Should I buy eggs or wait it out?

[Chaneys Ranch]

So... here we go again. My oldest brother, Jack will be 60 this year. He had a heart attack thurs and a triple bypass friday.

Our family has not had a good year already. The good news is there's no damage to his heart. He did wake a few minutes.
Will be trying to catch up when things settle down. He is just a half hour away, so will be an easy trip to help take care of him.
I am so grateful he is active and in good health otherwise, just an awesome caring person. I really feel he will fully recover.

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

So here's a thought I had... I want to hatch eggs in the worst way but I don't have any room to add more chickens at the moment... And since I have 2 silkies I'll probably want to let them hatch if they go broody.

So I was thinking... My husband wants guinea hens... I was thinking maybe about hatching the guineas that way we both win.

Guineas are very good to have. If you don't mind the "buckwheat" and the "akakakak" calls they eradicate grasshopper, spider, ants u name it...
Socialize them with your family a lot or they will go wild. I love mine! I know the second anything is not right here, they are screaming their heads off!
They aren't as smart as most chickens but sure help protect your flock.

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

I got home from work and as I pulled into the driveway... I saw a flock of turkeys in my yard eating the chicken treats.

That ticks me off. Now they know that the goodies are there. Will they hurt my chickens?? Like attack them? I need a pellet gun.
It was -10 on my way to work this morning. No eggs for me.

I just let the girls out and they ran down the trail to the toy hauler. It is a sunny and bone chilling day, but the girls wanted out. I love having happy chickens. Happy chickens that lay eggs would be even better.
Have a wonderful day... I have Friday off!! Yippee!!!!

Happy dance.....

I am so far behind on my count.. and I know I have some frozen eggs. what a waste!

the wild turkeys are abundant here and they will not mess with your hens. not to say that a rooster wouldn't attempt to run them off... but mine ignore the turkeys, and the visiting guinea fowl from up the road as well.

lindz, if it were feasible or if we could come up with an economical way to do it... that would be a great idea - I could fill a tanker with my yard alone!

I got the tractor out today and plowed the yard, and opened the wrap around driveway, but only a handful of them would come out after for some free range. I'm figuring that the machine made too much noise and they didn't like it. same machine is used to cut the lawn... go figure.

7 Eggs for me

We have 3 snow mountains in the yard, ugh! he plows with the truck, and me on the tractor.

We do have a huge flock of wild turkeys that hang around the neighborhood, but that is the first time in 11 years that they have come into the back of the property. I shooed them off and was surprised to see them fly up and over the house. wow...

I am seeing some by the creek late morning too. Think they hear my Toms!

6 eggs today!

We did get a decent amount of rain, mostly last night, but it's pretty cold, blowing down from Alaska. This weekend, the warmer tropical stuff will arrive from across the Pacific. The tropical storms always have a lot more moisture in them, so some estimates are saying 2-4 inches by Sunday.

Rejoice! Not erasing the drought, but it's a great start (and maybe we'll get some grass, dairy cows are hungry!).

Maybe they could use the Polar Express to transport the extra snow out west, and serve hot chocolate along the way. The news reports were showing the ice storms in Pennsylvania. Hope MC and her chickies are okay. Don't know how all you cold winter folks manage, but I guess you have all the necessary clothes and equipment. My kids were grumbling at the low 30s we had in the mornings this week, and I told them most people east of the Sierra don't even consider this cold. My kids are second generation weather wimps!

Its been awful! I am used to it but gees, enough already!

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

My main "egg coop" is done for. When the weather breaks we have to rebuild.
The snow we got this week all but wiped out the run, and the roof is falling in on the south side.
Took out my electric fence with some fallen tree limbs, its a mess

Really don't need this right now. My birds are all ok but gees, I am worried now since the run isn't safe.
I am asking myself if I need to rethink this until things are safer and rebuilt.

 

[cheeka]

Janet, so sorry to hear about your brother - scary, but what a relief that he will recover well - many prayers sent your way for everyone!

 

[Scrambles55]

:yiipchick :yiipchick Two!  Both hens laid today.  That's two days in a row of both laying.  I could get spoiled. 

I love all the pictures of peacefully snoozing dogs and cats.  One of my border collies is afraid of the Bitey Kitty, quite reasonably so.  Unfortunately, the cat is well aware of it and is constantly lying in wait to come flying out of nowhere at the dog's face or otherwise torment that dog.  Last night, I went to bed with the two border collies curled up in there accustomed places on their side of the bed.  The cat likes to climb up the side of the bed, in between the layers of the blankets, with a great ripping, popping noise from her claws as they punch through the bedding to latch onto the mattress underneath.  Last night, the cat did this on the dog side of the bed.  The ferocious sounds intimidated the one dog, who came up to lay by my head so I would protect her.  This displaced the other border collie.  Being a border collie, and therefore a bit touched, she could not simply take the other dog's abandoned place in the kitty-infested section of the bed.  Nope.  Kitty cooties.  She wandered about, woofing disconsolately, wanting the proper routine restored and everyone in their proper place.  The cat, cause of all this, peacefully snoozed.  Finally, about 3:30 in the morning, I evicted the bad cat, the dogs immediately were restored to their proper places, and all was peaceful again.  The cat made another assault on the dog section of the bed, and I made the dogs stay right where they were to block her.  Finally, about 4:00 am, she gave up came around the bed and crawled under the covers by me.  Three hours of peaceful sleep later, it was really hard to actually focus enough to get out of bed.  But, I could hear a weird noise.  It sounded like a cat meowing plaintively.  But, different.  I couldn't figure out what it was, as the Bitey Kitty doesn't have plaintive in her vocabulary.  It kept going on and I became concerned that there was a lost cat in my back yard and the dogs would chase it when I let them out in the morning, or it had gotten in my chicken coop and was trapped there after tormenting my hens.  Finally, I managed to get up and track down the meowing.  It was the blasted spoiled chickens wanting their breakfast service. 

Happy Friday, everyone!  Enjoy your weekend.

 

[showbarnmom]

That moment when you heard the egg song and go out to look for who it is, just to get to the porch and realize you are still in a towel fresh out of the shower. *sigh*

 

[Scrambles55]

sorry... this was a fat finger fart on my Nook.

 

[Scrambles55]

It is sunny and about 8 degrees here. I put the curtains up in the nest boxes and let the girls out to play under the toy hauler. Penny went back to the coop as soon as I was done and is now checking out her new curtains.

She is not an easy one to please.

 

[Scrambles55]

So... here we go again. My oldest brother, Jack will be 60 this year. He had a heart attack thurs and a triple bypass friday.

Our family has not had a good year already. The good news is there's no damage to his heart. He did wake a few minutes.
Will be trying to catch up when things settle down. He is just a half hour away, so will be an easy trip to help take care of him.
I am so grateful he is active and in good health otherwise, just an awesome caring person. I really feel he will fully recover.

Our fingers are crossed for your brothers speedy recovery. That's great that he did not suffer any damage to his heart.