curious to see how Myrtle is turning out in her mottling.

 

[Cetawin]

HAPPY HALLOWEEN! HAPPY ALL HALLOWS EVE! HAPPY HARVEST!

Please remember this important public service aanouncement as you celebrate this holiday

 

[kathyinmo]

Quote:
THESE hooligans, Amy? By the way, Floozy sends her love ......

 

[speckledhen]

We did warn Amy. We did. We really did.

Glad Sarah doesn't have to get rid of her birds! But, how long will she live in the new place? Transitions are so hard sometimes.

 

[joletabey]

Ssheesh- escape artists in the west, campers for chickens, fantastic picturesof chickens and witches = best trick or treat I have ever had! I LOVE starting the morning with a good laugh!

Amy, someone should have warned you that juvie Dellies can fly pretty high. Emma still insists on flying up my back.

Cetawin, Oh Cetawin, 5 and counting!!!!

Kathy, Nella, count me in on the building vacation!

Cyn, how is your head this morning?