Surviving Minnesota!

[Siggie]

Hi everyone! it is so quiet here

Siggie how are your littles doing?

All are feisty little things, including the little one that I thought we were gonna lose!! She is happy and eating and drinking along with the rest of them. That made me very happy...I guess all she needed was a little warm up from me and then she was able to take it from there! She was a brand new hatch that day so maybe that had something to do with it?

It appears I now have between 13 - 15 chicks! Most are the Barred Rock crosses, all have fluffy cochin feet and there are now 5 Blue Cochin chicks out of those 13-15. No Wyandottes that I have seen

Although I could tell that the roosters haven't been breeding with them because they still have all their head feathers LOL, all my other hens are bald!!

Siggie - love that little silver/grey chick. They are all cute! I would love pics of the light silver to see how it feathers out. Hopes its a pullet.

That one is beautiful!! 2 out of my 5 Cochins are very light silver like that, the other two are much darker and more of the "blue" color. I am hoping they are ALL pullets LOL! But we know that won't happen. Although out of the 5 Blue Cochins I had ordered last year, only one was a rooster. (All five of my Australorps were roosters UGH!)

The color markings on all the chicks are amazing but of course when they feather out, I am sure they will most likely conform to more uniform markings. I especially love the ones with "eyeliner" Several are white around their face but have the heavy eyeliner around their eyes! I even have some that are completely black! Can't wait for the feathering out!!! There will be many more pics to follow this year!!

Morning . I assume your snow melted . Another busy day ahead .More logging . Hope to finish today . Rain coming Tuesday night and Wednesday . The woods is fragrant with autumn olive blooming . Sat around the campfire last night . So relaxing .

Nope...we got more snow over night and this week we are supposed to be hit with a storm producing heavy wet snow!!!! Wow April is going out with a bang!

 

[I Love Layers]

Thank you Ivie!

I didn't get anything i wanted to done this weekend. On Saturday I decided to just let the chicks out, surprisingly everyone was still there at the end of with amount of hawks and eagles out. Cochin chicks and broody also got let out but I don't worry about them at all. We fenced all day on Saturday too, I'm still sunburnt from that. It was very cold and windy yesterday. I let the chicks out again, they huddled together the whole time behind a wheel barrow I tipped on its side for a wind break. Cleaned Cochin cages, brooders, and coop. Tied down a grain bin for a neighbor in trade for all the oats in it.
Cow wise I think we're at 9 or 10. We have had one cow in the corrals since December or so, she slipped on the ice and hit her knee on a rock so she lumps pretty good some days, we thought she was open but she was calving this morning. I wanted to stay home this morning since it's so frosty and we are getting freezing rain right now, I wanted to go ride around in the pickup with the calves since a lot are going to be chilled. But my dad said no.
No track meets until Saturday so I have a free week!!

 

[duluthralphie]

I think I am cutting back on the number of chickens, Starting with the Polish.


Minnie did not do an adequate job telling me just how dumb they are.

She said they were stupid, she did not elaborate. Let me tell you, they are 7 steps beyond stupid.

The other night I could not find the extra "barn" Polish rooster. I searched around the other pens for him. No where to be found. It was pushing dusk/dark. I looked into the pasture and there roosted on a stump about 18 inches in the air I see the silhouette of the Pollack. I snuck up behind him and grabbed him. He screamed Holy Hades.

He had been out foraging all day long supposedly, actually he spends his days next to the Appletinis trying to seduce the hens and fighting the roosters through the wire. When I was carrying him back I noticed his crop was empty. I placed him next to a feeder and left the light on all night so he would feed. Next morning I opened the doors and out he ran.

That night I caught hm early by the Appletinis and carried him to the barn. Again empty crop.
I left the light on and set him by the feeder. Yesterday Morning, I caught him snoozing by the feeder, picked him up. Empty Crop again.

I decided maybe he could not eat out of the feeder because of a recent brain injury or something. So I set him in the stock tank I keep Ground corn in. Here he is:





He appears to not have been able to find anything to eat in the tank either. The only good thing was he was stuck in the tank for 2 hours before I helped him out. He could not figure any way to get out of the tank by himself..

Oh , Yeah, his crop was still empty.

There was a crew from the Electric Company here on Friday, the one guy said he would buy the Pollacks. Heres' Hoping.

I forgot to add last night, one of the hens decided to roost on a sawhorse in the open yard. I snuck up behind her and grabbed her. She screamed and dropped half her feathers. similar to a porcupine dropping their quills. It ticked the Pollack rooster (not the barn rooster the breeding rooster) so much he jumped out of his cage, ran over to the Yokis cage jumped into it and starting chasing the Yoki rooster. They were both out and running in circles around the ground. I could not get my hand on him he was just too fast. Finally he stopped chasing and went back in his cage..

Real Geniuses these Pollack are.







EJB a cuddled chicken is a happy chicken and will free range better. I read a study on this from The Polish National University....

 

[BantyChooks]

Ralphie, your Pollacks are a special kind of dumb....

Except for the one you married. She has good ideas.

 

[duluthralphie]

Ralphie, your Pollacks are a special kind of dumb....

Except for the one you married. She has good ideas.

That was a no brainer for her. There were roughly 50,000,000 Females of an age to want to marry me. However, only 49,000,000 wanted too so I had to just draw a name out of a hat, anything else and the rest would have felt slighted. Being me is not easy, I wish I did not worry about the feelings of others so much.

 

[BantyChooks]

That was a no brainer for her. There were roughly 50,000,000 Females of an age to want to marry me. However, only 49,000,000 wanted too so I had to just draw a name out of a hat, anything else and the rest would have felt slighted. Being me is not easy, I wish I did not worry about the feelings of others so much.

Ralphie... You're dreaming again.

 

[bantiesrule]

For those who where ordering june berries, I talked to my sister and she has the following varieties: Smokey, Northline, Theissen, Martin, Pembina, Lee-3 and Lee-8, though she isn't sure what she will have available for sale this spring. They won't be cheaper, she sells bareroot for $10.00 but they will more than likely be much bigger than what the catalog nursery would send. I think they usually send 8 to 12 inch plants and Judy usually sells ones that are 2 foot or more. She might have bigger ones than that even but they would cost more. She also has Evens cherries if anyone is interested in them, they sell for $5 to $15 bareroot depending on size.

Anyone still interested in these? Judy was thinking about digging some up this weekend, either Saturday afternoon or Sunday, whichever would work best for you. (Only one day, though, not both.) The orchard is located about 4 miles west of Randall. If anyone is interested, please pm me with phone numbers in case she has to cancel.

 

[holm25]

I am sickly today... Body is killing me...

 

[Cebarmlds]

Hope you get better soon Holm.

 

[lvie]

Quote:
I am interested and will be available on Saturday or Sunday to go pick up. I can pickup for you Ralphie and Jerry and BC IF you want some. Just let me know which ones and you can pay me in May when we get together.