Texas

[sbarab]

Is anyone out there going to Conroe Trade Days on May 3, 2015??

We may be going, depends on if I have any chicks to sell. Humm.. I could run the incubator again before that date.

 

[Tmoorie]

My husband made me a happy girl. He added me to the Arrow Feed list. I am getting 6 Easter Eggers whenever they get theirs in! I'll miss the Delaware and so will he, but the new fuzzbutts will come in just as we are moving the four mystery birds out (some that were literally headed out to the trash bin, no clue what they are).

We appreciate the prayers. Right now they are trying to get him geared up to drive again. They think out of the two of us, he is the best bet. Even with his damaged hands. He is working on developing his ability to focus for longer lengths of time. Both of us received brain injuries and some physical damages but are doing okay-ish. It could have been a whole lot worse but I sure wish we had been anywhere else at the time. The first guy should have been somewhere but he wasn't. My husband and I both think he should have been in a rehab facility instead of driving a rig. Just yuck! Anyways, I meander.

My baby goat has been a great cheer upper! He has us all laughing like loons and hopping around like we were kids!

Glad to hear you got on the list. Praying your Delaware will finds its way back home.

 

[kenmlang]

We may be going, depends on if I have any chicks to sell. Humm.. I could run the incubator again before that date.

That would be great. We are going to try to build a few Run Panels and set up a booth to take orders. If I can, I am going to try to build a small coop w/run to display. I will have lots of pics for sure, but don't know if I have the time to do what I want. This time of year, I am swamped . I have 3 coops underway and 2 big runs to build for a few chicken lovers. Thank God I am so busy!!!

 

[sbarab]

Last fall I took a 6 rabbits to sell and they wanted $3 per rabbit just to sell. We told them never mind and took them home and listed on Craigslist for $15 each. This year we might have a few bucks after the MOCO fair but they will be sold elsewhere.

 

[StelleKitten]

Happy Easter everyone! Wet and rainy! Hope the in laws were more polite than mine! Glad everyone is home and it is quiet again.

Found a hole in my chicken run, or rather a stray cat did. It came in wanting the treats we put in the run for the chickies and then couldn't find it's way out again. The hole is fixed.

My Delaware didn't show back up. I'm guessing whoever got it is keeping it. I know an animal didn't get it, wrong time of day for a coon and cats and dogs don't open latches. Not those kind at any rate. Maybe they needed the baby more than I did. Maybe it was a gift for their kid. Who knows. Just sucks. All the doors on my coop are locked now with padlocks. And the run is now cart proofed. I must have missed that loop when I was doing the loops on the hardware cloth. Glad a cat found it first and not something after the chickens. I'm heading out tomorrow to check again to make sure I didn't miss any. It could have easily happened. A bird flying by could distract me and mess up my count. Lol!

On the plus side, my Easter ham turned out marvelous! Tasty and juicy, and the first time I have attempted a homemade ham since the wreck. Had to set a timer to remind me to glaze it but it turned out great. Some of the sides got neglected but that's okay. Sure wish the chickens were already laying eggs!

 

[MKandtheforce]

Mine are for eggs and pets. I wanted chickens but then read about how ducks are easier on the lawn and went with it. I absolutly LOVE them. They will mucky up any water source in a matter of hours and are messy but I don't think its bad at all. I've never had chickens so I can't compare but I do think they are at the same level as guinea pigs and other furry critters with a love of water and mud

It looks like we may have to clean the pond a bit before we get ducks... do you know anything about pond maintenance? Lol. Also, do they get along with fish?

MK,
Welcome to Texas My best friend lives in West Texas and has Marans, Polish, Barred Rock, Rhode Island Reds, Americauna, and a few other breeds I am forgetting. She loves her chickens as much as I do, we are in South Texas though on the Coastal Plain. She has a large run for them but also free ranges them. She said the wind is pretty strong out there so they wrapped the coop in tarps (not pretty but effective) to help keep them warm because the wind chill on the plains is stiff sometimes. But they have tolerated the heat pretty well, she has shade trees and I think shade will be a huge factor for your birds staying cool. Sometimes when we are hitting in the 100's you might have to put out ice water. My Wyandottes do not tolerate the heat well down here in south Texas. But we have a lot more humidity down here by the coast, they are a lot drier up there than we are. She is near Sweetwater which is just east of Midland so I can ask her any questions you might have. If you get the chance to check out my chicken blog! Stay in touch with me, I would love to hear how your new homestead goes! OH, and I want ducks too! I would love to hear how raising ducks is compared to chickens.

http://www.essentiallymomma.com/chicken-blog

Thanks!! I'm thinking of maybe modifying our shed a little to make a little coop/roost area for the chickens. I'll definitely keep you posted on our new little homestead life!!

This is a pic of one of our large open air pens. You can see the lighter brown shade cloth covering the top of the wire portion of the pen. The tarp is put on in winter to help keep the winter rain from getting into the feed and into the apartment roosting area. You can see that the shade cloth is up about 2 feet from ground level on the sides - if you take the shade cloth all the way to the ground on every side, it gets so stifling in there during summer when you're desperate for any little breeze to blow.

The back of these a-frame pens have a large flap. During warm months they are chained up, so that they provide more shade from the sun when it is low in the sky during the evening, because in summer, it can still be 90 degrees or more even at 11 p.m. so if the sun is up even just before dusk, it can be roasty wherever the sun hits in the pen. During winter the flap is lowered to provide wind and rain protection.

All of our pens are mobile, our newest and favorite ones are the a-frames because they are cheaper and easier to build but still let us have plenty of room to work inside and stand upright. We have large sheds on wheels too, that are more traditional looking coops. They have wire runs attached to them as well and we do the same shade cloth set up on them that we do with the a-frames. We have to keep our breeding stock penned, due to them being rare and can't risk predator losses, so they only get to free range with supervision, but our non-breeding stock are now free rangers. But they all still need the shade if you don't have many trees/buildings to give them shade during all parts of the day.

We get the shade cloth at Lowes/Home Depot, the lighter colors don't make the pens as hot as the darker colors do. Unfortunately they no longer carry the best shade cloth that blocked more sunlight, so we have to double up the shade cloth to get a deeper level of shade. But it still has an open enough weave to run some zip ties through it to tie it down to the wire runs. We use the rolls of welded wire, 2x4 inch rectangles, and put that on top of chicken wire that is run on the bottom 2-3 feet of the runs. The chicken wire keeps the chickens and most of their body parts in, while the larger welded wire keeps out predators. We don't have any weasels here, so we don't have to worry about something that size slipping into the runs with the larger holed welded wire. And the only thing that will keep mice out is small mesh hardware cloth, and it isn't feasible to use that for every pen that we have.

I absolutely love your a-frames! They're great ideas, and I'll probably incorporate a lot of these things into whatever I make for my birds. I would never have even thought to not put the shade cloth all the down the sides, haha. I'm going to have to get a couple built...

MK I seen your profile pic and got very excited! I am a pug person as well as my chickies! We were part of the Pug Rescue of Florida and Participate in the Pugs Rescue in Dallas/Fort Worth! Welcome to Texas! My family and I moved to Texas 10 years ago and love it! I hope you will too!

Tanya

Thanks!! I hope to get involved with the DFW Pug Rescue, but it's a bit far from Midland... That picture is one of our old pugs, Bella. She was such a love, and I miss her dearly. However, now I have a little demon named Mabel!

 

[TherryChicken]

Very sad on my end. I have alot going on.
To make it short click on show all updates http://www.gofundme.com/nfgwek

 

[needlessjunk]

It looks like we may have to clean the pond a bit before we get ducks... do you know anything about pond maintenance? Lol. Also, do they get along with fish? Thanks!! I'm thinking of maybe modifying our shed a little to make a little coop/roost area for the chickens. I'll definitely keep you posted on our new little homestead life!! I absolutely love your a-frames! They're great ideas, and I'll probably incorporate a lot of these things into whatever I make for my birds. I would never have even thought to not put the shade cloth all the down the sides, haha. I'm going to have to get a couple built... Thanks!! I hope to get involved with the DFW Pug Rescue, but it's a bit far from Midland... That picture is one of our old pugs, Bella. She was such a love, and I miss her dearly. However, now I have a little demon named Mabel!

My ducks eat fish that are small enough. In fact I buy feeder fish for them as a treat. Do you have a natural pond or is it one you made? If you care at all about it you may not want to let the ducks on it. To give you an idea I have to empty a 60 gal stock tank every other day to every 3 days because it so nasty and they won't swim in it anymore. It also smells sooooo bad when I dump it. I water the garden with the water and the plants love it.

 

[Madelennon]

We moved all the little ducklings out to the duck house last night!!!!

 

[Tmoorie]

Quote: Mabel looks like an angel! She is too cute!