Surviving Minnesota!

[Cebarmlds]

@duluthralphie
I read your story about Bert jr and flystrike I dealt with that on a hen my first year of chickening, she healed and survived only to lose her to mites. She must have been systemically weakened because she was the only one with mites the other hens didn't have any on them. The others knocked her off the roost and I picked her up and put her back and they knocked her down again, that's when I had something crawling on my arm and realized it was mites. DE wont get rid of the mites but it will help as a preventative in the coop. After that I stocked up on poisons and thankfully haven't had to use them.

I hang those air freshening trees the yellow vanilla ones in the coop and run because they are supposed to deter flies, another deterrent is pennies and water in baggies. ? read it here on BYC and used them in the run every year since but haven't hung them up this year.

 

[Minniechickmama]

It is a very special needle and the thread I made myself after I sheared the sheep and combed the wool and took only the finest of hairs to braid together. It works so well.

It was a virgin sheep, right?

 

[duluthralphie]

It was a virgin sheep, right?

I did not know it made a difference if the sheep was from Virginia or Montana...

 

[duluthralphie]

I am finishing up my coffee and then heading outside to see what damage I will find.

When I shut the doors on the brooder shed around 10 last night I smelled the faint odor of a skunk, as I got back to the house it was stronger. To make that worse, ED my PC rooster, decided to be a PITA last night. He did not want to go into a pen. He has been staying with the PC hen with the guinea babies. Last night he wanted to sit on top of her pen/cage.

I have tried to move him back into the layer coop, but he does not seem to like it there. I am not sure why, he was head rooster before I moved him for breeding last winter. There are only 2 rooster in the pen King George and Sven. Sven is a little guy and I doubt he scares Ed, King George and Ed always seem to get along fine.

When I shut the doors Ed was not in the shed, I checked his regular hangouts and could not find him.

While looking for him I scared a deer out of my garden, I think the watermelon were busted open. I will know in a few minutes...


And then the last damage. I have the baby SS that Margaret hatched. She abandoned them after 3 weeks. The babies still live in the tree and cage I have set up. They were so use to free ranging with Margaret I have let them continue. They are right in front of my Mom's house and she enjoys watching them play all day. King George hangs out there during the day as do the turkeys so I figured they are "relatively safe".

Last night they were difficult to round up. I had 11 going towards the pen, 8 went in and three ran to the garden. I went and got those three and 5 left, I got them and they all left. They were terrible PITAS! When I got 8 in I shut the door to get the last 3. They had decided to hide on me. We looked all over for them and did not find them. So they were locked out last night.

I have no idea where they went. They were there then gone. I am hoping they stayed hidden all night and nothing got them. I know the dangers of free ranging, but you should see how happy they are running around the yard chasing bugs. They are 6 week old now, I bet I have not fed them 2 gallons of starter, they eat so many bugs seeds and grass they don't touch it. I even had to put a creep door on their pen to keep the old bird out. They are not as ambitious as these little guys and prefer the starter to the bugs...


Well out I go, Hopefully everything will be ok.....and the Deer will have died of natural causes overnight.

 

[duluthralphie]

Ed was in the shed, he must have been hiding. The 3 babies are still missing. No odor of skunk so it must have been a live one in the area. The 3 babies are probably gone.

Mosquitoes are over powering again today.

 

[lvie]

Good morning chickeners. You have to say that to yourself as a rooster would crow. That is how I type it - just so you know.

Maybe a 10-15 mph breeze will come along (I hope for it) to clears those squitos out of the area Ralphie. yesterday was wonderful here - only a few of the
little buggers.

We are having people here tonight - there will be six of us - and we are grilling pizzas. I used to love to entertain. I no longer love to entertain. Until the people are here and then I relax and figure that everything that could be done is done and so let it go. But before than it is never good enough for me. Ugh!

The sheep shipped in here from the Virgin Islands. They are super white there. It is a Virgin Island species - don't ask me what they call it and when people want to look at it - it just disappears. It was one of the special traits it came with and one of the reasons I shipped it in all the way from the Islands. But it is ALWAYS complaining about the Minnesota weather. Baaaa. Baaaaa. Baaaaa.

Abbey starts training school September 7th!!!!! Wow! DH says that the trainer said that he was expecting a different dog from what my DH had described to him over the phone. He put a duck in front of her. Ralphie, you will be so happy to know that she ignored it completely. Absouletly no interest. The trainer brought out a pigeon. Abbey knew what to do with that! The only thing is she will not pick it up in her mouth. She nips at it and I guess that is how a dog kills an animal. But, he said to my DH, there are many dogs that will not pick the bird up and there are ways to test if she will train to do so. I had to remind the DH that Abbey caught something in her right jaw inside and had to have it stitched and for awhile could barely open her mouth when she yawned. So maybe it just won't happen. Although that was in puppydom times and she yawns alright now. DH said Trainer made it sound like it is no big deal. And with all those other dogs that were in their kennels, yes, she got all happy and excited. But when they worked with her she was not distracted. All good news. Also, she was very relaxed and teachable right away and adjusted to the trainer instead of being shy and timid and hiding. All good news.

 

[I Love Layers]

I had my LF blue Cochin cockerel and pullet in a cage today, and April, pullet laid her first egg!!!! I am going to AI her tonight to Gary, the cockerel

 

[duluthralphie]

I had my LF blue Cochin cockerel and pullet in a cage today, and April, pullet laid her first egg!!!! I am going to AI her tonight to Gary, the cockerel

If that is her first egg, wait a week or two before you breed her.

 

[I Love Layers]

Yeah. She's been bred by my other roosters. But I'm going to use this first few AI as a practice

 

[duluthralphie]

I understand now, If you just want to practice it makes sense. I thought you wanted fertile eggs that would have a chance of hatching. Pullet eggs, as a rule, do not hatch. I think there system is just trying to work the kinks out of the egg production equipment.


I ran over a Guinea Hen on her nest with the brush hog yesterday. I saw her come running out from under the front of the brush hog (Bobcat so the brush hog is in front and not pulled behind). We were cleaning up the area breeding pens last winter/spring. It was over grown in ragweed, lambsquarter and pigweed. The weeds were pushing 4 ft tall. We had both walked through the area, the dogs had been in the area and we did not find the nest or her. Judy had walked right where she was not 2 minutes before I got to her.

I hardly saw her come out, I just saw motion and shut the machine off. She was dazed and missing a couple feathers in her back. So God only knows how close those swinging steel bars got to her. Luckily it was only weeds and no wood being mulched under the brush hog. I got off and Judy and I looked for a nest and could not find it.

I started the machine again and back cut with it and found the nest I had taken everything off the nest but missed the eggs, (or really smashed the others and never found them. There were 9 eggs, so I started a foam incubator and am back incubating. My hiatus from incubating was about 10 days.

My Brother-in-Law called yesterday, he lives in Deer Creek, he was telling me about an Amish consignment auction on August 27th. I think I might take a bunch of Pullets and keets up there. I need to get rid of some. I am going through way too much feed right now.

Nothing else going on unless some of you want to come over for a pen building. chicken sorting lesson.... We could throw in a Kraut making class too. I need to start that soon, like yesterday.